Abgar V is said to be one of the first
Christian kings, having been converted to the faith by
Thaddeus of Edessa, one of the
seventy disciples. The church historian
Eusebius recorded that the Edessan archives contained a copy of a correspondence exchanged between Abgar of Edessa and Jesus. The correspondence consisted of Abgar's letter and the answer dictated by Jesus. On 15 August 944, the
Church of St. Mary of Blachernae in
Constantinople received the letter and the
Mandylion. Both relics were then moved to the
Church of the Virgin of the Pharos. This account enjoyed great popularity in the East and 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 correspondence, there survives not only a Syriac text, but an Armenian translation as well, two independent Greek versions, shorter than the Syriac, and several inscriptions on stone. Scholars have disputed many aspects of this account such as whether Abgar suffered from gout or from leprosy, or whether the correspondence was on parchment or papyrus. The text of the letter was: Jesus gave the messenger the reply to return to Abgar:
Egeria wrote of the letter in her account of her pilgrimage in Edessa. She read the letter during her stay around 384, and remarked that the copy in Edessa was "fuller" than the copies in her home (which was likely France). In addition to the importance it attained in the apocryphal cycle, the correspondence of King Abgar also gained a place in liturgy for some time. The Syriac liturgies commemorate the correspondence of Abgar during Lent. The Celtic liturgy appears to have attached importance to it; the
Liber Hymnorum, a manuscript preserved at Trinity College, Dublin (E. 4, 2), gives two collects on the lines of the letter to Abgar. It is even possible that this letter, followed by various prayers, may have formed a minor liturgical office in some Catholic churches. This event has played an important part in the self-definition of several Eastern churches. Abgar is counted as saint, with feasts on 11 May and 28 October in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Thursday of the Third Week of Lent (Mid-Lent) in the
Syriac Orthodox Church, and daily in the Mass of the
Armenian Apostolic Church.
Critical scholarship A number of contemporary scholars have suggested origins of the tradition of Abgar's conversion apart from historical record.
Walter Bauer argued the legend was written without sources to reinforce
group cohesiveness,
orthodoxy, and
apostolic succession against
heretical schismatics. However, several distinct sources, known to have not been in contact with one another, claimed to have seen the letters in the archives, so his claim is suspect. Significant advances in scholarship on the topic have been made including Desreumaux's translation with commentary, M. Illert's collection of textual witnesses to the legend, and detailed studies of the ideology of the sources by Brock, Griffith and Mirkovic. The majority of scholars now claim the goal of the authors and editors of texts regarding the conversion of Abgar were not so much concerned with
historical reconstruction of the
Christianisation of Edessa as the relationships between
church and state power, based on the political and ecclesiological ideas of
Ephraem the Syrian. However, the origins of the story are still far from certain, although the stories as recorded seem to have been shaped by the
controversies of the third century CE, especially as a response to
Bardaisan. ==Letters of Abgar to Tiberius==