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Document Details : Title: The Liber Causarum Subtitle: A Mediaeval Armenian Isagogical Collection Author(s): SHIRINIAN, Manea Erna Journal: Le Muséon Volume: 130 Issue: 1-2 Date: 2017 Pages: 139-176 DOI: 10.2143/MUS.130.1.3214928 Abstract : The Book of Causes is a unique Armenian mediaeval textbook of the Old and New Testaments’ Isagogics, containing introductory studies dealing with that part of theology which are preliminary to exegesis. These introductory studies or prolegomena, or isagogical questions (originating most probably in the Alexandrian school tradition) are needed to understand the Bible. They examine the questions as follows: the literary and external history of the Bible, the date, author, sources, reasons of writing etc. of each book in the Scripture or Commentaries. The Book of Causes has been composed by the abbot of Sanahin Grigor Abasean (12th-13th centuries), compiled from Armenian translations of prolegomena and interpretations ascribed mainly to the teachers and fathers of the ecumenical Church; some of these prolegomena are preserved only in the Armenian translation. It is the only work where the concepts of 'wide' and 'subtle' writings are attested together; these intriguing and little investigated concepts appear only in the Armenian sources but can be traced back to Late Antiquity and to the Graeco-Roman world. |
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