Page 78 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

THE LEGEND OF ABGAR AND ADDAI 65

important monarch at this early period would not have been ignored by Chris-
tian writers for close on 300 years. Secondly, Edessa was, from, at any rate,
the third century, under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Antioch, but her
Christian community is unlikely to have accepted this subordinate role had
her ruler and the majority of her citizens adopted Christianity shortly after
the crucifixion.1
The account of the correspondence between Abgar and Jesus and the rest
of the Abgar episode arose, it is clear from Eusebius, in the Syriac-speaking
region east of the Euphrates. How far does it represent the probable course
of events ? In particular, did Edessa receive Christianity from Palestine in the
south-west, or from the East ?
At the beginning of the Christian era Edessa lay in the Parthian, not the
Roman, sphere of interest, and its people spoke Syriac not Greek. St. Thomas,
it may be assumed, is introduced into the Abgar narratives because it was to
him that Jesus declared,'... Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have
believed',2 and this feature is central to the story of Abgar. But it is Parthia
and the region to the east of Parthia of which Thomas was the evangelist; and
nowhere in the earlier versions of the proselytization of Edessa is it claimed
that St. Thomas himself came to the city.
Now it seems likely that there were three stages in the evolution of the
identity of the evangelist to whom is ascribed the conversion of Edessa to
Christianity. The Addai whom Syriac-speaking Edessans regarded as their
Apostle may well have been an historical personage. A missionary of this
name is held—and there is no reason to gainsay the view that this account has
a basis of fact—to have brought Christianity to Adiabene at the end of the
first, or early in the second, century.3 He may have introduced it to Edessa.
Relations between Edessa and Adiabene were of the closest. Nor should we
overlook the important bond of language, for Syriac was the speech of both
Adiabene and Edessa.
Addai, however, was unknown to the Greek church. His identification with
Thaddaeus, one of the Twelve Apostles—though Eusebius, perhaps by way
of compromise, calls him one of the Seventy—was easy enough. The

1 In the translation from Greek into Syriac doubtful; see Peeters, Anal. Boll, xliii, 1925,
of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, St. 261 ff. and most recently J.-M. Fiey, L'Orient
John is said to have declared, 'Let the nations syrien xii, 1967, 265 ff.). Sozomen attributes to
of the earth hear that the city of Ephesus was Edessans and Armenians the introduction of
the first to receive thy Gospel before all cities Christianity to Persia. Late narratives purport-
and became a second sister to Edessa of the ing to relate the conversion to Christianity of
Parthians' (cf. p. 31). This claim for the Nisibis and the territories of the East by Mari
priority of Edessa cannot, however, be older and other disciples of Addai (for example, the
than the fourth century. 2 John 20 : 29. Acts of Saint Mart) are a farrago of legend. East
3 The legend is widely held in the Eastern Syrian writers generally regard Addai as the
Church. It is repeated in the chronicle attri- founder of the Church of eastern Mesopotamia;
buted to Meshihazekha, written perhaps in he is said to have been the disciple of a certain
550-69 (but the authenticity of this work is Mari.
8215452 F

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