The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [114]
Coretti passed around the table several books illustrating the Veil of Veronica and documenting the Sixth Station of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa. The mobile camera moved in to get video of the group looking through the books. Ferrar made a note to stay behind after the meeting to get Coretti’s permission to take detailed shots of the various illustrations she was sharing with the group.
“We can pick up the story of the Shroud in the first century after the death of Christ,” Coretti said. “There is a legend involving the Image of Edessa, named after the ancient Turkish city of Edessa, which is modern-day Urfa. In the early fourth century, Eusebius, an early historian of Christianity, said he translated an ancient letter in which King Abgar of Edessa wrote to Jesus, asking Jesus to heal miraculously an illness he had that was thought to be incurable. After Jesus died, an evangelist named Thaddaeus is said to have brought the Shroud to King Abgar in response to his request. The image brought to Abgar was said to have miraculously and instantly cured him of the leprosy that had paralyzed his legs. Tradition links the story of King Abgar with a face of Christ known as the Mandylion in the Greek Orthodox Church. We have many images of the Mandylion that closely resemble the man in the Shroud. The idea is that the Mandylion, which typically shows only the face of Jesus, was the Shroud of Turin folded and placed in a display frame so only the face could be seen.”
“Why would anyone believe this story?” Gabrielli asked.
“We have found frescoes of the Cloth of Edessa in Turkish churches dating back to around 1100 that look a lot like the face of the man in the Shroud. The man in the Shroud, the Cloth of Edessa, and the various images we have of the Mandylion in Greek Orthodox churches look a lot alike. Portraits of Christ on the gold coins of Byzantine emperor Justinian II, from around 692 A.D. in Constantinople, closely resemble the Cloth of Odessa and Mandylion images and look almost identical to the face of the man in the Shroud.”
Coretti passed around books containing photo illustrations of these various faces of Christ. Gabrielli looked unconvinced. All it proved to him was that at some point, maybe around 500 A.D., the image of Christ that artists accepted became an icon. After that, all images artists painted or otherwise represented of Christ had to look like the icon to be accepted; otherwise people would not recognize the image, or would be be confused.
“We can prove with almost absolutely certainty that painters in Constantinople prior to 1200 must have seen the Shroud of Turin,” she said.
Castle thought this point was more interesting. He wondered how Coretti was going to prove her assertion.
“The Pray Manuscript, an ancient codex written between 1192 and 1195, is preserved in the Budapest National Library,” Coretti said. “The Pray Manuscript contains illustrations that portray the burial of Christ, showing Christ removed from the cross being placed on a burial shroud. The figure of Christ in the Pray Manuscript displays facial and body features consistent with the Shroud of Turin, including the crossed shape of the arms in front of the body and the suggestion that the burial cloth of Christ used the unique herringbone twill we see in the weave of the Shroud of Turin. Interestingly, the Pray Manuscript depicts no thumbs in the hands of the dead Christ, another feature that appears to have been copied from the Shroud