The relationship between image and text affords a fascinating arena of investigation into the process of artistic creation. Christianity was a prodigious catalyst for the creation of textual illustrations; the massive copying of Gospels, Psalm books, and other biblical texts provided ample and frequent opportunity for artists to exercise their craft and to take up the challenge of innovation within a highly defined and conventionalized domain. Almost always it is the text which helps clarify the meaning of a miniature painting, rarely do we find an image providing an explication of the word.

       In the narrative of the Life of Christ, after Jesus himself, the Apostles collectively are the most prevalent element among the components of the pictorial cycle. Identifying the Apostles would seem to be, therefore, a straight forward exercise. They were twelve. Their names are repeated frequently in the four Gospels and the Acts. They are regularly the subject of early mosaics, frescoes, icons, and miniature paintings, which show their individual traits. More than one artist of the medieval period responsible for the execution of scenes with the Twelve figured individually or collectively must have tried to differentiate them and provide each a recognizable identity.

       This study is devoted to the Apostles as a group and only turns to individual representations as an ancillary to the primary objective of identifying the Twelve represented together. In the Armenian tradition images of the Apostles are found almost exclusively in illuminations of the Four Gospels. There are no useful mosaics or sculptures available, and, except for what remains in the interior of Aght'amar,² no usable frescoes, as in Byzantine art. Neither was there an icon tradition among the Armenians. There are, however, silver gilt metalworks from thirteenth century Cilicia, a binding dated 1252³ and a reliquary dated 1293,⁴ that portray and identify the Apostles. These will be discussed later.

       Several gospel narratives show the Apostles grouped together.⁵ They are the Raising of Lazarus, Entry into Jerusalem, Washing of the Feet, Last Supper, Communion of the Apostles, Betrayal of Christ, Jesus appearing to the Apostles after the Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost.⁶

       I have focused my attention on Pentecost because in the traditional iconography the Twelve are more clearly isolated one from the other than in the Ascension, the Last Supper, or any other scene. Furthermore, the Washing of the Feet and the Communion of the Apostles are rarely part of the Armenian narrative cycle.

       Historically, the Twelve were reduced to eleven after Judas Iscariot committed suicide, but the traditional number was quickly reestablished with the election of Matthias after the Ascension, but before Pentecost. The original Apostles were, in alphabetical order, Andrew, Bartholomew, James son of Zebedee, the Lesser James (son of Alphaeus), John, Judas Iscariot, Matthew, Peter, Philip, Simon the Zealot, Thaddeus (also known as Jude), and Thomas. All are cited by name in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, while St. John, when speaking of them collectively, only names seven: Andrew, Bartholomew, James, John, Peter, Philip, and Thomas. The Acts of the Apostles talk about all of them and their missions, except of course Judas.⁷ Somewhat later, St. Paul also claimed apostleship.⁸

       I have chosen the monumental Pentecost miniature painted by T'oros Roslin in 1262 as the reference image.⁹ It is useful as a model in the search of the Apostles' identity, because Roslin was very precise in his portraiture. He was also extremely talented, very familiar with the gospel narrative, and conversant with a variety of artistic traditions. He also practiced a classicizing art, inspired by the best Byzantine models, to which Armenian court painting was greatly indebted. His faces are individualized; each seems to have a distinct look. Other Armenian versions of this scene, rendered with a much reduced naturalism or in a non-classicizing regional style, lack the facial details necessary to separate the Twelve from each other. Well known examples of this latter type are, inter alia, Pentecost miniatures from the Gospels dated 1064 copied in Cappadocia¹⁰ and 1305 from Vaspurakan.¹¹ The reduction of the features to a sort of generic Apostle type makes the identification of them -- except for Peter and Paul -- almost impossible. The artists of these and related miniatures apparently had no intention of providing portraits; whether they could themselves differentiate between the Apostles, or what models they had to work with, are not useful questions for this study.

