Acta Thaddaei
Standard abbreviation: Acts Thad.
Other titles: none
Clavis numbers: ECCA 642; CANT 299
Category: Apocryphal Acts
Related literature: Epistles of Christ and Abgar, Acts of Mar Mari, Doctrine of Addai, Martyrdom of Thaddaeus, Story of the Image of Edessa, Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius
Compiled by Nathan J. Hardy, University of Chicago Divinity School ([email protected])
Citing this resource (using Chicago Manual of Style): Nathan J. Hardy, “Acts of Thaddaeus.” e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR. https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/acts-of-thaddaeus/.
Created September, 2019
1. SUMMARY
The Greek Acts of Thaddaeus is a short narrative that originated probably in the sixth or seventh century. The first half of the text is a compact version of the Abgar-Jesus correspondence, while the second half describes Thaddaeus’ work in synagogues and cities around Mesopotamia-Syria. Lebbaeus Thaddaeus is described as a Hebrew from Edessa, well-educated in the scriptures, who came to Jerusalem to follow John the Baptist. After he witnesses the parousia, teaching, and wonders of Jesus, he is chosen as one of the Twelve. The narrative zooms back to Edessa in order to introduce Abgar, the Toparch of Edessa, who hears about Jesus and desires to see him but cannot due both to his role as leader of the city and to a mysterious “incurable disease.” Instead, following the story recounted in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and the Doctrine of Addai, Abgar sends a letter through his messenger, Ananias, with instructions that Ananias record how Christ looked. The letter, shorter in this account than in other accounts, invites Jesus to come to Edessa because of the reports of healings that have reached Abgar’s ear and so that Jesus can escape the “plots of the foul Jews.”
Ananias delivers the letter to Jesus and is said to be “gazing anxiously” at him, “unable to grasp him in his mind.” Rather than having Ananias paint a portrait, as in the Doctrine of Addai, the Acts of Thaddaeus portrays Jesus as washing his face and wiping it off with a cloth, and thereby imprinting his image onto the linen. This is likely the earliest (extant) portrayal of the genesis of what was later called the Mandylion, though the dating for the Acts and especially the Epistle of Christ and Abgar are not entirely settled. After handing Ananias the freshly-stamped icon, Jesus also delivers an oral message for Ananaias to pass along: “Because I have come for this reason, namely to suffer on behalf of the world and to rise, as well as to raise the forefathers, after my ascension into heaven, I will send to you my disciple, Thaddaeus, who will illuminate you and lead you to all truth, both you and your city.”
At the pivot in the narrative, Abgar receives Ananias, falls, and venerates the icon, receiving a healing from his mysterious illness, “before the arrive of Thaddaeus.” This sentence also signals the re-entry into the narrative of the featured apostle, who, since he finds Abgar already healthy, explains to him the incarnation and baptizes his whole family. Thaddaeus next catechizes multitudes of “Hebrews and Greeks, Syrians and Armenians,” baptizing and anointing them, sharing the Eucharist, throwing down idols, building up churches, and finally ordaining clergy and imparting the liturgy.
Next, Thaddaeus bids farewell to Edessa and heads to Amida, a metropolis in Mesopotamian Syria, near the Tigris River. Thaddaeus enters the local synagogue after the reading of the law and is asked by the chief priest (!) what he and his disciples, foreign men all, are doing there. Thaddaeus replies with an extended paraphrase of the passion and resurrection beginning with the trial of Jesus before Pilate. Thaddaeus reminds the crowd that the chief priests had answered Pilate by saying, “his blood is upon us and our children” (cf. Matt 27:25, where importantly it is “the whole people” [pas ho laos] that utter this curse), that they had crucified him, laid him in the tomb, and stationed guards. All the same, Thaddaeus preaches, Jesus was raised, left his grave-clothes behind, and appeared to his mother and other women, then to Peter and John, then to the rest of the Twelve, who ate and drank with him for many days, after which Jesus sent them to baptize all nations and gave them the authority to cast out demons and heal illnesses, even to raise the dead.
Testing this claim, the crowd brings their sick and demon-possessed to Thaddaeus and his disciples for healing. He predictably heals the sick by laying on a hand and invoking Christ, while the demon-possessed are de-possessed by the mere presence of Thaddaeus. The narrative recounts that these healings went on for many days, providing an opportunity for teaching, baptism, and confession. After five years, Thaddaeus departs the church he had founded and the clergy he had ordained in Amida and begins traveling around the cities of Syria. Finally, he makes his way to “Beirut, a city of Phoenicia by the sea.” Here he delivers another speech. He begs the inhabitants to “abandon your many beliefs and, as believers, go to the one, living and true God, to the God of the Hebrews.” This God, he continues, is the demiurge and maker of everything who “knows the hearts of men” and thus they should gaze at him alone in heaven, offering “the sacrifice of praise to him alone” since he will “recompense each according to their works.” Finally, having “illuminated many,” Thaddaeus dies on 20 August and is buried honorably.
Named historical figures and characters: Abgar, Ananias (Hanan), Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, Mark (evangelist), Matthew (apostle), Peter (apostle), Pontius Pilate, Thaddaeus (apostle).
Geographical locations: Amida, Beirut, Edessa, Jerusalem, Judea, Phoenicia, Syria, Tigris River.
