Legendary Aquitaine
The Avenging of the Saviour
Veronica replaces Magdalene - And the “image” of Christ replaces the body of Christ?
This window depicting the events in the life of Mary of Magdalene is from Chartres Cathedral dated to about 1210. This window shows Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus. At bottom left an angel is showing her the shroud and the empty tomb, and in the bottom right she encounters Jesus holding a cross and at first mistakes him for a gardener. In the top panels she is announcing the Resurrection to the disciples.
Did Mary Magdalene take the Shroud of Christ from the tomb, and hence the stories of the ‘imago Christie’ and her possession of it began to circulate in legends?
Doumergue refers us to a text the title of which is “The Avenging of the Saviour”. He says of this text:
‘There are several copies of this text. A copy is preserved at St Omer's municipal library (St Omer is a town situated in the North of France). It has been studied by historians. It is a manuscript of the IXth century. This manuscript comes from the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Bertin. This version contains several faults of copies which supposes the existence of a source text. Ernst von Dobschütz (who was professor at the University of Halle, the University of Breslau and the University of Strasbourg (1870-1934)) dates this source text to the pre-Carolingian period. He dates its writing between 700 and 720. He places its writing in the South of Gaul’.
One copy of the ‘Avenging of the Saviour’ manuscript was found at the Monastery of Saint Bertin. This Abbey had a rich manuscript heritage and had great fame as a centre of learning. Its monks produced famous manuscript books, painstakingly illustrated - including some remarkable early maps. The Annales Bertiniani, or Annals of St. Bertin, is a Frankish chronicle that was also found in the Monastery of St. Bertin, after which it is named. The chronicle covers the period 830-82 and was written by a number of scribes, including Hincmar of Reims.
The ‘Avenging of the Saviour’ manuscript itself, dated by Dobschutz to around 700-720AD, was suggested by him to have been composed in the Aquitaine. Others have asserted that it was composed around the town of Agde. In 1874, Wilhelm Creizenach asserted that connections between the death of Pilate episode in the manuscript and several other old French texts which locate the site of Pilate’s death in southern Gaul mean that the text was probably written in Southern Gaul too. R A Lipsius argued that the legends in the manuscript originated in 8th Century Aquitania.
What was happening in the Aquitaine in the 8th century for these manuscripts to be composed? This time frame coincides with the rule of Duke Odo or Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine.
In 718, Odo appears as the ally of Chilperic II of Neustria (son of Childeric II, who was son of Clovis II. Clovis II was brother of Sigebert III and the uncle of Dagobert II) and the Mayor of the Palace Ragenfrid, who may have offered recognition of his kingship over Aquitaine. Together they fought against the Arnulfing dynasty, and the Austrasian mayor of the palace, Charles
Martel; but after the defeat of Chilperic at Soissons that year they probably made peace with Charles by surrendering to him the Neustrian king and his treasures.
So what route of transmission was there for the monks at St Bertin, if they had access
to, or copied from an earlier version, this text of the Avenging of the Saviour? What were their sources? What were the religious sources and milieu for this text to be created? It would seem that into 8th century Aquitaine, it was the monasteries and traditions of manuscript production which stemmed from Merovingian and Celtic influences, influences in the Merovingian Age which were significant. R A Lipsius, as we saw above, argued that the legends in the ‘Cura Sanitatis Tiberri’ and the 'Avenging of the Saviour’ originated in 8th Century Aquitania. If this manuscript was produced in this milieu, it is also interesting to note that there is even a late Greek development of the document known as the ‘Epistola Tiberri ad Pilatum’ which quite categorically replaces the person of Veronica with Mary Magdalene.
All these manuscripts deal with events surrounding the death and burial of Jesus Christ. They provide post biblical traditions regarding the characters associated with this death and burial, such as Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and Pilate etc. Textual comparisons can show the origins of these ideas and texts. Thus in one text Mary Magdalene is named, in others Mary is replaced by a figure called Veronica. Veronica met Jesus on the road to Calvary and obtained a print of the face of Jesus when she wiped his sweating brow. In the ‘Epistola Tiberri ad Pilatum’ it is Mary Magdalene who journeys to Rome to try Pilate for his crimes. And in fact, the Catholic tradition of Veronicas Veil is that this was ‘the cloth imprinted with the image of Christ's face. Veronica bore the relic away from the Holy Land, and used it to cure Emperor Tiberius of some illness’. The ‘legends’ of the East are quite clearly overlapping with those of the West.