       The lack of individualization of the Apostles is a constant in nearly all Armenian narrative illuminations, whatever the scene depicted. This is clearly demonstrated by the earliest surviving painting with the Apostles together: the Ascension from the Mlk'é Gospels of 862.¹² Though the style is in the best tradition of illusionistic classicism of early Christian art, like the Rabbula Gospel's Ascension, to which it is often compared, the faces of the Apostles betray an interest in decoration -- with regularly alternating white and dark faces -- to the detriment of individual portraiture.

       In addition to the designated model of 1262, several other Pentecost miniatures have sufficient definition to help with the question of identification. Three are from earlier works: the Mugna Gospels of the mid-eleventh century,¹³ the Mamistra Gospels of 1223,¹⁴ the Hromkla Gospels of 1236;¹⁵ two are contemporary: Roslin's miniature of 1268-9¹⁶ and the Queen Keran Gospels of 1272.¹⁷ Together they demonstrate that the artists most faithful to details of portraiture were those who stuck closest to the classicizing models of high Byzantine art. They date to or prior to the thirteenth century and all are from Cilicia, except for the earliest, the Mugna Gospels. There are several cycles of the Life of Christ by T'oros Roslin, some of them extremely detailed with dozens of illustrations. His works, along with those of the eleventh century Mugna and King Gagik of Kars Gospels (for which see below) and a few anonymous miniaturists of thirteenth century and the Mugna and Kars Gospels of the eleventh century, represent the entire corpus of useful images for identifying the individual Apostles in Armenian art.

       Though there are many excellent Armenian artists after 1300 capable of remarkable innovations in style and iconography, when rendering the likeness of the Gospels' personae, they opted for, or were only capable of, a reduction to a few simple masculine types; versions by T'oros of Tarôn, first half of the fourteenth century, are among those in this latter group with some distinguishing facial types.¹⁸

       The iconography of Roslin's Pentecost of 1262 follows the traditional schema already developed by the eleventh century in Byzantine art, from which it was passed without deviation to the post-Byzantine Greek and Slavic orthodox traditions. The Armenians did not unwaveringly adhere to this arrangement, but incorporated such features as the cynocephalus, or dog-head creature, unknown in the imperial versions, and in later centuries used innovative iconography. Our concern, however, is not with the iconography of this scene, a subject that I have treated elsewhere,¹⁹ but with the identity of each of the Apostles.

       In the example of reference of 1262 (Fig. ), St. Peter, to the viewer's right, and St. Paul to the left are easily recognizable and command the positions of honor in this and all miniatures of Pentecost and Ascension whether Byzantine, Western, or Armenian. But Paul was not one of the original Apostles and did not assist at either the Ascension or Pentecost. This is the first of several anomalies in the visual representation of the sacred text.

       Whose place has Paul taken? In the Armenian and Byzantine tradition we know for certain that it was Matthias's and already from an early date.²⁰ The next four figures, two on either side each bearing a book, are the four Evangelists: Matthew and Luke to the right and John and Mark to the left. Their types are well established, used as they were for the rendering of the Evangelists' portraits in nearly every Gospel book and in church art. John, here, as in the eleventh century Armenian Trebizond Gospels,²¹ is rendered as the archetypal philosopher with a broader forehead and a more pensive look than Matthew, who is placed opposite him and shown to be about the same age. John is represented old because he dictated his Gospel at an advanced age. In other narrative miniatures, such as the Crucifixion, he is shown as the beardless youth he was during Jesus's life time.²² Mark, to the left of John, has always appeared dark of complexion and hair, and middle aged. Luke, to the right of Matthew, is usually shown with tonsured hair and young like Mark, but fairer.²³ Along with Peter and Paul, these four, bearing their Gospels, are easily recognized even when their familiar facial features are not well rendered.

       Since neither Mark nor Luke were Apostles of Christ, there is a second major anomaly in their presence in this and other scenes. To accommodate all four Evangelists, two more of the legitimate Twelve had to be sacrificed, a practice universally followed in Eastern as well as in Western art.

