ABSTRACT
Armenian chronicler Matt'eos Urhayets'i (Matthew of Edessa, ca. loyo-ca. 1136), was that "many of the holy monks were subjected to the edge of the sword and to being burned; moreover, their corpses became food for the beasts and the birds/*3 Despite the holiness of the monks, their suffering and death fulfilled divine will, accomplishing the words of Psalm 78: "Their young men were devoured by fire and no one grieved for their virgins; their priests fell under the sword and no one grieved for their widows."4 The biblical verses appeared as more than a rhetorical flourish from a clerical writer: they evoked themes woven throughout Matthew's chronicle. While the immolated youths and the slain priests of Psalm 78 died by the will of their own wrathful God, the psalm ended with a comforting evocation of God s love for the tribe of Judah and for his servant David. Similarly, Matthew's chronicle depicted an angry God punishing his wayward flock (Christian Armenians), but ultimately it focused on an abiding sense of the imminent arrival of the end of the world and the attendant promise of redemption.
