1923.) A Manuscript Koran in Classical Armenian. 293 
great reader, a modest person and led an exemplary pure 
life. 
The Fathers at Etchmiatzin seeing his erudition, and 
saintly life, strongly recommended him to the Catholicos 
Phillippos who having himself noticed the work of Stephanos, 
ordained him as a monk oe then invested him with the 
powers of an Archimandrite or 
Henceforward the Archinaniene. Stephanos gave himself 
up entirely to —— work and translated four works from the 
Latin into oe 
he first of as was Josephus, the Jewish historian, not 
the entire afhee however, but that part only which relates to 
the city of Jerusalem and the wars of the Jews, in 6 volumes. 
: second was the book of Dionysius the Areopagite. 
There existed already another translation of this work in the 
Armenian language by Stephanos of Suini, but this was diff- 
cult to understand, whereas this second translation was perfect 
in binds respec 
e third work was called the Book of Rationalism. It 
isa teeta work in 36 chapters 
fou is a book of Parables and relates to the lives 
and morals of man as a guide for everybody. The Latin title 
n 
preserved in the Armenian ee It is a book replete 
with sweet words and pleasant sayin 
‘hese are the services which he is tephanos} has rendered 
to the Church so far 
Now let us try and determine the age of the paces 
cat ii from the valuable information recorded by a 
contemporary of the translator of the Koran from a Latin 
version 
Ara kiel the historian says it was the Catholicos Phillip- 
pos (elected on the 13th January 1633) who ordained Stephanos 
as an Archimandrite, and as the Archimandrite displayed 
great literary activity soon after his ordination and during the 
life-time of his patron, the Catholicos, it is quite possible that 
the present translation of the Koran from the Latin was 
undertaken before the death of the Catholicos which occarred 
in ne 
nay be argued, however, that as there is no reference 
to the pride translation in the work of Arakiel the historian 
Miscellany ” was published not during the life-time but several 
years after the death of the author owing to the set ei 
of Armenian printing presses in those days And I may men- 
tion, en passant, that it was also at Ada that nt gist 
Armenian Bible was printed in 16 
Before concluding this paper, I ‘must say a few words as 