       With Peter and Paul and the four Evangelists almost consistently recognizable, only six Apostles remain to be identified, but the task is now more complicated, since even with the agreed elimination of Matthias, there are eight to choose from. In narrative scenes where the Apostles are pictured together, we have already noted little differentiation among them in Armenian miniatures, a fact also true in Byzantine art. Kurt Weitzmann emphasized long ago that in group scenes, beside Peter and Paul, often the only other Apostle individualized is Andrew, recognizable by his disheveled hair.²⁴ In Roslin's miniature of 1262, he is easily observed seated to Mark's right. As Peter's brother and among the older and first Apostles, Andrew is never left out of a collective scene, perhaps because, as in the case of Peter and Paul, artists knew how to paint him.

       In the paradigmatic miniature, five Apostles remain unidentified all in the lower extremities of the miniature, two to the left and three on the right. Three are beardless youths, including those at each extremity, and two are middle-aged with dark beards. They must be named from among seven remaining candidates: Bartholomew, James, brother of John, the Lesser James, Philip, Simon the Zealot, Thaddeus (Jude), and Thomas. Thomas is invariably depicted without a beard and Philip usually without one, while Thaddeus is at times beardless, at other times not. Thus, since traditionally only three of the remaining seven are depicted as beardless youths, in the miniature of 1262 they must be Thomas, Philip, and Thaddeus. Among the Apostles in Byzantine art,²⁵ Thomas and Philip are always youthfully portrayed at the far ends of the assembly, just as in this Armenian miniature, as though the Apostles were ranked by relative age. Though Philip is not separately portrayed in Armenian illuminations, Thomas is shown more than once in the act of doubting Christ's appearance after the Resurrection. Two miniatures of the theme by Roslin himself show Thomas as a young man. One is from the Gospels of 1267-68, now in the Matenadaran,²⁶ showing Christ putting the disciple's hand on the wound (Peter and Andrew are the only other easily identifiable Apostles in this painting). The second example is in a Gospel attributed to Roslin in the Freer Gallery of Art with a second variant of the scene²⁷ in which Christ merely holds out his open hands to Thomas to show the nail wounds.²⁸ The similarity of the youthful face in Roslin's miniature of 1267-68 to the last Apostle on the left in the Pentecost of five years earlier, allows the identification of him as Thomas.

       On the opposite side must be Philip, associated together with Thomas in high Byzantine art,²⁹ to which painters working for Armenian aristocracy and high ranking clergy had access. The remaining beardless youth on the right next to Philip is probably Thaddeus, depicted very young in earlier Byzantine examples,³⁰ but bearded in the near contemporary Armenian reliquary of 1293 fashioned in the Cilician monastery of Skevra to guard a souvenir of the saint.³¹ The two remaining unidentified Apostles, the second from the bottom on the left and the third on the right, are both early middle-aged and bearded. The four remaining Apostles -- the two Jameses, Bartholomew, and Simon the Zealot -- fit this category, that is they are portrayed with beards. James is frequently represented in Christian art because he is present along with his brother John and Peter at Christ's Transfiguration. In Armenian examples, he is shown of somewhat dark complexion, bearded and younger by far than Peter, as in a miniature by T'oros Roslin in the Matenadaran Gospels. Thus we can add James as the eleventh in the miniature of 1262, leaving one more to be selected from among the Lesser James, Bartholomew, and Simon.

       Very early in the development of the church the notion of a College of Apostles was introduced. This institution ought to provide help in identifying those Apostles artists chose to include in the Pentecost and the Ascension, scenes which, as we have emphasized earlier, show them with the clearest individual traits.

       What was the College of Apostles? Who were members? The answers to such questions are as varied as they are complicated. The Armenian tradition on the matter has been recently explored in much depth by Dom Louis Leloir,³² but no immediate resolution toward identifying those in medieval Armenian painting is evident. Scholars have isolated two lists of Apostles, an historical one based on the Gospels and a liturgical one founded on theological exigencies. The first of the two is frequently used for historical gospel scenes, while the list with the addition of Paul and the Evangelists Luke and Mark is used for liturgical representations such as Pentecost. For some church authorities the College was a larger ensemble, bringing together all those called to apostleship without regard to number.

