Did Jesus Write a Letter?
It’s common to say that the only time Jesus ever wrote anything down was the moment when, interacting with the woman caught in adultery, he mysteriously “bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground” (Jn 8:6).1 We know that Jesus never left a personally written testament of his life and teachings. It was his followers who did that. But is it really true that we have nothing that was written by Jesus?
It might be surprising to learn that, for a large portion of history, many Christians believed we did have a piece of writing attributed to Jesus.
In the 4th century, the great “Father of Church History,” Eusebius of Caesarea, set out to write his Ecclesiastical History ― the first systematic history of the Christian Church. His book remains one of our foremost sources for understanding early Christianity.
In Book I of his history, Eusebius reported that, in the archives at Edessa in modern day Turkey, there existed a written correspondence between Jesus and King Abgar V, a ruler in what is now southeastern Turkey.2 Abgar allegedly suffered from a painful illness and so he wrote a letter to Jesus. Here is part of Eusebius’s translation from the Syriac:
Word has it that you make the blind see and the lame walk, that you heal lepers and cast out unclean spirits and demons, and that you cure those tortured by chronic disease and raise the dead…. For this reason I am writing to beg you to take the trouble to come to me and heal my suffering….
Eusebius then transcribes Jesus’s alleged response:
Blessed are you who believed in me without seeing me! For it is written that those who have seen me will not believe in me and that those who have not seen me will believe and live. Now regarding your request that I come to you, I must first complete all that I was sent to do here, and, once that is completed, must be taken up to the One who sent me. When I have been taken up, I will send one of my disciples to heal your suffering and bring life to you and yours.3
About 60 years after Eusebius, at the end of the 4th century, a European pilgrim named Egeria visited Edessa, the city where these letters were archived, and wrote about seeing them in person. She pointed out that copies of Jesus’s letter were already circulating back in Europe. Seeing the letter in person, though, Egeria learned that Eusebius’s transcription was a little short: “Although I had copies of [the letter] in my own country,” she wrote, “it seemed to me very pleasing to [see it here in Edessa]... for, indeed, the account which I received here is more full.”4
Egeria did not set down the text of Jesus’s letter. But another source from Edessa ― a document called the Doctrina Addai, which was compiled not long after Egeria’s visit ― transcribed the letter in full.5 The text is largely the same as the version found in Eusebius, except for the addition of a single line at the end:
Your city will be blessed, and no enemy will again become master of it forever.6
As time progressed, this alleged correspondence between Jesus and Abgar became quite popular. In the Middle Ages, copies of Jesus’s letter were prevalent. It was sometimes carved into stone and utilized as a devotional object. It was etched into jewelry and worn around the neck. In places as diverse as Syria and Britain, quotations from the letter even appeared in the Church’s liturgical chants.7
Over time, though, Christian historians gradually realized that the document is almost certainly not what it purports to be. This is why, today, most Christians have never heard of it.
As time went by, it became clear that no record of this letter existed before the 4th century ― 300 years after Jesus could possibly have written it.8 More than that, newer discoveries have made it clear that the text of the letter was, in places, taken word-for-word from another source, one written about 150 years after Jesus.9 Simply put, among other reasons, it seems chronologically impossible that Jesus could have written this letter. Today, there are virtually no scholars — Christian or non-Christian — who believe the letter to be authentic.
We shouldn’t be disappointed with Eusebius or Egeria. It was only through methods and discoveries cultivated much later than their lifetimes that the provenance of the letter was clarified. By no means, moreover, does this mean that all ancient Christian texts (the Scriptures themselves, for instance) are fabrications, as some might wonder.
It does mean that, regardless of our discoveries, the words of Jesus, whether written or spoken, have always been objects of our intense devotion — something we etch into stone and sing about in our liturgies. Christians have always hung upon the words of Jesus — so much so that we, in turn, hang those words upon us. Indeed, St. Paul counseled the Christians of Rome to “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14). And so we see, throughout history, Jesus’s words copied on notes in our shirt pockets or pounded into jewelry and hanging around our very necks.
See Saint Augustine, Contra Faustum, 28:4; Saint Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel, 44:29.
Abgar is often called a “king,” but it is probably best to understand him as something like a “regional governor” within the Roman Empire. See Garry W. Trompf, “An Agenda for the Study of the Jesus Letter,” Iran and the Caucasus 27 (2023), 374-384, especially 375.
Eusebius, The Church History, trans. Paul L. Maier (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2007), 45-46.
Egeria, The Pilgrimage of S. Silvia of Aquitania to the Holy Places, trans. John Henry Bernard (London: Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1896).
The Doctrina Addai is of unknown authorship and was compiled in Edessa in the late 4th or early 5th century. Its purpose was to offer an account of how Christianity first arrived in Upper Mesopotamia.
The Doctrine of Addai, the Apostle, ed. and trans. George Phillips (London: Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill, 1876), 4-5.
See Henri Leclerq, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907), s.v. “The Legend of Abgar.”
See Sebastian Brock, “Eusebius and Syriac Christianity,” in Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, ed. H.W. Attridge and G. Hata (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992), 212-234, especially 226.
The other source is Tatian’s Diatessaron, a 2nd century harmonization of the four gospels into one coherent narrative. See Leclerq, “The Legend of Abgar.”