Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Abgar

​Abgar, the name or title of a line of kings of Edessa in Mesopotamia. One of them is known from a correspondence he is said to have had with Jesus Christ. The letter of Abgar, entreating Jesus to visit him and heal him of a disease, and offering Him an asylum from the wrath of the Jews, and the answer of Jesus promising to send a disciple to heal Abgar after His ascension, are given by Eusebius, who believed the documents to be genuine. The same belief has been held by a few moderns, but there can be no doubt whatever that the letter of Jesus at least is apocryphal. It has also been alleged that Abgar possessed a picture of Jesus, which the credulous may see either at Rome or at Genoa. Some make him the possessor of the handkerchief a woman gave Jesus, as He bore the cross, to wipe the sweat from His face with, on which, it is fabled, His features remained miraculously imprinted.

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.