       Otto Demus and others before him have remarked on the western tendency to follow as closely as possible the "historical" list because it is integrated in the canons of the mass while in the East the individual names of the Apostles are not mentioned in the liturgy.³³ Thus the non-historical list with all the Evangelists could more easily establish itself in the Byzantine world than in the West, and, as expected, the Armenian practice is in harmony with that of Byzantium. Surviving works of art from the East show that by the fourth and fifth centuries the Evangelists Mark and Luke are included among the Apostles. It never really took hold in the west. Thus, when all the Evangelists are part of the College of Apostles in a western art work, there is almost always an oriental influence, as for instance in the paleo-Christian monuments in Ravenna and the early twelfth century Pentecost mosaic in the West dome of San Marco in Venice. Jerphanion attributed the insistence on including the Four Evangelists in the College observed through art works especially in Cappadocia to their popularity among rank and file Christians; he contends that the church simply followed the sentiments of the masses.³⁴

       This idea of election or selection into the College of Apostles by the popular will would lead logically to the inclusion of those saints most frequently mentioned or represented in the church calendar. The least well known were the most vulnerable. In Byzantine art to make way for Mark and Luke those excluded were the Lesser James and Thaddeus, as in the Pentecost mosaic of San Marco. Only occasionally, when more than twelve Apostles are shown together, were the two also depicted, for instance in a thirteenth century icon from Saint Catherine's in Sinai.³⁵ If the dropping of the second James was no problem for either the Byzantines or Armenians, the failure to include Thaddeus was a serious matter for the latter. Along with Bartholomew, Thaddeus was considered an evangelizer of Armenia and as such has always had a place of honor in a church which calls itself Apostolic on the basis of the activity of these two disciples. For that reason, Thaddeus is portrayed twice in the Skevra reliquary, once among the twelve and again full-sized on the outer portion of the silver cover.

       If Thaddeus is to be included, who then must be denied a place in liturgical art? Dropping Bartholomew would defy the logical used to include Thaddeus. James, the brother of John the Evangelist, is too important and acclaimed to be ignored, leaving only Simon the Zealot as the likely candidate for exclusion. Through such a resolution, a certain artistic symmetry obtains in Roslin's Pentecost miniature, with the youngest Apostles, Thomas and Philip, at the final position on each end, followed by the evangelizers of Armenia, Bartholomew and Thaddeus facing each other, and, finally, in the positions closest to the four Evangelists, the popular couplet Andrew confronted by James on the other side.

       The textual sources, unfortunately, are of little help in our dilemma. In Father Ch'rakian's publication of the various Apocryphal Armenian Acts,³⁶ there are five major lists of Apostles. Leloir in his two volume translation and commentary of these Armenian works,³⁷ provides an abundance of material on the Armenian tradition, which, regrettably, fails to resolve our problem, perhaps because these lists are based on the Gospel texts themselves -- the historical College of Apostles -- and are little concerned with liturgical or popular tradition. Thus, Mark and Luke only appear in one of the five lists, and there only as the last two of seventeen Apostles.

       Even more discouraging, as appealing as the proposed resolution is of who's who among Armenian Apostles with the addition of Thaddeus and the loss of Simon, it is partially defied by the art itself. The second Pentecost executed by T'oros Roslin, in the Matenadaran manuscript of five or six years later, not only reverses the positions of the Apostles on the left with those on the right and portrays John as the actual youth he was at the time of Pentecost, it also shows our supposed Thaddeus with a beard, placing his identification in doubt, for if there is no beardless youth in this miniature to match his type in early Byzantine art, as in the icon from the tenth century, neither is there an older face resembling the Thaddeus of the somewhat later Skevra reliquary. Yet another Cilician manuscript, the Queen Keran Gospels, by an anonymous artist of 1272, changes the features and hair of the figure we tried to call James, and offers a heavily bearded Thaddeus, more closely resembling the reliquary, except for age, and a Bartholomew who looks like our earlier James.³⁸ Could Simon have replaced Thaddeus?

