John Long
Michael Luddeni
Introduction
If Biblical Archaeology is defined loosely as “the study of ancient things related to the Bible,” then surely the sindon, the linen used to wrap Jesus’ body in death, has to be of interest. Most informed Christians now know that there is a serious candidate for that burial wrapping—the Shroud of Turin. Practically unknown outside of European Catholic circles at the end of the 19th century, in the last 100 years modern scientific studies repeatedly have produced evidence consistent with the view that it is an old burial cloth and not an example of human artistry. (For a brief summary of the main conclusions see http://www.shroud. com/78conclu.htm; for how these influenced a professional archaeologist, see http://www.shroud.com/meacham2.htm.) A 1988 radiocarbon dating of 1260 to 1390, subsequently shown to be defective (see “Recent Developments on the Shroud of Turin: Part II” at http://www.biblearchaeology.org/articles/ article35.html), is the only major scientific contradiction. However, there still remains the question of the Shroud’s earlier history. Critics complain that its known history only goes back to mid-14th century France, a time infamous for fabricating relics, suspiciously consistent with the 1988 C-14 result, and a long way from Jerusalem. A highly respected but nevertheless minor French nobleman, Geoffrey de Charny, was the Shroud’s first certain owner around 1355. Unfortunately, before he could leave any testimony as to how he came by the cloth, he was killed the next year in a battle of the Hundred Years’ War. Writing 34 years later, an angry French bishop claimed that an investigation in Geoffrey’s time had proven the image “was made by human hand and not miraculously made or given” (Bonnet-Eymard 1991: 251). Although a consensus of modern scientific scrutiny disproves any known human artistry, many thoughtful Christians are not going to be comfortable unless the Shroud’s first 1300 years are better understood. There is now adequate reason to believe that research in the last century has produced that history, albeit slender at times and, of course, controversial. In Part 1 we will trace traditions of an obscure picture of Jesus thought to have been made in first century Jerusalem to its sixth century emergence as an historical object in Edessa, Northwest Mesopotamia.
The modern consideration of the Shroud of Turin can be said to have begun with Ian Wilson. Ian Wilson was a 14-year-old English teenager in 1955 when he saw a picture of the Shroud’s photographic negative. Although strongly agnostic and disinterested in religious matters, his interest in art history made him wonder how medieval artistry could produce such a life-like, photo-like image. In about 1969 he made a remarkable observation that has opened the door to the cloth’s earlier history, and eventually helped him become a committed Christian. His 1978 book, The Shroud of Turin, still remains the best place to begin a quest for the Shroud’s earlier history. Today a substantial number, if not majority, of informed researchers who believe the Shroud probably does date to antiquity subscribe to some version of Wilson’s historical reconstruction.
The Nature of the Sindon
Most English translations of the Synoptic Gospels understand the Greek to mean there was a piece of linen, a sindon, used to wrap Jesus in the tomb. John’s Gospel says Jesus was bound (edesan—an interesting word) or wrapped in sheets or cloths (othonia), and that a kerchief or sweat cloth (soudarion) had been over his head at some unspecified point in time. The Synoptics’ sindon, then, would have been either among the cloths or, as a few believe, is a reference to the sweat cloth. Did the Jews bury their dead in a simple shroud? Generally, authorities believe the deceased were dressed in their own clothes. However, Jesus had his clothes taken away. Sindonologist Dr. Gilbert Lavoie noticed that, in the 16th century Code of Jewish Law, a victim who died a violent death with blood flowing
should not be cleansed, but they should inter him in his garments and boots, but above his garments they should wrap a sheet which is called sovev [a white shroud]
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John Long
Shroud face, darkened for better viewing. A few “Vignon markings” (oddities) are noted.
