Doctrine of Addai

The Doctrine of Addai is a Syriac Christian text, perhaps written about 400, which recites the Legend of the Image of Edessa as well as the legendary works of Addai and his disciple Mari in Mesopotamia.

Content

The story of how King Abgar and Jesus had corresponded was first recounted in the 4th century by the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea in his Ecclesiastical History (i.13 and iii.1) and it was retold in elaborated form by Ephrem the Syrian.

In the origin of the legend, Eusebius had been shown documents purporting to contain the official correspondence that passed between Abgar and Jesus, and he was well enough convinced by their authenticity to quote them extensively in his ecclesiastical history. By the time the legend had returned to Syria, the purported site of the miraculous image, it had been embroidered into a tissue of miraculous happenings (Bauer 1971, ch. i): the Doctrine of Addai is full of miracles.

See also

• Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari
• Early centers of Christianity

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Legend of Abgar
• Doctrine of Addai (text, in English)
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Doctrine of Addai
• THE DOCTRINE OF ADDAI, THE APOSTLE, BY GEORGE PHILLIPS, D.D., PRESIDENT OF QUEENS' COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. London: TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 1876
• The Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian Thought in Edessa in the Fifth Century, by Sidney H. Griffith, Institute of Christian Oriental Research, Catholic University of America
• Possible historical traces in the Doctrina Addai, by Ilaria Ramelli, Catholic University of Milan

References

• Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, 1934, (in English 1971) (On-line text)