STUDIES ON THE ORIENTAL SOURCES AND HISTORIOGRAPHY IN ARMENIA (EARLY Ծր․Ամփ․վերջն1 a5 | Page 29

In this artistic conception a number of apocryphal traditions
converge. Such traditions are preserved in Syriac and in Armenian,
being also elaborated in patristic writings in these languages. In the
paper a new analysis of these sources will be proposed. Some of
them speak of royal dignity of the first human being. After recei-
ving their names, the creatures are said to bow down before Adam
as before their sovereign. Several texts even suggest that by exer-
cising the prerogative indicated in Genesis 2. 19-20, and quoted on
the east façade, Adam becomes an agent in the creation of the
world, a companion of his Maker.
Michael E. Stone has observed that in Armenian literature
‘Adam’s naming of the creatures was a major topic in the fifth
century but disappears from the discussion in the sixth to the ninth
centuries’ (M. E. Stone, Adam and Eve in the Armenian Traditions.
Fifth Through Seventeenth Centuries, Atlanta 2013, p. 57).
Significantly, when it reappears in the tenth century, this scene
from Genesis is often interpreted as a reflection of Adam’s royal
prerogative. This has to reflect the new political realities of
Armenia, i.e. the restoration of Armenian kingship first in the north
and then in the south of the country: the figure of the first human
being was present in Armenia as a typos of a new Christian king.
Right above Adam, who is flanked by two animal heads, is
represented a crowned figure flanked by two attendants. Also the
medallion-like frame of this image links it semantically with Adam:
Adam reigning in the midst of other creatures thus represents the
main prototype of kingship. To our knowledge, such a representation
of Adam—which establishes a new relationship between the
topography of a church, its architectural structure and its deco-
ration—has no parallels in early and mediæval Christian art.
29