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Edessa (; ) was an ancient city ( polis) in Upper Mesopotamia, in what is now Urfa or Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It was founded during the Hellenistic period by Macedon general and self proclaimed king Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. He named it after an ancient Macedonian capital. The Greek language name Ἔδεσσα ( Édessa) means "tower in the water". It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, and continued as capital of the Roman province of Osroene. In Late Antiquity, it became a prominent center of Christian learning and seat of the Catechetical School of Edessa. During the Crusades, it was the capital of the County of Edessa.
The city was situated on the banks of the Daysan River (; ; ), a tributary of the Khabur, and was defended by Şanlıurfa Castle, the high central citadel.
Ancient Edessa is the predecessor of modern Urfa (; ; ; ), in Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Modern names of the city are likely derived from Urhay or Orhay (), the site's Syriac language name before the re-foundation of the settlement by Seleucus I Nicator. After the defeat of the Seleucids in the Seleucid–Parthian Wars, Edessa became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, with a mixed Syriac and Hellenistic culture. The origin of the name of Osroene itself is probably related to Orhay.
The Roman Republic began exercising political influence over the Kingdom of Osroene and its capital Edessa from 69 BC. It became a Roman colonia in 212 or 213, though there continued to be local kings of Osroene until 243 or 248. In Late Antiquity, Edessa was an important city on the Roman–Persian frontier with the Sasanian Empire. It resisted the attack of Shapur I () in his third invasion of Roman territory. The 260 Battle of Edessa saw Shapur defeat the Roman emperor Valerian () and capture him alive, an unprecedented disaster for the Roman state. The Late Antique Laterculus Veronensis names Edessa as the capital of the Roman province of Osroene. The Roman soldier and Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus described the city's formidable fortifications and how in 359 it successfully resisted the attack of Shapur II ().
The city was a centre of Greek and Syriac theological and philosophical thought, hosting the famed School of Edessa. Edessa remained in Roman hands until its capture by the Persians during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, an event recorded by the Greek Chronicon Paschale as occurring in 609. Roman control was restored by the 627 and 628 victories of Heraclius () in the Byzantine–Sasanian War, but the city was lost by the Romans again in 638, to the Rashidun Caliphate during the Muslim conquest of the Levant. It did not return to the Romans' control until the Byzantine Empire temporarily recovered the city in the mid-10th century after a number of failed attempts.
The Byzantine Empire regained control in 1031, though it did not remain under their rule long and changed hands several times before the end of the century. The County of Edessa, one of the Crusader states set up after the success of the First Crusade, was centred on the city, the crusaders having seized the city from the Seljuk Empire. The county survived until the 1144 Siege of Edessa, in which Imad al-Din Zengi, founder of the Zengid dynasty, captured the city and, according to Matthew of Edessa, killed many of the Edessenes. The Turkic Zengid dynasty's lands were eventually absorbed by the Ottoman Empire in 1517 after the 1514 Battle of Chaldiran.
The ancient town was refounded as a Hellenistic military settlement by Seleucus I Nicator in BC, and named Edessa after the ancient capital of Macedonia, perhaps due to its abundant water, just like its Macedonian namesake. It was later renamed Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe (; ) in the 2nd century BC (found on Edessan coins struck by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, r. 175–164 BC).
After Antiochus IV's reign, the name of the city reverted to Edessa, in Greek, and also appears in Armenian as Urha or Ourha (Ուռհա), in Aramaic (Syriac language) as Urhay or Orhay (), in local Neo-Aramaic (Turoyo language) as Urhoy, in Arabic as ar-Ruhā (الرُّهَا), in the Kurdish languages as Riha, Latinized as Rohais, and finally adopted into Turkish language as Urfa or Şanlıurfa ("Glorious Urfa"), its present name. This originally Aramaic and Syriac name for the city may have been derived from the Persian language name Khosrow.
It was re-named Justinopolis during the Byzantine period in the early 6th century. According to some Jewish and Muslim traditions, it is the location of Ur of the Chaldees, the birthplace of Abraham.
