In a recent interview with Piers Morgan, Dr.Joe Accetta who is a Shroud sceptic and who was on the STURP team of 1978 said that one of the four pillars of authenticity is some sort of chain of custody (provenance) as to where the Shroud has been for the last 2000 years. This is thought by sceptics to be one of their strongest arguments against authenticity as circa 1356, when the cloth was first displayed in Lirey, France, is its first known definite provenance mainly based on a pilgrim’s medallion found in the Seine. Between the years 1204 and 1356 the whereabouts are a mystery. Pre 1204 there are, as Father Kim Dreisbach calls them, ‘spy clues’: strong historical and verifiable references that might point to a history dating right back to the Sepulchre, showing that the Shroud has indeed been around for the last 2000 years.
Evidence of non-European origin
There are of course well known forensic evidences that place the Cloth in Jerusalem, Syria, Constantinople , Italy and France at some point in its journeys. These include:
- Max Frei’s pollen evidence
- Kolbeck and Nitowski’s Travertine Aragonite limestone crystals which match the chemical make up of the limestone found in Jerusalem
- The ‘Masada stitch’ discovery of textile expert Mechthild Flury-Lemberg
- Bill Meacham’s isotopic analysis of the origins of the flax used to produce the Shroud
- Byzantine coins that include portraits of Jesus that appear to replicate the appearance of the facial image seen on the Shroud
In this study however we will look at historical references that point to the Cloth’s authenticity and ancient provenance. Many of these historical references have been taken from Russ Breault’s paper on Academia ‘Historical References of the Turin Shroud from the third through to the thirteenth century’. Others are taken from ‘The Blood and the Shroud’ by Ian Wilson and Barrie Schwortz as well as Mark Oxley’s ‘The Challenge of the Shroud’.
Twenty historical references to the Shroud
- The first and earliest liturgical clue to the Shroud’s ancient existence beyond the four gospels may well be the ‘Hymn of the Pearl’, also known as the Hymn of the Robe of Glory’. This is found in the apocryphal book , ‘The Acts of Thomas’ circa 216AD. It is attributed to to the poet Bardesenes of Edessa and its origin may even be first century.
“I saw my image on my burial garment like a mirror…” (image on a linen shroud)
“… Myself facing outward…” (dorsal image)
“… and myself facing inward…” (frontal image)
“… as though divided yet one image…” (single cloth)
“… Two images, but one likeness of the King of Kings …” (double image)
The poem refers to a double image of the King of Kings on his burial garment. As Russ Breault says, “It is difficult to consider what else the poet may be referring to if not the Shroud”. - A book often quoted by early church fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Jerome and Origen is the Gospel to the Hebrews. Possibly second century, this gospel no longer exists but references to it in the 3rd century quote: “when the Lord had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, he went and appeared to James”, thus indicating that the linen sindone belonging to Jesus was associated with the Jerusalem community.
- In 325AD, Pope Sylvester instituted a papal decree that the church should celebrate the holy sacrifice of the mass, representing the body and blood of Christ on a linen cloth, consecrated by the bishop as if it were the clean Shroud of Christ. This institution of covering the altar with the linen representing the Shroud demonstrates knowledge of its existence and also the shape and size of the cloth as a long rectangular linen. It explains a centuries old tradition practiced by all denominations. Nothing could be more connected to the body and blood of Christ than the burial Shroud that wrapped his crucified body represented by the linen covering the altar.
- St.Nino, a fourth century missionary to Georgia who quoted: “They found the linen early in Christ’s tomb, whither Pilate and his wife came. When they found it, Pilate’s wife asked for the linen and went away quickly to her home in Pontus and she became a believer in Christ.
Some time afterwards, the linen came into the hands of Luke the Evangelist who put it in a place known only to himself. Now they did not find the Shroud (Sudarium), but it is said it has been found by Peter, who took it and kept it, “but we know not if it has ever been discovered”; an obscure reference which gives some knowledge that there was a Shroud but also that it was kept secretly. It might however be a reference to the Sudarium which was kept separately and its journey through history took a different route through North Africa to Oviedo, Spain. - Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia, Antioch (350-428AD) developed a catechism with Instructions before celebrating the mass. “When they bring up the oblation at the offertory, they place it on the altar for the completed representation of the Passion. This is why the deacon who spread the linens on the altar represents “the figure on the linen cloths at the burial”. Bishop Theodore establishes the deacon who carries the cloth down the aisle represents the double image on the linen.
