A Second Apostate?: Impious Pap in Christian History of Armenia

Abstract

The epithet apostate is one of the most striking terms among symbolic characters of late antiquity. It has been applied to only Iulianus and described his paganist practices. Yet, there is another character from the same era that modern literature has left in the dark. After just seven years of Iulianus’ death, Pap, the Armenian king, was labelled as impious by Armenian sources like the characterization of Iulianus by Roman Christians. Keeping these under consideration, this study aims to re-examine whether Pap could be named as a second apostate and to conclude that this was a unilateral glance.