Whatever the merits of Doumergue’s argument he has thrown up a rather interesting subject worthy I believe of further research. This is the literary traditions around the idea of Mary Magdalene gaining custody of the body of Jesus and the correlate of Veronica gaining the ‘imago Christi’. One can see why Doumergue uses the Gospel of John for his theories. This Gospel contains the most complete narrative regarding the burial of Jesus. Here, "the other disciple, the one Jesus loved," is presented as an eyewitness account worded in the third person:
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!" So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus”. (John 20:1-13 (NIV).
Here we see complete confusion over who ran where, and who saw what. It shows several
traditions combined into one detailing the trip to the tomb - written by several different hands, later cobbled together. And it is strange regarding the laboured details about the actual burial cloths. And why did Peter and the disciple who outran him never mention or acknowledge Mary Magdalene who was already at the tomb crying? Mary Magdalene said ‘"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!". She wonders where the body is and notices the burial cloths. That is our starting point. So too is: He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Here we have all the necessary components - Magdalene, tomb of Christ and the cloth around Jesus’ head folded up.
It is on these statements that Doumergue constructs the theory from the ‘Avenging of the Saviour’ that it is really the body of Christ which the Magdalene later takes custody of. I do not have the copy of the manuscript that Doumergue used. He says his copy in France is more complete and much more specific, alluding to a tomb of Christ in France. I have, however, a copy of the Saint Omer 202 manuscript and an English (Anglo-Saxon) copy of this French text.
Scholarly opinion is that the Saint Omer 202 manuscript was copied and annotated at Saint Bertin in the late 9th century. This manuscript was almost certainly in England in the 11th century and was back at Saint Bertin library by the very latest, the 14th century. Using the script and some inscriptions of ownership the 202 manuscript appears to have originated at Saint
Bertin. The text is written in Caroline minuscule, a minuscule whose characteristics are only found at Saint Bertin.
The origins of Bertin are seen in the Abbey of Luxeuil. In medieval times the Abbey was famous as a centre of sanctity and learning. The Annales Bertiniani (830-882; Mon. Germ. Hist. Script. I, 419-515) are important for the contemporary history of the West Frankish Kingdom. The abbey church, now in ruins, was one of the finest fourteenth-century Gothic edifices. There were extensive contacts of this Abbey with Anglo-Saxon England.
For our purposes here we are interested in the figure of Veronica, as represented in the
Saint Omer codex and her association with Mary Magdalene and the traditions of the ‘imago Christi’. The ‘imagi Christi’ is a term for relics of Jesus also known as Acheiropoieta - that is
icons Not Made by Hand. They are said to have come into existence miraculously. There are only two prime candidates for this title, the so called Mandylion and the Veronica (and
perhaps the Turin Shroud). The Mandylion is the famous ‘Image of Edessa’. According to legend King Abgar of Edessa wrote to Jesus asking him to come and cure him of an illness. Abgar received an answer, a letter from Jesus, declining to visit, but promising a future visit by one of his disciples. Along with the letter went a ‘likeness’ of Jesus. This legend was first recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea, who said that he had transcribed and translated the actual letter in
the Syriac chancery documents of the King of Edessa. The apostle ‘Thaddeus’ was said to have come to Edessa, bearing the words of Jesus, by virtue of which the king was healed.
The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium, according to legend, bears the likeness of the Face of
Jesus not made by human hand (i.e. an Acheiropoieton). The most recent version of the legend recounts that Saint Veronica from Jerusalem encountered Jesus along the Via Dolorosa on the way to Calvary. When she paused to wipe the sweat off his face with her veil, his image was imprinted on the cloth. The event is commemorated in one of the Stations of the Cross. According to some versions, Veronica later travelled to Rome to present the cloth to the Roman Emperor Tiberius and the veil possesses miraculous properties, being able to quench thirst, cure blindness, and sometimes even raise the dead.
