"All Persia, Assyria, Armenia, and Media, the regions about Babylon, Huz, and Gala, to the borders of India, and as far as Gog and Magog " (the country north of the Caucasus,) "received the priesthood from Agæus, a weaver of silk clothing, the disciple of the apostle Thaddeus." So Bar Hebræus, Marus of Soba, and Elias of Damascus, apud Asseman. vol. iv.
The Syrians hold that Thaddeus, whom they style "the chief and greatest of the assembly of the Seventy and two," was the founder of the church of Edessa. "When he came to that city," says their tradition, "they received him with great joy. He blessed Abgarus and his entire household and the whole city.[1] He healed their sicknesses by the word of our Lord, and declared the miracles and signs he had wrought in the world, confirming his words by miracles … He discipled Edessa and Mesopotamia, and taught them the ordinances of the gospel. With the assistance of Agæus, his disciple, he converted and baptized all the region of the East, as far as the Eastern Sea. When he was grown old and venerable, he improved his talent more than double; he rooted out from the hearts the thorns and thistles, and sowed them with the purest wheat, and entered the joy of his Lord."
To the same effect the historian Amrus. "Mar Adæus, one of the Seventy, came to Edessa, and healed king Abgar of his leprosy. At Nisebin, Mosul, Hazath, and in Persia, there were with him, preaching the gospel, Mar Marus and Bar Tholmai. lie built a church at Caphar Uzel, in Adjabena,[2] where is the inscription of his name to this day. He built another church in the
