Page:Orthodox Eastern Church (Fortescue).djvu/50

16 offer sacrifice, he found that the Christian faith had so spread in the city that only one old priest was left to offer a goose to Apollo.

The Bishop of Antioch was the chief bishop of Syria. He was in the first period obeyed throughout Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia, Cilicia, Mesopotamia and Cyprus. But the people of these provinces with their different languages, customs and national feelings, never held together as much as the Egyptians. Antioch lost in the 5th century Palestine, that went to make up the new Patriarchate of Jerusalem (p. 27), and Cyprus, that became an autonomous province (p. 48). Just as the faith had spread out from Egypt beyond the Empire, so also to the east of Antioch, beyond the Euphrates, and therefore beyond the Empire, a Christian community had grown up in the kingdom of Osrhoene, whose capital was Edessa. The tradition of this Church told a pretty story of how King Abgar the Black once sent an embassy of his nobles and a notary named Hannan to Tiberius. On their way back they pass by Jerusalem and hear every one in that city talk about the new Prophet from Galilee. Abgar's embassy stayed ten days in Jerusalem, and Hannan the notary wrote down everything that he saw and heard. Then they go home and tell their king what has happened. He sends Hannan back with a letter beginning: "Abgar the Black, Prince of Edessa, sends greeting to Jesus the good Saviour who has appeared in Jerusalem," and asking our Lord to come to Edessa and to heal him from leprosy. Our Lord writes back: "Happy art thou who hast believed in me without having seen me; for it is written that they who see me shall not believe, but they that do not see me shall believe in me." He goes on to say that he cannot go to Edessa, because: "I must fulfil that for which I am sent, and must then go back to him who sent me"; but he promises to send one of his Apostles, who shall heal Abgar; he also promises that Abgar's city shall always be blessed, and that no enemy shall ever overcome it.

Hannan then painted a portrait of our Lord, which he