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Pervenimus Edessam: The Origins of a Great Christian Centre Outside the Familiar Mediaeval World

1981; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3138/flor.3.005

2369-7180

David Lane,

Historical and Linguistic Studies

Unde denuo proficiscens, pervenimus in nomine Christi Dei nostri Edessam:1 a paper such as this commits its reader to a journey like that made by the fourth-century abbess from Aquitaine, Egeria. It is to leave the familiar "frog pond" world of the Mediterranean and to arrive, in the name of Christ our God, at that Mesopotamian Christian city which once was second only to Antioch. Christian Antioch has gone; Christian Edessa has also gone. It remains only as a small place with a Turkish mayor, and is known under the name of Urfa. By Syriac speakers it was known as Orhay, lying on the banks of the Daisan, a small and troublesome tributary of the Balikh, which in turn flows from the North into the Euphrates. Hence its site is in the more easily defended high ground some way to the North of Harran, in an area which dominates the crossing of routes where the road from Armenia and the North leaves the high ground for the plain to follow the Balikh southwards, and where the road from China through Iran crosses the Euphrates to lead either South through Syria or West through the Gates of Cilicia. This is the meeting place of the western and eastern worlds, for near here passed the movements between Palestine and Mesopotamia associated with Abraham, near here the Assyrians made their last stand after their capital fell in 610 B.C., and near here Crassus ill-advised attempt to press eastwards came to an end. The Seleucids intended the site to replace Harran as the fortress to dominate the area: indeed, the name Edessa reflects that of the Macedonian capital as well as the presence of its many springs. It is not surprising that successive local kings first befriended and then betrayed Rome, nor that for some hundred years after Trajan's campaigns it was a client kingdom of Rome until Caracalla made it a colonia in 216. Nor is it surprising that in still later times Edessa was regarded not only as important in itself, but its possession, also, as an omen for the Crusaders' possession of Jerusalem.