The life of Thaddeus of the Seventy
There he saw the Lord and followed Him, and was numbered among the Seventy whom the Lord sent out two by two into the towns He meant to visit.
After the Ascension he preached through Syria and Mesopotamia. At Edessa he brought King Abgar to the faith, and the people with him, and the priests of the old gods as well, and the king wrote of the wonders done there to the emperor of the Assyrians. He appointed presbyters and set the church at Edessa in order. When Abgar offered to reward him with rich gifts he would not take them, and went on to preach in other cities instead. At Beirut he founded a church. Tradition is divided on the end of his life. The Slavonic menaion holds that he reposed there in peace in the year forty four. Other accounts place his death at Edessa instead, and an old Armenian tradition holds that he was put to death by the sword in the Artaz region about the year fifty.