- Bishop Leandro of Seville (579-582AD) included in the Mozarabic liturgy of Holy Week. “On the morning of Jesus’ resurrection. Peter and John ran to His tomb and saw the recent imprints of the dead and risen one on the cloths”. This is a critical reference as they as re-translated the scripture John 20:5-6 to reflect the Image seen on the Shroud. It is not biblical but it does date back 1500 years. Why would they choose to translate the verse in this fashion unless it was based on knowledge of the Shroud’s existence and the image it contained?
- In the 8th century, St.Theodore the Studite who was a powerful advocate for icons referenced the Shroud as a full body image ‘in which Christ was wrapped and laid down in the sepulchre’. Reflecting on the Abgar legend , Theodore said it was “to clearly grant us His divine features, our Saviour who had been covered with it, imprinted the form of His own face and portraying it touching the cloth with his own skin”.
- in 769 AD, Pope Stephen III stated, “He stretched out his whole body on a cloth, white as snow, on which the glorious image of the Lords face and the length of his whole body was so divinely transformed that it was sufficient for those who could not see the transfiguration made on the cloth”.
- In 787AD, the end of an iconoclastic period came at the second Council of Nicaea. Bishop Peter of Nicomedia quoted from the sermon of Athanasius (early fourth century), which is how we know what he had said as no earlier records exist. “…but two years before Titus and Vespasian sacked the city (Jerusalem 70AD), the faithful and disciples of Christ were warned by the Holy Spirit to depart from the city… leaving the city, they carried everything relating to our faith. At that time even the icon with certain other ecclesiastical objects were moved and they today still remain in Syria. I possess this information as handed down to me from my migrating parents and by hereditary rights. It is plain and certain why the icon of our Holy Lord and Saviour came from Judea to Syria”.
- In 787AD, Leo the lector of Constantinople visited Edessa and told the second Council of Nicaea that he had seen there: “The holy image not made with hands and adored by the faithful “.
- In 944AD the Byzantine general Cuercas was sent from Constantinople with an army to Edessa where it was agreed with the Muslim Emir to grant the city immunity from attack, exchanging 200 Muslim prisoners and a payment of 12,000 pieces of silver for just one thing: The Cloth of Edessa! This transfer took place on August 15th of that year.
The cloth was placed in a casket and was taken round the city walls to great celebration. On August 16th the cloth was taken to Hagia Sophia the great church. Gregory the archdeacon delivered a sermon in which he said: “The splendour has been impressed uniquely by the drops of agony sweat sprinkled from the face…these are truly the beauties that produced the colouring of Christ’s imprint, which has been further embellished by the drops of blood sprinkled from his own side…blood and water there, sweat and image here”. - In 945AD the Emperor Constantine Porphryogenitus takes power and issues coins bearing an impressive and very Shroud-like images of Christ. Under his direction an official history of the Edessa cloth is written the “Narratio De Imagine Edessena”. In it he describes the image as a “moist secretion without pigment or painters art” and elsewhere he remarks that the likeness was due to “sweat not pigments”. Later, in an encouraging letter to his troops he describes…”the God bearing Shroud (sindon) and other signs of his undefined Passion”.
- In 977AD, a group of refugee Greek monks set up a cult of St Alexis who had become a beggar at Edessa after hearing of the cloth bearing the imprint of Jesus (obviously before its removal to Constantinople). They describe it as “An image of our Lord Jesus Christ, made without human hands on a sindon (shroud)”.
- In the 11th century, a Latin version of the Abgar legend talks about the cloth being a full body image. “But if you wish to see my face in the flesh, behold I send you a linen, on which you will discover not only features of my face, but a divinely copied configuration of my entire body”. This was purportedly part of a letter that Jesus sent to Abgar the king of Edessa. Whilst it is a legend, it does once again show the existence of the Shroud and its image long before its appearance in Lirey, France in 1356.