       The miniatures discussed in this article are the most exacting miniatures of the Apostles in Armenian book painting. The two pre-Roslin, Cilician versions of Pentecost, though artistically less satisfying, are worthy of examination, even though they do not much clarify the disorder. One is from another Cilician manuscript executed in Mamistra and dated 1223.³⁹ Peter is flanked by John. But unsymmetrically, Paul has next to him Matthew, Mark, and Luke pushing Andrew a level lower. The two youths, Thomas and Philip, are where they belong at either end, leaving us three figures on the right, the older one possibly Thaddeus, but also maybe the Lesser James, usually depicted as aged. The second work, the earliest Armenian Pentecost and one of the oldest miniatures with identifiable Apostles,⁴⁰ is from the Mugna Gospels executed in the Ani area in the second half of the eleventh century, a work with strong classicizing features.⁴¹ Andrew is on Peter's side, John is young, and there are four youthful figures at the ends, three without beards like in the Roslin miniature of 1262.

       The specific identity of the problematic group of three which includes James, becomes, then, a sort of puzzle. With time and patience and an examination of further comparative material, more specificity may be achieved in resolving the ultimate identity of all twelve Apostles in the Armenian artistic tradition.

       On the other hand we may never be able to escape the complexity, perhaps confusion, of the problem to hand. An important contemporary work to the Cilician miniatures used in the above discussion is the silver binding dated 1254 on a Cilician Gospel of 1248 preserved at the Armenian Catholicossate in Antelias.⁴² On the lower cover around the central scene of the Crucifixion are twelve Apostles, the four Evangelists full-figure in the corners, and eight busts in four pairs of roundels: above, Peter and Paul, to the left, Bartholomew and Andrew, to the right, James and Simon, and below, Philip and Thomas. Notably absent from this plaque are Thaddeus and, as expected, the Lesser James, both included in the silver Skevra reliquary of 1293. Perhaps this should force us to rethink about the presence of Thaddeus in the contemporary Pentecost miniatures.

       From a later period, there are a number of artifacts with the Apostles represented on them. In a recent Sotheby's sale,⁴³ there was offered a fragmentary polyptych with the Virgin and Child and five of the Apostles -- Peter, James, John, Mark and Jude-Thaddeus -- with their names inscribed in Armenian characters. The work is attributed to the sixteenth century, but is probably of a later date. The inclusion of Thaddeus is to be remarked. He is, however, missing from a gilded metal Armenian ephod of 1704 in the Etchmiadzin collection,⁴⁴ with from left to right in confused order due to a later reassemblage: Andrew, Thomas, James, Paul, John, Matthew, Christ, Luke, Mark, Peter, Simon, Philip, and Bartholomew. An embroidered stole of 1730, also from Etchmiadzin,⁴⁵ places the following Apostles in pairs: Peter and Paul at the very top, the Lesser James and Thaddeus, John and Thomas, Simon and Matthew, Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew and Thaddeus, wrongly identified as James-Jude. The inclusion of Thaddeus and the absence of Mark and Luke suggests a different, "historical," inspiration than the ephod.

       For the moment, no real conclusion can be drawn from the available evidence unless it be that outside of a narrow group of miniatures of the thirteenth century, primarily of Pentecost, Armenian artists did not provide discretely identifiable portraits for each of the Twelve Apostles, whomever they intended the dozen to be. In this they were no different than the average artist working in other Christian traditions. What is surprising, however, is the apparent lack of consensus within the Armenian tradition on the Twelve which were to be represented. This may be due in part to the imprecise distinction between an historical College of Apostles based on the synoptic Gospels and the liturgical College, and in part to the multiple influences of other artistic traditions that Armenians always seemed so eager to assimilate. The using of a Byzantine model would militate for the inclusion of the four Evangelists, a Latin or European source would have excluded Mark and Luke to the benefit of the outcast Apostles of Byzantium, the Lesser James and, for Armenians, the all important Thaddeus. If the problem of the Apostles identity is worth pursuing further, a closer examination of Armenian liturgical texts and commentaries would seem the most likely approach to resolve the artistic uncertainty.

¹ This article is based on a fully illustrated communication of the same title given in October 1990 at the 5th Biennial Conference of the Association Internationale des Études Arméniennes, Bologna, Italy. The article has been greatly modified.

