According to the traditional account recorded in the Armenian history attributed to
Agathangelos, Hripsime was a woman of noble origin who was one of a group of Christian virgins who led a monastic life in Rome, led by their
mother superior Gayane. Fleeing the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor
Diocletian (), they come to Armenia and settle near the capital of
Vagharshapat. According to the medieval historian
Stepanos Orbelian, the relics of Hripsime were in the possession of the Armenian catholicoi until 1292, when the Mamluks took them to Egypt after the capture of
Hromkla, then the seat of the catholicos. In
Nicholas Adontz's opinion, the martyrology of Hripsime and Gayane (who may have been historical figures) originally existed as a separate story which was later combined with the story of Tiridates and Gregory and the conversion of Armenia. Adontz notes the story of Diocletian's wife
Prisca and daughter
Galeria Valeria as a possible historical basis; Prisca and Valeria supposedly converted to Christianity and were exiled to Mesopotamia by Emperor
Maximinus Daza after Valeria refused to marry him. The name
Hripsime is derived in Agathangelos from the Greek word 'to throw', which can refer to the exposure of children, although there is no indication in Agathangelos that Hripsime was a foundling. Nerses Akinian hypothesizes that Hripsime was a slave girl based on an unattested meaning of as 'to imprison'.
Robert W. Thomson rejects the connection between
Hripsime and as a
folk etymology. ==Veneration==