Sacred Words, Anglo-Saxon Piety, and the Origins of the <i>Epistola salvatoris</i> in London, British Library, Royal 2.A.xx (2009)

Sacred Words, Anglo-Saxon Piety, and the Origins of the Epistola salvatoris in London, British Library, Royal 2.A.xx Christopher M. Cain London, British Library (BL), Royal 2.A.xx (Mercia) is a late eighth- or early ninth-century florilegium of Biblical passages, liturgical extracts, apocrypha, and prayers from Anglo-Saxon England. Among the contents of this eclectic book are texts as fundamental as the Pater Noster, the Nicene Creed, and the Magnificat, along with more obscure materials such as an "Oratio Sancti Hygbaldi" and various hymns.1 The manuscript also preserves a version of a text of immense popularity in the Middle Ages, the apocryphal letter of Jesus to Abgar, King of Edessa. The letter purports to be the authentic written words of Jesus, as the incipit of the Royal manuscript version states (fol. 12a): "Incipit epistola salvatoris domini nostri iesu xpisti ad abgarum regem quam dominus manu scripsit et dixit." BL Royal 2.A.xx belongs to a well-studied complex of manuscripts scholarship generally refers to as the "Tiberius" group-all late eighth- or early ninth-century manuscripts of Mercian provenance or manuscripts that exhibit Mercian influence,2 but only the Royal manuscript contains [End Page 168] the apocryphal letter of Jesus to Abgar. Including the Royal manuscript, three other closely related manuscripts of the group-BL Harley 7653, BL Harley 2965 (Book of Nunnaminster), and Cambridge, University Library, Ll.1. 10 (Book of Cerne)-are believed to have been private prayerbooks.3 This study examines the positioning of this well-known apocryphal text within the context of private devotional practices in early medieval Europe (by virtue of its inclusion in a book designed for private rather than public [i.e., liturgical] use) and theorizes the possible origins of the Royal version in Anglo-Saxon England. The first part of this paper briefly sketches the early Christian backgrounds of the Abgar legend, its perpetuation in late antiquity, and its transmission to early medieval Europe. The second, accordingly, turns to knowledge of the legend in Anglo-Saxon England and the earliest extant version of the letter in England, that which is preserved in the Royal manuscript. I. Backgrounds and Early History The story of Abgar comes from the Middle East. It is the source of what might be considered something of a quasi-relic cult in the Middle Ages, inasmuch as the collection and veneration of a material object are associated with the legend. But unlike the veneration of corporeal relics of the saints, for example, objects associated with Jesus' ministry on Earth were mostly non-corporeal, of course, since belief in his physical resurrection precluded the existence of such objects.4 Thus, Jesus' letter to Abgar properly belongs to the cultic veneration of fragments of the True Cross, of the vera icon, of the Mandylion, and later, of the Shroud of Turin.5 The core of the legend's [End Page 169] tradition concerns the epistolary exchange between Jesus and King Abgar V (reigned 4 BCE-7 CE and 13-50 CE) of the ancient city of Edessa, some 450 kilometers north of Damascus.6 The narrative also includes the material texts of two letters: the letter of Abgar to Jesus, in which the king urges Jesus to visit him in Edessa so that he may be healed of a debilitating illness, and Jesus' response to Abgar, in which he declines the king's entreaty-citing the constraints imposed by his mission-but assures him that one of his disciples will make the journey in his place. The origin of the legend is obscure, although Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea and the "father of Church history" (ca. 260-340), describes in his Historia ecclesiastica that "written evidence" ( μαρτυρίαν, 1.13) from the archives in Edessa preserves the correspondence in Syriac, which he then translates in full into Greek.7 The letters were first copied throughout the Afro-Asiatic region, with reproductions surviving not just on parchment but also inscribed on stone and on metal, and the text seems to have had amuletic uses, a fact that is critical to the Royal version of the letter under discussion here.8 The legend [End Page 170] found the widest audience...