The Image of Edessa
in Purgatory
St. Augustine wrote in On the Trinity, "The physical face of the Lord is pictures with infinite variety by countless imaginations. . ." Because of the Jewish prohibition against making images, the ancients did not have a clear idea of what the Hebrew Messiah looked like, and He was often depicted as a beardless man with short hair. But that suddenly changed in the sixth century with the recovery of the Image of Edessa from a vault in the West Gate of that city.
The legend goes like this: in the beginning of the first century Edessa was ruled by King Abgar V who suffered from a skin disease. His messenger, Hannan, was traveling through Israel and noticed a certain man who performed miraculous cures and who also was being persecuted by his rabbinic rivals. When King Abgar V Heard this report, he wrote a letter to the healer, Yeshu, wherein he asked Yeshu to come to Edessa to heal him and promised that He would be protected there (Edessa was, at that time, independent of Roman rule.)
Hannan returned to Israel, found Yeshu, and delivered the King's letter. Yeshu dictated a reply in which he said that He could not travel to Edessa, but He promised to send a disciple to the King after His work in Israel was completed. Some time later the disciple, Thaddeus. arrived in Edessa and began to preach Yeshu's teachings and perform healings. When the King heard of this, he sent for Thaddeus, and when that disciple entered the King's presence, he held up a linen cloth that had an image of Yeshu on it. The King was then cured of his skin disease and also converted to Christianity which became the state religion.
About twenty years later the grandson of Abgar V came to power in Edessa and reverted the city back to paganism. The linen cloth with with image of Yeshu was then hidden in a vault in the city's West Gate where it remained for about 500 years. In the early sixth century the vault was opened and the image bearing linen cloth was recovered. It was recognized as an image "made without hands" of the Jewish teacher, Yeshu, on whose teachings Christianity depends.
Monks traveled throughout the Empire disseminating the true depiction of Yeshu. but no one seemed to know exactly how Yeshu's image had come to be depicted on that linen cloth. Various theories were invented. One has Yeshu wiping His face with a cloth in the Garden of Gesthemane whereby His facial features were imprinted on it. Another has a woman wiping His face a He carried His cross. Still another says that Hannan had attempted to paint it, but Yeshu stopped him and, instead, took the cloth and held it to His face.
The legend goes like this: in the beginning of the first century Edessa was ruled by King Abgar V who suffered from a skin disease. His messenger, Hannan, was traveling through Israel and noticed a certain man who performed miraculous cures and who also was being persecuted by his rabbinic rivals. When King Abgar V Heard this report, he wrote a letter to the healer, Yeshu, wherein he asked Yeshu to come to Edessa to heal him and promised that He would be protected there (Edessa was, at that time, independent of Roman rule.)
Hannan returned to Israel, found Yeshu, and delivered the King's letter. Yeshu dictated a reply in which he said that He could not travel to Edessa, but He promised to send a disciple to the King after His work in Israel was completed. Some time later the disciple, Thaddeus. arrived in Edessa and began to preach Yeshu's teachings and perform healings. When the King heard of this, he sent for Thaddeus, and when that disciple entered the King's presence, he held up a linen cloth that had an image of Yeshu on it. The King was then cured of his skin disease and also converted to Christianity which became the state religion.
About twenty years later the grandson of Abgar V came to power in Edessa and reverted the city back to paganism. The linen cloth with with image of Yeshu was then hidden in a vault in the city's West Gate where it remained for about 500 years. In the early sixth century the vault was opened and the image bearing linen cloth was recovered. It was recognized as an image "made without hands" of the Jewish teacher, Yeshu, on whose teachings Christianity depends.
Monks traveled throughout the Empire disseminating the true depiction of Yeshu. but no one seemed to know exactly how Yeshu's image had come to be depicted on that linen cloth. Various theories were invented. One has Yeshu wiping His face with a cloth in the Garden of Gesthemane whereby His facial features were imprinted on it. Another has a woman wiping His face a He carried His cross. Still another says that Hannan had attempted to paint it, but Yeshu stopped him and, instead, took the cloth and held it to His face.
Comments
The Greek Acts of Thaddaeus centre round the Edessene legend of the mission of King Abgarus to Christ, the miraculous portrait of him procured by Ananias, Abgarus’s messenger, and the preaching of Thaddaeus at Edessa. The Syriac doctrine of Addai tells the same story. These are strictly local legends.
tl/dr
Another wind-up, maybe?
