Anania Shirakatsi (, , anglicized: Ananias of Shirak) was a 7th-century Armenian polymath and natural philosopher, author of extant works covering mathematics, astronomy, geography, chronology, and other fields. Little is known for certain of his life outside of his own writings, but he is considered the father of the exact and natural sciences in Armenia—the first Armenian mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer.
A part of the Armenian Hellenizing School and one of the few secular scholars in medieval Armenia, Anania was educated primarily by Tychicus, in Trebizond. He composed science textbooks and the first known geographic work in classical Armenian (Ashkharhatsuyts), which provides detailed information about Greater Armenia, Persia and the Caucasus (Georgia and Caucasian Albania).
In mathematics, his accomplishments include the earliest known table of results of the four basic operations, the earliest known collection of recreational math puzzles and problems, and the earliest book of math problems in Armenian. He also devised a system of mathematical notation based on the Armenian alphabet, although he was the only writer known to have used it.
Name His name is usually anglicized as Ananias of Shirak ().; ; Anania is the Armenian variant of the biblical name Ananias, itself the Greek version of the Hebrew Hananiah. The second part of his name denotes his place of origin, the region of Shirak, though it may have become a sort of surname. In some manuscripts, he is called Shirakuni () and Shirakavants’i ().; ; ;
Life
Background Anania Shirakatsi lived in the 7th century.; ; ; The dates of his birth and death have not been definitively established. Robert H. Hewsen noted in 1968 that Anania is widely believed to have been born between 595 and 600; a quarter-century later he settled on c. 610 as a birthdate and 685 as the year he died. Agop Jack Hacikyan et al. place his birth in early 600s but agree on 685. Sen Arevshatyan, James R. Russell, Edward G. Mathews, and Theo van Lint also concur with 610–685, while Greenwood suggests c. 600–670. Vardanyan places his death in the early 690s.
Anania is the only classical Armenian scholar to have written an autobiography. It is a brief text, characterized as "somewhat self-congratulatory" and "more a statement of academic pedigree" than autobiography. It was probably written as the preface to one of his scholarly works, possibly the K’nnikon. He was the son of Yovhannes and was born in the village of Anania/Aneank’ () or in the town of Shirakavan (Yerazgavors),; ; in the canton of Shirak, in the central Armenian province of Ayrarat.; ; ; Aneank' may be connected to the later city of Ani, the Bagratid Armenian capital.; ;
Anania probably came from a noble family. Since his name is sometimes spelled as Shirakuni (), Hewsen argued that he may have belonged to the house of the Kamsarakan or Arsharuni princes of Shirak and Arsharunik’, respectively. Greenwood suggests that it is more likely that Anania came from the lesser nobility in Shirak, who served the house of Kamsarakan. Broutian describes his father as a "minor Armenian nobleman." Vardanyan believes he either came from the Kamsarakan family or that they were his patrons.
Anania is traditionally thought to have been buried in the village of Anavank’; however, the tradition probably originated from the name of the village.
Education Anania received his early education at the local Armenian schools, possibly at Dprevank’ monastery, where he studied sacred texts and earlier Armenian authors. Due to the lack of teachers and books in Armenia, he decided to travel to the Byzantine Empire to study mathematics. After first traveling to Theodosiopolis, then to the Byzantine-controlled province of Fourth Armenia (probably Martyropolis), where he studied under the mathematician Christosatur for six months. He then left to find a better teacher and learned about Tychicus, who was based at the monastery (or martyrium) of Saint Eugenios in Trebizond. Redgate dated this to the 620s.
Anania devoted a significant part of his autobiography to Tychicus (born c. 560), with whom he spent eight years in the 620s or 630s.; ; Tychicus had studied the Armenian language and its literature while serving in the Byzantine army in Armenia. Wounded by the Persians, he retired from the military and later studied in Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople. Tychicus later returned to his native Trebizond, where he established a school c. 615. Tychicus taught many students from Constantinople (including from the imperial court) and was renowned among Byzantine kings. He provided Anania special attention and taught him what Anania called a "perfect knowledge of mathematics". In Tychicus's vast library, Anania found "everything, exoteric and esoteric", including sacred and secular Greek authors, including works on the sciences, medicine, chronology, and history.; ; Russell believed his library may have included Pythagorean and alchemical books. Anania considered Tychicus to have been "predestined by God for the introduction of science into Armenia."
Educator and scientist
Anania himself established a school in Armenia upon his return. That school, the first in Armenia to teach quadrivium, is presumed to have been located in his native Shirak. He was disappointed with the laziness of his students and their departure after learning the basics. Anania complained about Armenians' lack of interest in mathematics, writing that they "love neither learning, nor knowledge." Nicholas Adontz considered it an exaggeration, "if not an absolute slander, to deny the Armenian innate love of investigation." The 12th-century chronicler Samuel of Ani listed five of Shirakatsi's students, who are otherwise unknown. Anania financed his research in several fields with the money he earned teaching.
