The narrative comes from Agathangelos, a history written in Armenian in the fifth century and presented as the work of the king's own secretary, whose account is the foundation text of the national story. Gregory, son of a Parthian nobleman who had murdered Tiridates's father, entered the king's service without disclosing his parentage or his Christianity. When he refused to lay a wreath before a statue of the goddess Anahit, he was tortured and thrown into a pit at Artashat used for the disposal of condemned men, and Agathangelos says a widow kept him alive there with bread for thirteen years.
The second thread of the story concerns a company of Christian women who had fled the Roman empire, led by Gayane, among whom was Hripsime. Tiridates wanted Hripsime for himself, she refused, and he had the whole company killed. What follows is the hinge of the account: the king fell into a violent derangement that the text describes in the imagery of a boar, roaming and unable to govern, and his household could not cure him. His sister, guided by a dream, told them to bring up the man in the pit.
Gregory came out, buried the martyrs, taught the court, and healed the king, who was baptized with his household and his army in the river Aratsani. Whatever a historian makes of the miraculous frame, the shape of the account is politically legible: a monarchy that had persecuted Christians reversed itself completely, adopted the religion as the kingdom's own, and made a converted noble house hereditary custodian of the church, since the office of catholicos remained in Gregory's family for generations.