But our Saviour at the time that he asked Him did not comply with his request. Yet He deigned to give him a letter in reply: for He promised him that He would send one of His disciples, and heal his sicknesses, and give salvation to him and to all who were connected with him. Nor did He delay to fulfil His promise to him: but after He was risen from the place of the dead, and was received into heaven, Thomas the apostle, one of the twelve, as by an impulse from God, sent Thaddæus, who was himself also numbered among the seventy disciples of Christ, to Edessa, to be a preacher and proclaimer of the teaching of Christ; and the promise of Christ was through him fulfilled.