4 
THE LEGEND OF ST. THOMAS. 
history are beyond all dispute. That city is Edessa^ the 
capital of the province of Osrohene in Mesopotamia. Its 
connection with the Apostle enters into hterature in the 
form of a very bold legend. For when, in the fifteenth 
year of Tiberius, Abgarus its king was sick, he sent a 
letter to Jesus Christ, begging Him to come and heal him, 
offering at the same time to share his kingdom with ' the 
excellent Saviour ' and to protect him from the Jews. 
Abgarus, it is said, received a written reply to the effect that 
Jesus had work which He might not leave ; but He would 
send one of His disciples to cure the king of his disease. 
Now it was Thomas, who, according to the legend, was 
appointed as Christ's amanuensis to write the letter to 
Abgarus, and it was Thomas who ' by a divine impulse ' 
sent Thaddeus (or Addeus as he is perhaps oftener called) 
to Edessa. 
Eusebius * informs us that he himself found these letters 
among the records of the church of Edessa ; and, whatever 
may be said about their authenticity, the fact of theii- being 
so found is not to be called in question. Curiously, in our 
own day, the same documents re-appear. For Dr. Ciu-eton 
found, among the MSS. acquired in 1841, 18-13, and 1817 by 
the British Museum from the Nitrian Monastery in Lower 
Egypt, " a considerable portion of the Aramaic document 
which Eusebius cites as preserved in the archives of Edessa ;" ^ 
and tliese MSS. are of great importance in the history of the 
literatiu-e that has gathered round the name of St. Thomas. 
The assignation of India to Thomas as the sphere of his 
apostolic laboiu's has indeed been all but universal among 
ecclesiastical historians and other wiiters. But it is only 
when we go back to the som-ces of the story that au}i:hiug 
approaching to a satisfactory conclusion on the question 
^ Boclea. Hist., B. I, c. 13. 
' Seo Ante-Niceue Cluistuvn Library, vol. XX., Syriac Docunmits, p. 1. 
