Republic

book x.—Ep.] But, on conversion to Christianity, Armenians claimed descent from Haik, the grandson of Japhet (the Aryan race of Asia Minor and Armenia), and called their land Haikh. This early dynasty fell when Alexander overran their country in 328 B.C. They submitted (in the 1st century B.c.) to Rome, and rather earlier to Persia; and they suffered later from the incursions of Timur, and finally of the Osmanli Turks—as they did from the Seljuk Turks also, in the 11th century a.c. They are no longer the independent race they were, but number some four millions, of whom about 450,000 live in Constantinople and Roumelia, while one million are ruled by Ru ia, and 400,000 by Persia, the remainder being in India, Austria, and other lands. The Armenian Church is among the most primitive in Asia. [Their tenets were condemned in 680 A.c. by the 6th General Council, for they held that Christ was not truly human: they did not celebrate the Incarnation, and used wine not mingled with water—Ep.] They already had a Christian literature as early, it is said, as the 2nd century of our era; and they sent representative bishops to synods of the Church in the 3rd century. They were accused, in the 4th century, of Eutychian heresies, and suffered severe persecution in the 5th Christian century. They are now Monophysites, holding (with other Asiatik Churches) to the single nature of Christ. The Armenians in Turkey obey their Patriarch of Constantinople, and those nearer the Caucasus the Patriarch of Etchmiadzin. 173