According to tradition, one of these princes, perhaps Abgar V (Ukkama or Uchomo, "the black"), being afflicted with leprosy, sent a letter to Jesus, acknowledging his divinity, craving his help and offering him an asylum in his own residence, but Jesus wrote a letter declining to go, promising, however, that after his ascension he would send one of his disciples. These letters are given by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, i. 13), who declares that the Syriac? document from which he translates them had been preserved in the archives at Edessa from the time of Abgar. Eusebius also states that in due course Judas, son of Thaddaeus, was sent (in 340 = A.D. 29).
In another form of the story, derived from [Moses of Chorene's]? History of the Armenians, it is said further that Jesus sent his portrait to Abgar, and that this existed in Edessa.
Yet another version is found in the Syriac Doctrina Addaei (Addaeus = Thaddaeus). Here it is said that the reply of Jesus was given not in writing, but verbally, and that the event took place in 343 (A.D. 32). Greek forms of the legend are found in the Acta Thaddaei, the "Acts of Thaddaeus".
These stories have given rise to much discussion. The 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).
The first king of Edessa of whom we have any trustworthy information is Abgar VIII, bar Ma'nu (A.D. 176-213). It is suggested that the legend arose from a desire to trace the christianizing of his kingdom to an apostolic source. Eusebius gives the legend in its oldest form; it was worked up in the Doctrina Addaei in the second half of the 4th century; and Moses of Chorene was dependent upon both these sources.
![[Home]](wikipedia.png)