[299] In the “Testament of St. Ephrem,” as given by Assemani, occurs the words “Benedicta civitas, ... Edessa sapientum mater, quæ ex vivo Filii ore benedictionem per ejus discipulum accepit. Illa igitur benedictio in ea maneat donec Sanctus apparuerit.” Bibliotheca Orientalis, Tom. I, p. 141 (Rome, 1719).
[300] Cf. Histoire Politique, Religieuse et Littéraire d’ Edesse jusque à la Première Croisade, p. 81 (by R. Duval, Paris, 1892).
[301] Ecclesiastical History, Bk. I, Chap. XIII.
[302] An ancient manuscript in the British Museum contains a service book of Saxon times, in which the letter of Our Lord to Abgar follows the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed. At the end of the letter, which is in the Latin version of Rufinus, occurs the words: “Sive in domu tua, sive in civitate tua, sive in omni loco nemo inimicorum tuorum dominabit. Et insidias diaboli ne timeas et carmina inimicorum tuorum destruuntur (sic), et omnes inimici tui expellentur a te: sive a grandine, sive a tonitrua (sic) non noceberis, et ab omni periculo liberaberis: sive in mare, sive in terra, sive in die, sive in nocte, sive in locis obscuris. Si quis hanc epistolam secum habuerit, securus ambulet in pace.” Cf. Ancient Syriac Documents Relative to the Earliest Establishment of Christianity in Edessa and the Neighboring Countries, from the Year after Our Lord’s Ascension to the Beginning of the Fourth Century, Discovered, Edited, Translated and Annotated by the late W. Cureton, p. 154 (London, 1864). See also The Book of Cerne, p. 205, et seq. (by the erudite Benedictine, Dom. A. B. Kuypers, Cambridge, England, 1902).
[303] For a critical discussion of the “Legend of Abgar” see Les Origines de l’Eglise d’Edesse et La Légende d’ Abgar (by the learned Sulpician, L. J. Tixeront, Paris, 1888).
“The practice of keeping this letter as a philactery prevailed in England till the last century.... ‘The common people’ there have had it in their houses in many places in a frame with a picture before it and they generally with much honesty and devotion regard it as the word of God and the genuine epistle of Christ.’... I have a recollection of having seen the same thing in cottages in Shropshire.” Cureton, op. cit., p. 155.
[304] In the province of Osrhoene, about a day’s journey from Edessa, was a celebrated mart called Batne, where the Indians and the Seres came to trade with the Edessenes and rich merchants from other cities at an annual fair which was held in this place in the month of September. Here, Ammianus Marcellinus informs us “magna promiscuæ fortunæ convenit multitudo ad commercanda quæ Indi et Seres aliaque plurima vehi terra marique consueta.” Rerum Gestarum, Lib. XIV, Cap. III, 3.
For an illuminating map showing the importance of Edessa as a trade center during Roman times, see V. Chapot’s La Frontière de L’Euphrate de Pompée à la Conquête Arabe, facing p. 402 (Paris, 1907).
[305] L. J. Tixeront, op. cit., p. 7, et seq.
[306] Cf. The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Record and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, p. 200 (by T. G. Pinches, London, 1908).