Christianity is attested in Edessa in the 2nd century; the gnostic Bardaisan was a native of the city and a philosopher at its court. From 212 to 214 the kingdom was a Roman province.
The Roman emperor Caracalla was assassinated on the road from Edessa to Carrhae (now Harran) by one of his guards in 217. Edessa became one of the frontier cities of the province of Osroene and lay close to the border of the Sasanian Empire. The Battle of Edessa took place between the Roman armies under the command of the emperor Valerian and the Sasanian forces under emperor Shapur I in 260. The Roman army was defeated and captured in its entirety by the Persian forces, including Valerian himself, an event which had never previously happened.
The literary language of the tribes that had founded this kingdom was Aramaic language, from which Syriac language developed. Traces of Hellenistic culture were soon overwhelmed in Edessa, which employed Syriac legends on coinage, with the exception of the client state Abgar IX (179–214), and there is a corresponding lack of Greek public inscriptions.
Eusebius also claimed to quote the Letter of Abgar to Jesus and the Letter of Jesus to Abgar in the state archives of Edessa, foundational texts of the Abgar Legend.
Egeria, a high-status Roman lady and author, visited Edessa in 384 on her way to Jerusalem; she saw a martyrium of Thomas the Apostle and the text of the Letter of Jesus inscribed on the city walls, said to protect the city. She saw a longer version of the Letters than she was previously familiar with, and was assured that the holy words had repelled a Persian assault on the city. According to the Chronicle of Edessa, in 394 the relics of Saint Thomas were translated into the great Church of St Thomas and in 442 they were encased in a silver casket. According to the late-6th-century Frankish hagiographer and bishop Gregory of Tours, the relics had themselves been brought from India, while in Edessa an annual fair (and alleviation of customs duties) was held at the church in July in the saint's honour (the feast of St Thomas was observed on 3 July) during which, Gregory alleged, water would appear in shallow wells and flies disappeared. According to Joshua the Stylite, a shrine to some martyred saints was built outside the city walls in 346 or 347.
A more elaborate version of the Abgar Legend is recorded in the early 5th-century Syriac Doctrine of Addai, purportedly based on the state archives of Edessa, and including both a pseudepigraphal letter from Abgar V to Tiberius () and the emperor's supposed reply. This text is the earliest to allege that a painting (or icon) of Jesus was enclosed with the reply to Abgar and that the city of Edessa was prophesied never to fall. According to this text, Edessenes were early adopters of Christianity; the inhabitants of the neighbouring city of Carrhae (Harran), by contrast, were pagans. According to the Chronicle of Edessa, the early 5th-century theologian and bishop Rabbula built a church dedicated to Saint Stephen in a building that had been a synagogue. The city was a site of major unrest in 449 due to an attempt to depose its bishop, Ibas.
When Nisibis (Nusaybin) was ceded to the Sasanian Empire along with Arzanene, Moxoene, Zabdicene, Rehimena and Corduene in 363, Ephrem the Syrian left his native town for Edessa, where he founded the celebrated School of Edessa. This school, largely attended by the Christian youth of Persia, and closely watched by Rabbula, the friend of Cyril of Alexandria, on account of its Nestorianism tendencies, reached its highest development under bishop Ibas, famous through the Three-Chapter Controversy, was temporarily closed in 457, and finally in 489, by command of Emperor Zeno and Bishop Cyrus, when the teachers and students of the School of Edessa repaired to Nisibis and became chief writers of the Church of the East.Labourt, Le christianisme dans l'empire perse, Paris, 1904, 130–41. Miaphysitism prospered at Edessa after the Arab conquest.
Under the Sassanian emperor Kavad I (), the Sasanids attacked Edessa. According to Joshua the Stylite the shrine outside the walls set up in the 340s was burnt by his troops.
