ADDOLORATA - Taranto, Good Friday. The A. that follows the bier in the procession of the Mysteries.
sebio: courier) of the king, would have painted a portrait of Jesus, which was then kept in the palace of Abgar. After the ascension of Jesus, the apostle Judas (also called Thomas) would have sent A. (Eusebius: Thaddaeus), one of the seventy-two (Eusebius: seventy), to Edessa to preach the Gospel there.
The 2nd part describes at length the missionary activity of A. (missing in Eusebius). It narrates, among other things, the finding of the Holy Cross made by Protonice, wife of the Emperor Claudius, and how Tiberius had some Jewish leaders executed to punish them for the crucifixion of Jesus. As successors of A. at the head of the Edessene Church, Aggai and Palût are named, the latter consecrated by Serapion of Antioch. The legend of the finding of the Holy Cross by Protonice is modified from the account of the finding by Helena, and the legend of the portrait of Jesus must be later than the Peregrinatio ad loca sancta of Egeria (c. 393-94), who during her visit to Edessa does not yet know of II.
BIBL.: Syriac text published by G. Philipps, The Doctrine of Addai the Apostle, London 1876. On the legend and its literary transmission, R. A. Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, II, II, 1887, p. 181 ff.; id., Die edessenische Abgarsage, Brunswick 1880; J. Tixeront, Les origines de l'église d'Edesse et la légende d'Abgar, Paris 1888; E. Amann, Les Actes de Thaddée ou Actes d'Addai, in DBs, I, coll. 510-12. On the finding of the Holy Cross (Protonice): E. Nestle, De S. Croce. Ein Beitrag zur christlichen Legendengeschichte, Berlin 1889. On the portrait of Christ: E. V. Dobschütz, Christusbilder, Leipzig 1899, pp. 102-96; P. Perdrizet, De la Véronique et de Sainte Véronique, in Seminarum Kondohovianum, 5 (1932), pp. 1-15; S. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, Bonn 1922 (on p. 28 he reports on Syriac and Armenian manuscripts, and on p. 98 on the legend of the finding of the Cross). The ordination of Palût is implausible: W. Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei in ältesten Christentum, Tübingen 1934, pp. 22 ff., 25 (on p. 143 ff. he also deals with the archives in the legends). On the dependence on Eusebius: E. Peterson, Elc Geig. Epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, Göttingen 1926, p. 217 ff.
Erik Peterson
