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Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
The Teaching of Addai the Apostle
(malpānùtâ d'Aday shlî hâ).
The text was first published and translated into
English by George Phillips, The Doctrine of Addai, the
Apostle, Now First Edited in a Complete Form in the Original
Syriac (London: Trübner & Co., 1876). It is
now also available, in Phillips’ edition, but with a new
English version , in George Howard (trans.), The Teaching of
Addai (SBL Texts and Translations, 16, Early Christian
Literature Series, 4; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981).
For further information about the text and its manuscript
witnesses, see A. Desreumaux, “La Doctrine
d’Addaï; essai de classement des témoins
syriaques et grecs,” Augustinianum 23
(1983), pp. 181-186. See also Alain Desreumaux,
Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus (Paris:
Brepols, 1993).
See Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
lii-liii; 105-107. In this and all succeeding citations
of the text, the first set of numerals (Roman) indicates the
pages of Phillips’ edition of the Syriac text, numbered
by Syriac characters, as reprinted by Howard; the second set of
numerals (Arabic) indicates the differently numbered pages of
Howard’s translation.
Doctrina Addai, as this work has come to be known among
modern scholars, has attracted an enormous amount of academic
attention, from the late nineteenth century when the text was
first published, until now. Therefore, to study it, and
to recall the history of scholarship associated with it, is to
remind oneself of the historiography not particularly of the
author's time, but to become aware of the concerns over the
last century of the most prominent western scholars of
Syriac. Because of their work, one is now in a position
to change the point of view somewhat, and to examine the
Doctrina Addai not so much with an interest in its more
intriguing historical components, but from the perspective of
the integral narrative, with a view to discerning, if we can,
the purposes and concerns of its now unknown author.
For an overview of the scholarly
Eusebius,
For a discussion of this issue, and a review of the
pertinent scholarship, see Sebastian Brock, “Eusebius and
Syriac Christianity,” in Harold W. Attridge & Gohei
Hata (eds.),
See Walter Bauer,
See, e.g., L.-J. Tixeront, Doctrina Addai is primarily associated
with the legend of King Abgar V, 'the Black', (4 B.C. - 7 A.D.
& 13 A.D. - 50 A.D.) of Edessa, who is said to have sent
envoys to Palestine with a letter for Jesus at the time of his
passion, asking him to come to Edessa to heal the king of an
illness. According to the story, Jesus then responded
with a message of his own in which he promised to send a
disciple to Edessa after his ascension into heaven, to heal
Abgar and to preach the Gospel in his kingdom.status
quaestionis see H.J.W. Drijvers, “The Abgar
Legend,” in Wilhelm Schneemelcher (ed.), New Testament
Apocrypha (rev. ed.; R. McL. Wilson (trans.); Louisville:
Westminster / John Knox Press, 1991), pp. 492-499.
Doctrina Addai has in common with a report included
by Eusebius of Caesarea (260-339) in his Ecclesiastical
History.The Ecclesiastical History, I, 13.
Doctrina has focused on a comparison
of the two narratives, and speculations about their common
source in a Syriac document kept in the archives of Edessa,
from where both Eusebius and the author of the Doctrina
say their information ultimately comes.Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992), pp. 212-234.
Doctrina. Nevertheless, scholars have
persisted in viewing it as the heart of the piece, around which
later accretions have accumulated. In part, one suspects
that the persistence of this view has been the result of a
scholarly preoccupation, since the days of Walter Bauer, with
the modern question about the actual origins of Christianity in
Edessa.Orthodoxy and Heresy in
Earliest Christianity (2nd ed., R.A. Kraft &
G. Kroedel (trans.); Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), pp.
1-43.
Hannān, the
archivist who, according to the narrative, accompanied Abgar's
emissaries to Palestine.Les origins de
l’église d’Édesse et la
légende d’Abgar; étude critique suivie de
deux textes orientaux inédits (Paris: Maisonneuve,
1888); Ernst von Dobschütz, Christusbilder;
Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende (Leipzig: Hinrichs,
1899); idem, “Der Briefwechsel zwischen Abgar und
Jesus,” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche
Theologie 43 (1900), pp. 422-486.
