ABGAR  , a name or

title borne by a line of kings or toparchs, apparently twenty-nine in number, who reigned in Osrhoene and had their capital it Edessa about the time of the Christian era . According to an old tradition, one of these princes, perhaps Abgar V . (Ukkama or Uchomo, " the black "), being afflicted with leprosy, sent a letter to Jesus, acknowledging his divinity, craving his help and offering him an asylum in his own residence, but Jesus wrote a letter declining to go, promising, however, that after his ascension he would send one of his disciples . These letters are given by Eusebius (Eccl . Hist. i . 13), who declares that the Syriac document from which he translates them had been preserved in the archives at Edessa from the time of Abgar . Eusebius also states that in due course Judas, son of Thaddaeus, was sent (in 340= A.D . 29) . In another form of the story, de-rived from Moses of Chorene, it is said further that Jesus sent his portrait to Abgar, and that this existed in Edessa (Hist . Armen., ed . W . Whiston, ii .

29-32) . Yet another version is found in the Syriac Doctrina Addaei (Addaeus = Thaddaeus), edited by G .

Phillips (1876) . Here it is said that the reply of Jesus was given not in writing, but verbally, and that the event took place in 343 (A.D . 32) . Greek forms of the legend are found in tale Acta Thaddaei (C . Tischendorf, Acta apostolorutx apocr . 261 ff.) . These stories have given rise to much discussion . The testimony of Augustine and Jerome is to the effect that Jesus wrote nothing . The correspondence was rejected as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius and a Roman Synod (c . 495), though, it is true.. this view has not been shared universally by the Roman churck (Tillemont, Memoires, i .

3, pp . 990 ff.) . Amongst Evangelicals the spuriousness of the letters is almost generally admitted .

Lipsius (Die Edessenische Abgarsage, 1880) has pointed out anachronisms which seem to indicate that the story is quite unhistorical . The first king of Edessa of whom we have any trustworthy information is Abgar VIII., bar Ma'nu (A.D . 176-213) . It is suggested that the legend arose from a desire to trace the christianizing of his kingdom to an apostolic source . Eusebius gives the legend in its oldest form; it was worked up in the Doctrina Addaei in the second half of the 4th century; and Moses of Chorene was dependent upon both these sources .