A legend, once extremely widespread and influential both in the Eastern and Western Churches, relates that Abgar V, king of Edessa 4 B.C. to 58 A.D.) once exchanged messages with our Lord. Two main versions of Abgar's letter and our Lord's reply have been preserved: the first in Eusebius History of the Church, the second in the fourth-century Syriac document known as the Doctrine of Addai. It is from the latter that my translation is taken. Addai, so the legend goes, was the disciple sent to King Abgar at Edessa after the Ascension, in fulfilment of our Lord's promise. Edessa was from a very early date the centre of Syriac-speaking Christianity, and it was thither that St Ephraem transferred his school in 363, when Nisibis, his native town, fell into the hands of the Persians. Even by that time the legend must already have been well established. It is valuable, not of course as an historical record, for it is completely apocryphal, but as a very early witness to the spirit of direct and simple piety which is characteristic of the best traditions of Syriac Christianity.

Abgar would have liked to make the journey to Palestine in person, and to see with his own eyes all the things that Christ was doing. But he could not travel to a territory of the Romans other than his own, lest this should provide an occasion for the malice of his enemies. For this reason he wrote a letter, and sent it to Christ by the hand of Hannan, the scribe. Hannan left Edessa on the fourteenth of March, and arrived at Jerusalem on the twelfth of April, in four weeks. Having found Christ at the house of Gamaliel, a great man among the Jews. he read the letter before him.