Page 81 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

68 THE BLESSING OF JESUS AND THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY

Aramaic was freely employed; indeed, both kingdoms had Aramaic legends
on their coinage after the destruction of Seleucia in A.D. 164.* The names of
some of the kings of Spasinou Charax indicate that they worshipped planets
(Nergal and Bel), as did the kings of Edessa.2 The name, too, of the daughter
of the king of Spasinou Charax was probably not Greek but Aramaic;
sumaqa means red, and may have been derived from the natural colouring of
the region.3 In fact, an Abgar of Edessa, who reigned apparently from 26-23
B.C., bore the nickname of sumaqa. Perhaps we should note that the Abgar of
the Syriac Addai-Abgar legend also received as his nickname a colour,
ukkama, black, which has some resemblance to sumaqa.
Spasinou Charax, in Semitic, Karkha deMaishan, was capital of the king-
dom of Mesene. At the period with which we are dealing, it was one of the
main ports to which ships brought the products of India and the Far East.
From Mesene the goods were transported up the Euphrates to Babylon, the
route taken by Apollonius of Tyana on his return from India in about A.D.
47; alternatively they were carried up the Tigris and thence to Adiabene in
the East, and to Nisibis and Edessa in the West. In the 'Hymn of the Soul'
of the Acts of Thomas, the prince declares, 'I quitted the East and went down.
... I passed through the borders of Maishan (Mesene), the meeting place of
the merchants of the East, and I reached the land of Babylonia.' The prince's
route on his return to the East was the same; he passed Babylon on the left
and came 'to the great Maishan, to the haven of merchants which sits on the
shore of the sea'.4 The 'Hymn of the Soul', probably composed originally in
Syriac, certainly antedates the main text of the Acts of Thomas and may go
back to the first century A.D.
The story of religious development in Adiabene and that of Edessa seems
to be almost inextricably interwoven. The Jewish merchant of Spasinou
Charax, Ananias, who converted Ezad, has the same name as Abgar's emis-
sary to Jesus, Ananias—in Syriac, Hannan. Merchants played a part also
in the proselytization of Edessa; Addai stayed at the house of the, presumably
Jewish, merchant, Tobias.5 And sympathizers to Christianity came, we are
told, to Edessa in the guise of merchants to witness the acts of Addai and then
to return home to spread the faith in 'their own country of the Assyrians',
that is, Adiabene.6 The piety of Queen Helena of Adiabene is also reflected
in the Edessan story. She came to be confused with Helena, the mother of
Constantine the Great, who found the Cross at Jerusalem. This event is

1 Aramaic lettering appears on coins of Charax is Muhammera, the red [place].
Spasinou Charax for the first time after 78-77 + There was also direct communication
B.C. ; but during the interval between that date between Mesene and Palmyra, as we know
and the fall of Seleucia most of the coinage has from Palmyrene inscriptions dated between
Greek legends. A.D. 8 and about 163, and another of 193.
2 Abinergaos (p. 67 above) and Attambelos. s See p. 63 above.
3 60-70 kilometres from the site of Spasinou 6 See p. 79 below.

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