The oldest existing fragments of the incomplete manuscript are in the 643-page
Vitae Sanctorum manuscript (Arm. 178, folios 467-472) dated to the 12th century, which are kept in Paris's
Bibliothèque nationale and were copied by the scribe Poghos. Two shorter versions are dated the middle of the 14th century and are in the
Matenadaran (M 3787 and M 3797) and one longer version is dated the late 17th century. All earlier writers called the inventor of the Armenian alphabet Mashtots' and the name Mesrop is not found in other authors until the 8th century. Modern writers call him
Mesrop Maštocʿ but he is known by two separate names
Mesrop and
Maštocʿ and a widely held view is that his true name was
Maštocʿ and the name
Mesrop was invented 300 years after his death. It is argued that
Mesrop was his true name and
Maštocʿ was a surname given to him because of the order of hermits which he instituted. According to the available texts of Koriun and Lazar Parpetsi his name was
Maštocʿ sometimes written variously as
Maštʿocʿ,
Maštocʿ or
Maždocʿ and Movses Khorenatsi referred to him both as
Maštocʿ and
Mesrop sometimes written variously as
Mastrovb,
Mesrob,
Mesrovb or
Masrovp. The title
Life of Mashtots (
Varkʿ Mashtotsʿi) is a hypothetical original while the title
Life of Mesrop (
Varkʿ Mesropi) is found in all of the manuscripts. All of Koriun's manuscripts have
Mesrop in the title and not
Mashtots and oldest manuscript fragment of Lazar Parpetsi's
History of the Armenians (10-12th century) calls him
Mesrop throughout.
Maštocʿ in the titles are the editors's emendations, all of the manuscripts have
Mesrop. == References ==