Vignon markings seen on the Shroud face:
• Transverse streak on forehead
• Blood trickle “E” – lock of hair
• Raised eyebrow (on viewer’s right)
• Eyes closed, but appear owlish
• Open top square between eyebrows
• “V” directly beneath open top box
• Long nose
• Accentuated cheeks
• Enlarged nostril
• Hairless area between lips and chin
(Wilson and Miller 1986: 45–46). Some Jewish scholars believe this tradition goes back to New Testament times. Hence, if he died nude, he would be wrapped only in a shroud. Surprisingly, a largely intact ancient woolen burial shroud has been discovered recently in Israel, with a folding arrangement somewhat similar to the Shroud (Fulbright 2005: 9). That the New Testament makes no mention of what happened to Jesus’ sindon is not surprising, considering the great risk to cloth and disciples alike if it became common knowledge that it was preserved. Most Jews—the main target population for early evangelization— would have been offended by a bloody and imaged grave cloth, and Roman authorities would not have liked an empty burial cloth, suggesting Jesus escaped the death they inflicted. Even Gentile audiences might have wondered how attractive the Christian message was, when its founder was displayed dead and so gruesomely humiliated. If it were preserved, then there would have been little recourse but to hide it until a more secure time when the Christian message was better understood and appreciated.
The great bulk of early Christian literature is lost, but enough survives to indicate that the whereabouts of Jesus’ sindon was of continuing interest to believers. The second century apocryphal Gospel According to the Hebrews, considerably respected by early Christian writers, had a passage reporting that Jesus gave his shroud to “the servant of the priest,” or as some scholars amend the text, “to Peter” (Sox 1978: 45–46). Other second century apocryphal books like the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, Gospel According to Peter, and Mysteries of the Acts of the Savior all show a concern for the sindon’s whereabouts (Savio 1982: 11). As a young girl being educated in fourth century Jerusalem, Saint Nino was told by her learned teacher Niaphori of a tradition of it being given to Peter (Humber 1978: 75). In the sixth and seventh centuries some pilgrims to the Holy Land witnessed cloths identified as Christ’s sudarium or linteamen (linen), but without matching the Turin Shroud’s dimensions or images (Scavone 1989: 76–77). Unfortunately, none of these stories appear to provide any substantial grounds for identifying a place or individuals who possessed the NT sindon, let alone our Turin Shroud. However, if early historical texts are no immediate help, changes in Christian art at the end of antiquity suggest that the Shroud of Turin was not only becoming known, but also was an accepted model for Christ’s facial appearance.
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John Long
Tremissis coin, AD 692–695. Compare the facial features with the Shroud face.
The Changing Image of Jesus in Early Christian Art
It is well known that in the first few centuries Christian art depicted Jesus with a variety of different appearances, most frequently as a beardless, Hellenistic-Roman youth. In the sixth century (some historians believe fifth) this rapidly changed to the more Semitic “true likeness” (moderate beard, moustache, shoulder length hair parted in the middle, etc., and often rigidly front facing), as passed down the centuries since to us today. Some of the earliest of the new type are the beautiful mosaics in Ravenna, Italy (Wilson 1979: 102), which were constructed by the Byzantines (Eastern Christian successors to Rome) and date to the early 540’s. Wilson noticed that conventional academia had no accepted explanation for this change other than “the Byzantine tendency at this period to create rigid artistic formulae that then became the pattern for future generations” (1979: 103). In the 1930’s French researcher Paul Vignon had observed about 20 facial peculiarities, subsequently called “Vignon markings,” in many of these new pictures. The earliest examples of this new style he found were on copies of a mysterious eastern icon, the Image of Edessa (Walsh 1963: 157–58). These oddities appeared to have little or no artistic function, and were found to parallel corresponding markings on the Shroud. This suggested the latter might have been a model for this new Jesus face. Wilson subsequently reworked Vignon’s analysis into 15 characteristics, including an open top square on the forehead, one or two “V” shaped markings near the bridge of the nose, a raised eyebrow, accentuated cheeks, an enlarged nostril, a hairless area between the lips and beard, and large owlish eyes. No picture included all of these characteristics, but some contained many. He also noticed that a few of the characteristics, especially the forehead markings, were to be seen on icons of the saints, probably placed there as a sign of holiness (Wilson 1979: 104–105).
