According to Eastern Christian tradition, Addai of Edessa ( Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܕܝ, Mar Addai or Mor Aday sometimes Latinized Addeus) or Thaddeus of Edessa was one of the

seventy disciples The seventy disciples or seventy-two disciples, known in the Eastern Christian traditions as the seventy apostles or seventy-two apostles, were early emissaries of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. The correct Greek terminology is evdomik ...

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

. He is possibly identical with Thaddaeus, one of the

Twelve Apostles In Christian theology and ecclesiology, the apostles, particularly the Twelve Apostles (also known as the Twelve Disciples or simply the Twelve), were the primary disciples of Jesus according to the New Testament. During the life and minist ...

. From an early date his

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

is filled with legends and fabrications. The saint himself may be entirely fictitious.

Life

Based on various Eastern Christian traditions, Thaddaeus was a Jew born in

Edessa Edessa (; grc, Ἔδεσσα, Édessa) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, founded during the Hellenistic period by King Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroe ...

, at the time a Syriac city, (now

Şanlıurfa Urfa, officially known as Şanlıurfa () and in ancient times as Edessa, is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. Urfa is situated on a plain about 80 km east of the Euphrates River. Its climate features ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

). He came to Jerusalem for a festival, and heard the preachings of

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

(St. John the Forerunner). After being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, he remained in Palestine. He later met and became a follower of Jesus. He was chosen to be one of the seventy disciples, whom Jesus sent in pairs to preach in the cities and places."Apostle Thaddeus of the Seventy", Orthodox Church in America
/ref> After

Pentecost Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christian holiday which takes place on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers ...

and the

ascension of Jesus The Ascension of Jesus ( anglicized from the Vulgate la, ascensio Iesu, lit=ascent of Jesus) is the Christian teaching that Christ physically departed from Earth by rising to Heaven, in the presence of eleven of his apostles. According to ...

, Thaddeus started preaching

the gospel The gospel or good news is a theological concept in several religions. In the historical Roman imperial cult and today in Christianity, the gospel is a message about salvation by a divine figure, a savior, who has brought peace or other benefit ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

and

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. Thaddaeus ordained priests in Edessa, converted many to Christianity and built up the church there. He also went to

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

to preach, and many believe that he founded a church there. The Syriac liturgy referred to as the Liturgy of Addai and Mari originated around the year 200 AD and is used by the

Assyrian Church of the East The Assyrian Church of the East,, ar, كنيسة المشرق الآشورية sometimes called Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East,; ar, كنيسة المشرق الآشورية الرسول� ...

and the

Chaldean Catholic Church , native_name_lang = syc , image = Assyrian Church.png , imagewidth = 200px , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows Baghdad, Iraq , abbreviation = , type ...

(both of which are based in Iraq); it is also used by the Eastern Syriac Churches in India which trace their origins to

Thomas the Apostle Thomas the Apostle ( arc, 𐡀𐡌𐡅𐡕𐡌, hbo, תוֹמא הקדוש or תוֹמָא שליחא (''Toma HaKadosh'' "Thomas the Holy" or ''Toma Shlikha'' "Thomas the Messenger/Apostle" in Hebrew-Aramaic), syc, ܬܐܘܡܐ, , meaning "twi ...

, namely, the

Chaldean Syrian Church The Chaldean Syrian Church of India ( Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ܕܐܬܘܖ̈ܝܐ; Malayalam: / ''Kaldaya Suriyani Sabha'') is an Eastern Christian denomination, based in Thrissur, in India. It is organized as a metropolitan pro ...

and

Syro-Malabar Catholic Church lat, Ecclesia Syrorum-Malabarensium mal, മലബാറിലെ സുറിയാനി സഭ , native_name_lang=, image = St. Thomas' Cross (Chennai, St. Thomas Mount).jpg , caption = The Mar Thoma Nasrani Sl ...

. His feast is celebrated on August 5 in the Christian calendar.

Addai and the healing of King Abgar

Among the

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...

faithful, Saint Addai was a disciple of Christ sent by St. Thomas the Apostle to

in order to heal King Abgar V of Osroene, who had fallen ill. He stayed to evangelize, and so converted Abgar—or Agbar, or in one Latin version "Acbar" — and his people including

Saint Aggai Aggai was a 1st-century primate of the Church of the East, and a disciple of Mar Addai, who is believed to have sat from 66 to 81. It was said that Aggai was one of the seventy apostles, and was assigned the East as far as the border of India as h ...

and Saint Mari. The story of how King Abgarus V and

had corresponded was first recounted in the 4th century by the church historian

Eusebius of Caesarea Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Chris ...

. In the origin of the legend, Eusebius had been shown documents purporting to contain the official correspondence that passed between Abgar and Jesus, and he was well enough convinced by their authenticity to quote them extensively in his '' Ecclesiastical History''. According to Eusebius: The story of the healing and Thaddeus' evangelizing efforts resulted in the growing of Christian communities in southern Armenia, northern Mesopotamia and in Syria east of Antioch. Thaddeus' story is embodied in the Syriac document, ''

Doctrine of Addai The ''Doctrine of Addai'' ( Syriac: ܡܠܦܢܘܬܐ ܕܐܕܝ ܫܠܝܚܐ ''Malp̄ānūṯā d-Addai Šlīḥā'') is a Syriac Christian text, written in the late 4th or early 5th century CE. It recounts the legend of the Image of Edessa as well as ...

,'' which recounts the role of Addai and makes him one of the 72 Apostles sent out to spread the

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

faith. By the time the

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...

had returned to

, the purported site of the miraculous

image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...

, it had been embroidered into a tissue of miraculous happenings. The story was retold in elaborated form by

Ephrem the Syrian Ephrem the Syrian ( syc, ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, Mār ʾAp̄rêm Sūryāyā, ; grc-koi, Ἐφραὶμ ὁ Σῦρος, Efrém o Sýros; la, Ephraem Syrus; am, ቅዱስ ኤፍሬም ሶርያዊ; ), also known as Saint Ephrem, Saint ...

Various traditions

St. Addai also appears in the '' First Apocalypse of James'' and the '' Second Apocalypse of James''.Robert Eisenman, ''James the Brother of Jesus : The key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls,'' 1997 (Viking Penguin). Especially the section "Thaddeus, Judas Thomas and the conversion of the Osrhoeans", pp 189ff. In Roman Catholic tradition, he and Saint Mari are considered patrons of Persian and Assyrian people.

References

External links

Thomasine Church Patriarchs

* ttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05088a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia: ''Doctrine of St. Addai''
Syriac Orthodox: ''Doctrine of St. Addai''
- online text in English

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thaddeus of Edessa 1st-century births 2nd-century deaths 1st-century bishops 2nd-century Mesopotamian bishops 2nd-century Christian saints Year of birth missing Year of death missing Ancient apocalypticists Assyrian Church of the East saints Bishops of Edessa Christian hagiography Early Jewish Christians Patriarchs of the Church of the East Persian saints 1st-century Jews Saints from Roman Syria Seventy disciples Syriac Christianity