Abagarus

ABAGARUS, or Abgarus, King of Edessa, was afflicted with a very grievous Disease, for which he could find no Remedy; and while he lay in this Condition, was informed of the miraculous Cures which were performed by Jesus Christ in Judæa; thereupon he sent a Courier to him, whose Name was Ananias, with a Letter drawn up in these Terms. Abagarus King of Edessa, to Jesus, the merciful Saviour of Mankind, who has appeared clothed with human Flesh, in the Country of Jerusalem, wishes Health. I have been made acquainted with the Prodigies and Cures wrought by You, without the Use of Herbs or Medicines, and by the Efficacy only of your Words. I am told that You make Cripples and the Maimed to walk; that You force Devils from the Bodies of the Possessed; that there is no Disease, however incurable it may seem to be, which You do not heal; and that You restore the Dead to Life. These Wonders¹ persuade me, that You are some God descended from Heaven, that You are the Son of God: For this Reason I have taken the Liberty to write this Letter to You, beseeching You to come and see me, and cure me of the Indisposition under which I have so long laboured. I understand that the Jews persecute you, murmur at your Miracles, and seek your Destruction. I have here a beautiful and agreeable City, which tho’ it be not very large, will be sufficient to supply you with every thing that shall be necessary.

Jesus Christ returned him an Answer in these Terms. You are very happy, Abagarus, thus to have believed in me without having seen me; for it is written of me, that they who shall see me will not believe in me, and that they who have never seen me, shall believe and be saved. As to the Desire you express of receiving a Visit from me, I must tell you, that all things for which I am come must be fulfilled in the Country where I am; when this is done, I must return to him who sent me. And when I am departed hence, I will send one of my Disciples to you, who shall cure you of the Disease which you complain of, and give Life to you and those that are with you. Eusebius says², that he took these Letters out of the Records of Edessa; and adds, that St. Thomas, after the Resurrection of our Saviour, sent Thaddæus, one of the seventy Disciples, and very different from the Apostle of this Name, to preach Jesus Christ in this City, and heal King Abagarus. Thaddeus went thither, converted the King and all his People, wrought an infinite Number of Miracles among them, and recovered the King’s Health. There are some who believe, that besides the Letter which we have been speaking of, our Saviour sent his Picture to him, printed on an Handkerchief. But the generality of eCriticks reject this whole Story, and look upon the two Letters we have mentioned as Pieces without any Authority. See M. de Tillemont, in the Article of S. Thomas, T. 1. p. 400,401,402. and the Notes 5,6,7. p. 657, &c.

King Abagarus, or Abgarus, was so called because he was lame³: We should not therefore give him the Name of Agbar, as if it were deriv’d from the Arabic Akbar, which signifies great. The City of Edessa, where he reigned, goes generally by the Name of Orfa; it is a common Tradition among the Eastern People, both Christians and Mahometans, that this Prince wrote a Letter to our Saviour, and received an Answer from him, together with a Handkerchief with the Impression of our Lord’s Face upon it. This we are told by M. D’Herbelot in his Oriental Library, which however does not destroy what we have said of Abgarus, nor is it sufficient to confirm the Authentickness and Truth of Abgarus’s pretended Letter to Jesus Christ, and our Saviour’s Reply to Abgarus. The Eastern People are generally not very exact in Matters of History, and their Traditions are not always to be depended upon. Edessa, which some have placed upon the Euphrates, was at the Distance of a Day’s Journey from it; the River upon which it is situated is the Scyrtus, the Overflowings whereof are dangerous and frequent. In the Reign of Justin it was intirely ruined by Inundations; the Emperor rebuilt it, and gave it the Name of Justinopolis; but afterwards it was called Orfa. There were Kings of Edessa before the Reign of Augustus, and they generally bore the Name of Abgarus: M. Vaillant has preserved a Succession of these Kings, who from the first Century were all Christians.

It is something surprizing that they should all go by the Name of Abgarus, which signifies, as M. D’Herbelot says, lame. It is much more credible that they assumed the Name of Akbar, which signifies great, and that he who wrote to Jesus Christ was nicknam’d Abgar instead of Akbar, by reason of his Infirmity; if however this Tradition of the Eastern People be not an Imposition upon us.

THE many Difficulties which are alledged⁴ to destroy Eusebius’s Story, and the Truth of our Saviour’s Letters to Abgarus, and Abgarus’s to our Saviour, are without doubt very solid; but should they oblige us to reject both this History, and the Letters we are speaking of, might it not be sufficient to conclude from hence, that the Truth of the Matter has been in some degree alter’d, and the Letters corrupted. To me it seems out of all dispute, that a certain King of Edessa was converted in the earliest Years of Christianity by one of the seventy Disciples, and that after his Example the whole City embraced the same Faith. As to other Circumstances, People, if they please, may look upon them as no more than Embellishments and popular Traditions ill put together; that the Letters, as they are at present, are apocryphal and without Authority; but does it follow that there never were any genuine and authentick, and that the whole is only a Fable invented with a Design to delude the World?

It is related⁵ that Abgarus, King of Edessa, who had contributed to the Defeat of Crassus, was obliged to submit to Augustus,⁶ Augustus, who depriv’d him of the Title of King, and left him that only of Toparch, or Governor of the Place, and carried him to Rome, in order to secure himself of his Fidelity. Abgarus, weary of abiding in this great City, bethought himself of a little Stratagem, whereby to work upon Augustus, and prevail with him to grant Permission for his Return to Edessa. When he was a hunting he caught several wild Beasts alive, and having directed some of the Earth to be taken up belonging to the Holes where each of them had been laid hold of, he appointed it to be spread separately in different Places of the Amphitheatre. Upon letting loose these Animals, each went immediately towards the Earth belonging to his Den. The Emperor easily understood Abgarus’s Meaning, and sent him back to his little Kingdom. When he took his Leave, he desir’d and obtain’d Permission to build a Circus at Edessa. He died some few Years after, leaving a Son behind him very unworthy of him; the Son having used his Subjects ill, and fearing he should be punish’d for so doing by the Romans, went over to the Persians, and embraced their Party.

This Account we have from Procopius, who affirms the first Abgarus to be the same with him who wrote to Jesus Christ, and that the second was his Son, and both Christians: But this can never be made out; for Jesus Christ did not begin to preach till the Fourteenth of Tiberius, the Thirtieth of the vulgar Æra, and above eighty Years after the Defeat of Crassus. Nor could Abgarus believe in Christ till after the Preaching, nay, not till after the Death of our Saviour, which happen’d in the seventeenth Year of Tiberius. Moreover, we have some Medals struck at Edessa, under the Reign of Tiberius⁷, in which this Emperor is called the God of the Edessenians; they were not therefore at that Time converted to Christianity.

According to Procopius’s Recital, it should seem that the Prince who treated his Subjects so ill as to be oblig’d to fly for Safety to the Persians, was he who believed in Jesus Christ, and brought over his whole People to the Faith. Eusebius⁸ places this Conversion in the Year 340, which answers to the twenty ninth of Jesus Christ, observing the Æra of the Edessenians, which is the same with that of the Seleucidæ, who began it at the Death of Alexander the Great. But in the twenty ninth Year of our Saviour Abgarus could not as yet have any Knowledge of our Jesus, who did not enter upon the Business of Preaching till the Year following. We had better therefore read with Rufinus the Year 343, which answers to the Year of Christ’s Death⁹, according to the vulgar Æra.

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