DAVID OF SASSUN
Strong and mighty was the Caliph of Bagdad;[1] he
gathered together a host and marched against our
Holy John the Baptist.[2] Hard he oppressed our people, and led many into captivity. Among the captives was a beautiful maiden, and the caliph made her his wife. In time she bore two sons, Sanassar and Abamelik. The father of these children was a heathen, but their mother was a worshipper of the cross,[3] for the caliph had taken her from our people.
This same caliph again gathered together a host and fell upon our people. This time—I bow before thy holy miracle, O sainted John—this time our people pressed him sorely, and in his affliction he cried unto his idols: “May the gods save me from these people; bring me to my city safe and well, and both my sons will I sacrifice unto them.”
In Bagdad the mother lay sleeping, and she had a dream. She dreamed she had in each hand a lamp, and when their flames seemed ready to go out they flashed up brightly again. When morning came she told this dream to her sons, and said: “Last night holy St. John appeared to me in my dreams and said that your father was in great trouble and had vowed to sacrifice you. When he again comes home he will stab you: look to your safety.”
Both sons cried unto their gods, took food with them for their journey, put gold into their purses, and set out on their
- ↑ From the sense and according to the time in which the action takes place, Nineveh must be understood here; and instead of an Arabian caliph, the Assyrian king Sennacherib. There is an anachronism here, as the reader will see, for a king living 800 years before Christ is called an Arabian caliph, though the caliphs first ook up their residence in Bagdad in the year 755.
- ↑ The reference here is to the famous monastery of St. John the Baptist, which was built by Gregory the Illuminator during the fourth century, on the mountain of Kark, near the Euphrates, on a spot where heathen altars had previously stood. On certain days pious Armenians made annual pilgrimages to the place. Among them many poets and champions, who with long fasts and many prayers, begged from the saint the gifts of song, strength, and courage. John the Baptist was regarded by the Armenians generally as the protector of the arts.
- ↑ So the Armenians called Christians.
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