A good example of this new “true likeness” is seen in St. Catherine’s Monastery’s famous sixth century encaustic (painting on wax), Christ Pantocrator. The Pantocrator, “Christ Enthroned” and sitting in majesty as ruler of the world, was an important artistic type and preferred means of depicting Him at this time. Shroud researchers Dr. Alan Whanger and his wife Mary developed a photo comparison technique for overlaying one picture on another and then counting the actual “points of congruence” (PC’s) between the two (Alan Whanger 1985). Applying an overlay of the Shroud face onto the St. Catherine’s Pantocrator, the Whangers counted 170 PC’s, and when they expanded the search to areas around the faces of both, over 250 PC’s (Mary and Alan Whanger 1998: 19–20; see also Wilson and Miller 1986: illus. 23–25, and more recently Daniel Porter at http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/pantocrator.htm). Numerous other pictures, icons, and images on coins dating from the sixth century onwards—the Whangers believe some even much earlier—often revealed good matches (Wilson and Miller 1986: illus. 26–27). The Whangers note that 45 to 60 PC’s are sufficient to prove common identity in a court of law. Christ’s face on one seventh century coin from Constantinople, the Justinian II tremissis, is particularly striking. It is so crude, even harsh in appearance, that it is difficult to imagine what model the die maker followed; it certainly was not “naturalized” as done with other images to show what a living Jesus would look like. But a comparison with the Shroud face strongly suggests that the coin’s maker may have been more concerned with reproducing the unusual, stark detail of a model with a face very much like that on the Shroud. The Whangers counted 188 PC’s between the two (Whanger 1998: 33–34). (For an interesting comparison of the two images, see the Whangers’ website at http://www. duke.edu/~adw2/shroud.)
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The Significance of Edessa
If the Shroud were the new exemplar for the face of Christ, where was it and how did it so quickly influence Christian art from the sixth century onwards? Wilson has theorized that some unknown artist studied the Shroud face, including Vignon’s peculiarities, made model drawings trying to incorporate each oddity, and then circulated copies to Christian communities engaged in religious decoration (Wilson 1979: 105). It probably began in the East, where some earlier art historians had recognized the important role played by the greater Syrian region in Christian art. O.M. Dalton observed, “It was the Aramaeans [Syrians] who counted for most in the development of Christian art,” and who compelled Hellenistic views to yield to Semitic modes of expression. This Syrian region especially included “the cities of Edessa and Nisibis, where monastic theology flourished” (Dalton 1925: 24–25). This was an important key to their influence:
The East had always one advantage over its rival [Hellenistic West]…it was the home of monasticism, the great missionary force in Christendom…Monks trained in the Aramaean theological schools of Edessa and Nisibis flocked to the religious houses so soon founded in numbers in Palestine. From the fifth century it was they who determined Christian iconography (Dalton 1925: 9).
The large pilgrim influx to the Holy Lands and the migration of Syrian-trained monks to distant places ensured that what was current in the East would be known everywhere.
When we consider the part played by a monasticism trained in Aramaic theology, and the wide missionary activity of which Edessa was the base, the importance of the Syrian element in Christianity is at once realized (Dalton 1925: 24).
If there were an authoritative picture of Jesus to be found in the Syrian region, it is understandable how it could have become famous throughout Mediterranean Christianity. Although no texts from this era survive identifying what that new model was, Wilson recognized there was a likely suspect. In the sixth century a new class of icon was gaining prominence in the East, supposedly made by Christ himself and therefore acheiropoietos, “not made with (human) hands” (Wilson 1979: 111–12). The belief was that in one way or another they were imprints of Christ’s face. The most prominent was the Image of Edessa, the very picture Vignon had deduced as the earliest to exhibit the new “true likeness” features. Could the Image have been the Shroud? If so, why hadn’t anyone made that identification? Wilson soon noticed an obscure Greek work that proved to be the key to answering those questions.
