the independent state fell in 216. By the year 201 the Christians even had a public church in the city. The Chronicle of Edessa[1] says that in a flood which happened that year the "temple of the Christians" was destroyed.[2] There was also a King Abgar who was a Christian; Julius Africanus[3] went to his court.[4] This is supposed to be Abgar VIII (176–213).[5] We must suppose that the faith spread to the East in its first expansion after Whitsunday. Already, then, among those who heard the apostles speak in diverse tongues were "those who dwell in Mesopotamia."[6] Further, we may no doubt suppose that the very first converts, as usual, were members of the Jewish community at Edessa. The Mesopotamians who were at Jerusalem on Whitsunday were, of course, Jews from Mesopotamia;[7] it is no doubt significant that the legend makes Addai dwell at the house of a Jew (above, p. 30). How far Addai is a real person is difficult to judge. Dr. Wigram is disposed to admit some basis of truth in him, on the strength of a lately discovered history of the Bishops of Adiabene.[8] In any case, we have evidence of Christianity at Edessa in the 2nd century. From that time Edessa is the centre from which it spread in Mesopotamia, Adiabene, and into Persia. This is natural, since it was the chief city of East Syria; we always find Christianity established first in the capitals and so spreading to the country round. Naturally, too, when local churches began to be organized, Edessa was the metropolitan see of East Syrian Christendom. The first Bishop of Edessa of whom we know for certain is Ḳonâ, who built a church in 313.[9] He was succeeded by Sa‘ad (†c. 323–324), and after Sa'ad came Aitallâhâ. And now we are in the full light of history; for Aitallâhâ sate at Nicæa in 325.[10]
- ↑ Compiled about 540 from contemporary archives, published by Assemani: Bibliotheca orientalis, i. 388–417, and by L. Hallier in the Texte u. Untersuchungen, ix. 1 (Leipzig, 1892). See Duval: La littérature syriaque, pp. 187–188.
- ↑ Assemani: op. cit. i. p. 390.
- ↑ See the Catholic Encyclopædia, viii. 565–566.
- ↑ H. Gelzer: Sextus Julius Africanus (Leipzig, 1898), p. 3.
- ↑ Tixeront: Les origines de l'Église d'Édesse, p. 10.
- ↑ Acts ii. 9.
- ↑ Acts ii. 5.
- ↑ Mingana: Sources syriaques (Leipzig, 1907). Hist. of Mshīḥâzkâ, pp. 77–78. See Wigram: The Assyrian Church, p. 27.
- ↑ Tixeront: op. cit. p. 9.
- ↑ Assemani: Bibl. Orient. i. p. 394, n. xiv.