Are these Not Made by Human Hand items also aspects of the Turin Shroud? This shroud is famously said to be the burial cloth in which the historical Jesus was covered with when he was buried in the tomb as detailed in the Gospel of John. There may even be two traditions of the type of burial used, for in John not only is Jesus wrapped in strips of linen (an Egyptian
burial style of mummification?) he is also said to have been wrapped in a cloth (the Shroud?). What the stories of the relics all have in common is the following; they are associated with the burial of Christ, and involve a person rescuing these relics from that tomb.
Doumergue’s text, the Vindicta Saluatoris manuscript, is usually paired with the Evangelium Nichodemi (the Gospel of Nicodemus) and other lesser manuscripts which collectively constitute apocrypha providing continuations on the lives of Pilate, Joseph of
Arimathea, Nicodemus, Veronica and Longinus. At once our interest should be
piqued. Pilate is historical, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are said to be historical as well as Longinus. However, Veronica is not. She is a pure invention, or perhaps a cover for someone else. What female was associated with the tomb and burial of Christ but is missing from these lists of persons important in the ‘passion’ of Christ?
The Vindicta Saluatoris (VS) essentially combines four legends which had been circulating
independently in the Middle Ages. They are:
1) The story of Veronica and her ‘likeness’ of Christ
2) The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Vespasian
3) The disease and cure of Tiberius and
4) The exile and death of Pilate.
The Acts of Pilate is a book of the New Testament Pseudepigrapha. Its date of composition is uncertain. The text is found in the Gospel of Nicodemus, with other related material. The oldest section, The Report of Pilate to the Emperor Claudius (which is inserted as an appendix) may have been composed late in the 2nd century, but most of the Acts of Pilate appears to have been written later. From these writings stem the whole apocrypha surrounding the death
and burial of Christ. In fact, the story of Veronica and her ‘likeness’ of Christ depend on the Acts of Pilate manuscript. The Acts themselves are alleged to have been derived from the official acts preserved in the praetorium at Jerusalem. It is in this text that the name of Veronica is first identified in the scene of Christ’s trial before Pilate.
The other circulating Mediaeval legends mentioned, such as the Disease and Cure of Tiberius and the death of Pilate are based on other documents, most notably the Cura Sanitatis Tiberri’, which itself, in turn, is based on the ‘Epistolae Christi et Abgari’. As we have seen, these texts were reported and translated by Eusebius of Caesarea for his monumental work, the Historia Ecclesiastica.
The Epistolae Christi et Abgari’ tells of the legend of King Agbar, a king of Edessa, who is
afflicted with an incurable disease, and that he had heard of the power of the miracles performed by Jesus. He wrote to Jesus (or his personal scribe did) acknowledging his divine authority, and asked for his help in curing him of his disease. He then offered Jesus asylum (!) in his own residence; the tradition also states that Jesus wrote a letter in reply, declining to go, but promising, after his ascension, to send one of his disdisciples, endowed with his power to heal. Euseibius added that it was Addai, or one of the seventy two disciples, called Thaddeus of
Edessa, who was sent by Thomas the Apostle in AD29. Thaddeus was one of the Seventy Apostles of Christ, not to be confused with Thaddeus of the Twelve Apostles. Thaddeus of the Seventy Disciples was born as a Jew in Edessa. According to Eusebius, it was he who instructed King Abgar in the Christian Faith and baptised him:
"Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, under divine impulse sent Thaddeus, who was also numbered among the seventy disciples of Christ, to Edessa, as a preacher and evangelist for teaching of Christ." (Historia Ecclesiastica, I, xiii).
After Pentecost, Thaddeus of the Seventy preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia, and built up the Church there, supported, as some hagiographies note, by the other Thaddeus, Jude the Brother of the Lord. He was martyred for his faith in the Artaz region in the year AD 50, according to an ancient Armenian tradition. But according to other sources he reposed
peacefully in Edessa or Beirut in September 3, 44.
