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59 Lit. "the hand of priesthood:" and so passim.-TR.
60 Strabo, de Persis, b. xv. (ch. iii.): "They sacrifice to fire and to water."
61 See his letter in Mos. Chor., infra.
62 Dio Cassius, liv. 8: "Augustus fixed as the boundaries of the empire of the Romans the Tigris and Euphrates."
63 See it also, with some variations, in Mos. Chor., infra.
64 It was Pilate's duty, as governor of Judea, to send an account to the Roman Government of what had occured in respect to Jesus; and his having done so is mentioned by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and several other writers.
65 the word is evidently misspelt. The name intended may have been confounded with that of the Albinus who was made governor of Judea at a later period by Nero, a.d. 62. The same person is referred to, in the Exit of Mary, infra: "Sabinus, the governor who had been appointed by the Emperor Tiberius: and even as far as the river Euphrates the governor Sabinus had authority." The person meant can only be Vitellius, who was then governor of Syria, who removed Pilate from the administration of Judea, sending Marcellus in his stead, and ordered him to appear before Tiberius at Rome. The emperor died before he reached Rome.
66 No mention is made by historians of any war with Spain. But about this time Vitellius, mentioned in the precding note, was mixed up with the wars of the Parthians and Hiberians; and, as Hiberi is an ame common to Spaniards, as well as Hiberians, the apparent error may have arisen in translating the letter ouf ot Latin into Syriac.
67 Baronius says Pilate violated the law by crucifying our Lord so soon after sentence had been passed, whereas a delay of tne days was required by a law passed in the reign of Tiberius.
68 Tiberius is said by Tertullian (Apol., 5) to have referred to the senate the question of admitting Christ among the gods. This has been interpolated into the epistle of Tiberius to Abgar as given in Moses Chor., B. ii. c. 33. He also adds another letter from Abgar in reply to this.
69 This word has been so much distorted and disfigured by the transcribers, that I am unable to recognise what is the place intended. -CURETON.
70 This word may be read Ortyka, and may be intended for Ortygia near Syracuse, which was not far from the island of Capreae, where Tiberius then desided, seldom leaving it to go farther than to the neighbouring coast of Campania.
71 Lit. "the other villages." So, in several passages of these Documents, "the rest of the other-." The habit of including two or more distinguished nations under a class tow hich only one of them belongs was not unknown among classical writers also: as when, e.g., Thucydides speaks of the Peloponnesian war as the most remarkable of all the wars the preceded it. Milton's imitation, "The fairest of her daughters, Eve" [Paradise Lost, iv. 324], is well known.-TR.
72 The (and) seems to have been altered into (of).-WRIGHT. Perhaps "of" is the better reading.-TR.
73 It is plain from the context here, as well as wherever it occurs in these early Syriac Documents, that this title (or that of Guide alone) is precisely the same as that of Bishop, although the Greek word e0pi/skopoj had not yet obtained in the East. The first mention we find of the title Bishop (in these pages) is in the Acts of Sharbil about a.d. 105-112, where Barsamya is called "the Bishop of the Christians," although he is more generaly designated as here. It is also found ni the Teaching Simon Cephas, sub fin., which seems to have been written early in the second century or at the end of the first. The passage in the Teaching of Addoeus, p. 665, infra, where it occurs, was interpolated at a much later period. [The parenthetic words of this note are supplied by the translator.]
75 Perhaps the same as Izates: see Jos., Antiq., xx. ii. 1, 4: Tac., Ann., xii. 14.
76 This seems to be the person spoken of by Moses Chor., B. ii. c. 30, under the name "Mar-Ihap, prince d'Aghtzink," as one of the envoys sent by Abgar to Marinus.
77 Tacitus writes this name Sinnaces: see Ann., vi. 31, 32.
79 These are given at pp. 673 sqq., infra.
80 Quoted in the Epistle of Addoeus, infra.
81 Probably "wicked," the meaning being that all such wandering is wilful. Cureton makes "hateful" the predicate: "error is adominable in its paths."-TR.
82 One leaf apparently is lost from the ms. in this place. What follows appears to be part of the reply of those addressed-their "testimony concerning the teaching set forth in their preaching."-TR.
83 The reference seems to be to Matt. x. 7-10.
84 May. The death of Addaeus occurred before that of Abgar, which took place a.d. 45. It would appear, therefore, that his ministry at Edessa lasted about ten or eleven years.
85 Compare the Teaching of the Apostles, Ord. xviii. p. 669, infra.
86 This seems to apply to those who especially belonged to the ministry of the Church. This is the only passage in the Documents in which women are spoken of as connected with the ministry.-TR. [The estate of deaconesses was of Apostolic foundation. Rom. xvi. i.]
87 The reference is only to their purity of life. It is not implied that they lived in seclusion.-TR.
88 Lit. "their burden-bearing."-TR.
90 An allusion to Matt. iv. 19; "I will make you fishers of men."
91 i.e., refusing to accept Christianity: as a few lines before.-TR. The person referred to would seem to be the second of the two sons of Abgar calle dMaanu, who succeeded his brother Maanu, and reigned fourteen years-from a.d. 52 to a.d. 65, according to Dionysius as cited by Assemani.
92 This ignominious mode of execution, which was employed in the case of the two theives at Calvary, seems to have been of Roman origin. The object of the king in putting Aggaeus to this kind of death was, probably, to degrade and disgrace him.
93 This paragraph is a barefaced interpolation made by some ignorant person much later, who is also responsible for the additions to the Martyrdom of Sharbil, and to that of Barsamya. For this Palut was made Elder by Addaeus himself, at the time that Aggaeus was appointed Bishop, or Guide and Ruler. This took place even before the death of Abgar, who died a.d. 45; whereas Serapion did not become bishop of Antioch till the beginning of the third century, if, as is here stated, he was consecrated by Zephyrinus, who did not become Bishop of Rome till a.d. 201.
94 Moses Chor., ii. 36, calls him, in the translation of Le Vaillant de Florival, "Gheroupna, fils de l'ecrivain Apchatar:" in that of Whiston, "Lerubnas, Apsadari scribae filius." Apchatar of the first, and Apsadar of the second, translator are evidently corruptions in the Armenian from the Adbshaddai (= Ebedshaddai) of the Syriac. Dr. Alishan, in a letter to Dr. Cureton from the Armenian Convent of St. Lazarus, Venice, says he has found an Armenian MS., of probably the twelfth century, which he believes to be a translation of the present Syriac original. It is a history of Abgad and Thaddaeus, written by Gherubnia with the assistance of Ananias (= Hanan), confident (= sharir) of King Abgar.