Whether it was at Edessa that a Jewish translation of the Old Testament into Syriac was made,[18] under the encouragement perhaps of the favour of the royal house of Adiabene (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ ii. 19. 4), or whether that work was done _in_ Adiabene,[19] cannot be discussed here. That the translation did not share the fate of the other non-Christian Syriac writings, which did not survive the 13th century (see SYRIAC LITERATURE), is due to the fact that it was adopted (after being revised) by the Christians, and thus rescued. Although the beginnings of Christianity at Edessa are enshrouded in the mists of legend, and the first mention of Christian communities in Osrhoëne and the towns there is connected with the part they played in the paschal controversy (c. A.D. 192), it has been reasonably urged that the legends imply a fact, namely that Christianity began in the Jewish colony, perhaps by the middle of the 2nd century, although the earliest seat of the Syrian church may have been farther east, in Adiabene.[20] Parts of the New Testament were certainly translated into Syriac in the 2nd century, although whether the "Old Syriac" (so e.g. Hjelt) or the Diatessaron (so Burkitt) came first is uncertain. About the end of the 2nd century Edessene Christianity seems to have made a fresh beginning: the ordination of Palut by Serapion of Antioch may mean that things ecclesiastical took a westward trend, and it is possible (so Burkitt) that the "Old Syriac" New Testament version was now introduced. A strong man offered himself in Bardaisan (q.v.; Bardesanes), to whom perhaps we owe the finest Syriac poem extant, the "Hymn of the Soul," though orthodoxy rejected him. He was a contemporary of Abgar IX., at whose court Julius Africanus stayed for a while. A Syrian official record from this reign, preserved in the _Edessene Chronicle_, gives a somewhat detailed account of a violent flood (autumn, 201) of the Daisan river which did much damage, destroying amongst other things "the palace of Abgar the Great," rebuilt as a summer palace by Abgar IX., and "the temple of the church of the Christians." The form of this last statement shows that at the time of writing (206) the rulers had not adopted Christianity themselves. Abgar IX. is now commonly supposed to be the ruler to whom the famous legend was first attached (see ABGAR); but though he visited Rome there is no proof that he ever became a Christian (Gomperz, in _Archäologisch-epigraphische Mitteilungen aus Österreich-Ungarn_, xix. 154-157). It was at Edessa that Caracalla, who made it a military colony under the style of Colonia Marcia Edessenorum, spent the winter of 216-217, and near there that he was murdered. The religious philosophical treatise preserved under the title of _Book of the Laws of the Lands_ was probably produced at this time by a pupil of Bardesanes, and the _Acts of Thomas_ in its original form may have followed not long after.