Abgar V

Abgar V (c. 1st century BC – c. AD 50), called Ukkāmā (meaning "the Black" in Syriac and other dialects of Aramaic), was the King of Osroene with his capital at Edessa. Abgar was described as "king of the Arabs" by Tacitus, a near-contemporary source. Moses of Chorene depicted Abgar as an Armenian, but modern scholarly consensus agree that the Abgarids were in fact an Arab dynasty. Armenian historian Moses of Chorene (ca. 410–490s AD) notes that Abgar V's chief wife was Queen Helena of Adiabene, who according to Josephus was the wife of King Monobaz I of Adiabene. Abgar V is said to be one of the first Christian kings in history, having been converted to the faith by Thaddeus of Edessa, one of the seventy disciples. The church historian Eusebius recorded that the Edessan archives contained a copy of a correspondence exchanged between Abgar of Edessa and Jesus. The correspondence consisted of Abgar's letter and the answer dictated by Jesus. On 15 August 944, the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae in Constantinople received the letter and the . Both relics were then moved to the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos. This account enjoyed great popularity in the East and in the West during the Middle Ages. Jesus' letter was copied on parchment, inscribed in marble and metal, and used as a talisman or an amulet. Of this correspondence, there survives not only a Syriac text, but an Armenian translation as well, two independent Greek versions, shorter than the Syriac, and several inscriptions on stone. Scholars have disputed many aspects of this account such as whether Abgar suffered from gout or from leprosy, or whether the correspondence was on parchment or papyrus. The text of the letter was: Abgar, ruler of Edessa, to Jesus the good physician who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem, greeting. I have heard the reports of you and of your cures as performed by you without medicines or herbs. For it is said that you make the blind to see and the lame to walk, that you cleanse lepers and cast out impure spirits and demons, and that you heal those afflicted with lingering disease, and raise the dead.