CHRONICON EDESSENUM.

[...at the work of the lord of the city. And as they were vigilant, the muscles and the dignity which they had made were ruined before and towards the lions referring to stone or architectural features, they did not stand before the hundred and the upper ones all; and those which were broken, without their foundation and without their strength, fell into the water, and they were swept inside the city. Outside Abgar from the fortress of the hundred, which is called the [fortress] of the Persians, which were built and [it was] in the iron chains from which it descended, the accumulation which the managers were descending before the water, like the type of the hundred, that [it] blocked the clouds from the commands of his authority; and from them which were water, they descended from the spring of the city that to the west of the sun they fell. And also others, the whole before and the whole and the upper one of all the temple of the church, one other behind the [houses] of the Jews, the upper ones. And it [the water] spanned and was to their foundation and they were, how the water went out, how the harbor of the beauty of the managers who were resting went out, how the rivers went out. And at that hour, it was submerged and was before the crowds of the people of the city full, as of two pulls. And in the years to the great palaces and the water vessels, from here they went out and were all before they were taken away from them, the eyes of the sons of the front of the city; and no water was there to the clouds from [the need] to see before them. And the Lord commanded as the labor of the sons of those before them. And there were those to the heat that was above from the hundred, like thousands of cities. Many, however...]

[...and struggling in vain against the iron-bound ones, he is forced back into the neighboring plain, and he submerges everything far and wide, so that the surfaces of the fields seemed to have turned into seas. Then again, swollen by the waters coming from above, it surges and rises, and having overcome the walls, it rolls violent and rapid into the city. King Abgar, having contemplated the waters from the great Tower, which was named by the Persians, with torches lit for this purpose, immediately ordered the approaches to be blocked and the eight sluices of the western wall, where the river had rushed forth, to be raised; but in vain; the force of the waters, anticipating the plan, because they sought their lost path, having knocked down a part of the walls which faces the setting of the sun, in one onset subvert and prostrate the most ample and beautiful Palace of our Lord the King. Then, where a way was given, and having been sent through evil passages into the city, they seize the noble and magnificent houses, and cast down all the buildings placed on the banks of the river on both sides, whether it looks towards the South or towards the North. By that impelling storm, the Temple of the Christian Church collapsed. Furthermore, two thousand men perished, oppressed by that inundation, of whom not a few, overcome by sleep, were suffocated by the waters suddenly rushing in: and hence throughout the whole city [there were] the laments of the dying and the piteous wailings. The King, moved by that slaughter, thought of widening the river bed, and decreed that all the urban craftsmen should take care to build workshops far from the river: which, by employing Geometers and Architects, was opportunely provided, so that the old river bed was made as wide as possible, and would take any inundation of the waters whatsoever. Because, however, it seemed that by that reason the safety of the city from sudden inundations was not...]

N O T A.

• Temple of the Christian Church. From this it is clear that the notaries of the city and the archivists, who noted and recorded the deed of this kind, were Gentiles, not Christians. But that King Abgar, under whom this happened, was a Christian, Eusebius hands down from Africanus in the Chronicle.