The Teaching of Addai
First century Edessa, today known as Urfa in southeast Turkey, was the seat of a small buffer kingdom between the Parthians to the east and Romans in the west. It had a mixed population of Syriac, Greek, Armenian and Arabic-speaking peoples, including a strong Jewish representation. Most historians agree that Christianity was a growing force in Edessa late in the second century under the famous ruler Abgar VIII (“The Great”), with a church sanctuary dated there from 201 (Segal 1970: 24). But when the Edessan Christians wrote their history in the third century, they remembered that the Gospel originally came to them in the first century through a Jerusalem disciple named Addai who presented it to King Abgar V, a known historical figure contemporaneous with Christ. Eusebius included in his Ecclesiastical History a brief late third century version, reporting a famous letter from Jesus still kept in the Edessan archives (Eusebius 1991: 43–47). But later in the fourth century (or possibly early in the fifth) a Syriac writer penned a much-expanded text known as The Teaching of Addai (hereafter TA). One small passage has Abgar, who is corresponding with Jesus by way of a messenger Hanan, instructing him to make a picture of Jesus:
When Hanan the archivist saw that Jesus had spoken thus to him, he took and painted the portrait of Jesus with choice pigments, since he was the king’s artist, and brought it with him to his lord King Abgar. When King Abgar saw the portrait he received it with great joy and placed it with great honor in one of the buildings of his palaces (Howard 1981: 9–10).
Most modern scholars reject the TA as reliable history for a variety of reasons, but sometimes admit “a substratum of fact” (Segal 1970: 179–81). Wilson recognizes numerous “anachronisms and interpolations” more characteristic of Abgar VIII’s time than Abgar V’s, but also concludes that many “elements of the story have an authentic period ring” (1998: 165). As for the picture, this is the only place in antiquity that mentions the Edessa Image, and by itself would lead no one to dream that it was actually the NT sindon or Turin Shroud. Writers like the Edessan Church Father Ephrem in the fourth century show no knowledge of the picture, leading some scholars to believe there never was such an object in ancient Edessa (Drijvers 1998: 17). Others believe it was there, just not very famous (Drews 1984: 75). Scavone opines that the story is “made up after the fact, when the real history was forgotten, to explain the presence of the Christ-picture in Edessa” (1991: 180). What the TA may also suggest is that there was a distant memory in fourth century Edessa of a Christ picture coming to their city in an early evangelization, and if a lengthy history (like the TA) were to be written, contemporary readers might expect it to be included. However, because of persecution, it had to be hidden away and perhaps even lost, with only confused memories surviving by the fourth century (Wilson 1979: 129–30).
An “Image Not Made with Hands”—the Acts of Thaddeus
Whatever the truth about the Edessa Image’s existence in antiquity, most scholars concede there is sufficient evidence for its reality sometime in the sixth century. The primary document is Evagrius’ Greek Ecclesiastical History, written about 595. In it he recounts the desperate attempts of the Edessans to stave off a Persian siege in 544. When the enemy built a large wooden
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siege ramp aimed at overwhelming their walls, the Edessans mined under it, stacking wood with the hope of burning it down. However, their wood found too little air to burn:
So, when they came to complete despair, they brought the divinely created image, which human hands had not made, the one that Christ the God sent to Abgar…Then, when they brought the all-holy image into the channel they had created and sprinkled it with water, they applied some to the pyre and the timbers. And at once…the timbers caught fire (Whitby 2000: 226–27).
