Aggai (bishop)

Aggai was a legendary 1st-century primate of the Church of the East, reputedly the disciple of Mar Addai, who is conventionally believed to have sat from 66 to 81. His existence is disputed, and considered as one of several fictitious early church leaders whose lives were concocted in the 6th century to give the Church of the East a respectable apostolic pedigree. Like several other fictitious primates, he is included in the traditional list of patriarchs of the Church of the East, which also venerates him as a saint.

According to legend, Aggai was one of the seventy apostles, and was assigned the East as far as the border of India as his mission field. Mar Addai, the traditional apostle of Mesopotamia, appointed him his successor shortly before his death. Like Addai before him, Aggai preached in various regions of the East.

Sources

Brief accounts of the life of Aggai are given in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus (floruit 1280) and in the ecclesiastical histories of the Nestorian writers Mari (twelfth-century), ʿAmr (14th-century) and Sliba (14th-century). These accounts differ slightly, and these minor differences are of significance for scholars interested in tracing the various stages in the development of the legend.