PREFACE.

enter.’ When we consider the great deeds of Addai, his miracles, and the success of his labours as an evangelist, we might reasonably infer that some written account of them would soon appear. Accordingly we find it stated at the conclusion of the document, that, agreeably to the custom of the kingdom, Labubna, the king’s scribe, “wrote these things of Addai, the Apostle, from the beginning to the end;” whilst Hannan, the king’s sharrir archivist/keeper of the records, placed the account among the records. As to the expression “from the beginning to the end,” we understand no more than that all which was written of the doings of Addai, and deposited in the archives of Edessa, was written by Labubna. The report drawn up by him might have consisted only of memoranda of the principal acts and chief points of the teaching of Addai, or he might have written in the main the document as we now have it. The latter is the opinion of Dr. Alishan, who translated the Armenian version of “The Doctrine of Addai,” under the title of “Lettre d’Abgar” Letter of Abgar. His words are:—“Our opinion is that it is in large part edited by Labubna, Archivist of Edessa, contemporary of Abgar and of the disciples of our Savior.” I am inclined to this opinion; for if we except certain interpolations, the whole history seems to be consistent with itself, as if it issued from the pen of one and the same individual. The interpolations are considerable. In one place the Acts of the Apostles are mentioned, in another the Epistles of St. Paul; but