The siege ramp was destroyed and the city saved. Most scholars doubt the story’s miracle aspects, but it is generally believed that either in 544 or later in the sixth century an icon did achieve the fame of “The Holy Image Not Made with Hands of Edessa.” For reasons to be discussed in Part 2, Wilson believed the date of the Icon’s appearance to be somewhere between 525 and 530. But unlike in the TA, from this time forward the picture usually was not believed to be a work of human artistry, but rather a divine imprint made by Christ himself. A second sixth century Greek text, the anonymous Acts of Thaddaeus (hereafter AT), described this new way of understanding the picture’s origin. This document is another brief account of the Gospel coming to Edessa in the first century in the time of Abgar V. The king’s messenger, Ananias, was unable to paint Jesus, so:
He [Jesus] knew as knowing the heart, and asked to wash Himself; and a towel was given Him; and when He washed Himself, He wiped His face with it. And His image having been imprinted upon the linen, He gave it to Ananias (Roberts and Donaldson 1951: 558).
When Wilson read the Acts of Thaddaeus account, he learned that what the Greek text actually said was that Jesus was given a rakos (piece of cloth) which was a tetradiplon, a word translated as “doubled in four.” Surprisingly, the word tetradiplon was
John Long, adapted from Wilson 1998
The folding of the Shroud.(1) Full length Shroud—at over 14 ft (4.3 m) difficult to keep without folding for storage. (2) First width-wide folding. (3) Second width-wide folding. (4) Third width-wide folding—anyone seeing the cloth on edge will notice four doubled layers. (5) Through no special effort the face now appears without the rest of the body (suggesting a “sweat-soaked” face cloth or soudarion). (6) If the cloth is mounted on a backing board with a trellis slipcover fastened on each of four sides (only fasteners on left and right are shown above), it now looks like a composite of the earliest surviving pictures of the Edessa Icon (from the 10th to 13th centuries).
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John Long, adapted from Wilson 1999
Artist’s rendering of the church at Edessa with the chest housing the Edessa Icon.
never used except in reference to the Edessa Image. By three simple width-wide foldings, Wilson found that the Shroud of Turin was easily converted into a cloth with four, two-fold layers. Additionally, the final panel would be a landscape-shaped horizontal rectangle. In this arrangement, through no special effort, this panel (one-eighth the original Shroud size) would show only the Shroud’s face, with the remaining body images hidden within the folds. Wilson noticed that the earliest surviving pictures of what the Icon actually looked like (from the 10th to 13th centuries) showed a rectangular picture frame with just a face on a cloth, seen through a circular opening in a slipcover. It was almost always set in a landscape (horizontal rectangle) shape, as opposed to the more artistically acceptable portrait shape (vertical rectangle) (Wilson 1979: 119–20). For Wilson, these observations were an epiphany unlocking some of the Shroud’s earlier history, including a variety of mysterious change in Christian art.
Evagrius’ Ecclesiastical History and the anonymous Acts of Thaddeus appear to be the only sixth century Greek documents referring to the Image. Two other Syriac texts might also refer to the Icon, but are more problematic. Other than a strange story in the Chronicle by John of Nikiu, an Egyptian Coptic bishop, apparently linking an image on a cloth with King Abgar (Cameron 1983: 86–87), there is an absence in Greek references during the seventh century. However, local Syriac language traditions indicate that the Edessa Icon likely was present during this time. Recently, Archbishop Gewargis Silwa, head of the Church of the East in Iraq, disclosed an unpublished mid-seventh century letter addressed to Nestorian Christians in Edessa, calling that city “a sanctified throne for the Image of his adorable face and his glorified incarnation,” an almost certain reference to the Icon (Wilson 2001: 34–35). The eighth and ninth century Jacobite Patriarch Dionysius of Tell-Machre (a town nearby Edessa) remembered that the Image of Edessa was in the hands of the orthodox Christian community going back to the late sixth century. His recollections and those in the little-known Acts of Mari (perhaps sixth or seventh century) recount Jesus making his swrt’ (Syriac for image) on a shwshaepha (piece of cloth or towel) or sdwn’ (linen cloth) (Drijvers 1998: 21–26). These accounts are almost identical to the image creation in Acts of Thaddeus, but without mention of a