THE
LEGEND OF ABGAR (THE HOLY FACE OF EDESSA)
The historian Eusebius
records a tradition (Church
History I.12),
which he himself firmly believes, concerning a correspondence that took
place
between Our Lord and the local
potentate at Edessa.
Three documents relate to this correspondence:
This legend enjoyed
great popularity, both in the East and
in the West, during the Middle
Ages: Our Lord's letter was copied on
parchment,
marble, and metal, and used as a talisman or an amulet.
In the age of Eusebius the original letters,
written in
Syriac, were thought to be kept in the archives of Edessa.
At the present day we possess not only a Syriac text, but an Armenian
translation as well, two independent Greek versions, shorter than the
Syriac,
and several inscriptions on stone, all of which are discussed in two
articles
in the "Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgies"
cols. 88 sq. and 1807 sq. The only two works to be consulted in regard
to this
literary problem are the "Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius,
and the "Teaching of Addaï," which professes to belong to the Apostolic
age.
The legend, according
to these two
works, runs as follows: Abgar [Ouchama], king of Edessa,
afflicted with an incurable sickness, has heard the fame of the power
and miracles
of Jesus and writes to Him, praying
Him to come and heal him. Jesus
declines, but promises to send a messenger, endowed with His power,
namely
Thaddeus (or Addaï), one of the seventy-two Disciples. The letters
of Our
Lord
and of the king of Edessa
vary in the version given in Eusebius
and in that of the "Teaching of Addaï." That which follows is
taken
from the Teaching of Addaï," as being less accessible than the
History of
Eusebius:
Abgar Ouchama to Jesus,
the Good Physician Who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem,
greeting:
I have heard of Thee,
and of Thy
healing; that Thou dost not use medicines or roots, but by Thy word
openest
(the eyes) of the blind, makest the lame to walk, cleansest the lepers,
makest the deaf to hear; how by Thy word (also) Thou healest (sick)
spirits and
those who are tormented with lunatic demons, and how, again, Thou
raisest the
dead to life. And, learning the wonders that Thou doest, it was borne
in upon
me that (of two things, one): either Thou hast come down from heaven,
or else Thou art the Son of God, who bringest all
these things to
pass. Wherefore I write to Thee, and pray
that thou wilt come to me, who adore Thee, and heal all the ill that I
suffer,
according to the faith I have in Thee. I
also learn that
the Jews murmur against Thee,
and persecute
Thee, that they seek to crucify Thee, and to destroy Thee. I possess
but one
small city, but it is beautiful, and large enough for us two to live in
peace.
When Jesus
had received the letter, in the house of the high
priest
of the Jews,
He said to Hannan, the secretary, "Go thou, and say to thy master, who
hath sent thee to Me: 'Happy art thou who hast believed in Me, not
having seen
me, for it is written of me that those who shall see me shall not believe
in Me, and that those who shall not see Me shall believe
in Me. As to that which thou hast written, that I should come to thee,
(behold)
all that for which I was sent here below is finished, and I ascend
again to My Father who sent Me, and when I shall have ascended
to Him I will send thee one of My disciples, who shall heal all thy
sufferings,
and shall give (thee) health again, and shall convert
all who are with thee unto life eternal. And thy city shall be blessed
forever, and the enemy shall never overcome it.'" According to Eusebius,
it was not Hannan who wrote the answer, but Our
Lord
Himself.
A curious legendary
growth has
sprung up from this imaginary occurrence. The nature of Abgar's
sickness has
been gravely discussed, to the credit of various writers' imaginations,
some
holding that it was gout, others leprosy;
the former saying that it had lasted seven years, the latter
discovering that
the sufferer had contracted his disease during a stay in Persia.
Other chroniclers, again, maintain that the letter was written on
parchment,
though some favour papyrus. The crucial passage in Our
Lord's
letter, however, is that which promises the city of Edessa
victory over all enemies. It gave the little town a popularity which
vanished
on the day that it fell into the hands of conquerors. It was a rude
shock to
those who believed the legend; they were more ready to attribute the
fall of
the city to God's anger
against the inhabitants than to admit the failure of a safeguard which
was no
less trusted to at that time than in the past.
The fact related in
the
correspondence has long since ceased to be of any historical value. The
text is
borrowed in two places from that of the Gospel, which of itself is
sufficient
to disprove the authenticity of the letter. Moreover, the quotations
are made
not from the Gospels proper, but from the famous concordance of Tatian,
compiled in the second century, and known as the "Diatessaron", thus
fixing the date of the legend as
approximately the
middle of the third century. In addition, however, to the importance
which it
attained in the apocryphal cycle, the
correspondence of King
Abgar also gained a place in liturgy. The decree,
"De libris non recipiendis", of the pseudo-Gelasius, places the
letter among the apocrypha, which may, possibly, be an allusion to its
having
been interpolated among the officially sanctioned lessons of the
liturgy. 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 by any means
impossible
that this letter, followed by various prayers,
may have formed a minor liturgical
office in certain churches.
The account given by
Adda contains a
detail which may here be briefly referred to. Hannan, who wrote at Our
Lord's
dictation, was archivist at Edessa
and painter to King Abgar. He had
been charged
to paint a portrait of Our
Lord,
a task which he carried out, bringing back with him to Edessa
a picture which came an object of general veneration, but which, after
a while,
was said to have been painted
by Our Lord Himself. Like the
letter, the
portrait was destined to be the nucleus of a legendary growth; the
"Holy
Face of Edessa" was chiefly famous
in the
Byzantine world. A bare indication, however, of this fact must suffice
here,
since the legend of the Edessa
portrait forms part of the extremely difficult and obscure subject of
the
iconography of Christ, and of the pictures
of miraculous
origin called acheiropoietoe ("made without hands").
APA citation. Leclercq, H. (1907). The Legend of Abgar. In
The
Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved
April 26,
2010 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01042c.htm
MLA citation. Leclercq, Henri. "The Legend of Abgar." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907.
26 Apr.
2010 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01042c.htm>.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy
Lafort,
S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop
of New
York.