Doctrina, as we have it in its fullest form, was himself
certainly interested in these issues too, one hopes to be able
to show that his intention in composing his work was to use
these traditions, together with several others current in the
Syriac-speaking milieu of his day, to make an altogether
different point about Edessan Christianity. The thesis
defended here is that the author wanted to put forward a
paradigm of normative Edessan Christianity, supported by the
local ecclesiastical and historical lore, which he hoped would
play an authoritative role in the largely Christological
controversies of his own day. On this reading, the most
important part of the Doctrina Addai appears then not to
be the Abgar legend itself, with its several sub-plots, but the
textually longer, narratively more central accounts of Addai's
sermons and speeches, which are presented as accomplishing the
delivery of the Christian kerygma in Edessa in the first
instance.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. i &
3.
sāprâ dmalkâ), "the one writing
down these things of Addai, the apostle," and Hannān, the king's trustworthy archivist
(
tabûlārâ
sharîrâ dmalkâ), who "set down the hand
of witness."
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. liii
& 107. Labûbna was mentioned earlier in the
narrative, among the nobles of the city, on pp. xviii &
37. Hannān, the archivist,
has a prominent part in the legend of King Abgar’s
embassy to Jesus.
tabûlārâ /
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. ii
& 5.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
iii & 7.
Howard, Hannān. The text explains that the king
took this action rather than to go to Jerusalem himself, lest
he precipitate an international incident by trespassing into
the territory of the Romans. The letter arrives in
Jerusalem and is read to Jesus on the 12th of Nisan, in the
house of Gamaliel. In the letter Abgar asks Jesus to come
to Edessa, where the king will give him refuge from the Jews,
so that he might also cure Abgar of an illness. Again,
there is a Christological statement; the king says, "When I
heard of the great wonders which you do, I decided either that
you are God, in that you have come down from heaven and have
done these things, or that you are the Son of God because you
are doing all these things."The Teaching of Addai, pp.
iii-iv; 7-9.
While this report has been the subject of
much scholarly discussion, to pursue it here would be beside
the point. See now Han J.W. Drijvers, “The Image of
Edessa in the Syriac Tradition,” in H.L. Kessler & G.
Wolf (eds.), Hannān paints a portrait
of him and brings it back to Abgar, who enshrines it in one of
his palaces.The Holy Face and the Paradox of
Representation (Villa Spelman Colloquia, Florence, 1996,
vol. 6; Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1998), pp. 13-31.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. v
& 11. See Luke 10:1, where, in many ancient MSS the
number 72 appears, while modern Bibles often mention only 70,
following other MSS. Throughout the Doctrina
Addai, Addai is called shlî hâ, ‘the apostle’. The
term is not used in its technical sense, refering to the twelve
apostles, and Paul, but in the etymological use of 'envoy' or
'messenger.'
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. v
& 11.
Howard,
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. vi
& 13. Presumably the arrangement which allowed Edessa
to live under Roman hegemony between the years 212/213 and
242/243 is here being projected back to the time of King Abgar
V. See Millar, Roman Near East, pp. 472-481.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
vii & 15.
[I will proclaim to you] how and why he diminished himself, abased his exalted divinity by the body which he took, was crucified, went down to the house of the dead, broke through the barrier which had never been broken through before and gave life to the dead by being himself killed. He descended alone, but ascended with many to his glorious Father, with whom he was from eternity in one exalted godhead.Howard,
The Teaching of Addai, pp. viii & 17.
See S. Heid, "Zur frühen Protonike- und
Kyriakoslegendt," Analecta Bollandiana 109 (1991), pp.
73-108; Jan Willem Drijvers, Helena Augusta: The Mother of
Constantine the Great and her Finding of the True Cross
(Leiden: Brill, 1992); idem, “ The Protonike
Legend and the Doctrina Addai,” Studia
Patristica 33 (1996), pp. 517-523; idem, “The
Protonike Legend, the Doctrina Addai and Bishop Rabbula
of Edessa,” Vigiliae Christianae 51 (1997),
pp. 288-315; idem, “Promoting Jerusalem: Cyril and
the True Cross,” in Jan Willem Drijvers & John W.