It is interesting to speculate on the identity of this Thaddeus which we will do so in future issues. Suffice it is to say that in the Nag Hammadi "sayings" the Gospel of Thomas begins: "These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded." Some have seen in the Acts of Thomas (written in east Syria in the early 3rd century, or perhaps as early as the first half of the 2nd century) an identification of Saint Thomas with the apostle Judas brother of James, better known in English as Jude. However, the first sentence of the Acts follows the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in distinguishing the apostle Thomas and the apostle Judas son of James. Few texts identify Thomas' other twin, though in the Book of Thomas the Contender, part of the Nag Hammadi library, it is said to be Jesus himself: "Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself…"
Just as there is confusion over who Jesus sent to King Abgar (his brother? Or his brother sent
a disciple?) there is also confusion over who Veronica is. The name "Veronica" itself is a Latinisation of Berenice, a Macedonian name, meaning "bearer of victory" (corresponding to Greek: phere-nikē). Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica (vii 18) tells how at Caesarea Philippi lived the woman whom Christ healed of an issue of blood (Matt ix 20). Legend was not long in providing the woman of the Gospel with a name. In the West she was identified with Martha of Bethany; in the East she was called Berenike, or Beronike, the name appearing in as early a work as the "Acta Pilati", the most ancient form of which goes back to the fourth
century.
The Gospel of Nicodemus and the Abgar legends had developed independently. In the Gospel of Nicodemus we see that in Part V Nicodemus goes to see Pilate. In Part VII a woman called Bernice is mentioned; ‘And a certain woman named Bernice, crying from afar off said: I had
an issue of blood and touched the hem ofhis garment, and the flowing of my blood
was stayed which i had twelve years.’ Essentially the figure of ‘Veronica’, who seems to embody the real historical character of this Bernice, the ‘woman with a haemorrhage’ as Eusebius called her, later takes custody of the ‘imago Christi’.
The woman with an issue of blood is said to have lived at Panneas.
As Dreisbach observed: ‘one discovers that the "woman with the issue of blood" (Mk. 5:21-43; Mt. 9:20-22; Lk. 8:40-56), known as Bernike/Bernice in the East becomes Veronica in the West. According to the fifth century Makarios of Magnesia, Bernice is even described as "a princess of Edessa." In a veritable literary "persistence of memory", Arthur Edward Waite notes not only does Veronica's Cloth become an alternative to the Shroud in the West, but he goes on to conclude that: The story of the Veronica Cloth, of the Sudarium, and of the healing of the Roman Emperor is the root matter of the earliest historical account of the Holy Grail; and this fact has led certain scholars to infer that the entire literature [i.e. the Holy Grail] has been developed out of the Veronica Legend, as part of a Conversion Legend of Gaul, according to which the holy women, took ship to Marseilles and preached the Gospel therein. They
carried the Volto Santo and other Hallows [Emphasis added.] (1961, pp. 341-42). (www.shroud.com/pdfs/dreisbch.pdf )
Is this confusion in the legendary texts with Veronica, Mary Magdalene, Bernice, healings, veils and cloths and images of Christ, the Shroud and the Grail healing really attributes for the fact that Mary Magdalene brought the body of Jesus with her to France? Or perhaps some other artefact? Do these legends hide a type of tradition regarding Jesus, or is it just literary invention?
Dreisbach says: ‘that in its original Orthodox version, “Veronica” of the West may
originally have been Mary Magdalene and/or the hemorrhissa of the East.’ ..... Now it is this woman with the issue of blood who is first given the name Bernike/ Bernice /Veronica in Chapter 7 of the Acts of Pilate (ca. 2nd to 4th century A.D.). At this point Judah Segal provides us with the following and highly significant insight: Significantly, there is confusion between the sacred handkerchief of Edessa in the East and the Veil of Veronica or Bernice of Paneas in Palestine in the West. The legends of Paneas and Edessa are curiously interwoven.
The evangelist Addai is said to have been born in Paneas - or at Edessa. ...[and it was] Bernice of Paneas [who] dedicated a statue of Jesus as a thanksgiving offering on being healed from sickness [Emphasis added]. Could it be that the Magdalene was the original woman with “the
issue of blood” who went on to stand by the cross at the Crucifixion [Mk. 15:40] and was the first to discover the Empty Tomb and the Resurrection [Jn. 20:1; 11-20]? (www.shroud.com/pdfs/dreisbch.pdf ).
