The New Age of Prophecy: The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa and Its Place in Armenian Historiography

This paper makes an examination of the overall framework of the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, and looks anew at his interpreta¬tion of recent history within that framework. Following a long tradition of the use of prophecy and Biblical models to render the events of Armenian history explicable, Matthew has centred the Chronicle around two prophecies attributed to the eleventh-century clerical scholar Yovhannēs Kozeṙn, themselves extended in the twelfth century under the influence of the Apocalypse attributed to Methodius. This pair of prophecies provide the framework for his argument that both the Byzantine emperors and the Armenian kings had abandoned their responsibility toward the Armenian people. The need to illustrate the truth of the vision laid out in Kozeṙn’s second prophecy affects Matthew’s own presentation of the events about which he writes.status: publishe