Page 82 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

THE LEGEND OF ABGAR AND ADDAI 69
related by Addai, in the Syriac account of the proselytization of Edessa,
although there the queen has the name of Protonice, wife (it is supposed) of
Emperor Claudius.1 Josephus relates that Ezad of Adiabene left some of his
family as hostages with Claudius. But the emperor should rather be Tiberius,
who was alive at this time; in the histories of both Adiabene and Edessa the
intrusion of the name of Claudius seems to require a common explanation.2
The name of the Arab Abias, who opposed Ezad, may be echoed in the
odd title, 'patrician (Syriac, dbaya) of Edessa' which was given to the Arab
'rescued by the Hebrew [woman], Kuthbi'.3 And, finally, the reluctance of
Helena to countenance the circumcision of Ezad may be reflected in the
Edessan legend that Abgar prohibited cultic castration.4
The account, then, of Jewish activity at Spasinou Charax and Adiabene
has been converted into the story of Christian activity at Edessa. In Adiabene
Christianity spread rapidly and at an early date, if we may credit our sources.
Tatian, who had already composed the Syriac harmonized version of the
Diatessaron in the West, returned to 'Assyria' (that is, no doubt, Adiabene)
as a professing Christian in A.D. 172. The evangelist of both Edessa and
Adiabene is called Addai. In Adiabene, as at Edessa, Christian missionaries
appear to have relied on the friendship of the Jews. We have seen that at
Edessa there was an important Jewish community,5 while at least one text
indicates a tradition that the early Christian bishops of Adiabene carried
Jewish names.
It seems likely that Christianity, like both the most celebrated theo-
logians of Edessa in the first centuries, Bardaisan and St. Ephraim, originated
in the East. We would expect it to have been conveyed along the high road
through Nisibis.
Early evidence of Christianity at Nisibis is provided by the Greek grave
inscription of Abercius. He is almost certainly to be regarded as a Christian
of Hieropolis in Asia Minor who visited, in the latter half of the second
century, the communities of his co-religionists. In the inscription we read:
'I saw the Syrian plain, and all the cities—[even] Nisibis, having crossed the
Euphrates. Everywhere I found people with whom to speak'. Eusebius
refers to a synod in Osrhoene (in another document this is expanded to,
'Edessa and the region of Adiabene') and 'the cities there', which was con-
vened as early as about 197 to express its view on the date of Easter. The
account may be dismissed as spurious; but it need not be beyond credibility.
Bardaisan was an acknowledged Christian at Edessa in the second century;
and there was a church there in 201.
Nor, indeed, should we reject as wholly apocryphal the account of the

1 See pp. 77 f. below. 4 See p. 56 above.
2 See p. 73 below. 5 See p. 42 above.
3 See p. 43 above.

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