Page 84 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

HEALING AT EDESSA 71
for him the sympathy of an important group of his subjects; at the same time
it strengthened his position through the respect for authority and order,
which was an inherent quality of the Christian community.

When this has been said, however, an explanation is still required for the
choice of Edessa as the scene of the Christian acts of healing which are a
central feature of the Abgar-Addai story.1 Disease was the source of con-
stant anxiety in the ancient Near East, the ability to cure disease was a
divine gift. From the very inception of the Church, Christians were taught
to regard the care of the sick as work of prime importance, and the Syrian
Christians devoted much of their energies to medicine. Already in 410, if not
earlier, the churches and monasteries of eastern Mesopotamia had infir-
maries attached to them, and the same was true of western Mesopotamia. At
the hospital at Nisibis were facilities for the training of students as at the
famous Christian medical college of Beth Lapat.2 Physicians at the Persian
court were Christian, and Christians continued to hold this position at the
court of the Caliphs. In large degree, no doubt, the eminence of Mesopo-
tamian Christians in medicine derived from their role as the transmitters of
Greek civilization, and particularly of Greek science, to the East. Not only
Christian speakers of Syriac, but also the pagans of Harran and the vicinity
were celebrated for their knowledge of the natural sciences. At Edessa in the
second century Bardaisan took special interest in scientific matters. So too
did St. Ephraim; and medicine in particular is a favourite theme in his poetry.3
It is related that, towards the end of his life, he administered the works set up
by Edessans for the relief of the poor and sick.4 A leper hospital was estab-
lished by Bishop Nona near the Gate of Beth Shemesh in the middle of the
fifth century. Indeed, the attention lavished by the people of Edessa on their
less fortunate fellow-citizens attracted villagers to the city; during a plague
even the Byzantine soldiery maintained an infirmary for the sick and dying.
So highly were physicians accounted that one of their number was entrusted
by Byzantium with the mission of persuading Khusraw to spare Edessa in
544-5
There was good reason for the preoccupation of Edessans with healing.
We have observed the significant role of running water at the pagan shrines

1 The Syriac Doc. Add. lays stress on the The latter set up hospices for the poor. One is
powers of Jesus as healer. There he is the described by Gregory of Nazianzus as a vast
'good physician', while in the Greek version of edifice with rooms for the sick, a hospital, and
the story of Addai, in Eusebius, he is the'good a sanatorium; it was intended, like those of
Saviour', p. 62 above. Edessa, principally for lepers and for travellers
2 Weh-Andyok Shahpuhr, later Gunde- who sought asylum. Other places, notably
Shahpuhr. Ephesus, Daphnae near Antioch, and cities in
3 Notably in his 'Carmina Nisibena'. Egypt, had similar institutions, mostly with
4 It may be significant that legend recounts resident physicians and cooks,
a visit by St. Ephraim to St. Basil of Caesarea. 5 See pp. 138, 148 below.

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