Edessa was rebuilt by Justin I (), and renamed Justinopolis after him.Evagrius, Hist. Eccl., IV, viii The Greek historian Procopius, in his Persian Wars, describes the inscription of the Letter of Jesus
An unsuccessful Sasanian siege occurred in 544. The city was taken in 609 by the Sasanian Empire, and retaken by Heraclius, but lost to the Muslim army under the Rashidun Caliphate during the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 638.
According to a legend first reported by Eusebius in the fourth century, King Abgar V was converted by Thaddeus of Edessa (Addai), who was one of the seventy-two disciples, sent to him by "Judas, who is also called Thomas".{Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine, Book 1 Chapter 13 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vi.xiii.html} However, various sources confirm that the Abgar who embraced the Christian faith was Abgar IX. Under him Christianity became the official religion of the kingdom.
Addai was succeeded by Aggai, then by Saint Mari, who was ordained about 200 by Serapion of Antioch. Thence came to us in the second century the famous Peshitta, or Syriac translation of the Old Testament; also Tatian's Diatessaron, which was compiled about 172 and in common use until Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa (412–435), forbade its use. Among the illustrious disciples of the School of Edessa, Bardaisan (154–222), a schoolfellow of Abgar IX, deserves special mention for his role in creating Christian religious poetry, and whose teaching was continued by his son Harmonius and his disciples.
A Christian council was held at Edessa as early as 197.Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia ecclesiastica, V, 23. In 201 the city was devastated by a great flood, and the Christian church was destroyed. Chronicon Edessenum, ad. an. 201. In 232 the relics of the apostle Thomas were brought from Mylapore, India, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written. Under Roman domination many martyrs suffered at Edessa: Sharbel and Barsamya, under Decius; Sts. Gûrja, Shâmôna, Habib, and others under Diocletian. In the meanwhile Christian priests from Edessa had evangelized Eastern Mesopotamia and Persia, and established the first Churches in the Sasanian Empire. Atillâtiâ, Bishop of Edessa, assisted at the First Council of Nicaea (325). The Peregrinatio Silviae (or Etheriae)Ed. Gian Francesco Gamurrini, Rome, 1887, 62 sqq. gives an account of the many sanctuaries at Edessa about 388.
As metropolis of Osroene, Edessa had eleven . Échos d'Orient, 1907, 145. Michel Le Quien mentions thirty-five bishops of Edessa, but his list is incomplete. Oriens christianus II, 953 sqq.
The Eastern Orthodox episcopate seems to have disappeared after the 11th century. Of its Jacobite bishops, twenty-nine are mentioned by Le Quien (II, 1429 sqq.), many others in the Revue de l'Orient chrétien (VI, 195), some in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft (1899), 261 sqq. Moreover, Nestorian bishops are said to have resided at Edessa as early as the 6th century.
Muslim tradition tells of a similar account, known as the second pledge at al-Aqabah. Sebeos' account suggests that Muhammad was actually leading a joint venture toward Palestine, instead of a Jewish-Arab alliance against the Meccan pagans toward the south.
The Ayyubid dynasty's leader Saladin acquired the town from the Zengid dynasty in 1182. During Ayyubid rule, Edessa had a population of approximately 24,000. The Sultanate of Rûm took Edessa in June 1234, but sometime in late 1234 or 1235, the Ayyubid sultan Al-Kamil re-acquired it. After Edessa had been recaptured, Al-Kamil ordered the destruction of its Citadel. Not long after, the Mongols had made their presence known in Edessa in 1244. Later, the Ilkhanate sent troops to Edessa in 1260 at which point the town voluntarily submitted to them. The populace of Edessa were thus saved from being massacred by the Mongols. Edessa was also held by the Mamluk Sultanate, and the Aq Qoyunlu.
Under the Ottomans in 1518, the population of Edessa was estimated at a mere 5,500; likely due to the Ottoman–Persian Wars. By 1566, though, the population had risen to an estimated 14,000 citizens. In 1890, the population of Edessa consisted of 55,000, of which the Muslim population made up 40,835.
Following are some of the famous individuals connected with Edessa:
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