among Addai's converts are Aggai, jeweller and wig-maker to the king, and one Paluṭ. Addai being sick, ordains Aggai as his successor and Paluṭ as priest. He then dies in peace. Abgar also dies, and is succeeded by his son Ma‘nu, a pagan. Ma‘nu orders Aggai to make him some heathen piece of jewellery. Aggai, as a Christian bishop, naturally refused, so the king sent soldiers, who broke his legs as he sat in church. Thus Aggai dies a martyr. He had not had time to ordain Paluṭ. There was no bishop in Edessa. Paluṭ therefore goes to Antioch and is ordained bishop by Serapion, who was ordained by Zephyrinus of Rome, who was ordained by St. Peter, who was ordained by Christ. And we are told finally that "Labubnâ bar-Sennaḳ, the king's scribe, wrote this."
Eusebius tells the story in his Ecclesiastical History, i. 13. He agrees with the Syriac document in all the main points. Abgar writes to our Lord as "Good Saviour" and says he has heard of the cures he has accomplished "without herbs or medicines." Our Lord writes him a letter in answer,[1] in which Eusebius prudently leaves out the fatal promise that Edessa shall never be taken by an enemy. He knew, of course, that it had been taken by the Romans. Addai becomes Thaddæus; he is sent by St. Thomas. The story ends with the conversion of Abgar.
Many reasons prevent our taking this legend seriously. Apart from other anachronisms, there is the enormous one about Paluṭ. Serapion of Antioch is a real person; he reigned from 190 to about 211.[2] He could not have been ordained by Pope Zephyrinus, because Zephyrinus reigned from 202 to 218. But this is a minor error. The glaring impossibility is about Paluṭ himself. A man ordained priest by one of our Lord's seventy-two disciples could not possibly have lived to be ordained bishop by Serapion in 190. So we must leave the legend (though later it may suggest some historical considerations)[3] and seek the origin of East Syrian Christianity in less picturesque but more authentic sources.
There was a Christian community at Edessa quite early, before
