§ 145. THE MONOPHYSITE SECTS. 781
cially in Turkey, similar to that of the Jews in the Christian world.
The whole number of the Arraen.aus is very variously esti mated, from two and a half up to fifteen millions.'
The Armenian church, it may be remarked, has long been divided into two parts, which, although internally very similar, are inflexibly opposed to each other. The united Armenians, since the council of Florence, a.d. 1439, have been connected with the church of Rome. To them belongs the congregation of the Mechitarists, which was founded by the Abbot Mechitar (f 1749), and possesses a famous monastery on the island of San Lazzaro near Venice, from which centre it has successfully labored since 1702 for Armenian literature and education in the interest of the Roman Catholic church.' The schismatical Armenians hold firmly to their peculiar ancient doctrines and polity. They regard themselves as the orthodox, and call the united or Roman Armenians schismatics.
Since 1830, the Protestant Missionary, Tract, and Bible societies of England, Basle, and the United States, have labored among the Armenians, especially among the Monophysite portion, with great success. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,^ in particular, has distributed Bibles and relisrious books in the Armenian and Armeno-Turkish * Ianguage, and founded flourishing churches and schools in Constantinople, Broosa, Nicomedia, Trebizond, Erzroom, Aintab, Kharpoot, Diarbekir, and elsewhere. Several of these churches have already endured the crucial test of persecution, and jus-
* Stanley (History of the Eastern Church, p. 92), supported by Neale and Eazthausen (Transcaucasia), estimates the number of the Armenians at over eight millions. But Dr. G. "W. Wood, of New York, formerly a missionary among them, in. forms me that their total number probably does not exceed six millions, of whom about two and a half millions are probably in Turkey.
* Comp. C. F. Neumann : Geschichte der armenischen Literatur nach den Werken der Mechitaristen, Leipzig, 1836. The chief work of the Mechitarists ia the history of Armenia, by P. Michael Tschamtschean (f 1823), in three vols., Venice, 1784.
* This oldest and most extensive of American missionary societies was founded 4. D. 1810, and is principally supported by the Congregationalists and New School Presbyterians.
* The Armeno-Turkish is the Turkish language written in Armenian charactera
732 TIUKP TKRIOD. A.D. 311-590.
tify l.Tiglit liopcs for tlie future. As tlie Jewish synagognei of tlie diaspora were witnesses for monotlieisin among idolaters, and preparatory schools of Christianity, so are these Protestant Armenian churches, as well as the Protestant Nestorian. outposts of evangelical civilization in the East, and perhaps the beginning of a resurrection of primitive Christianity in the lands of the Bil)le, and liarbingers of the future conversion of tlie Mohammedans.'
rV. The youngest sect of tlie Monophysites, and the solitary memorial of the Mouothclite controversy, are tlie Makono'Es, so called from St. Maron, and the eminent monastery founded by him in Syria (400)." They inhabit the range of Lebanon, with its declivities and valleys, from Tripolis on the North to the neighborhood of Tyre and the lake of Gennesaret on the South, and amount at most to half a million. They have also small churches in Aleppo, Damascus, and other places. They are pure Syrians, and still use the Syriac language in their liturgy, but speak Arabic. They are subject to a patriarch, who commonly resides in the monastery of Kanobin on Mt. Lebanon. They were originally Monothelites, even after the doctrine of one will of Christ, which is the ethical complement of the doctrine of one nature, had been rejected at the sixth ecumenical council (a. d. 680). But after the Crusades (1182), and especially after 1596, they began to go over to the Roman
' Compare, respecting the Armenian mission of the American Board, the publications of this Society; Eli Smith and FT. G. 0. Dwigiit: Missionary Researches in Armenia, Boston, 1833 ; Dr. IT. G. 0. Dwigot : Christianity revived in tlie Ea<t, New York, 1850; IT. Newcomb: Cyclopaedia of Missions, pp. 124-154. The principal missionaries among the Armenians are H. G. 0. Dwight, W. Goodcll, C. Hamlin, G. W. Wood, E. Riggs, D. Ladd, P. 0. Powers, W. G. Schauffler (a Wiirtembergcr, but educated at the Theol. Seminary of Andover, Mass.), and Benj. Schneider (a German from Pennsylvania, but likewise a graduate of Andover).
' He is probably the same Maron whose life Thcodoret wrote, and to whom Chrysostoni addressed a letter when in exile. lie is not to bo confounded with the later John Maron, of the seventh century, who, according to the legendary traditions of the Catholic Maronites, acting as papal legate at Antioch, converted the whole of Lebanon to the Roman church, atd became their first patriarch. Tiie name "Maronites" occurs first in the eighth century, and that as a name of heretics, io John ol Damascus.