Relationship with the church Thomson wrote that as a lay scholar, Anania was a "rarity in early Armenia." Hewsen termed him the only lay classical Armenian author besides Grigor Magistros, adding that he had a close relationship with the Armenian Church. Hacikyan et al. describe Anania as a "devout Christian and well versed in the Bible" who "made some attempts to reconcile science and Scripture." In his later years, Anania may have been a monk in the Armenian Church. This is based on his religious discourses and attempts to date the feasts of the church. John A. C. Greppin doubts that Anania was ever in any religious order. Several scholars consider him a church ideologist akin to Cosmas Indicopleustes, whom he actually criticized.
Hewsen noted that some of Anania's "more revolutionary ideas" were suppressed by the Armenian Church after his death. Greppin suggested that Anania, a largely secular author, had fallen into a "bad clerical odor." S. Peter Cowe disagreed with Ashot G. Abrahamian's hypothesis that his name was "censored in the Middle Ages because of ecclesiastical disapproval" and argued that it is "more applicable to Soviet practice than that of the relatively tolerant Armenian and other eastern churches." Soviet historians represented him as a founder of irreligious and anti-clerical thought in Armenia, who pioneered double-truth theory. Vazgen Chaloyan called him a "progressive representative of the feudal period of Armenian science." Gevorg Khrlopian went as far as to argue that Anania was an enemy of the Armenian Church and fought against its obscurantism. Hewsen opposed this view, suggesting that, instead, he was an "independent thinker of sorts."
Philosophy
Anania is considered by modern scholars to be a representative of the Hellenizing School since many of his works were based on classical Greek sources. He was the first Armenian scholar to have "imported a set of scientific notions, and examples of their applications, from the Greek-speaking schools" into Armenia. He was well versed in Greek literature, and the influence of Greek syntax is evident in his works. Anania was also knowledgeable about native Armenian and Iranian cultural traditions; several of his works provide important information on late Sassanian Iran.
James R. Russell describes him as an alchemist and a Pythagorean who "does not usually rely on mythology to explain natural phenomena." Anania accepted the importance of experience, observation, rational practice and theory, and was influenced by the ideas of the 5th-century Neoplatonist philosopher Davit Anhaght (the Invincible), and Greek philosophers Thales of Miletus, Hippocrates, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno of Citium, Epicurus, Ptolemy, Pappus of Alexandria, and Cosmas Indicopleustes. Aristotle's On the Heavens had a significant influence on Anania's thought. According to Gevorg Khrlopian, Anania was heavily influenced by Yeghishe's An Interpretation of Creation, the anonymous Interpretation of the Categories of Aristotle, and the works of Davit Anhaght, who had established Neoplatonism in Armenian thought. Anania was also the first Armenian scholar to quote Philo of Alexandria by name.
Anania was the last known lay scholar in Christian Armenia until Grigor Magistros Pahlavuni in the 11th century. He advocated rationalism in studying nature and attacked superstitious beliefs and astrology as the "babblings of the foolish." He adopted the classical theory of four elements, which considered all matter to be composed of four elements: fire, air, water, and earth. He believed that while God directly created these elements, He did not interfere with the "natural course of the development of things." He asserted that the creation, existence, and decay of natural bodies and phenomena occurred through the union of these elements—without the interference of God. Both living and non-living matter came into existence from a synthesis of the four elements.
Anania accepted that the Earth is round, describing it as "like an egg with a spherical yolk (the globe) surrounded by a layer of white (the atmosphere) and covered with a hard shell (the sky)." He accurately explained solar and lunar eclipses, the phases of the Moon, and the structure of the Milky Way, describing the latter as a "mass of dense but faintly luminous stars." Anania also correctly attributed tides to the influence of the Moon. He described the topmost sphere as the aether (), the source of light and heat (through the Sun).
Works Anania was a polymath and natural philosopher.; ; About 40 works in various disciplines have been attributed to Anania, but only half are extant. They include studies and translations in mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, geography, chronology, and meteorology. Many of his works are believed to have been part of the K’nnikon (, from "canon", Greek: Kanonikon), completed circa 666, and used as the standard science textbook in medieval Armenia. Artashes Matevosyan termed it the first secular Armenian science textbook, while Valentina Calzolari described it as a "monumental encyclopedic work." Greenwood argued that the K’nnikon was a "fluid compilation, whose contents fluctuated over time, reflecting the interests and resources of different teachers and practitioners."
Modern scholars have praised Anania's writing as concise, simple, and to the point, retaining the reader's attention and citing examples to illustrate his point.
Mathematical
Anania was primarily devoted to mathematics, which he considered the "mother of all knowledge." His mathematical books were used as textbooks in Armenia.
Of Anania's several mathematical works, the most important is the book of arithmetic (Hamaroghut’iun, ; or T’vabanut’iun, ), a comprehensive collection of tables on the four basic operations. It is the earliest extant known work of its kind. The operations reach up to a total of 80 million, which is the highest number. A possible theoretical part is believed lost.