² In the east apse, six of an original twelve Apostles are still visible, of these five are clearly identifiable: Paul, Andrew, Philip to the right of the central window and Peter, James, and Matthew to the left. They are all bearing Gospels against their breasts and all are breaded, including Philip, about whom see the discussion below. Illustrations in Step'an Mnats'akanian, Aghtamar, trans. K. Maksoudian, n.p.: Edition Erebouni, 1986, frescoes, pls. 2 and 7 respectively; see also J.-M. Thierry and P. Donabédian, Les arts arméniens, Paris, 1987, and S. Der Nersessian, Aght'amar. Church of the Holy Cross, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Mass., 1965.

³ The binding is on a Gospel of 1248 in the collection of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia in Antelias, Lebanon; S. Der Nersessian, "Le reliquaire de Skévra et l'orfèvrerie cilicienne aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles," Études byzantines et arméniennes, Louvain, 1973, pp. 705-720, originally published in REArm, N.S. I (1964), pp. 121-147, where other bibliography is given. One can add the new Catalogue of Armenian Manuscripts of the Cilician See for a color photo and description, as well as Sylvia Agemian, Manuscrits arméniens enluminés du catholicossat de Cilicie, Antelias, 1991.

⁴ It contains the relics of St. Thaddeus and is now in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad. See S. Der Nersessian, op. cit. in the previous note, for a complete discussion and illustrations.

⁵ I have discussed the Gospel cycle in earlier papers: "The Iconography of Pentecost and the Narrative Cycle of Armenian and Byzantine Gospel Illuminations," symposium entitled: Les relations arméno-byzantines à travers l'art et l'histoire, Centre de recherches historiques et juridiques de l'Université de Paris I, janvier 1988; "The Feast Cycle in Armenian Gospel Illumination," Byzantine Studies Conference, Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, November 1988, and "The Evolution of Armenian Gospel Illumination: The Formative Period (9th-11th Centuries)," International Symposium on the Armenian Bible, University of Heidelberg, July 1990, Christoph Burchard, editor, Armenia and the Bible, Altlanta: Scholars Press, 1993, pp. 84-100.

⁶ In several of these episodes, i.e. Raising of Lazarus, Entry into Jerusalem, Betrayal, Apparition, painters use a schematic approach seldom conducive to individualization with the Apostles simply bunched together.

⁷ The election of Matthias in Judas's place is also discussed in Acts. The Syriac Rabbula Gospels of 586 contains a rare miniature of the election of Matthias, Florence, Laur. Lib., MS Plat. I, 56, illustrated in C. Cecchelli, G. Furlani, M. Salmi, Evangeliarii syriaci, vulgo Rabbulae, in Bibliotheca Medicae-Laurentiae, Oltun and Lausanne, 1959. Otherwise, he is rarely depicted in East Christian art.

⁸ In I Corinthians 9:1, "Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord?"

⁹ Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, MS 539, fol. 379; Der Nersessian, Armenian Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1973, fig. 131; D. Kouymjian, "The Problem of the Zoomorphic Figure in the Iconography of Armenian Pentecost: A Preliminary Report," Atti del Primo Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena - 1975, Venice: San Lazzaro, 1978, pp. 403-413, fig. 7.

¹⁰ Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, MS 1924, fol. 6v, from Shukhr Khandarla near Melitene/Malatia; D. Kouymjian, "Problem," fig. 2; idem, Index of Armenian Art, fasc. II, Illuminated Armenian Manuscripts of the 11th Century: Preliminary Report and Checklist, Fresno, 1979, cover illustration, also Bezalel Narkiss with Michael Stone and Avedis Sanjian, Armenian Art Treasures of Jerusalem, New Rochelle: Caratzas, 1979, fig. 55.

¹¹ Erevan, Matenadaran, MS 2744, fol. 7, by Simeon of Arces, L. Dournovo and R. Drampian, Miniatures arméniennes, Erevan, 1969, pl. 57.

¹² The oldest surviving illustrated Armenian manuscript, Venice, Mekhitarists Library, MS 1144/86, fol. 4; Mesrob Janashian, Armenian Miniature Paintings of the Monastic Library of San Lazzaro, vol. I, Venice, 1966, fig. 00. The only earlier Armenian miniatures are the four scenes -- none with Apostles -- from circa 600 preserved in the two folio fragment called the final miniatures of the Etchmiadzin Gospels, Erevan, Matenadaran, MS 2374, see D. Kouymjian, Index of Armenian Art, fasc. I, Illuminated Armenian Manuscripts to the Year 1000 A.D. , Fresno-Paris, 1977, nos. 1 and 2.

