The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar by Jacob A. Lollar (review)

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• The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar by Jacob A. Lollar
• Eva María Rodrigo Gómez

Jacob A. Lollar
The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar
Westar Tool and Translations: Early Christian Apocrypha 10
Eugene: Cascade Books, 2023
Pp. xvi + 146. $23.00.

Jacob A. Lollar furnishes us with a handy English translation of the mythical (in more than one sense) Doctrine of Addai and the correspondence between Jesus and King Abgar. This book starts with a useful introduction, where Lollar presents the work, giving a summary; the main theories about the provenance, date, and authorship; a diagram with a proposal of the transmission of the Addai legend; the historical context in which it was written and transmitted; its use of scripture; a description of the manuscripts that preserve the text, together with other witnesses of this tradition; and finally mention of modern translations, [End Page 477] of which this would be the fifth one in English, the previous one published as recently as 2021 by J. E. Walters in his Eastern Christianity: A Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2021).

The introduction is well structured and gives a general view of the status quaestionis, which seems to need still further study to elucidate the state of the text at its different stages, from the early Syriac version, before Eusebius of Caesarea’s mention, to the final phase, probably around the time of Rabbula, bishop of Edessa between 411 and 435 c.e. Here Lollar addresses the key questions about origin, development, and religious controversies in which the text was created. He explains the different theories scholars have made over the years and offers his opinion, often with caution, as most of the time solid information is scarce, and the theories proposed are slightly hypothetical. Among them, the most intriguing may be the possible influence of Nisibean refugees, among whom Ephrem was present (as a consequence of Jovian ceding the city to Shapur II on 363 c.e.), who pass on the tradition of the divine protection of their city: Nisibis was besieged three times during Ephrem’s lifetime, always prevailing against its enemy’s hands. That would explain the presence of Jesus’s promise of protection to the city of Edessa, which does not appear in Eusebius, but does in Egeria (around twenty years after the arrival of the Nisibeans) and in the following tradition, becoming even a token to put on the walls of the cities or on amulets with apotropaic intention, as we see in Appendix A, 3, and 4.

Because of this probable influence, “Edessa is presented as the true heir of Nisibis’s glorious Christian past” (11, a quote from Drijvers, “Syriac Romance of Julian,” 211). Curiously enough, years later, Nisibis will be held as the true heir of Edessa, by the members of the School of Nisibis.

In this sense, a resolution about the Christological content and tendency of the text, which would allow for a better dating, remains open to further and deeper analysis. It seems to contain “a very clear pro-Nicene theology” (14), that would align with the “Palūtians,” and against every other group, both pagans and heretics. This works for the fourth-century stage, but its position in the fifth century remains less clear, when the christological controversy was quite active in the city, with individuals such as Rabbula and Hiba as main representatives of each viewpoint. Three of the four manuscripts were copied during this time, and there are several contrasting theories about its propagandistic uses in favor of or against the polemic Rabbula.

After the introduction, Lollar presents his translation of the Doctrine of Addai, following the only complete manuscript: St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Siriyskaya Novaya seria 4, fols. 1v–33r, from the fifth/sixth century c.e., but also noting the variants present in the other three manuscripts from the British Library that preserve fragments of the text (Add. 14644, Add. 14645, and Add. 14535). For a smoother translation, the author uses the dynamic equivalence technique, although sometimes he prefers more literal translations such as “hand of the priesthood” for “ordination” or “Shemon Cephas...