M R James, as enny fule kno, was a noted authority on ancient books of lore.
A fairly common occurrence. People depict gods in their own image, or at least the image that the think gods should have. Early Christian converts from Greek or Roman cultures would have considered it only reasonable to portray Jesus as a beardless youth in a manner similar to Apollo or Dionysus, since Jesus was also young and associated with both healing and shepherding. As beards became more fashionable in the Roman world and as Jesus became more associated with power (King of Kings, a title borrowed from the Persians) he became more commonly depicted as a bearded monarch, like a late Roman or Byzantine emperor.
It should be noted that this was neither "sudden" nor did it start in "the sixth century". We have bearded Christs from the early fifth and even the fourth century. This wasn't universal as we still had beardless Christs in the sixth century (and as late as the 1100s).
This claim requires ignoring a lot of art history.
That's the fellow with the creepy ghost stories, right?
That's the one.
His account of the discovery of The Uncommon Prayer Book is a favourite of mine...not to mention Canon Alberic's Scrapbook...
AFAIK, they've never been proved to be untrue.
Yes, universities, abbeys, or cathedrals, and often with a scholarly gentleman as the narrator or *hero*. Rather like undead_rat with his odd images on cloth, obscure prophecies, and so on.
The Tur(d)in Shroud!
Oh well, if THAT'S the standard of proof...
So we're into "Rocky Horror Picture Show" territory, with the narrator?
"The Criminologist", I believe, is his proper title.
I have no idea what you all are talking about, but I have read this book.
Get a blog.
EDIT: Honestly, this isn't the first time over the years that I've been struck by how some people don't seem to understand that different forms of electronic communication fulfil different functions. Presumably such people understand the differences between letters, newspapers, diaries, textbooks etc etc, but somehow this doesn't translate into understanding that message boards are for conversation and discussion.
Do you honestly think we've nothing better to do than to sit and wait for you to lecture us?
This is a discussion forum, not a classroom.
I am just rereading the book (one of my favourites) and during his visit to Edessa (Urfa)
Dalrymple refers to this legend:
Quite what the ingredients of this religion would have been at this stage I'm not sure.
Well, it wouldn't have included a belief in the Resurrection, but maybe it could have accepted that Jesus was some form of messenger from God (if not himself divine), and that his radical teachings about a different way of life were worth following.
I wonder what the attitude to Sin and Repentance might have been, prior to the Crucifixion and all the PSA stuff...
Not, perhaps, all that far off the beliefs of some people today?
Funniest thing I've seen in Twitter in the last week: "every jesus painting with veronica makes it look like she was selling merch at the crucifixion" - https://twitter.com/cableknitjumper/status/1357792927599087616?s=19
O! Is Outrage! ITTWACW!
Some of those depictions are pretty naff, though, to say the least...
They don’t, actually. I had a client of shudderous memory who thought she could get her educational manifesto published in the local paper, no problem.
In fairness, while her opinion might be erroneous, one could reasonably arrive at the view that local papers (and national ones come to that) will print any old shite.
I shall add it to my Lovecraftian vocabulary forthwith.
Thanks, Croesos, for your informed reply. Your hypothesis is also found in Prof. Joan Taylor's recent work, WHAT DID JESUS LOOK LIKE?
https://amazon.com/What-Did-Jesus-Look-Like/dp/056767150X
The Image of Edessa is not a mythological cloth. It is documented from the 6th century to the beginning of the 13th when it was lost in looting by the 4th Crusade. Icons of this image do not survive from Edessa itself as that city fell under the rule of Islam. But in 944 the linen cloth was expropriated to Constantinople where many icons of it do survive. Therefore we can at least get a rough idea of what its image looked like. Here is a well known icon of the Image of Edessa from about 1100 CE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_of_Edessa#/media/File:Christos_Acheiropoietos.jpg
A Pantocrator icon of Christ based on the Edessa Image is found at St. Catherine's monastery, and it dates to the 6th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Pantocrator_(Sinai)#/media/File:Spas_vsederzhitel_sinay.jpg
If your hypothesis of a morphing depiction based on society's current standards of male appearance were correct, we would expect our modern depictions of Yeshu to be that of a clean shaven male with short hair and, perhaps, wearing a suit and tie. But that is not the case.
