[Tychicus Translation Cambridge Latin Course Unit 3 Rar
Kody Coste
A part of the Armenian Hellenizing School and one of the few secular scholars in medieval Armenia, Anania was educated primarily by Tychicus, in Trebizond. He composed science textbooks and the first known geographic work in classical Armenian (Ashkharhatsuyts),[5] which provides detailed information about Greater Armenia, Persia and the Caucasus (Georgia and Caucasian Albania).
In mathematics, his accomplishments include the earliest known table of results of the four basic operations,[3][6] the earliest known collection of recreational math puzzles and problems,[7] and the earliest book of math problems in Armenian.[8] He also devised a system of mathematical notation based on the Armenian alphabet, although he was the only writer known to have used it.
Anania devoted a significant part of his autobiography to Tychicus (born c. 560), with whom he spent eight years in the 620s or 630s.[31] Tychicus had studied the Armenian language and its literature while serving in the Byzantine army in Armenia.[20][32] Wounded by the Persians, he retired from the military and later studied in Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople.[20][32] Tychicus later returned to his native Trebizond, where he established a school c. 615.[32] Tychicus taught many students from Constantinople (including from the imperial court) and was renowned among Byzantine kings.[33][8] He provided Anania special attention and taught him what Anania called a "perfect knowledge of mathematics".[17] In Tychicus's vast library, Anania found "everything, exoteric and esoteric",[18] including sacred and secular Greek authors, including works on the sciences, medicine, chronology, and history.[34] Russell believed his library may have included Pythagorean and alchemical books.[18] Anania considered Tychicus to have been "predestined by God for the introduction of science into Armenia."[32]
Anania himself established a school in Armenia upon his return.[17] That school, the first in Armenia to teach quadrivium, is presumed to have been located in his native Shirak.[3][32] He was disappointed with the laziness of his students and their departure after learning the basics.[32] Anania complained about Armenians' lack of interest in mathematics,[20] writing that they "love neither learning, nor knowledge."[35] Nicholas Adontz considered it an exaggeration, "if not an absolute slander, to deny the Armenian innate love of investigation."[36] The 12th-century chronicler Samuel of Ani listed five of Shirakatsi's students,[3] who are otherwise unknown.[37] Anania financed his research in several fields with the money he earned teaching.[32]
Thomson wrote that as a lay scholar, Anania was a "rarity in early Armenia."[20] Hewsen termed him the only lay classical Armenian author besides Grigor Magistros,[15] adding that he had a close relationship with the Armenian Church.[38] Malachia Ormanian did not list him among lay authors.[c] Hacikyan et al. describe Anania as a "devout Christian and well versed in the Bible" who "made some attempts to reconcile science and Scripture."[40] In his later years, Anania may have been a monk in the Armenian Church.[15] This is based on his religious discourses and attempts to date the feasts of the church.[41] John A. C. Greppin doubts that Anania was ever in any religious order.[42] Several scholars consider him a church ideologist akin to Cosmas Indicopleustes, whom he actually criticized.[43]
Hewsen noted that some of Anania's "more revolutionary ideas" were suppressed by the Armenian Church after his death.[44] Greppin suggested that Anania, a largely secular author, had fallen into a "bad clerical odor."[42] S. Peter Cowe disagreed with Ashot G. Abrahamian's hypothesis that his name was "censored in the Middle Ages because of ecclesiastical disapproval" and argued that it is "more applicable to Soviet practice than that of the relatively tolerant Armenian and other eastern churches."[45] Soviet historians represented him as a founder of irreligious and anti-clerical thought in Armenia, who pioneered double-truth theory.[46] Vazgen Chaloyan called him a "progressive representative of the feudal period of Armenian science."[47] Gevorg Khrlopian went as far as to argue that Anania was an enemy of the Armenian Church and fought against its obscurantism.[38] Hewsen opposed this view, suggesting that, instead, he was an "independent thinker of sorts."[15]
Anania is considered by modern scholars to be a representative of the Hellenizing School since many of his works were based on classical Greek sources.[48][49] He was the first Armenian scholar to have "imported a set of scientific notions, and examples of their applications, from the Greek-speaking schools" into Armenia.[50] He was well versed in Greek literature,[51] and the influence of Greek syntax is evident in his works.[52] Anania was also knowledgeable about native Armenian and Iranian cultural traditions;[8] several of his works provide important information on late Sassanian Iran.[8]