In the Vindicta Saluatoris (St Omer English text), the following paragraph is written:
‘And it turned out as they pondered thus, that they found a woman whose name was Veronica, and she was very Christian, and loved and honoured among the whole populace because she was the same Veronica who had touched the hem of the Saviours garment, and was healed from the flow of blood. She has a certain portion of the Saviours garment, and held it in great honour and kept it always because of Christ face’.
In the Latin VS manuscript this is written: ‘And he (Volosianus) ordered Pilate to be punished with foulest of deaths. And he took the face of the Lord and went aboard the ship at the same time as them. Then Volosianus said (to Veronica): ‘Woman, whom do you seek?’
She said: ‘I also seek [ the image of ] my Lord, which the Lord gave to me ... And which you have taken from me against the Law ......and although I deserved ill, give me back the [the image] of my Lord ....all her people began to weep and Veronica said; Daughter of Jerusalem, do not weep for me but over yourselves...’
In the corresponding Anglo-Saxon text it is reported:
‘Then Volosianus said to her (Veronica), ‘Woman, what do you seek?’ She answered him; I seek my Lord, and oh, I ask you, what have I done that I may not have my Lord? Truly I tell you, if you will not give him up to me, I shall never leave until I see where you have put Him and I will worship and ever serve him as long as I live’.
Doumergue posits that the text here is adapted from the Gospel of John, where the ‘image of Christ’ is but a metaphor for the ‘body of Christ’. And it is Veronica, originally Mary Magdalene, who has custody of this image/body.
From the Gospel of John: but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over
to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, ‘Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him’
Is Doumergue right, that Mary Magdalene gained custody of the body of Jesus, and ensured this body received a proper burial? Or did she indeed receive or take from the sepulchre, on that first day of the week, the burial clothes of her beloved Jesus and did she take them home with her and worship them, only later to have them taken from her? I do not have the more complete French text that Doumergue refers to in his book. That text talks of a tomb memorial being made for Jesus at the instigation of Pilate. But the associations are nevertheless intriguing and deserve further research.
‘There are several copies of this text. A copy is preserved at St Omer's municipal library (St Omer is a town situated in the North of France). It has been studied by historians. It is a manuscript of the IXth century. This manuscript comes from the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Bertin. This version contains several faults of copies which supposes the existence of a source text. Ernst von Dobschütz (who was professor at the University of Halle, the University of Breslau and the University of Strasbourg (1870-1934)) dates this source text to the pre-Carolingian period. He dates its writing between 700 and 720. He places its writing in the South of Gaul’.
One copy of the ‘Avenging of the Saviour’ manuscript was found at the Monastery of Saint Bertin. This Abbey had a rich manuscript heritage and had great fame as a centre of learning. Its monks produced famous manuscript books, painstakingly illustrated - including some remarkable early maps. The Annales Bertiniani, or Annals of St. Bertin, is a Frankish chronicle that was also found in the Monastery of St. Bertin, after which it is named. The chronicle covers the period 830-82 and was written by a number of scribes, including Hincmar of Reims.
The ‘Avenging of the Saviour’ manuscript itself, dated by Dobschutz to around 700-720AD, was suggested by him to have been composed in the Aquitaine. Others have asserted that it was composed around the town of Agde. In 1874, Wilhelm Creizenach asserted that connections between the death of Pilate episode in the manuscript and several other old French texts which locate the site of Pilate’s death in southern Gaul mean that the text was probably written in Southern Gaul too. R A Lipsius argued that the legends in the manuscript originated in 8th Century Aquitania.
What was happening in the Aquitaine in the 8th century for these manuscripts to be composed? This time frame coincides with the rule of Duke Odo or Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine.
In 718, Odo appears as the ally of Chilperic II of Neustria (son of Childeric II, who was son of Clovis II. Clovis II was brother of Sigebert III and the uncle of Dagobert II) and the Mayor of the Palace Ragenfrid, who may have offered recognition of his kingship over Aquitaine. Together they fought against the Arnulfing dynasty, and the Austrasian mayor of the palace, Charles
Martel; but after the defeat of Chilperic at Soissons that year they probably made peace with Charles by surrendering to him the Neustrian king and his treasures.
