Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/75

Rh of luxuries for himself, is condemned for gluttony, and his hateful character was put into a proverb and passed through generations. The seventh ruler from Haig, Ara the Beautiful (the son of Aram, after whom the nation was named "Armenian"), was highly praised, not only for his personal beauty but chiefly for his fidelity to his nation and temperate firmness against the worldly and impure intentions of the Assyrian Queen Semiramis (Shamiram), even at the expense of his life, which he lost while bravely fighting with the hordes of this ancient Jezebel. Armenian virgins are described as gathering in the Temple of the Goddess of Purity and singing the virtues of virginity and matrimonial fidelity. Heripsimian virgins fled to Armenia as the safest shelter to preserve their honor against the vicious tyranny of the Roman rulers. Santookhd, the only daughter of the Armenian King in the first century A.D., was converted to christianity by the Apostle Thaddeus, declined all the glories of a wordly crown, and in spite of the appeals, promises and threatenings of her idolatrous father, kept the true faith until her innocent blood, together with that of her apostle, was shed on the beautiful plains of Shavarshan, where roses and lilies are believed to bloom out of her blood. These were the ideals of the Armenian nation, even before Christianity was fully accepted among them.

2. Evangelization of the Armenian Nation. Christianity was undoubtedly introduced among the Armenians early in the second century of our era,