- In 1141AD (circa), Ordericus Vitalis wrote an Ecclesiastical History and in it said: “A precious linen on which he had wiped off the sweat from his face, and on which an image of this same Saviour shines forth , miraculously imprinted ; this image shows to whoever looks upon it the appearance and size of the Lord’s body”.
- One of the most cited examples of the cloth’s existence pre the 1260-1390 date is the Hungarian Pray Codex (Pray being the name of the author). It was produced in 1192 but may pre-date this. It is a book which contains scenes from the crucifixion and resurrection. The artist who crafted the image would have been an eye witness to the Shroud kept in Constantinople sometime between 1160 and 1170 when king Bella III of Hungary served in the court of the Emperor. Captured in the document are the unique herringbone weave of the cloth, the still red blood and most importantly “the L shaped poker holes” unique to the cloth and still visible on the Shroud of Turin.
- Nicholas Soemundarson, who was an Abbot in the far away Icelandic monastery of Thyngeyr, returned from a pilgrimage to Constantinople in 1157 and said “a shroud with the blood and body of Christ” had been seen by himself whilst there.
- In 1204AD, before the terrible sacking of the city of Constantinople by the 4th Crusade, a French knight Robert de Clari who was in the city wrote, “But among the rest (the churches of Constantinople) there was also another which was called St Mary of Blachernae, within which was the Shroud wherein our Lord was wrapped. Every Friday that shroud did rise itself upright so that the form of our Lord could clearly be seen. No-one knows, neither Greek nor Frank what became of that shroud when the city was taken”
- After the city of Constantinople was sacked and pillaged and the relics had been taken by the French crusaders, Theodore Angelus, who was the illegitimate nephew of the Emperor Isaac II, crafted a letter to Pope Innocent III which stated that ”During the sack, troops of Venice and France looted even the holy sanctuaries… the French… the relics of the saints and most sacred of all, the Linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before his resurrection… the sacred linens being in Athens”.
- From Gervais of Tilbury circa 1213: “The story is passed down from the Archives of Ancient Authority that the Lord prostrated himself with his entire body , on the whitest linen, and so by divine there was impressed on the linen a most beautiful imprint of not only the face, but the entire body of the Lord”. According to Russ Breault, “It is important to note how Gervais make it clear that the linen cloth has a long history pre-dating 1213 when he made this statement.”
Conclusion
The provenance of the Shroud from this time until it’s appearance in Lirey France in 1356 is uncertain and there are several hypotheses that propose various options. One thing we do know is that it’s new owner Geoffroi de Charny was a knight of the highest integrity and valour and it is most unlikely that he would intentionally mislead people by using what he knew to be a artist rendition and pass it off as the genuine burial Shroud of Jesus.
It is clear that for many reasons the Shroud would have been kept secret at many points of its history. Calvin’s dismissive comments came from a very subjective dislike of relics and the Catholic Church.
I enclose here two quotes from eminent scientists about the their own views:
Anatomy professor Dr. Yves Delage in Revue Scientifique. (Circa 1904)
“A religious question has been needlessly injected into a problem that in itself is purely scientific, with the result that feelings have run high, and reason has been led astray. If, instead of Christ, there were a question of some person like a Sargon, an Achilles, or one of the Pharaohs, no one would have thought of making any objection …. I have been faithful to the true spirit of science in treating this question, intent only on the truth, not concerned in the least with whether it would affect the interests of any religious party …. I recognize Christ as a historical personage and I see no reason why anyone should be scandalized that there still exists material”
Dr. John H. Heller (STURP team 1978 Epilogue ‘Report on the Shroud of Turin’)
“The physical and chemical data fit hand in glove. It is certainly true that if a similar number of data had been found in the funerary linen attributed to Alexander the Great, Ghengis Khan, or Socrates, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was indeed, the shroud of that historical person. But because of the unique position that Jesus holds, such evidence is not enough. There is no such thing as a scientific test for Jesus, and there probably never will be”