word like tetradiplon. Dionysius remembered one story told by his grandfather, of how a clever artist, in the employ of the fabulously wealthy Edessan Athanasius bar Gumoye, had made a copy “as exactly as possible [like the original] because the painter had dulled the paints of the portrait so they would appear old” (Segal 1970: 213–14); he then tricked the Image’s original owners, the orthodox Christian community, by exchanging the copy for the original. Whatever the full truth of this event, it would have occurred near the end of the seventh century. It indicates the Image had been revered for a considerable time, and it affirms that copies were being made. Additionally, having to “dull the paints” suggested to Wilson not just age, but the indistinct, faint image so characteristic of the Shroud face. Two early eighth century texts make it clear that the Edessa Image was a reality and enjoyed long-term fame. The church where it was kept was referred to as “The House of the Icon of the Lord” in manuscript BL Oriental 8606 dated to 723 (Drijvers 1998: 28). Drijvers also knows of an unpublished text of an early eighth century dispute between a Christian monk and an Arab, wherein the latter admits he has heard of the image made by Christ and sent to King Abgar (1998: 27). If the Icon’s historical reality was possible in antiquity, then probable in the sixth century, it was a certainty by the end of the seventh. Early medieval Edessan traditions indicate that this cloth on which Jesus imprinted his face was highly revered but usually kept in great secrecy. When, in 525, Edessa’s most important cathedral was destroyed in one of the city’s periodic 100-year floods, a new one was finished about 30 years later.
It was called Hagia Sophia after the famous [and contemporarily built] church of that name in the capital [Constantinople], and is said to have been beautiful beyond description, with its gold plating and glass and marble (Segal 1970: 189).
In the “Liturgical Tractate,” a 10th century Greek text describing the Icon’s Edessan rituals, discovered by the great
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Michael Luddeni
The church of the Shroud of Turin.
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19th century historian of Christ pictures Ernest von Dobschutz, Wilson learned that no images were permitted in the cathedral except the Icon. It was kept secluded in a chest in its own sanctuary and guarded by an abbot (1979: 145). “Then, on the Sunday before the beginning of Lent, there was held a special procession” in which the Image, still enclosed in its chest, was carried through the cathedral “accompanied by twelve incense-bearers, twelve torch-bearers, and twelve bearers of flabella or liturgical fans” (Wilson 2000: 222). Historian Robert Drews concludes that details in the Tractate make it apparent that “we are dealing with an object of some size, and not with a small, unframed cloth that the wind could lift and carry” (1984: 37). The chest in which the Icon was kept was allowed to be opened, and the Image seen, but only by the archbishop. It was equipped with shutters that were opened on rare occasions,
then all the assembled throng [general Edessan populace and visiting pilgrims] gazed upon it; and every person besought with prayers its incomprehensible power (Drews 1984: 38).
But this was done at a distance through a grille at the entrance of the Image’s sanctuary, making it difficult to see the face very well. Von Dobschutz believed that even then the Icon was covered up (Scavone 2001: 13). Wilson emphasizes the profound effect this produced, quoting the Tractate:
no one was allowed to draw near or touch the holy likeness with his lips or eyes. The result of this was that divine fear increased their faith, and made the reverence paid to the revered object palpably more fearful and awe-inspiring (1979: 146).
This is of paramount importance in understanding the Holy Image of Edessa’s history, and why its identification with the Shroud of Turin is so apparently difficult. The cloth was almost always kept folded and hidden away from prying eyes, just as much as the Shroud during later centuries in Turin.
This concludes Part 1. In Part 2 we will continue the Edessa Icon’s history through its arrival in Constantinople in the tenth century, with particular attention to evidence identifying it as the Turin Shroud.
Special thanks to Daniel Scavone, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Southern Indiana, for reviewing this paper and making numerous suggestions for improvement. Special thanks also to Mr. Ian Wilson for pictures and especially for his historical reconstruction that this article follows.
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