At‘anagines

Events 

Date of Birth: unknown.

Place of Birth: unknown.

Date of Death: unknown.

Place of Death: said to be Aštišat.

The place is given in the Epic Histories [3:19]. He was said to have been killed by an angel of the Lord while feasting.

Relationships

Father: Yusik.

This relationship is given in the Epic Histories [3:13, 3:15, 3:19]

Mother: said to be a daughter of Tiran, king of Armenia.

This relationship is given in the Epic Histories [3:5]. Toumanoff suggests that she was actually the daughter of Trdat the Great.

Spouse: “Bambišn” Arshakuni.

This name is recorded in the Epic Histories and in an anonymous life of Nerses (see the Evidence section on Nerses’s page.) “Bambišn” is the Iranian title of any royal lady in the Sassanian period, so it is unlikely to be an actual name. The Epic Histories give her as the sister of King Tiran, but there are difficulties with this (Garsoïan 1989, p. 364). Obviously, the fact that At‘anagines is said to have married his mother’s aunt suggests something may be wrong here. However, it is perhaps conceivably true, as in the Persian royal harem the king of kings would normally wed his mother and daughters as well as his sisters (such consanguineous marriages being a pious act in the Zoroastrian tradition) (Garsoian 1989, pp. 247-8). An anonymous life At‘anagines’s son Nerses states that he was put in charge of the treasure of Tiran’s son Arshak II, being his cousin. Various emendations to the text have been suggested. It is generally thought that, even if the text is corrupt here, there was a Gregorid - Arsacid marriage somewhere in the line. 

Children: 

(Complete source citations for facts about the children on this page are currently outside of the scope of this project.)

Nerses (died about 373).

Evidence

from the Epic Histories: 

[3:13] is similar to 3:15 below.

[3:15]

Then it was planned to bring to the priesthood a son of St. Yusik for the spiritual-teaching of his ancestors. And so, they seized Pap and At'anaginēs without their consent and with the unanimous agreement of the bishops forcibly compelled them to receive ordination as deacons, against their will. But they trampled underfoot the grant of spiritual dignity, of their own accord served as soldiers in the turbulent military profession, and were struck down. They chose the earthly life, likewise took the king's sisters as wives, and rejected the inheritance of God. As for the names of their wives: the wife of Pap was called Varazduxt, and they went childless from this world; the name of At'anaginēs’ wife was Bambišn, and from her was born the admirable and amazing Nerses, who later attained the high-priesthood.

     At that time, however, there was no one who could give them spiritual-guidance as high-priest. Then they took counsel as to whom they might find as their spiritual-leader, and the unanimous common agreement was that they should find someone from the princely house of Grigor who might occupy the throne of his fathers. 

The hereditary character of the Gregorid patriarchate was against canonical regulations, but it is also recorded in Agathangelo and Movses Khorenatsi (Garsoian 1989, p. 257).

[3:19]

But the sons of Yusik, Pap and At‘angines, led a life odious to God, for they acted unrighteously and impiously. They were most impudent tall of the days of their lives, and the fear of God was not before their eyes. They behaved with great wantonness and impurity, scorned and scoffed at the Commandments of God.

     They were in the land of Taron, in the ecclesiastical town of Aštišat where their great-grandfather Grigor had first built a church. And the two brothers, Pap and At'anagines, came to that village. Having given themselves totally over to drunkenness, they scoffed at God's temple [talar] and, entering into the bishop's-residence [episkoposanoc‘] which was there, the two brothers drank wine in it together with harlots,singing girls, gusans, and buffoons, scorning the holy and consecrated place and trampling it underfoot. Then, while they were enjoying themselves greatly, as they reclined on couches in the bishop's-residence, eating and drinking, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared like a bolt of lightning, striking and killing the two brothers together on their feasting-couch. And all the others who were present there sharing the feasting-couch and rejoicing, their boon companions, abandoned them and fled together outside the palace. And in great terror not a single one of them returned there. Indeed, tnot a single other man among them dared contemplate entering inside, nor coming close to the doors and

shutting them, for they had remained open after their flight. Nor in subsequent days did anyone dare come near the doors. 

     The two brothers, Pap and At‘angines, were killed in this manner and lay inside the episcopal-residence stretched out on the feasting-couch. The doors of the •palace remained open, and no one dared come near them until the corpses decayed and were putrefied; their bones separated, fell apart, and were scattered. And many months went by after these events. Then [only], they dared to go inside in order to pick up their bones, collect and remove [them]. They found the bones completely dried out and horny and brought them to a vineyard [belonging] to the church called Agarak. 

     A son of At‘angines by the king's sister Bambišn survived, however. His name was Nersēs, and he subsequently ascended the patriarchal throne of the entire land of Armenia, whereas Pap left [no son] by his legitimate wife. But he had a concubine from the karlazat village of Hac‘ekac‘ in the district of Taron, and he left a son named Vrik by his concubine.

References

The Epic Histories Attributed to P‘awstos Buzand (Nina G Garsoïan tr. and comm.) (Harvard U.P., 1989).

Garsoïan, Nina. “The Aršakuni Dynasty” in The Armenian People from Anicent to Modern Times v. 1 (Richard G. Hovannisian ed.) (St Martin’s Press, 1997).

“Généalogie de la famille de Saint Grégoire, Illuminateur de l’Arménie, et vie de Saint Nersès, patriarche des Arméniens, par un auteur anonyme du Ve siècle” (Jean-Raphael Emine tr.) in Collection des historiens anciens et modernes de l’Arménie v. 2 (1869).  

Russell, James R. “Faustus” in Encyclopædia Iranica (1999, updated 2012, online edition).