The Key of Truth is a fascinating book, written by a sect of Armenian Unitarian Christians in the 1700s. Originally under Muslim rule, this group of Christians migrated to Russian-controlled Armenia in the nineteenth century. Sadly, they faced investigation, persecution, fines, and probably exile at the hands of the Armenian Church authorities. Although lost to history, this group of twenty-five families lives on in their intriguing and bold surviving text–the Key of Truth. Translated into English by Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, this book testifies to a biblical unitarian community trying to survive in a hostile environment.
Here’s the original paper (available to read online or to download as a pdf) that accompanied this presentation. It delves into the proposal that the Key of Truth was actually a medieval Paulician document. I conclude that the arguments of Conybeare (19th c.) and Garsoïan (20th c.) fail to stand up to scrutiny, especially in light of the work of Hamilton (20th c.) and Ohanjanyan (21st c.).
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- Read the Key of Truth for yourself (Conybeare translation)
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Sean I am 22 minuters into 505. I have to agree with you completely. No adoptionist in that section you read. I heard the “born son” as soon as you started reading it.
This is fascinating stuff, and what this isolated group say might be you or Dale or Anthony Buzzard or Bill Schlegel making these statements. It might be me arguing the point on a YT comment thread. Nothing new under the sun.
Its sobering actually, the ignorance of the trinity believers’ position and lack of thinking logically. Perhaps a reflection of their fears. It shows me that if the church in general still had political clout then we too would be rounded up, beaten and killed, and may yet face persecution from the state. I guess our only short term advantage is that the mainstream churchianity might also share persecution from state in this growing pagan/secular society developing, allowing us to waken a few of them up before the dawn.
A point I heard Sean say about halfway through, among the things these people did not hold as essential, was marriage.
By That I assume they meant marriage as we know it in the west where a kind of collaboration between church and state exists, to the state about the need for property regulation, and church a legalism around sex.
This church/state collaboration being something that among evangelicals in my 40 years as a trinitarian in the past was held rigorously to by fellow church folk, to the point of exaggerating it to become a stumbling block, in producing some bad marriages among maturing church youth group members. I am not advocating polygamy or loose morals, but that the issue becomes a prudishness and something to sweep under the carpet in the religious church. Dunno why I am even saying this, but it jumped out at me.
Talking of this, and the lack of biblical support for tithing in church, was what severed my close ties, after a verbal beating, with my long standing AOG participation, and which in turn led me to think much further outside the box of what I now see as Churchianity.