According to Narratio de imagine Edessa (written by an eyewitness) the Mandylion's depiction of Yeshu was of a "watery appearance" and its features were not easily distinguishable. It does not seem to have been either in color or a painting. The fact that some modern Christian churches use the Russian variation does not destroy the hypothesis that the depiction we recognize today as Yeshu is, in fact, based on the Image of Edessa.
None of us can know what Jesus looked like in his earthly form, other than to suppose that he probably looked like most other youngish male adult Jews of his time.
Does it matter, anyway?
It doesn't. If it did, at least one of the gospels would have made a big deal about Jesus' appearance. Or at least mentioned it.
The Gospels do, of course, mention the sort of human experiences Jesus had - sorrow, joy, hunger, fatigue etc. etc. - which is fine, because that helps us to identify with him IYSWIM.
Why, thank you! She was the only client I ever fired. I just couldn't with her delusions.
Does anybody really care?
</Chicago>
Prof. Mark Guscin writes:*
"The Image of Edessa was involved in the debate about images that arose in Byzantium in the eight and nine centuries. This debate is generally known nowadays as Iconoclasm . . .
"According to all the different versions of the origin of the Image, . . .it was produced by Christ on earth and showed His human nature. This made it the perfect argument against the iconoclasts, as not only was Christ showing Himself to be circumscribable but also to be authorizing the existence and production of images of Himself.
*The Tradition of the Image of Edessa, Guscin, 2016, pg. 32-33
I’ll go with the words of Alfred Burt’s Christmas carol, “Some Children See Him.”
As others have asked you, what it your point with this thread? What are you hoping to discuss?
I knew some people who felt that Jesus didn't have long hair 'cause 1) ick!, basically; and 2) busts from the time showed men with very short hair. I pointed out that those were depictions of *Roman* men, and Jesus wouldn't necessarily have looked like them. IIRC, they didn't quite know what to do with that.
Ooooh! Flannelgraphs. Those were wonderfully high-tech and fun when I was a kid. I knew we were up to something grand when the flannelgraphs came out
That's strong support for an argument that the Image is not genuine, but rather that its sudden appearance in time for the politico-religious debate about icons was not co-incidental.
Is this not traditionally a separate image called Veronica's Veil?
So... is your point that we ought to use and venerate icons a lot more? Is that something that you personally find helpful?
Does the same go for relics? I must confess that I find relics the aspect of Catholic and Orthodox practice that is the most difficult to take. I think there is some scriptural basis for veneration of relics but I have a strong "ICK" reaction to them - I find them quite creepy and disturbing.
Also full body relics (e.g. St. So&So under glass). AIUI, they're generally supposed to have been miraculously preserved. Interesting anecdote: In A.N. Wilson's biography of C.S. Lewis, he mentions that CSL's mom visited a full body relic as a kid. She saw it blink/wink at her, and was convinced it must be a trick.*
With things like splinters of the True Cross...given how many there've evidently been, either they're fake (at least, most of them) or God did a loaves and fishes style math problem. Whether that's bad or good...I can see that some people might find it helpful to believe they have a piece of the True Cross. As long as the seller isn't price-gouging, it might not be the worst thing in the world. Should either be free, or "free + shipping and handling". IMHO, the problem would then be if someone gets comfort from it, then decides it's fake, and they go into a tailspin.
*I do NOT recommend the book. The author came at CSL from some odd angles. (Not the least was that young CSL couldn't possible have lost his faith after his mom died! :eyeroll: ) I put up with it through the story about his mom and the relic, then quit. The next chapter was going to get into the Narnia books, and I was afraid the author would ruin them for me.)
Evelyn Waugh says in his preface to Helena:
• It used to be believed by the vulgar that there were enough pieces of the ‘true cross’ to build a battleship. In the last century a French savant, Charles Rohault de Fleury, went to the great trouble of measuring them all. He found a total of 4,000,000 cubic millimetres, whereas the cross on which Our Lord suffered would probably comprise some 178,000,000. As far as volume goes, therefore, there is no strain on the credulity of the faithful.
Waugh’s figure of 178 million cubic millimeters, or 0.178 of a cubic meter, corresponds to a 12-foot upright post and a 6-foot crossbar, both cut from timber having a diameter of 8 inches. The sum total of the relics, stated as 4 million cubic millimeters, is equivalent to a five-inch length of the same timber.