Abgarus of Edessa: Encyclopedia - Abgarus of Edessa

Abgarus of Edessa

Abgar V or Abgarus V of Edessa (4 BC - AD 7 and AD 13 - 50) is a historical ruler of the kingdom of Osroene, holding his capital at Edessa. (Compare the Syrian region that was earlier called Aram-Naharaim in the Old Testament.)

Abgarus of Edessa - The legend of King Abgar

In Christian mythology the story of king Abgar of Edessa was an early tale of a wonder-working icon, set in the heart of the region where iconoclast tradition disapproved strongly of images in general and miraculous ones in particular, but which this icon-legitimizing legend connected directly with Jesus.

The legend tells that Abgar, king of Edessa, afflicted with an incurable sickness, has heard the fame of the power and miracles of Jesus and writes to him, acknowledging his divinity, craving his help and offering him asylum in his own residence; the tradition states that Jesus wrote a letter declining to go, promising, however, that after his ascension he would send one of his disciples, endowed with his power, namely Thaddeus (called Addaï), or one of the seventy-two Disciples, called Thaddeus of Edessa.

The 4th century church historian Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea records a tradition, in his Historia Ecclesiae, I, xii or xiii, ca AD 325, concerning a correspondence on this occasion, exchanged between Abgar of Edessa and Jesus. Eusebius was convinced that the original letters, written in Syriac, were kept in the archives of Edessa. Eusebius also states that in due course Judas, son of Thaddaeus, was sent in 29 AD. Eusebius copies the two letters into the text of his History.

The correspondence consisted of Abgar's letter and the answer dictated by Jesus. As the legend later expanded, a portrait of Jesus painted from life was introduced. This portrait, painted by the court archivist Hannan during his visit to Jesus, is first mentioned in the Syriac text called the "Doctrine of Addai" (Doctrina Addai-- Addaei, Addaeus = Thaddaeus or Thaddeus), from the second half of the 4th century. Here it is said that the reply of Jesus was given not in writing, but verbally, and that the event took place in 32 AD. This Teaching of Addai is also the earliest account of an image of Jesus painted from life, enshrined by the ailing King Abgar V in one of his palaces. Greek forms of the legend are found in the Acta Thaddaei, the "Acts of Thaddaeus".

The story of the Abgar, including the portrait made by the court painter Hannan, is repeated with some additions in Moses of Chorene's mid-5th century History of the Armenians, remarking that the portrait was preserved in Edessa.

The story was later further elaborated and altered by the church historian Evagrius, bishop of Edessa (c. 536-600), who eliminates a human painter entirely by declaring for the first time that the image of Jesus was "divinely wrought," and "not made by human hands." We can thus trace the development of the legend from no image in Eusebius to an image painted by Hannan in "Addai" and Moses of Chorene, to a miraculously-appearing image not made by human hands in Evagrius.

This latter concept of an "image not made by hands" formed the foundation on which the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of icons was later created in the 8th century, which held that Jesus made the first icon of himself by pressing a wet towel to his face, miraculously imprinting the cloth with his features, thus creating the prototype for all icons of Jesus and an implied divine approval for their creation.

John of Damascus, the leading architect of the church dogma favoring icons, specifically mentions that Jesus "is said to have taken a piece of cloth and pressed it to his face, impressing on it the image of his face, which it keeps to this day" (On the Divine Images I).

The Abgar legend enjoyed great popularity in the East, and also in the West, during the Middle Ages: Jesus' letter was copied on parchment, inscribed in marble and metal, and used as a talisman or an amulet. Of this pseudepigraphical correspondence there survive not only a Syriac text, but an Armenian translation as well, two independent Greek versions, shorter than the Syriac, and several inscriptions on stone.

A curious legendary growth has sprung up from this imaginary occurrence, with scholars disputing whether Abgar suffered from gout or from leprosy, whether the correspondence was on parchment or papyrus, and so forth. Most testimony of the 5th century, for instance Augustine and Jerome, is to the effect that Jesus wrote nothing. The correspondence was rejected as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I and a Roman synod (c. 495). Biblical scholars now generally believe that the letters were fabricated, probably in the 3rd century AD, and "planted" where Eusebius eventually found them. Another theory is that the story was fabricated by Abgar IX of Osroene, during whose reign the kingdom became Christianized, as a way of legitimizing this religious transformation.

Text of the letter varies. The less available variant, transcribed from the Doctrina Addaei, and printed in the Catholic Encyclopedia 1908:

The Doctrina then continues:

(†According to Eusebius, it was not Hannan who wrote the answer but Jesus himself.)

Abgarus of Edessa - Liturgical use of the letter of Abgar

The quotations paraphrasing the Gospels are actually from the famous concordance of Tatian, the Diatessarion, itself compiled in the 2nd century. The legend could not be older than the 3rd century. In addition, however, to the importance which it attained in the apocryphal cycle, the correspondence of King Abgar also gained for some time a place in liturgy. The decree, De libris non recipiendis ("Books not to be received"), traditionally attributed to Pope Gelasius I, places the letter among the apocrypha. That in itself may, possibly, be an allusion to its having been interpolated among the officially sanctioned lessons of the liturgy of some churches. The Syrian liturgies commemorate the correspondence of Abgar during Lent. The Celtic liturgy appears to have attached importance to the legend; the Liber Hymnorum, a manuscript preserved at Trinity College, Dublin (E. 4, 2), gives two collects on the lines of the letter to Abgar. Nor is it impossible that this letter, followed by various prayers, may have formed a minor liturgical office in some Catholic churches.

Abgarus of Edessa - True images

The account given by Thaddeus/Adda contains a detail which may be briefly referred to. Hannan, who wrote at Jesus' dictation, was archivist at Edessa and painter to King Abgar. He had been charged to paint a portrait of Jesus Christ and brought back to Edessa an icon which came an object of general veneration, but which, after a while, was said to have been painted by Jesus himself. Like the letter, the iconic portrait was destined be the nucleus of a legendary growth; the "Holy Face of Edessa" was chiefly famous in the Byzantine world, where the legend of the Edessa portrait forms part of the subject of the developing iconography of Christ, and also of the pictures of miraculous origin called acheiropoietoe ("made without hands") both in the Eastern Orthodox Church and, in the West where the tradition has produced Veronicas and the Shroud of Turin.

See also

Christian mythology

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