Abgar V: Difference between revisions

{{redirect|Abgar|other people with the given name or surname|Abgar (name)}}

| venerated_in = [[Catholic Church]]<br>[[Oriental Catholicism]]<br>[[Eastern Orthodox Church]]<br>[[Oriental Orthodox Church]]

Abgar V is said to be one of the first [[Christianity|Christian]] kings in history, having been converted to the faith by [[Thaddeus of Edessa]], one of the [[seventy disciples]].{{sfn|Chapman|1913}}<ref>{{Cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=2_eAKmK7KkYC&pg=PA22 |title= Lesser Eastern Churches |isbn= 978-0-9715986-2-1 |last1= Fortescue |first1= Adrian |date= December 2001 }}{{Dead link|date=February 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes 1913}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Abgar, ruler of Edessa, to Jesus the good physician who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem, greeting. I have heard the reports of you and of your cures as performed by you without medicines or herbs. For it is said that you make the blind to see and the lame to walk, that you cleanse lepers and cast out impure spirits and demons, and that you heal those afflicted with lingering disease, and raise the dead. And having heard all these things concerning you, I have concluded that one of two things must be true: either you are God, and, having come down from heaven, you do these things, or else you, who dodoes these things, are the son of God. I have therefore written to you to ask you if you would take the trouble to come to me and heal all the ill which I suffer. For I have heard that the Jews are murmuring against you and are plotting to injure you. But I have a very small yet noble city which is great enough for us both.<ref name="Leclercq"/>}}

[[Egeria (pilgrim)|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).<ref name="Egeria">{{cite web|last1=Bernard|first1=John|title=The Pilgrimage of Egeria|url=http://www.digital.library.upenn.edu/women/egeria/pilgrimage/pilgrimage.html|website=University of Pennsylvania|publisher=Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society}}</ref>

Significant advances in scholarship on the topic have been made{{sfn|Camplani|2009|p=253}} including Desreumaux's translation with commentary,<ref>Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus, Présentation et traduction du texte syriaque intégral de la Doctrine d’Addaï par. A. Desreumaux, Brepols, Paris 1993.</ref> M. Illert's collection of textual witnesses to the legend,<ref>M. Illert (ed.), Doctrina Addai. De imagine Edessena / Die Abgarlegende. Das Christusbild von Edessa (Fontes Christiani, 45), Brepols, TurhoutTurnhout 2007</ref> and detailed studies of the ideology of the sources by Brock,<ref>S.P. Brock, Eusebius and Syriac Christianity, in H.W. Attridge-G. Hata (eds.), Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, Brill, Leiden-New York-Köln 1992, pp. 212-234, republished in S. Brock, From Ephrem to Romanos. Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity (Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS644), Ashgate/Variorum, Aldershot-Brookfield-Singapore- Sydney 1999, n. II.</ref> Griffith<ref name="Griffith">{{cite journal|last1=Griffith |first1=Sidney H. |title=The Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian Thought in Edessa in the Fifth Century |journal=Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies |date=2003 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=269–292 |doi=10.31826/hug-2010-060111 |s2cid=212688514 |url=http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No2/HV6N2Griffith.html |access-date=25 January 2017 |issn=1097-3702 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030821112810/http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No2/HV6N2Griffith.html |archive-date=21 August 2003 |doi-access=free }}</ref> and Mirkovic.{{sfn|Mirkovic|2004}} 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 [[historiography|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]].{{sfn|Camplani|2009}}{{sfn|Griffith|2003|loc=§3 and §28}}{{sfn|Mirkovic|2004}} However, the origins of the story are still far from certain,{{sfn|Mirkovic|2004|pp=2-4}} although the stories as recorded seem to have been shaped by the [[History of late ancient Christianity|controversies of the third century CE]], especially as a response to [[Bardaisan]].{{sfn|Camplani|2009}}

* {{cite journal|last1=Camplani|first1=Alberto|title=Traditions of Christian foundation in Edessa: Between myth and history|journal=Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni (SMSR)|date=2009|volume=75|issue=1|pages=251–278|url=https://www.academia.edu/download/31469043/Camplani_SMSR_75.pdf|access-date=25 January 2017}}{{dead link|date=May 2023|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}

[[Category:Converts to Christianity from paganancient Roman religions]]