Mxit'ar Sasnec'i's Theological Discourses

This collection, edited and translated here for the first time, represents the magnum opus of an eminent (and somewhat controversial) Armenian scholar and ecclesiastic of the first half of the 14th century. The corpus comprises 17 disquisitions on diverse issues of doctrinal, sacramental, ethical and exegetical nature composed in 1321 and preserved in early exemplars corrected by the author's own hand. They afford a valuable insight into the religious currents and intellectual preoccupations of the monastic academies of Greater Armenia during the first generation of dialogue and debate with Dominican missionaries. Opposed to certain accommodations to Latin thought and practice advocated in the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, the author's ascetic spirituality reveals rather the influence of Evagrius and Ps. Dionysius. His vita by a near contemporary is appended and certain precisions in its chronology noted in the introduction on the basis of recently published colophonic data.