Ecclesiastical History
The Legend of Abgar
Legend has it that a cloth with an image of Jesus was brought to King Abgar V Ouchama of Edessa who reigned over the city state off and on between A.D. 13 and 50. We know of this legend from Eusebius of Caesarea’s early 4th century Ecclesiastical History. Therein, we learn of a now lost document (if it ever existed) that had been in Edessa’s archives. It was purportedly written by King Abgar V and delivered to Jesus by an envoy named Ananias. Abgar supposedly asked Jesus to come to Edessa to cure him of a malady. Eusebius’ history reports that the Apostle Thomas did send Thaddeus sometime after Jesus’ death and that he founded a church in Edessa.
Historians are highly critical of this account since Eusebius’s history includes, as elements of the letter, references from the Gospels, which were written later than the legendary account, as well as theological concepts, which probably developed many years after the reign of Abgar.
Ecclesiastical History
In the late 6th century, Evagrius Scholasticus’ Ecclesiastical History mentions that Edessa was protected by a “divinely wrought portrait” (acheiropoieton) sent by Jesus to Abgar. Not yet enough for a decent inference, but at least a beginning: There was in Edessa a piece of cloth with an image thought to be of Jesus. It was not an ordinary image. The clue is that it is variously described as painted with choice pigment, of formed by sweat and not made by human hands.
There are no descriptions of Jesus’ appearance in the New Testament. Nor are there any reputable descriptions in any known early church sources. St. Augustine of Hippo made a point of this when he wrote his monumental works in the 5th century. Yet, starting in the 6th century a new common appearance for Jesus emerged in art. We see it today in hundreds of icons, paintings, mosaics, and Byzantine coins. This common quality seems to have started in Christian Byzantium about the same time that the Image of Edessa was discovered. Prior to this time, images of Jesus were mostly of a young, beardless man, often with short hair, often in story-like settings in which he was depicted as a shepherd.