The Letters of Christ and Abgarus

A letter said to have been sent by Abgarus (Abgar V Ukkama), king of Edessa in Mesopotamia, asking Jesus to come and heal him, with Jesus' written answer promising to send one of His disciples after His ascension. The earliest form is the Greek that Eusebius gives in his Ecclesiastical History (1.13, early 4th century), translated, he says, word for word from Syriac documents in the archives of Edessa; it is a legend, not a genuine exchange, probably of the 3rd century. The letters belong to the story of the mission of Thaddaeus (Addai) and the conversion of Edessa (see the Acts of Thaddaeus), and later copies of Jesus' letter were used as amulets. This is M. R. James's English (The Apocryphal New Testament, 1924); each chapter is one letter, its first verse the heading Eusebius gives it. Not part of any church's canon.