Politika ve Teolojinin Kavşağında Bir Kilise Tarihi Kaynağı: Gerçeğin Anahtarı/A Church History Source at the Crossroads of Politics and Theology: The Key of Truth

Abstract

This paper questions the authenticity of one of the two main sources cited in scholarly research on the history of the Paulicians in early mediaeval Byzantine Asia Minor, The Key of Truth. It first addresses the issues raised in this source, then analyses the arguments of scholars for and against the authenticity of this text, subjecting the claims of both to a contextual archaeological reading. Finally, it shows how these scholars argued for the authenticity of this work in light of the political, theological, and philosophical events of their time and highlights an aspect that scholars interested in this topic have often ignored. The debates surrounding this text, which purports to be a source of church history, cannot be explained solely in terms of internal identity and doctrinal disagreements. It is argued here that the authors who consider The Key of Truth to be authentic were directly and naturally associated with nineteenth-century Armenian political ideals and, because of these ties, presented this work to ensure the existence and subsequent legitimacy of the Armenian Protestant Church, whose workers were Anglo-American Protestant missionaries and whose patron was the British Empire.

Keywords

• history of religions
• protestantism
• the paulicians
• the thondrakians
• adoptionism
• heretics