So what route of transmission was there for the monks at St Bertin, if they had access
to, or copied from an earlier version, this text of the Avenging of the Saviour? What were their sources? What were the religious sources and milieu for this text to be created? It would seem that into 8th century Aquitaine, it was the monasteries and traditions of manuscript production which stemmed from Merovingian and Celtic influences, influences in the Merovingian Age which were significant. R A Lipsius, as we saw above, argued that the legends in the ‘Cura Sanitatis Tiberri’ and the 'Avenging of the Saviour’ originated in 8th Century Aquitania. If this manuscript was produced in this milieu, it is also interesting to note that there is even a late Greek development of the document known as the ‘Epistola Tiberri ad Pilatum’ which quite categorically replaces the person of Veronica with Mary Magdalene.
All these manuscripts deal with events surrounding the death and burial of Jesus Christ. They provide post biblical traditions regarding the characters associated with this death and burial, such as Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and Pilate etc. Textual comparisons can show the origins of these ideas and texts. Thus in one text Mary Magdalene is named, in others Mary is replaced by a figure called Veronica. Veronica met Jesus on the road to Calvary and obtained a print of the face of Jesus when she wiped his sweating brow. In the ‘Epistola Tiberri ad Pilatum’ it is Mary Magdalene who journeys to Rome to try Pilate for his crimes. And in fact, the Catholic tradition of Veronicas Veil is that this was ‘the cloth imprinted with the image of Christ's face. Veronica bore the relic away from the Holy Land, and used it to cure Emperor Tiberius of some illness’. The ‘legends’ of the East are quite clearly overlapping with those of the West.
Whatever the merits of Doumergue’s argument he has thrown up a rather interesting subject worthy I believe of further research. This is the literary traditions around the idea of Mary Magdalene gaining custody of the body of Jesus and the correlate of Veronica gaining the ‘imago Christi’. One can see why Doumergue uses the Gospel of John for his theories. This Gospel contains the most complete narrative regarding the burial of Jesus. Here, "the other disciple, the one Jesus loved," is presented as an eyewitness account worded in the third person:
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!" So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus”. (John 20:1-13 (NIV).
Here we see complete confusion over who ran where, and who saw what. It shows several
traditions combined into one detailing the trip to the tomb - written by several different hands, later cobbled together. And it is strange regarding the laboured details about the actual burial cloths. And why did Peter and the disciple who outran him never mention or acknowledge Mary Magdalene who was already at the tomb crying? Mary Magdalene said ‘"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!". She wonders where the body is and notices the burial cloths. That is our starting point. So too is: He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Here we have all the necessary components - Magdalene, tomb of Christ and the cloth around Jesus’ head folded up.
It is on these statements that Doumergue constructs the theory from the ‘Avenging of the Saviour’ that it is really the body of Christ which the Magdalene later takes custody of. I do not have the copy of the manuscript that Doumergue used. He says his copy in France is more complete and much more specific, alluding to a tomb of Christ in France. I have, however, a copy of the Saint Omer 202 manuscript and an English (Anglo-Saxon) copy of this French text.
Scholarly opinion is that the Saint Omer 202 manuscript was copied and annotated at Saint Bertin in the late 9th century. This manuscript was almost certainly in England in the 11th century and was back at Saint Bertin library by the very latest, the 14th century. Using the script and some inscriptions of ownership the 202 manuscript appears to have originated at Saint
Bertin. The text is written in Caroline minuscule, a minuscule whose characteristics are only found at Saint Bertin.
The origins of Bertin are seen in the Abbey of Luxeuil. In medieval times the Abbey was famous as a centre of sanctity and learning. The Annales Bertiniani (830-882; Mon. Germ. Hist. Script. I, 419-515) are important for the contemporary history of the West Frankish Kingdom. The abbey church, now in ruins, was one of the finest fourteenth-century Gothic edifices. There were extensive contacts of this Abbey with Anglo-Saxon England.
