A short distance within the hills our track struck the great metalled road that runs from Birijik to Urfa. It is a road which, as far as it goes, might be called good in any country: but only the Urfa half of it is completed; it comes to an untimely end not far from the point where we struck at, which was somewhere about a third of the way to Birijik. The remaining section, however, served us admirably, and[{17}] we trundled along it in fine style for the last three hours of our day’s journey, threading a winding rocky valley which debouched at the back of the town.
Oriental cities as a rule are rather a disappointment to sightseers. Picturesque they are indeed, but in such a squalid fashion that much of their charm is blighted. They are a mere agglomeration of hovels, with a few fine features here and there. We have even heard it said of Constantinople itself that, having seen the approach to the Golden Horn, the traveller had better take his departure; for that every nearer inspection brings a fresh disillusionment in its train. Urfa, however, may rank as one of the exceptions. It is beyond question the most picturesque city in Mesopotamia. And, being built chiefly of stone, it has some dignity in its dilapidation, and wears its tattered finery with an aristocratic air.
Urfa lies just at the foot of the hills, half enclosed by two bold limestone promontories. The upper part of the town is pooled in the bay between them, and the lower and larger portion is split out into the plain. It is almost surrounded by its ancient walls, which are largely of Roman workmanship; and its mosques and minarets and all its prominent buildings are constructed almost entirely of a rich golden-brown stone. The streets are of course mere alleys, narrow and tortuous; but retain here and there many traces of architectural ornamentation; and among and around the houses grow cypresses and other trees. The principal mosque, once a Christian cathedral, is an old Byzantine basilica, and above it rises conspicuously a noble octagonal tower. The present Armenian church is also of great antiquity, though hardly of the First Century, which is what the Armenians claim.[9]
The promontory to the west of the town is crowned by the ancient citadel; now a mere shell, but imposing from[{18}] its situation, and surmounted by two lofty Roman columns formerly a portion of a temple portico.[10] Towards the town the hill is precipitous, but on the further side the slope is gradual; and accordingly the whole of this face, together with the two return ends, is defended by one of the most magnificent dry moats that exists anywhere in the world. It is hewn out of solid rock, with sides that are absolutely vertical; and may measure even now about thirty feet deep and not less than thirty feet wide. Formerly it could be crossed at two or three places by narrow wooden drawbridges; and the posterns to which they gave access can still be seen in the walls. At what epoch this moat was constructed we did not feel competent to determine. The walls are partly Saracenic, partly Roman, and partly Sassanian; they are now extremely ruinous and of no very formidable height.[11]
Urfa in classical days was known by the name of Edessa, and was the capital city of that king Abgarus of Osroëne, whose Epistle to our Lord is included among the Apocryphal Gospels. This tale is something more than a legend, for it dates from the beginning of the fourth century; and is related by the historians Eusebius and Moses of Khorene, who both profess to have derived their authority from contemporary documents which they had themselves inspected among the royal archives at Edessa. They tell us how the king was afflicted with leprosy, and how he sought in vain to be cured by the physicians and sorcerers of his own land. How at length he heard report of the miracles that were being wrought in Judaea by Jesus the[{19}] Prophet of Galilee; and how he dispatched ambassadors to Him, entreating Him to come and heal his disease and to instruct his people, offering Him at the same time a secure asylum from the hatred of the unbelieving Jews. These ambassadors were the “certain Greeks”[12] who are mentioned in St. John’s Gospel as having been introduced to our Lord by Philip on the day of His triumphant entry into Jerusalem; and they brought back to Abgarus a verbal message (or some say an actual letter dictated by our Lord to Thomas) promising that one of His Apostles should be sent to Edessa in due time.
Accordingly soon after the Ascension the Apostle Thaddeus was sent by Thomas to preach the Word in Osroëne. He came and healed Abgarus of his leprosy; and the king and all his people thereupon embraced the Faith.[13] Thaddeus himself passed onwards to Armenia and Eastern Mesopotamia, where he founded the Parthian or Assyrian, now called the “Nestorian,” Church.
We may at least say of this legend that it is nearly as well authenticated as that which attributes the foundation of the Church of Rome to Peter; and far better than those which claim Spain for James the Great, or Britain for Joseph of Arimathea. The stories have this much in their favour—that at all events they are not mutually contradictory. Peter and James are conceded to the West; while Eastern tradition contents itself with Thomas and Thaddeus and Bartholomew. One would expect only the illustrious names in any mere fabricated tales.
At least it is historically certain that the Gospel was brought to Edessa almost within the Apostolic ages; and that Edessa formed the main distributing centre for the preachers who evangelized the East.
Osroëne in Abgarus’ days formed a sort of buffer state[{20}] between the Parthian and Roman Empires; and a little later it experienced the usual fate of buffer states, and was absorbed by the Empire of Rome. Under its new suzerains Edessa took rank as an important frontier fortress, and stood many a siege in the long-drawn wars between the kings of the Sassanid Persians and the Emperors of Byzantine Rome. Moreover it was a great educational centre, the seat of a famous university, which was eventually suppressed by the Byzantine Emperor Zeno in the year 489 on the ground that it was tainted by the heresy of Nestorianism.
But Edessa has acquired one peculiar interest in the eyes of Western historians from the fact that it was the easternmost conquest that was ever achieved by the Crusades. When Godfrey de Bouillon reached Antioch in the year 1097 his brother Baldwin was in command of one of the divisional armies that sallied forth to raid the country round about. Many of the Crusading chieftains won themselves little principalities in the course of these plundering expeditions; but Baldwin had better luck than any, though it does not appear that it was any better deserved. He penetrated eastward to Edessa; and found that city governed by a petty Christian kinglet, who welcomed the Crusaders effusively and adopted Baldwin as his successor. How far such welcome and adoption were voluntary we have no means of ascertaining. Probably the poor Christian Emir felt that he could not help himself. At any rate, he was killed soon after in an insurrection (not without suspicion of Baldwin’s connivance), and the latter reigned in his room.