Life of St Nino
tr. Wardrop, 1900
d1
The text used for this translation is Sakart’hvelos Samot’hkhe (edited by Gobron (Mikhail) Sabinin, S. Pbg., 1882), the standard collection of Lives of Georgian Saints; passages have also been appended from Rufinus, Moses of Chorene, and a MS. entitled Moktzevai Kart’hlisai (i. e. the Conversion of Georgia).
Sabinin’s text has the merit of giving a connected narrative, but its slipshod style and lack of punctuation frequently render it obscure and misleading.
The New Variant. The best text, as far as it goes, is that printed in Akhali Varianti Tsm. Ninos Tzkhovrebisa, anu meore natsili Kart’hlis Moktzevisa (edited by E. T’haqaishvili, Tiflis, 1891). Wherever this differs materially from Sabinin’s text its words (marked A. V.) are inserted in the notes.
The existing MS. of this New Variant forms a part of the ‘Shatberdi Collection,’ a book of miscellaneous parchments which formerly belonged to the monastery of Shatberdi, on Chorokh Pass, in the district of Clarjet’hi, and appears to have been written in the ninth or tenth century. With it are bound up three Historical Chronicles and the short MS. called Moktzevai Kart’hlisai, all of which are now published. The most notable peculiarity of A. V. is that the narrators speak in the first person; there seems little doubt of its being the oldest existing MS., and it is evidently a copy of a very much older (perhaps contemporary) original. Unfortunately it is incomplete. The order of the incidents differs from that in other versions, and some things are omitted altogether.
Other versions. Among other MSS. may be mentioned:
1. A copy of the Lives of the Georgian Saints, written by the Catholicos Arsen in the tenth century (preserved in the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences). Arsen tells us he used oral as well as written material.
2. The Shio Mghvime monastery’s MS., written in 1733.
3. The Nat’hlismtzemeli (Baptist) monastery’s MS., 1713. These two last named are evidently taken from the same source, but the one is not copied from the other.
4. Queen Mariam’s MS. (written 1636-1646) of Kart’hlis Tzkhovreba (the Georgian Chronicle), which was not among those edited by Vakhtang VI.
5. Kart’hlis Tzkhovreba, the great Georgian Chronicle, edited by King Vakhtang VI (early eighteenth century), but collected long before his time. The text and French translation published by M. F. Brosset, St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
The MS. Conversion of Georgia. The MS. Moktzevai Kart’hlisai (infra, pp. 61-64) gives the legend of St. Nino in a dry, brief manner, and carries the history down to the ninth century; but the oldest part does not seem to be later than the seventh century. It cannot be looked upon as the root from which other versions have sprung, but only as part of a compilation of annals from pre-existing material.
Agreement of the Versions. It will be found that the different versions, through about a thousand years, show no essential disagreement, and they are supported by the independent authority of Rufinus, whose work seems to have been first known in Georgia through Ephrem the Younger’s translation of Theodoretus in the eleventh century. It is probably from Rufinus that the story of the healing of the youth (p. 31) is inserted; the use of the word cilici, and the omission of the incident in A. V., seem to suggest such an origin.
Chronology. Various dates are given for the Conversion of Georgia: Vakhusht 317, Baronius 327, Brosset 328, Kart’hlis Tzkhovreba 338. The first and last of these are manifestly wrong. The year given in Moktzevai Kart’hlisai, 332, if we read ‘birth’ for ‘ascension,’ is apparently correct, and is confirmed by the Chronique Arménienne (i. e. a Georgian Chronicle which only exists in an Armenian translation of the twelfth century, published in French by Brosset in Additions et éclaircissements, Pgb. 1851). We may thus fix the following dates: Nino’s arrival in Georgia 324, baptism of King Mirian 332, Nino’s death 338.
The Georgian Church Autocephalous. It has been asserted, not without authority, that the first Bishop of Georgia was only called John (Ioane, Iovane) because he was ‘the Baptist,’ and that he was in reality that Eustatius who was patriarch of Antioch from 325 till 331, when he was expelled by heretics. In 1051 we find the clergy of Antioch claiming the patriarchate over Georgia, and about the same time Ephrem the Younger refers to Eustatius of Antioch as the first Georgian bishop. In any case it is certain that until the reign of Vakhtang Gorgaslan (end of fifth century) the Georgian Church was subject to Antioch; Vakhtang made it a national Church, and it was solemnly declared autocephalous by the Sixth General Council. …
Miscellaneous remarks. It is perhaps unnecessary to draw attention to the importance of Jews and women in the introduction of Christianity in Georgia, as in other places. The Jewish colonies (p. 27) seem to have been ancient, numerous, and prosperous; and the influence of the rabbi Abiat’har, who is represented as calling himself complacently ‘the new Paul,’ plays a large part in the story. Queen Nana reminds us of Helena in Byzantium, Clothilde in France, and other royal protectresses of Christianity.
The information given about the pre-existing faiths, the imported Persian gods Armaz and Zaden, the hostile Chaldean It’hrujan, the Book of Nimrod, and, more especially, Gatzi and Gaim, or Ga, the ‘gods of the Georgian people,’ is well worthy of attention. So too are such scraps of folklore as we find on pp. 23 and 45. From the linguistic point of view the fragments of ‘Branjian’ and old Persian on pp. 20 and 21 may be recommended to the notice of philologists. A mere translation such as is here presented leaves the field open to students fitted to explain the numerous obscure points in the legend.