Download PDF | (The Medieval Mediterranean 82) Mark Guscin - The Image of Edessa-Brill (2009).
258 Pages
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for their help in writing this book:
Dr. Daniel Scavone of the University of Southern Indiana, Paul Magdalino of the University of St. Andrews, the anonymous readers who checked the first drafts of the manuscript, Marcella Mulder, Alison Bryant, Diana Fulbright, Ian Wilson, Emanuela Marinelli, Nicola Bux, Bryan Walsh, Brother Ioannis of the Monastery of Saint John on the island of Patmos and the staff at the Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies in Thessaloniki for their extra efforts on my behalf. Most of all, thanks are due to the monks of Mount Athos for granting access to their libraries and manuscripts (excepting the library of Megistes Lavras, which remained closed despite my best efforts—I had to rely on microfilms in Thessaloniki). Special thanks are due to Monk Theologos of the Holy Monastery of Iveron, Monk Chrysostomos of the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou, Monk Kallistos of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou, and all the monks at the Protaton.
Some of the people mentioned above have helped by answering requests and questions without knowing the final objective of their replies and of this book. It is quite possible that they do not agree with the arguments expressed in this work, and the fact that I have thanked them in no way implies their endorsement of my own work.
INTRODUCTION
The Image of Edessa was an image of Christ that, according to tradition, was of miraculous origin. According to the legend, Abgar, the king of Edessa and contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, suffered from a skin disease and thanks to one of his messengers who was passing through Jerusalem, found out that there was a miracle worker and healer in the city. Abgar decided to write a letter to Christ and invite him to come and live in Edessa (the setting was just a few days before the crucifixion, and Abgar knew that the Jews were planning to kill Jesus). The messenger (Ananias or Hanan) returned to Jerusalem. Most accounts relate that Ananias, following Abgar’s orders, tried to sketch Christ’s face to take back to Edessa, but was unable to as Jesus kept looking this way and that. Eventually Jesus sent one of the disciples to call Ananias over, and before the messenger could hand over the letter from Abgar, Jesus told him of its contents. Jesus then wrote a reply to Abgar explaining that it was impossible for him to go to Edessa as he had a mission to fulfil. When he had ascended into heaven, however, he would send one of his disciples to cure Abgar and lead him into all truth.
Before Ananias could leave, Jesus fulfilled the second part of Abgar’s request. Asking for a cloth, he wiped his face with it and left a miraculous imprint of his features on it. At first, the letters (from Abgar to Jesus and the reply) were the central part of the story; copies were made, and eventually used as a kind of talisman to ward off evil. The text developed over time—perhaps the most significant addition was the promise that the city of Edessa would be invincible to enemy attacks. Later versions contain detailed instructions of when to carry and read the letter in order to obtain personal safety.
Meanwhile, Ananias took the cloth with Christ’s image back to Edessa. Abgar touched it to his whole body and was cured from his skin disease, except for a small spot that was left on his forehead. He had the cloth with the image on it placed in a niche above the city gate, in the place of a pagan idol. Abgar died, as in turn did his son. When his grandson became king he reverted to paganism; wishing to destroy the Image of Edessa, he placed a pagan image back in the niche.
The bishop was made aware of the king’s intentions and bricked the Image up into the niche, together with a lighted lamp, and covered it with a tile and bricks just like the rest of the wall. The hiding place was so successful that the Image fell out of knowledge and memory, until the Persians under King Khusro (Chosroes) attacked Edessa in the sixth century. The attackers were tunnelling their way under the city walls when the city’s bishop had a dream in which a woman told him about the Image and where to find it. Following her instructions, he took the Image to where the Persians were lighting a fire, and the flames were blown back onto the invaders, defeating them.