Watt, (eds.), Portraits of Spiritual Authority: Religious
Power in Early Christianity, Byzantium and the Christian
Orient (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 79-95. See also Han
J.W. Drijvers & Jan Willem Drijvers, The Finding of the
True Cross; the Judas Kyriakos Legend in Syriac (CSCO, vol.
565, Subs. 93; Louvain: Peeters, 1997).
Doctrina Addai as a
whole:
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. x
& 21.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. x
& 21.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. xi
& 23.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. xi
& 23.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. xi
& 23.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. xv
& 31.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. xv
& 31.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xvi & 33.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xvii & 35.
Howard,
Howard,
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xvix & 39.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xvix & 39.
The Teaching of Addai, pp. xx
& 41.
We herald and proclaim this Jesus the Messiah, we glorify his Father with him, and we extol and worship the Spirit of his divinity, because thus we were commanded by him to baptize and purge those who believe in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.Howard,
The Teaching of Addai, pp. xx & 41.
Addai claims that this faith fulfills the Israelite
prophecies of old, and he claims that "if I speak that which is
not written in the Prophets, the Jews who are among you and who
hear me will not receive it."
Howard,
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. xx
& 41.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxi & 43.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxi & 43.
Howard,
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxv & 51.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxix & 59.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxx & 61. See also ibid, pp. iv & 9.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxxiv & 69.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxxvi & 73.
The text makes it clear that this Assyria is
outside of the territory of the Romans (bêt
rhômāyyê), while the author calls its
inhabitants ‘orientals’ (madn. hāyyê). See Howard,
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. xl
& 81.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xli & 83 – xlv & 91.
As for the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel, which you read daily before the people, and the Letters of Paul, which Simon Peter sent to us from the city of Rome, and the Acts of the Twelve Apostles, which John the son of Zebedee sent to us from Ephesus, read these books in the churches of the Messiah. Do not again read along with these any other since no longer is there any other in which the truth you possess is written.Howard,
The Teaching of Addai, pp. xlvi & 93.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xlvii & 95 – xlviii & 97.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
lii & 105. Howard notes that contrary to
Cureton’s text, Phillips’ text speaks of Zephyrinus
as Bishop of the City of Antioch. See ibid., p.
110, n. 42.
On the varying uses of the Abgar story in
Syriac historiography see L. van Rompay, “Jacob of Edessa
and the Early History of Edessa,” in G.J. Reinink &
A.C. Klugkist (eds.), Doctrina, as we
have it in the St. Petersburg manuscript, highlights a number
of important themes which in the ensemble may be taken to
compose a historical and creedal view of the faith in early
Christian Edessa as the author of the work intended to
represent it, and as he supposed it to have been.
Furthermore, taking one's cue from the prominence in the text
of Addai's speeches, it seems clear that from the author's
point of view they make up the center-piece of the
composition. On this understanding, the Abgar story and
its several features, while contributing important historical
details, nevertheless functions primarily as a framework story
for the main narrative. It provides a readily
recognizable, literary and legendary Sitz im Leben for the
speeches and their themes, and at the same time it makes
certain claims for historical legitimacy which would have been
readily recognized by the work's intended audience.After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity
and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han
J.W. Drijvers (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 89; Leuven:
Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement Oosterse Studies, 1999), esp.
pp. 279-281.
See Howard,
See Howard,
Howard, Doctrina Addai. It has
both civil and ecclesiastical dimensions. From the civil
perspective, the King Abgar of the narrative is portrayed as
serving in the capacity of a client king under the rule of the
Roman emperor Tiberius, and his associate and successor,
Claudius. This motif appears both in the frame story, and
in the Protonike legend, featured as part of Addai's
catechizing of Abgar.The Teaching of Addai,
pp. i & 3, vi & 13, x & 21, xvi & 33, xxxviii
– xxxix & 77-79.
The Teaching of Addai,
pp. xxxvii & 75 – xl & 81.