James R. Russell describes him as an alchemist and a Pythagorean who "does not usually rely on mythology to explain natural phenomena."[53] Anania accepted the importance of experience, observation, rational practice and theory, and was influenced by the ideas of the 5th-century Neoplatonist philosopher Davit Anhaght (the Invincible), and Greek philosophers Thales of Miletus, Hippocrates, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno of Citium, Epicurus, Ptolemy, Pappus of Alexandria, and Cosmas Indicopleustes.[54] Aristotle's On the Heavens had a significant influence on Anania's thought.[35] According to Gevorg Khrlopian, Anania was heavily influenced by Yeghishe's An Interpretation of Creation, the anonymous Interpretation of the Categories of Aristotle, and the works of Davit Anhaght,[55] who had established Neoplatonism in Armenian thought.[54] Anania was also the first Armenian scholar to quote Philo of Alexandria.[29]
Problems and Solutions (alternatively translated as On Questions and Answers), a collection of 24 arithmetical problems and their solutions, is based on the application of fractions;[56][7] it is the earliest such work in Armenian. Many of its problems allude to real-world situations: six connect to the princely house of Shirak, the Kamsarakans,[6] and at least three to Iran.[8] Greenwood calls the problems "a rich source for seventh-century history whose value has not been sufficiently recognized."[67]
For his mathematical works, Anania developed a unique numerical notation based on 12 letters of the Armenian alphabet. For the units, he used the first nine letters of the Armenian script (Ա, Բ, Գ, Դ, Ե, Զ, Է, Ը, Թ), similar to the standard traditional Armenian numerical system. The letters used for 10, 100, and 1000 were also identical to the traditional Armenian system (Ժ, Ճ, Ռ), but all other numbers up to 10,000 were written using these 12 letters. For instance, 50 would be written ԵԺ (510) and not Ծ as in the standard system. Thus, the notation is multiplicative-additive as opposed to the ciphered-additive standard system and requires knowing 12 letters, instead of 36, to write numbers less than 10,000. Numbers greater than that could be written using multiplicative combinations of just 2 or 3 signs, but using all 36 letters.[68]
Stephen Chrisomalis believes this system was created by Anania since it only occurs in his works and is not found in Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, or any other alphabetic numeral system.[69] Allen Shaw has argued it was just a variant of the Armenian numerals designed specifically for the representation of large numbers.[70] No other writer used it.[69]
Works used for the parts of the Cosmology include the Bible (mostly the Pentateuch and Psalms) and works by the Church Fathers. Anania cites the work of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory the Illuminator, and Amphiolocus (perhaps, of Iconium).[74] Some chapters of the work, such as "On Clouds" (also called "On the Sky" or "Concerning the Skies"), are largely based on Basil's Hexameron.[75] Anania also repeats the classical Greek notions in the fields of astronomy, physics or meteorology.[76] Pambakian wrote about the significance of the Cosmology:
The Ashkharhatsuyts has survived in long and short recensions.[85] According to the scholarly consensus, the long recension was the original.[87] For the description of Europe, North Africa and Asia (all the known world from Spain to China),[7] it largely uses Greek sources, namely the now lost geography of Pappus of Alexandria (4th century), which in turn, is based on the Geography of Ptolemy (2nd century).[4][8][85] According to Hewsen, it is the "last work based on ancient geographical knowledge written before the Renaissance."[38] Edmond Schtz called it an "outstanding work of medieval sciences, a rich post-Ptolemaid heredity."[88]
It was one of the earliest secular Armenian works to be published (in 1668 by Voskan Yerevantsi).[89] It has been translated into four languages: English, Latin (both 1736), French (1819), and Russian (1877).[90] In 1877, Kerovbe Patkanian first attributed it to Anania as the most probable author.[91]
Anania's major chronological work, the Chronicle, listed important events in order of their occurrence.[20] Written between 686 and 690, it is composed of two parts: a universal chronicle, utilizing the lost works of Annianus of Alexandria and the lost Roman imperial sequence from Eusebius's Chronographia, and an ecclesiastical history from a miaphysite perspective, which records the six ecumenical councils.[93]
Another chronological work, known as the Calendar (Tomar), included texts and tables about the calendars of 15 peoples: Armenians, Hebrews, Arabs, Macedonians, Romans, Syrians, Greeks, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Athenians, Bythanians, Cappadocians, Georgians, Caucasian Albanians, and Persians.[94][95] The calendars of the Armenians, Romans, Hebrews, Syrians, Greeks, and Egyptians contain texts, while those of other peoples only have the names of months and their length.[96]
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