NOTE: — 49 —

...it be the tenth, they say, on the first day of the muteness of Zakʻaria, to which the Evangelist Ghukas [Luke] testifieth not at all. But they who celebrate [the Feast of the Annunciation] on the seventh of April say that the conception of Eghisabētʻ [Elizabeth] took place after twelve days of his ministration, on the twenty-second of Tʻshrin, according to what is written above, to which the Evangelist also testifieth. “There is also a second testimony to these [matters] according to the account of the same Evangelist; namely, that he saith: ‘Yisus was beginning to be thirty years of age’ from [His] birth, and it is necessary, according to a wise and upright mind, that the baptism should coincide with [His having arrived at] the very same number of years in which [occurred] also the wondrous birth—that is to say, on the sixth of January; for the confession of this holy Church of Armenia also saith that He came to baptism after thirty years. There were also many other things to say concerning this, but these few [words] are enough for the wise.” And for us, according to our Patriarch Shnorhali, let there be enough, let there be considered sufficient, by the testimony of the holy apostles and of the holy, apostolic early Fathers, the words of true tradition indicated and shown forth, which our Apostolic and Orthodox holy Church of Armenia holdeth firm as a divine grace and hath preserved with care; whereby she hath always merited that desirable praise of the holy Apostle Pōghos [Paul], who once to the church of the Corinthians, recognizing them as keepers of tradition, gave them great praises thus: “I praise you that ye remember me in all things, and keep the traditions, as I delivered [them] to you” (I Cor. 11:2). Therefore it behoveth us with sincere mind to make prayers for such of our compatriots who, following today after novel doctrines and fabricated deceitful words and counsels, are found turned aside and strayed far from the upright, apostolically-ordained highway, from the true preachings, and from the luminous footsteps of the orthodox doctrines of the divinely inspired holy early Fathers, having utterly wandered and tottered into the soul-destroying darkness of error. Ye know, O right-minded readers, that chiefly through two dreadful occasions are our souls deprived of divine graces and of the unutterable light of glory: the first darkness-bringing occasion is not to recognize, not to believe, and truly to deny the divine truth and the philanthropic, redeeming Dispensation of Ch[rist]...

NOTE: 7