For our purposes here we are interested in the figure of Veronica, as represented in the
Saint Omer codex and her association with Mary Magdalene and the traditions of the ‘imago Christi’. The ‘imagi Christi’ is a term for relics of Jesus also known as Acheiropoieta - that is
icons Not Made by Hand. They are said to have come into existence miraculously. There are only two prime candidates for this title, the so called Mandylion and the Veronica (and
perhaps the Turin Shroud). The Mandylion is the famous ‘Image of Edessa’. According to legend King Abgar of Edessa wrote to Jesus asking him to come and cure him of an illness. Abgar received an answer, a letter from Jesus, declining to visit, but promising a future visit by one of his disciples. Along with the letter went a ‘likeness’ of Jesus. This legend was first recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea, who said that he had transcribed and translated the actual letter in
the Syriac chancery documents of the King of Edessa. The apostle ‘Thaddeus’ was said to have come to Edessa, bearing the words of Jesus, by virtue of which the king was healed.
The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium, according to legend, bears the likeness of the Face of
Jesus not made by human hand (i.e. an Acheiropoieton). The most recent version of the legend recounts that Saint Veronica from Jerusalem encountered Jesus along the Via Dolorosa on the way to Calvary. When she paused to wipe the sweat off his face with her veil, his image was imprinted on the cloth. The event is commemorated in one of the Stations of the Cross. According to some versions, Veronica later travelled to Rome to present the cloth to the Roman Emperor Tiberius and the veil possesses miraculous properties, being able to quench thirst, cure blindness, and sometimes even raise the dead.
Are these Not Made by Human Hand items also aspects of the Turin Shroud? This shroud is famously said to be the burial cloth in which the historical Jesus was covered with when he was buried in the tomb as detailed in the Gospel of John. There may even be two traditions of the type of burial used, for in John not only is Jesus wrapped in strips of linen (an Egyptian
burial style of mummification?) he is also said to have been wrapped in a cloth (the Shroud?). What the stories of the relics all have in common is the following; they are associated with the burial of Christ, and involve a person rescuing these relics from that tomb.
Doumergue’s text, the Vindicta Saluatoris manuscript, is usually paired with the Evangelium Nichodemi (the Gospel of Nicodemus) and other lesser manuscripts which collectively constitute apocrypha providing continuations on the lives of Pilate, Joseph of
Arimathea, Nicodemus, Veronica and Longinus. At once our interest should be
piqued. Pilate is historical, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are said to be historical as well as Longinus. However, Veronica is not. She is a pure invention, or perhaps a cover for someone else. What female was associated with the tomb and burial of Christ but is missing from these lists of persons important in the ‘passion’ of Christ?
The Vindicta Saluatoris (VS) essentially combines four legends which had been circulating
independently in the Middle Ages. They are:
1) The story of Veronica and her ‘likeness’ of Christ
2) The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Vespasian
3) The disease and cure of Tiberius and
4) The exile and death of Pilate.
The Acts of Pilate is a book of the New Testament Pseudepigrapha. Its date of composition is uncertain. The text is found in the Gospel of Nicodemus, with other related material. The oldest section, The Report of Pilate to the Emperor Claudius (which is inserted as an appendix) may have been composed late in the 2nd century, but most of the Acts of Pilate appears to have been written later. From these writings stem the whole apocrypha surrounding the death
and burial of Christ. In fact, the story of Veronica and her ‘likeness’ of Christ depend on the Acts of Pilate manuscript. The Acts themselves are alleged to have been derived from the official acts preserved in the praetorium at Jerusalem. It is in this text that the name of Veronica is first identified in the scene of Christ’s trial before Pilate.
The other circulating Mediaeval legends mentioned, such as the Disease and Cure of Tiberius and the death of Pilate are based on other documents, most notably the Cura Sanitatis Tiberri’, which itself, in turn, is based on the ‘Epistolae Christi et Abgari’. As we have seen, these texts were reported and translated by Eusebius of Caesarea for his monumental work, the Historia Ecclesiastica.
The Epistolae Christi et Abgari’ tells of the legend of King Agbar, a king of Edessa, who is
afflicted with an incurable disease, and that he had heard of the power of the miracles performed by Jesus. He wrote to Jesus (or his personal scribe did) acknowledging his divine authority, and asked for his help in curing him of his disease. He then offered Jesus asylum (!) in his own residence; the tradition also states that Jesus wrote a letter in reply, declining to go, but promising, after his ascension, to send one of his disdisciples, endowed with his power to heal. Euseibius added that it was Addai, or one of the seventy two disciples, called Thaddeus of
Edessa, who was sent by Thomas the Apostle in AD29. Thaddeus was one of the Seventy Apostles of Christ, not to be confused with Thaddeus of the Twelve Apostles. Thaddeus of the Seventy Disciples was born as a Jew in Edessa. According to Eusebius, it was he who instructed King Abgar in the Christian Faith and baptised him:
"Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, under divine impulse sent Thaddeus, who was also numbered among the seventy disciples of Christ, to Edessa, as a preacher and evangelist for teaching of Christ." (Historia Ecclesiastica, I, xiii).