The Image was kept in Edessa even when the city was lost to the Byzantine Empire (and was thus conveniently far removed from the iconoclastic crisis). Towards the middle of the tenth century it was finally taken to Constantinople. After a ceremonious arrival, it was kept in the Boucoleon and, apart from making an appearance in some pilgrims’ lists of relics they had seen, is hardly mentioned again. After the sack of the capital during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Image of Edessa is never heard of again.
The Image’s history has formed the subject matter of various articles and chapters in books with a more general scope, but despite Steven Runciman’s comment to the effect that the Image’s “admirable activities ... entitle it now to be given some day the honour of a full-length biography”,! such a study has not been forthcoming until now.
This present book is divided into three main parts: critical editions of the historical texts about the Image of Edessa, translations of these texts into English, and finally a history of the Image based on these texts and on previous published works related to the subject.
As far as the texts are concerned, previous editions of both the Narratio de imagine Edessena? and the Synaxarion’ are in existence, although neither is readily available outside the library. Neither of these editions includes the manuscripts from Mount Athos. For ease of reference I have maintained the manuscript sigla from the printed editions in each case, while for the Athos and other manuscripts not previously collated I have used a more obvious reference system (e.g. ML is Megistes Lavras 429, MLz2 is Megistes Lavras 644 etc). A translation of the Narratio de imagine Edessena was published in 1978.4 Von Dobschiitz used two mansucripts from Mount Athos (Dionisiou 54 and Protaton 36), although the readings he provides from these two witnesses are incomplete and in places inaccurate.
I have collated many other mansucripts from Athos and also other codices von Dobschiitz either did not know of or chose to ignore (Escorial gr. II.11, Messina 5. Salv. 49, Milan Ambros. C 186 inf, Milan Ambros. D 52 sup, Milan Ambros. D 107 sup, Patmos 252 and Patmos 258), and have corrected his incomprehensibly incomplete readings from the codex he called I (Florence BML gr, [X.33). Two of the manuscripts unknown to von Dobschiitz’s edition are quite unique in their readings—Pantokrator gg is a heavily truncated version, while Milan D52 sup. contains unique readings concerning the arrival of the Image in Constantinople in the tenth century. Von Dobschiitz identified a text included at the end of two versions of the Narratio de imagine Edessena, calling it the Liturgical Tractate. Rather than treating it as a separate text as von Dobschiitz did, | have embedded it within the text of the Official History, just before the last chapter, exactly where it is found in all the witnesses excepting Milan D52, where it is included as a separate text after the Narratio.
For the tractate I have included the testimony of three manuscripts from Mount Athos, unknown to von Dobschiitz, and also that of Milan D52. The chapter divisions in the Narratio de imagine Edessena are the ones used by Migne, with the addition of the Liturgical Tractate, while I have maintained von Dobschiitz’s divisions in the Synaxarion (Delehaye’s text has no divisions or chapters). I have included in the critical edition of the Synaxarion the text of the twelfth-century Byzantine historian Georgius Gedrenus,’ which is in its major part word for word identical to the Synaxarion itself, although it has undergone some modifications, probably by Cedrenus himself. The Synaxarion itself is an abbreviated version of the Narratio, and one Athos manuscript (Iveron 797) contains a much abbreviated version of the Synaxarion, which is previously unedited (to my knowledge). The divisions and group numbers in the various different Menaion texts are my own.
There are versions of the Abgar correspondence in some Athos manuscripts that have never been published before (again, to my knowledge), and Menaion texts from manuscripts that are not even included in Lampros’ monumental catalogue of manuscripts on Athos, and hence whose existence is not recorded anywhere but here.*
A little known version of the Abgar legend is also included under the name of the sermon of Gregory Referendarius (i.e. overseer of relationships between the patriarch and the emperor). Preserved in just one known manuscript in the Vatican library (Gr 511), the text must have been written shortly after the arrival of the Image of Edessa in Constantinople m 944. The text was published with a translation into French by André-Marie Dubarle.’
I hope to have met Steven Runciman’s wish for the Image of Edessa to have its own complete biography and history with the present book.
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