Eznik (or Eznag), Goghpatsi

Eznik (or Eznag), Goghpatsi (i.e., native of Kolp), a theologian, and one of the best writers of Armenia, was born in 397. He was well versed in the Syriac and Greek languages, so that his masters, the patriarchs Isaac and Mesrob, gave him a mission to Edessa in 425, then to Constantiniople, to collect and translate into Armenian the works of the Church fathers. Eznik became still later bishop of the province of Parcrevant and of the country of the Arsharounikhi. In 449 he attended the national council of Ardachad, which refused to embrace the religion of Zoroaster. Eznik died about 478, leaving, besides some homilies and short treatises, a work entitled The Destruction of False Doctrines (first published in the original Armenian at Smyrna, in 1762; and in a better form in the Collection of Armenian Classics, Venice, 1826; translated into French by Vaillant de Percival, Paris, 1833). See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.; Smith, Dict. of Christ. Biog. s.v.