Doctrina Addai present a number of chronological and
historical difficulties for the modern scholar, it nevertheless
clearly seems to be the original author's intention to point to
Edessa's continuing political loyalty to the imperium
romanum from the earliest times. In this connection
one recalls the ever present challenge of the Persian threat in
the Aramean environs of Edessa. This circumstance is evoked in
the narrative by the mention of Narses/Narsai, "king of the
Assyrians," whose subjects are said to have come into the
territory of the Romans "to see the signs which Addai was
working;" according to the story, the king asked Abgar for a
report, and the Edessan king sent him a written account of
them, at which the 'Assyrian' was amazed.The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxxvii & 75. See n. 56 above.
Howard,
See the Spanish campaign in the fifth
century mentioned in Paulus Orosius,
See the studies cited in n. 34 above.
The author wishes to thank Prof. Timothy D.
Barnes for calling these historical observations to his
attention.
The Teaching of Addai, pp. x
& 21, xxxviii & 77.
Orose, Histoires
(Contre les Païens) (Marie-Pierre Arnaud-Lindet, ed.
& trans.; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1991), vol. III, pp.
123-127; Hydatius, The Chronicle of Hydatius and the
Consularia Constantinopolitana: Two Contemporary Accounts of
the Final Years of the Roman Empire (R.W. Burgess, ed.
& trans.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 79-91.
Doctrina Addai occurs in the account of the Protonike
legend, a Syriac calque on the story of the empress Helena's
finding of the true cross, and it is further taken into account
that Helena's story first circulated in Greek only in the
latter years of the fourth century,Doctrina Addai could not have been composed
until well after the beginning of the fifth century.imperium romanum, as pertinent a concern
for an Edessan writer in the first half of the fifth century as
at any earlier, or later time until the Islamic conquest
removed both the Persian threat and Byzantine suzerainty from
Aramean territory in the seventh century. The details are
not in themselves what the author intends to claim
historically, although he was no doubt convinced of their
veracity. Rather, one might reasonably conclude that his
overriding intention was to cite them in support of the main
historical, political claim of his work, that Edessa had an
impressive record of loyalty to the imperium romanum, in
an area where this loyalty was not without serious political
and cultural challenge, and that its continuation in his own
time was to her ultimate benefit.
Howard, imperium romanum had not only a
civic, but also an ecclesiastical dimension in the author's
view. In the Doctrina Addai one notices this
dimension in several contexts: in the Protonike story, in
Addai's farewell address to the hierarchs who are chosen for
ecclesiastical service in Edessa, and in the final section of
the work, dealing with developments after the time of
Addai. In the Protonike story this dimension is to be
seen in Protonike's relationship with Simon Peter in
Rome. In the first place, the text says, "She became a
believer in, and a worshipper of our Lord the Messiah, giving
Him glory with those who were followers of Simon, whom she held
in great honor."The Teaching of Addai, pp. x
& 21. My own translation of this passage accepts the
textual correction suggested in Howard, p. 117, i.e.,
mshabb hâ for
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xvi & 33.
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xlvi & 93. In the same passage he also speaks of
“the Acts of the Twelve Apostles, which John the son of
Zebedee sent to us from Ephesus.”
Doctrina Addai is only insisting on the apostolic origin
of the canon of the scriptures as it was promoted in Edessa in
his own day. Nevertheless, the Roman connection, so
prominent in other parts of the text, is also in evidence
here. At another place in the same address, Addai
likewise gives advice about the appropriate behavior of the
hierarchs toward the civil authorities. He says:
As to rulers and judges who have attained to this faith, love them, though you should be no respecter of persons in anything. But if they go astray, rebuke them justly that you might demonstrate the boldness of your integrity and that they might amend their ways so as not again to be directed by their own will.Howard,
The Teaching of Addai, pp. xlv – xlvi & 91 – 93.
See T.D. Barnes, Constantine and
Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1981).
Because he died speedily and rapidly at the breaking of his legs he was unable to lay his hand upon Palut. Palut himself went to Antioch and received ordination to the priesthood from Serapion, Bishop of Antioch. Serapion himself, Bishop of Antioch, had also received ordination from Zephyrinus, Bishop of the city of Rome from the succession of ordination to the priest-hood of Simon Peter who received it from our Lord, and who had been Bishop there in Rome twenty-five years in the days of Caesar who reigned there thirteen years.Howard,
The Teaching of Addai, pp. lii & 105. See also n. 61 above.
