(1.) “when Saint Silvester was Pope at Rome.”—The Armenian Church teaches that St. Thaddeus, one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord, and St. Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, were the first to preach the gospel in Armenia; but the actual conversion of the Armenians to Christianity was not effected until the reign of Tiridates in the 4th century, by St. Gregory, thenceforth named Lousarovitch—the Enlightener. He was the son of a prince of Parthia, the assassin of Chosroes, king of Armenia, who, though not a kinsman of Gregory, belonged to the race of the Arsacidæ of Parthian origin; St. Gregory’s own ancestors, the Surenians, being also a branch of the same royal race. St. Gregory was, therefore, indeed a kinsman of Tiridates, who was the son of Chosroes. [2] “this same king who built the large church at Bethleen, as has been already stated.”—It is singular that Bethlehem is not mentioned at all in the chapter devoted to a description of the holy places, so that it is just possible the Nuremberg MS. is a copy of the MS. at Heidelberg, in which that city is not named. Opinions are greatly divided upon this statement of Schiltberger. In a communication from Bishop Aïvazoffsky, I am assured that no church whatever was constructed prior to the king’s conversion; but it is stated in an apocryphal writing, that Tiridates caused a church to be built at Jerusalem after his conversion. On the other hand, Vaillant de Florival (_Dictionnaire Historique_, sub vocem, Dertad) inserts that, after his conversion, the king ordered the construction of many churches, one being at Bethlehem, and dedicated to the nativity of Christ.—BRUUN. (3.) “The king again became a man, and was, with all his people, again a Christian.”—This tradition in regard to Tiridates and St. Gregory is told with considerable accuracy. Armenian chroniclers relate that Gregory, having refused to worship the idol set up by the king, was by his orders taken to the fortress in the town of Ardashat, and there thrown into a stinking pit, to be consumed, as we read in the text, by serpents and other reptiles, but where he nevertheless remained miraculously preserved from all harm during the space of fourteen, or, according to others, fifteen years. The place situated in the valley of the Araxes, is now called Khorvyrab—Dry well—the site of a monastery in which is shown the saint’s dungeon.