Page 95 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

8z THE BLESSING OF JESUS AND THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY

In the popular mind, a rapid advance in the diffusion of Christianity was
to be attributed to the sufferings of Christian martyrs and their emulation by
their co-religionists. Among the martyrologies ascribed to Edessa are those
of Sharbil, Babai, and Barsamya.
Sharbil was, we are told, 'chief and commander of the pagan priests' of
Edessa, and was converted to Christianity at a great pagan festival on 8 Nisan
in 416 Sel. (A.D. 104). In that year, a decree reached the city from the Em-
peror Trajan, insisting that sacrifices and libations to the gods be increased
throughout the empire and that those who refused to participate should be
tortured and put to death. Sharbil met his death at the hands of the Governor
after fearful threats and an exchange of somewhat wearisome harangues. As
Sharbil died his sister Babai caught his blood; and for this she too was
killed. Barsamya, bishop of the Christians, who had converted Sharbil, was
arrested on the following day, in spite of demonstrations by the public in his
favour, and imprisoned and tortured. But dispatches arrived unexpectedly
with an Imperial Edict of toleration for the Christians. Barsamya was
released amidst the plaudits of his flock.
The date attributed to these events is at fault; they should be assigned to
the persecution of 250-1 in the reign of Emperor Decius, rather than to that
of Trajan. Nevertheless, the account of the martyrdom of Sharbil and Babai,
and the threatened execution of Barsamya cannot be regarded as having
historical validity. It is true that the writer appears to display some knowledge
of the locality of Edessa, but in fact his narrative has drawn heavily on the
Doctrine of Added.1 Moreover, the miraculous intervention of the decree of
toleration which, like a deus ex machina, saved Barsamya at the last moment,
underlines the improbability of the story. Barsamya himself is not known to
us as a bishop of Edessa; he is one of the followers of Aggai, successor of
Addai, whose story is given in the Doctrine of Addai. The Acts of Sharbil,
Babai, and Barsamya were probably composed after the time of Ephraim of
Edessa (died 373), and after a Syriac Calendar of 411, in which Sharbil and
Barsamya are not mentioned, but possibly before Rabbula's time (died 435
or 436), and certainly before Jacob of Serug (died 52i).2
1 The names of leading citizens of Edessa, of the Sharbil 'martyrology' may have been in
the names of the heathen deities, and the Greek is indicated by the frequent translitera-
description of the robes of the High Priest echo tions of Greek terms into Syriac. Notable is the
passages in the Doc. Add., while sharrire and the use of the name 'Edessa' in the Syriac version
archives of Edessa were matters of common instead of the usual 'Orhay', even in the phrase
knowledge. There are only two references to 'Edessa of the Parthians'!
the topography of Edessa in the Sharbil story, 2 Another martyrology that has been asso-
and both are found elsewhere. 'The great altar ciated with Edessa is that of Isaac, Bishop of
in the middle of the town' is in the Doc. Add., Karkha, Shahpuhr, Bishop of Beth Nicator and
and the 'cemetery of the father of 'Abshelama three laymen. This, too, is apocryphal and of
the bishop' is a clumsy allusion to the 'ceme- little value; it may have been composed at
tery built by 'Abshelama son of Abgar' in the Edessa by the beginning of the sixth century.
martyrology of Habbib. That the original text

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