See Bauer,
In this connection see the following studies
by Sidney H. Griffith, “Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa,
and the Church of the Empire,” in T. Halton & J.
Williman, (eds.), Orthodoxy and Heresy, pp.
17-20.
Diakonia: Essays in Honor of Robert T.
Meyer(Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1986), pp. 22-52;
“Ephraem the Syrian’s Hymns ‘Against
Julian’: Meditations on History and Imperial
Power,” Vigiliae Christianae 41 (1987), p.
238-266; “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint
Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies,” in Wm.E.
Klingshirn & Mark Vessey (eds.), The Limits of Ancient
Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in
Honor of R.A. Markus (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan
Press, 1999), pp. 97-114.
Doctrina
Addai composed a work, into which he incorporated earlier
legendary traditions, for the purpose of making a historical
and doctrinal claim in his own day.
Howard, mdintâ
mbarrabtâ)," a title which the author of the
Doctrina Addai suggests was due to Christ's own prayer
for the city, included in his letter to King Abgar, "As for
your city, may it be blessed and may no enemy ever again rule
over it."The Teaching of Addai, pp. iv
& 9.
Doctrina Addai proposes
a paradigm of Christian thought which he anachronistically
represents as corresponding to the city's ancient faith, in
reward for which she first received the promise of the Lord's
blessing.
See the passage quoted above at n. 59.
See Sidney H. Griffith, “The Marks of
the ‘True Church’ according to Ephraem’s
Hymns Against Heresies,” in Reinink &
Klugkist, After Bardaisan, pp. 125-140.
Howard,
See M. Black, “Rabbula of Edessa and
the Peshitta,” The Teaching of Addai, pp. 72
& 73.
Bulletin of the John Rylands
Library 33 (1951), pp. 203-210.
Doctrina Addai anachronistically represents the
reading of the Diatessaron in the liturgy as dating from the
time of Addai and the establishment of Christianity in
Edessa. Therefore, it is hard to avoid the conclusion
that in this connection he is taking a position in the
controversy about the Diatessaron, alleging its historical
authority, at the very time of his writing.
Doctrina Addai
that we have been able to include in the present article makes
it clear that in the narrative as a whole, but particularly in
the sermons and speeches of Addai, the Jews and Pagans are
major adversaries. These were the perennial, literary
adversaries of the Christian preachers in Late Antiquity, never
more so than in the fourth and fifth centuries. They were
also the common adversaries of writers in all the language
communities of the Christians at the time, and, as such, the
stereotypical charges lodged against them often lacked more
specific definition.
H.J.W. Drijvers, Doctrina Addai, and they were indeed "the main gods of
Edessa,"Cults and Beliefs at
Edessa (Leiden: Brill, 1980), p. 40.
I see that this city is filled with paganism which is
contrary to God. Who is this [man-] made idol
Nebo which you worship, and Bel which you honor?
Behold there are those among you who worship Bath
Nical, like the inhabitants of Haran your neighbors,
and Taratha, like the inhabitants of Mabug, and the
Eagle, like the Arabs, and the sun and the moon, like
the rest of the inhabitants of Haran who are like you.Howard,
The Teaching of Addai, pp. xxiv & 49.
For the associations of these cults see
Drijvers, Doctrina Addai
wanted to claim.Cults and Beliefs, pp. 40-75.
See in particular Drijvers, “The Abgar
Legend,” and Han J.W. Drijvers, “Facts and Problems
in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity,”
See Sidney H. Griffith, “The
‘Thorn among the Tares’: Mani and Manichaeism in
the Works of St. Ephraem the Syrian,” in M.F. Wiles and
E.J. Yarnold (eds.), The Second
Century 2 (1982), pp. 157-175.
Studia Patristica (vol. XXXV;
Leuven: Peeters, 2001), pp. 403-435 in press.
