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CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF ARMENIA 251
religion merged in the new. Moreover, wc are told that
Gregory expressly chose sons of heathen priests as bishops
of the newly founded Church. Christianity was even less
opposed to the religion of the Avesta than it was to the myths
of the more primitive gods. Zarathustra, in fact, paved the
way for Christianity in several respects, and his religion
contributed largely to its actual content. But undoubtedly
Trdat propagated the new faith to a large extent by force,
and this would be strongly resented by the powerful Nakharar
families. It must have tåken a long time for Christianity to
penetrate every part of the mountain districts, where
heathenism could count upon the ready support of Persia.
The king appointed Gregory Patriarch or Katholikos of the
whole country, and his consecration was performed by the
Archbishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia. The high office thus
created became hereditary in Gregory’s family, and evidently
its powers were the same as those invested in the heathen high
priest ; it was also hereditary in the family of the latter, who
resided at Artishat in Taron (near Mush)—the place to which
Gregory returned after his consecration in Cæsarea, and where
he built the mother church of Armenia after destroying the
three famous temples, or possibly the triple shrine, of Anahit,
Vahakn, and Astghik.* This ancient heathen place of sacri
fice was the see of the Katholikos up to the year 402, when he
moved to Vagharshapat. No doubt the power of the heathen
high priest in Armenia would correspond to what Strabo
(XII, 2, 3) tells us about the temple of the goddess Ma, or
Artemis Tauropolos (= Anahit) at Comana in Cappadocia,
the earlier home of the Armenians. The priest there ranked
next after the king, and usually belonged to the same family
(cf. p. 91). He presided over the temple and the servants
of the temple, of whom there were more than six thousand of
both sexes when Strabo visited it. There were extensive
lands belonging to the temple, from which the high priest
derived his revenues. Strabo mentions something similar
in regard to the temple at Comana in Pontus (XII, 3, 22, and
34-36) and that of Anaitis at Zela (XII, 3,37)-
1 Another instance of a triad of divinities, a common conception in the
East (cf. p. 88), and one which evidently lives on in the Trinity of Christianity.
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