Abgar VIII
King of Edessa under the emperor Septimius Severus. The city’s archive record of the flood of 201, made in his reign, mentions a church of the Christians there. Whether he became a Christian himself is uncertain.
The Chronicle of Edessa calls him Abgar the king, son of Maano, and sets him in the reign of Severus; modern lists of the kings of Edessa number him either VIII or IX. The chronicle tells how he watched the river rise from a tower by torchlight, ordered the sluices opened too late to save the western wall, and afterwards forbade building beside the river, posted watchmen and remitted the city’s taxes for five years; four years later he built a new palace (Chronicle of Edessa 8–9).
A dialogue from the school of Bardaisan, who lived in his city, says that when King Abgar “became a believer” he punished those who castrated themselves in honour of the goddess Tharatha by cutting off a hand (Book of the Laws of the Countries). Jerome’s Chronicle, on the authority of Julius Africanus, records “a holy man” Abgar reigning at Edessa (Jerome, Chronicle under the reign of Macrinus, AD 218). Neither text says which king of that name it means, and the flood record itself, though it mentions the Christians’ church, says nothing of the king’s religion.
In the timeline
- about AD 201, estimated dateChristianity Takes Root in Edessa
A flood report of November 201, kept in the archives of Edessa, lists a church of the Christians among the buildings destroyed. It is dated evidence of a church in the Syriac-speaking East, where a later tradition traced the church back to a letter from Jesus.