¹³ Erevan, Matenadaran, MS 7736, fol. 21; Kouymjian, "Problem," fig. 1.

¹⁴ Istanbul, Galata, MS 35, fol. 253v; Kouymjian, "Problem," fig. 3.

¹⁵ New Julfa, MS 36, fol. 12v; S. Der Nersessian and Arpag Mekhitarian, Miniatures arméniennes d'Ispahan, Brussels-Antelias, 1986, fig. 41.

¹⁶ Erevan, Matenadaran, MS 10675, formerly Jerusalem MS 3627, fol. 312.

¹⁷ Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, MS 2563, fol. 349; Kouymjian, "Problem," fig. 8.

¹⁸ See for instance the Glajor Gospel of T'oros of Tarôn at UCLA, MS 1, p. 538, Thomas F. Mathews and Avedis K. Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography, The Tradition of the Glajor Gospel, Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1991, fig. 538.

¹⁹ Kouymjian, "Problem," op. cit., and idem, "The Iconography of Armenian Pentecost," Hagop Kevorkian Lectureship in Near Eastern Art and Civilization, New York University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 1979.

²⁰ G. de Jerphanion believes the constitution of the "artistic college" in Byzantium goes back as early as the fourth century, "Quels sont les douze apôtres dans l'iconographie chrétienne," La Voix des Monuments, Paris, 1930, pp. 193-196.

²¹ Venice, Mekhitarist Congregation, MS 1400, fol. 000; Janashian, Armenian Miniature Paintings, pl. 00.

²² The oldest Armenian miniature of the Crucifixion is from an anonymous tenth century Gospel, Vienna, Mekhitarist Congregation, MS 697, fol. 8; Heide and Helmut Buschhausen, Die Illuminierten armenischen Handschriften der Mechitharisten-Congregation in Wien, Vienna, 1976, fig. 15; Kouymjian, Index of Armenian Art, I, fig. 99. The youthful John remains constant in Crucifixion scenes.

²³ Already in the earliest surviving Armenian portraits of Mark and Luke in the Mlk'é Gospels of 862, they are shown with these characteristics, Venice, Mekhitarist Congregation, MS 1144/86, fols. 4 (Mark) and 5v (Luke); Janashian, Armenian Miniature Paintings, pls. 00 and 00; Kouymjian, Index of Armenian Art, I, figs. 13 and 14.

²⁴ K. Weitzmann, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Medieval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, vol. III, Ivories and Steatites, Washington, 1972, p. 71, discussion refers to a late tenth century plaque from Constantinople representing the Koimesis or Dormition of the Virgin.

²⁵ The most famous example is the monumental mosaic of Pentecost in the west dome of San Marco in Venice dating from the early twelfth century, Otto. Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, 4 vols, Chicago, 1984, vol. I/1, pp. 148-159, vol. I/2, pl. 4. Other examples are a tenth century casket in the Dumbarton Oaks collection, Weitzmann, Ivories, no. 30, as well as a companion piece in the Museo Nazionale in Florence.

²⁶ Erevan, Matenadaran, MS 10675, formerly Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, MS 3627, fol. 333, illustrated in S. Der Nersessian, Armenian Manuscripts in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, 1963, fig. 363, and in color in Armenian Miniatures of the 13th and 14th centuries, Leningrad, 1984, fig. 102.

²⁷ The two types are clearly discussed by Louis Réau in Iconographie de l'art chrétien, vol. II, part II, Nouveau Testament, Paris, 1957, "L'Apparition à Saint Thomas," pp. 568-570.

²⁸ Washington, D.C. Freer Gallery of Art, MS 32.18, p. 535, S. Der Nersessian, Armenian Manuscripts in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, 1963, fig. 165 Thomas has more hair and is differently dressed than in the Erevan miniature; there are also seven figures on the right, only three shown with their heads, and seven or eight on the left, though only four or five heads are shown. This anomaly of fourteen or fifteen Apostles instead of the correct eleven (Matthias had not yet been elected) in the Matenadaran miniature must be explained by artistic convention.