2. RESOURCES
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
3.1 Manuscripts and Editions
3.1.1 Greek (BHG 1702–1703)
P Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, gr. 548, fols. 160v–163r (11th cent.)
V Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. hist. gr. 45, fols. 233v–236v (11th cent.)
Athens, Mouseio Benaki, T.A. 141 (66), fols. 171v–175r (11th cent.) ~ Pinakes
Unconfirmed:
Jerusalem, Patriarchikē bibliothēkē, Panagios Taphos, Koikylidēs gr. 2, fol. 311 (11th cent.) ~ catalog
Mount Athos, Monē Batopediou, 704 (12th cent.)
Meteora, Monē Rousanou, 3 (olim Hagios Triados, 4), fol. 187r (13th cent.) ~ paraphrase; Pinakes
Lipsius, Richard A. Die Edessenische Abgarsage. Brunswick: C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn, 1880 (re-edition of Tischendorf’s text and edition).
Lipsius, Richard A. and Max Bonnet, eds. Acta apostolorum apocrypha. 2 vols. in 3 parts. Leipzig: Mendelssohn, 1889–1903; reprinted Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1959; reprinted by the same in 1972 (edition based on P and V, vol. 1, pp. cvi–cxi and 273–78).
Palmer, Andrew. “The Logos of the Mandylion: Folktale, or Sacred Narrative? A new Edition of The Acts of Thaddaeus With a Commentary.” Pages 160–78 in Edessa in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit: Religion, Kultur und Politik zwischen Ost und West. Beiträge des internationalen Edessa-Symposiums in Halle an der Saale, 14.-17. Juli 2005. Edited by Lutz Greisiger, Claudia Rammelt, and Jürgen Tubach. Beiruter Texte und Studien 116. Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut, 2009 (edition based primarily on P and V read against similarities to other texts in V).
Piñero, Antonio, and Gonzalo del Cerro. Hechos apócrifos de los Apóstoles. 3 vols. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2011 (Greek edition based on P and V with facing Spanish translation, vol. 3, pp. 457–71).
Tischendorf, Constantin. Acta apostolorum apocrypha. Leipzig: Avenarius et Mendelssohn, 1851 (edition based on P and V, pp. lxxi–lxxii and 261–65).
3.2 Modern Translations
3.2.1 English
Palmer, Andrew. “The Logos of the Mandylion: Folktale, or Sacred Narrative? A new Edition of The Acts of Thaddaeus With a Commentary.” Pages 160–78 in Edessa in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit: Religion, Kultur und Politik zwischen Ost und West. Beiträge des internationalen Edessa-Symposiums in Halle an der Saale, 14.-17. Juli 2005. Edited by Lutz Greisiger, Claudia Rammelt, and Jürgen Tubach. Beiruter Texte und Studien 116. Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut, 2009 (translation of new edition based primarily on P and V read against similarities to other texts in V).
Walker, Alexander. Apocryphal Gospels, Acts and Revelations. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1873. Repr. as vol. 16 of The Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. 24 vols. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1867–1883 (translation of Tischendorf’s edition, pp. xix, 440–43).
3.2.2 French
Palmer, Andrew. “Une version grecque de la légende d’Abgar.” Pages 135–46 in Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus. Edited by Alain Desreumaux. Apocryphes 3. Paris: Brepols, 1993 (translation of the Greek text from P).
Palmer, Andrew. “Actes de Thaddée.” Pages 645–60 in volume 2 of Écrits apocryphes chrétiens. Edited by Pierre Geoltrain and Jean-Daniel Kaestli. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade 516. Paris: Gallimard, 2005 (translation based on draft of edition in Palmer, “Logos,” which was not yet published by the time of this translation).
3.3.3 German
Illert, Martin. Doctrina Addai. De imagine Edessena / Die Abgarlegende. Das Christusbild von Edessa. Fontes Christiani 45. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007 (translation based on edition of Lipsius, reprinted on facing pages, pp. 244–51).
3.3.4 Italian
Erbetta, Mario. Gli apocrifi del Nuovo Testamento. 3 vols. Italy: Marietti, 1975–1981 (translation of Lipsius’ edition, vol. 2, pp. 575–78).
3.3.5 Spanish
Núñez, J. G. La leyenda del Rey Abgar y Jesús. Orígenes del cristianismo en Edesa. Apócrifos Cristianos 1. Madrid: Editorial Ciudad Nueva, 1995 (translation of P with notes based on Lipsius’s edition of V, pp. 163–77).
Piñero, Antonio, and Gonzalo del Cerro. Hechos apócrifos de los Apóstoles. 3 vols. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2011 (Greek edition based on P and V with facing Spanish translation, vol. 3, pp. 457–71).
3.3 General Works
Cameron, Averil. “The History of the Image of Edessa: The Telling of a Story.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7 (1983): 80–94.
Santos Otero, Aurelio de. “Later Acts of Apostles.” Pages 426–82 in vol. 2 of New Testament Apocrypha. Edited by Wilhelm Schneemelcher. Translated by R. McL. Wilson. 2 vols. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991 (see p. 481).
Palmer, Andrew. “Les Actes de Thaddée.” Apocrypha 13 (2002): 63–84.