Doctrina
Addai, consistent with his purpose to present his own
position as that of the first preachers of Christianity in
Edessa, does not actually name the adversaries of record
against whom the upholders of imperial orthodoxy in the
Syriac-speaking milieu in his own day argued strenuously,
namely, Marcion, Bar Daysān, and
Mani. This is the case in spite of the clearly
anachronistic, anti-Manichaean character of the legendary
claims made in the narrative about the origins of Christianity
in Edessa and about the relationship between Addai and Abgar,
so reminiscent, according to Prof. Drijvers, of the
relationship between Mani and the Persian king, Shapùr I
(241-272).
Howard,
Howard,
Howard,
Howard,
Howard, The Teaching of Addai, pp. v
& 11.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxxiv & 69.
zaqôpê), and the reader is reminded that
Christ "is the God of the Jews who crucified him."The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxix & 59.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xliii & 87.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxxvii & 75. See also ibid. pp. xxxviii &
77 – xxxix & 79.
See Robert L. Wilken, Adversus
Judaeos dimension of the works of many writers of the
fourth and fifth centuries, such as Cyril of Alexandria (c. 375
- 444), John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) in Antioch, or Ephraem the
Syrian (306-373) in Nisibis and in Edessa.Judaism and the
Early Christian Mind: a Study of Cyril of Alexandria’s
Exegesis and Theology (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1971); idem, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric
and Reality in the Late Fourth Century (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1983). There is as yet no
satisfactory study of Ephraem and the Jews. Look for the
forthcoming doctoral dissertation of Tina Shepherdson at Duke
University.
Doctrina Addai does not anachronistically
name any particular Christian adversaries or well known
heresiarchs from a later time. Nevertheless, the
doctrinal positions adopted throughout the work, as will be
mentioned below, make it abundantly clear that the author
intends to claim that Edessa's historical faith should
logically exclude the Christological doctrines of those who
would in any way discount the full divinity of Christ.
Howard,
Howard, Doctrina
Addai given above, care has been taken to quote the
sentences and phrases in which the author set down the terms of
the confession of faith in Christ that he represents as
characterizing the historical faith of the kingdom of
Edessa. Perhaps the single most important place in the
narrative to study the Christological profile of the whole
document is in the section dealing with Addai's address to the
people of Edessa. Here the Nicene character of the faith
is evident in such phrases as the one which expresses King
Abgar's wish that many of his own people will come to know
that, "the son of God is God."The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xvii & 35.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxi & 43.
See Georg Günter Blum, Doctrina Addai
was interested in propounding the Christological view
associated with the teaching of Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444) in
the context of the controversies of his own day. In
Edessan history, the period when the city's ecclesiastical
establishment notably wavered between the Christologies of
Antioch and Alexandria, but prior to when the Roman imperial
authority proposed a definitive solution to the controversy,
was the time of the reign of Bishop Rabbula (d. 436).Rabbula von
Edessa; der Christ, der Bischof, der Theologe (CSCO, vol.
300, Subs. 34; Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus SCO,
1969); Han J.W. Drijvers, “Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa:
Spiritual Authority and Secular Power,” in J.W. Drijvers
& J.W. Watt, Portraits of Spiritual Authority, pp.
130-154. See also the study of the Syriac vita of
Rabbula by G.W. Bowersock, “The Syriac Life of Rabbula
and Syrian Hellenism,” in Tomas Hägg & Philip
Rousseau, Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late
Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000),
pp. 255-271.
Doctrina Addai.
Howard,
See Howard,
Howard,
Howard,
Howard, Doctrina Addai
is a pronounced concern for the proper use of wealth, or
rather, the renunciation of it by Addai and his
disciples. This concern surfaces at the very beginning of
Addai's relationship with Abgar, when the king gave orders for
silver and gold to be given to the apostle. Addai says,
"how can we receive anything which is not ours? Now
behold we have left that which is ours as we were commanded by
our Lord that we should be without purses and without
wallets."The Teaching of Addai, pp.
viii & 17.
The Teaching of Addai,
pp. xxxii & 65.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxxvi & 73.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xxxvi & 73.
The Teaching of Addai, pp.
xlviii & 97.
