PREFACE.

Tillemont, Cave, Grabe, and the late Dr. Cureton have arrayed themselves on the side of the genuineness of the work, which is also defended in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum original: "Acts of the Saints," a collection of documents examining the lives of saints. I confess that when I first entered upon the inquiry respecting its genuineness, I did so with a strong prejudice against it. As I proceeded, however, the prejudice became weaker and weaker, till it finally disappeared. I will endeavour to lay before the reader some additional reasons which, in conjunction with those already brought forward, have produced the conviction in my own mind that the claim of the work to genuineness is well founded, and that the objections which have been raised against it may be satisfactorily met.

First: it is historically true that Abgar Ukkama was king of Edessa in the time of our Lord. Having been long afflicted with a disease, and having heard of the miraculous cures effected by Christ, there is surely nothing more probable, nothing more natural, than that he should write a letter to our Lord inviting Him to Edessa to remove the affliction under which he was labouring. But then our Lord is said to have written a letter in reply. This has caused—and it is not surprising that it should—great opposition. It has been made the main argument of the opponents of the genuineness of the work. It is inconceivable, they say, that if Christ wrote a letter, it should have been hidden for three centuries in the archives of Edessa. Christ is not known to have written anything else. If