²⁹ For instance at San Marco, Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco, vol. I/2, pl. 4. They are always together, always beardless, always at the end of the file in the Ascension and Pentecost scenes, Demus, vol. I/1, pp. 177-8.

³⁰ As in a tenth century icon preserved at the Monastery of St. Catherine's in Sinai, he is shown of medium darkness, with bobbed hair, K. Weitzmann, M. Chatzidakis, K. Miatev, S. Radojcic, Icons from South Eastern Europe and Sinai, London, 1968, fig. 11. Thaddeus is left out of the San Marco Pentecost mosaic of the early twelfth century, but included in the mosaic of the Ascension (later twelfth century) in the central dome where he is beardless and placed between Simon and Andrew; Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco, vol. I/2, figs. 257 and 269. He is represented again beardless in the scene of his martyrdom in the south aisle, Demus, idem, fig. 362.

³¹ Der Nersessian, "Le reliquaire de Skévra," op. cit. , fig. 4; Thierry and Donabedian, Les arts arméniens, fig. 177. He is depicted a second time on the reliquary along with the other Apostles; since I have not had access to any photos of this object's sides where the Apostles are positioned, I cannot say if he was shown again with a beard; Der Nersessian, ibid., p. 127.

³² Louis Leloir, Écrits apocryphes sur les apôtres, vol. I, Turnhout, 1986, vol. II in press. I would like to thank Dom Leloir for kindly sending me large sections of volume II in page proofs for use in the earlier communication and this article.

³³ Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco, vol. I/1, pp. 177-8.

³⁴ Jerphanion, "Quels sont les douze Apôtres?" pp. 198-200.

³⁵ Kurt Weitzmann, "Four Icons on Mount Sinai: New Aspects in Crusader Art," Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik, vol. 21 (1972), reprinted in idem, Studies in the Arts of Sinai, Princeton, 1982, pp. 387-408, see p. 381 and fig. 1. For a further discussion of Armenian preferences among the Apostles, see Der Nersessian, "Le reliquaire de Skévra," REArm, op. cit., pp. 128-9.

³⁶ K'. Ch'rakian, Ankanon girk' arak'elakank', Venice, 1904.

³⁷ Leloir, Écrits apocryphes sur les apôtres, op. cit.

³⁸ Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, MS 2563, fol. 349; Narkiss, Armenian Art Treasures of Jerusalem, op. cit., fig. 78; Kouymjian, "Problems,", fig. 8.

³⁹ Istanbul, Galata, MS 35, fol. 253v, Kouymjian, "Problems," fig. 3.

⁴⁰ Erevan, Matenadaran, MS 7736, fol. 21. It is a classicizing work contemporary with the non-classicizing Jerusalem Gospels of 1064. As mentioned earlier the Apostles in the Ascension of the Mlk'é Gospels are decoratively rendered. Those depicted in surviving scenes from the eleventh century King Gagik of Kars Gospels, Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, MS 2556, from 1045-1054, do not help expand the arena of identification, nor does the Gospels of 1236 in the New Julfa collection already mentioned. For the Gospel of king Gagik of Kars, see now Mathews and Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography, op. cit. , in which most surviving scenes are illustrated.

⁴¹ I have discussed elsewhere the dependence of the architectural backgrounds in the various miniatures of this codex to Byzantine works of a strongly classicizing bent, Kouymjian, "The Scaenae Frons in Armenian Art: The Classical Tradition in the East," Byzantium and the Classical Tradition, Birmingham, England, 1981, pp. 155-171, and "The Classical Tradition in Armenian Art," Revue des Études Arméniennes, vol. XV (1981), pp. 331-356.

⁴² Der Nersessian, "Reliquaire de Skévra," p. 134

⁴³ Islamic Art, 10-11 October 1990, item no. 210.

⁴⁴ Treasures of Etchmiadzin, Etchmiadzin, 1984., see the preface by Sirarpie Der Nersessian.

⁴⁵ Der Nersessian, ibid.