Doctrina Addai
leaves the following portrait of Addai and his followers:
He did not take silver or gold from any man. The
gifts of princes came no where near him. For in
place of gold and silver, he enriched Christ's church
with the souls of the believers. The whole status of
the men and women was: they were splendidly chaste,
they were pure and holy, they were living singly and
chastely, without defilement, splendidly [engaged] in
the watchfulness of the liturgy, in taking on the burden
of the poor, in visiting the sick.Howard,
The Teaching of Addai, pp. l & 101. The translation given here differs considerably in nuance from Howard’s.
See Sidney H. Griffith, “Asceticism in
the Church of Syria: the Hermeneutics of Early Syrian
Monasticism,” in Vincent L. Wimbush & Richard
Valantasis (eds.),
See Han J.W. Drijvers, “The Man of God
of Edessa, Bishop Rabbula, and the Urban Poor: Church and
Society in the Fifth Century,” Asceticism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995), pp. 220-245.
Journal of Early
Christian Studies 4 (1996), pp. 235-248.
See Howard, Doctrina Addai
clearly approves is the building of churches. In the
account of the Protonike legend a favorable mention is made of
the "especially great edifice" that the queen gave orders to be
built over Golgotha and Christ's tomb in Jerusalem.The Teaching of Addai,
pp. xv & 31.
Some years after the Apostle Addai had built theHistory and Historiography in Late Antique Edessa
church in Edessa, had provided it with everything
suitable for it, and had made many disciples from
the city's populace, he built churches in other
districts as well, both far and near. He adorned
and embellished them, set up deacons and presbyters
in them taught those who were to read the scriptures
in them, and taught the orders of the ministry
within and without.Howard,
The Teaching of Addai, pp. xl & 81.
Doctrina Addai. But few have considered the
integral work in its fullest form. It has been the
purpose of the present essay to review the composition it its
literary integrity. In the light of the review, a number
of conclusions suggest themselves.
H.J.W. Drijvers, “The Image of
Edessa,” pp. 15-16.
dramatis personae are put
forward as historical characters, it appears that the author
expected his intended audience to recognize their names and to
know their stories from the general fund of local, Edessan,
historical lore. The historical claims he puts forward in
particular, therefore, are not immediately the historical
details of the narrative, which he takes for granted, but the
larger theological and political themes one finds developed
throughout the work. They are the themes discussed above:
the Roman and Jerusalem connections; the apostolic tradition;
the adversaries of record; the Christological profile; the
moral imperative, especially the concern for evangelical
poverty. As we have seen, these themes are clearly put
forward anachronistically from the perspective of what could
have been the case at the time of the evangelization of
Edessa. The period that in the ensemble they most
immediately suggest is the first third of the fifth century,
and perhaps, more specifically, the time of Bishop Rabbula (d.
436). For many of the same reasons alleged here, in a
recent study, Prof. Han J.W. Drijvers concludes that the bishop
himself was responsible for the work. He declares
straightforwardly, "The final version of the Doctrina
Addai probably is due to bishop Rabbula."
Howard,
G.W. Bowersock, Doctrina Addai in its fullest form is an integral work,
with a definite set of ideas to commend, in the service of a
line of thinking that is at once political and religious, civil
and ecclesiastical. The author puts it forward, not
without apologetical and polemical intent, as a paradigm of
right thinking for the Edessan milieu; he rightly calls it
'teaching' or 'doctrine' (malpānûtâ),
and not 'history' (tash'îtâ). He
represents the several themes of the work as the component
parts of an Edessan profile of the Christian faith that in his
opinion goes back to the origins of Christianity in that
city. For this purpose he utilizes pre-existing material,
including the locally well known stories of Abgar and
Protonike, finally alleging that the whole work, including
Addai's sermons and instructions, have all along been preserved
in Edessa's royal archive, in a copy written by the legendary
scribe, Labûbna, and vouched for by the legendary
archivist, Hannān.The Teaching of Addai, pp.
liii & 107.
Fiction as History: Nero
to Julian (Sather Classical Lectures, vol. 58;
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
Doctrina Addai
intended to write the Gospel truth.