After Pentecost, Thaddeus of the Seventy preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia, and built up the Church there, supported, as some hagiographies note, by the other Thaddeus, Jude the Brother of the Lord. He was martyred for his faith in the Artaz region in the year AD 50, according to an ancient Armenian tradition. But according to other sources he reposed
peacefully in Edessa or Beirut in September 3, 44.
It is interesting to speculate on the identity of this Thaddeus which we will do so in future issues. Suffice it is to say that in the Nag Hammadi "sayings" the Gospel of Thomas begins: "These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded." Some have seen in the Acts of Thomas (written in east Syria in the early 3rd century, or perhaps as early as the first half of the 2nd century) an identification of Saint Thomas with the apostle Judas brother of James, better known in English as Jude. However, the first sentence of the Acts follows the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in distinguishing the apostle Thomas and the apostle Judas son of James. Few texts identify Thomas' other twin, though in the Book of Thomas the Contender, part of the Nag Hammadi library, it is said to be Jesus himself: "Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself…"
Just as there is confusion over who Jesus sent to King Abgar (his brother? Or his brother sent
a disciple?) there is also confusion over who Veronica is. The name "Veronica" itself is a Latinisation of Berenice, a Macedonian name, meaning "bearer of victory" (corresponding to Greek: phere-nikē). Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica (vii 18) tells how at Caesarea Philippi lived the woman whom Christ healed of an issue of blood (Matt ix 20). Legend was not long in providing the woman of the Gospel with a name. In the West she was identified with Martha of Bethany; in the East she was called Berenike, or Beronike, the name appearing in as early a work as the "Acta Pilati", the most ancient form of which goes back to the fourth
century.
The Gospel of Nicodemus and the Abgar legends had developed independently. In the Gospel of Nicodemus we see that in Part V Nicodemus goes to see Pilate. In Part VII a woman called Bernice is mentioned; ‘And a certain woman named Bernice, crying from afar off said: I had
an issue of blood and touched the hem ofhis garment, and the flowing of my blood
was stayed which i had twelve years.’ Essentially the figure of ‘Veronica’, who seems to embody the real historical character of this Bernice, the ‘woman with a haemorrhage’ as Eusebius called her, later takes custody of the ‘imago Christi’.
The woman with an issue of blood is said to have lived at Panneas.
As Dreisbach observed: ‘one discovers that the "woman with the issue of blood" (Mk. 5:21-43; Mt. 9:20-22; Lk. 8:40-56), known as Bernike/Bernice in the East becomes Veronica in the West. According to the fifth century Makarios of Magnesia, Bernice is even described as "a princess of Edessa." In a veritable literary "persistence of memory", Arthur Edward Waite notes not only does Veronica's Cloth become an alternative to the Shroud in the West, but he goes on to conclude that: The story of the Veronica Cloth, of the Sudarium, and of the healing of the Roman Emperor is the root matter of the earliest historical account of the Holy Grail; and this fact has led certain scholars to infer that the entire literature [i.e. the Holy Grail] has been developed out of the Veronica Legend, as part of a Conversion Legend of Gaul, according to which the holy women, took ship to Marseilles and preached the Gospel therein. They
carried the Volto Santo and other Hallows [Emphasis added.] (1961, pp. 341-42). (www.shroud.com/pdfs/dreisbch.pdf )
Is this confusion in the legendary texts with Veronica, Mary Magdalene, Bernice, healings, veils and cloths and images of Christ, the Shroud and the Grail healing really attributes for the fact that Mary Magdalene brought the body of Jesus with her to France? Or perhaps some other artefact? Do these legends hide a type of tradition regarding Jesus, or is it just literary invention?
Dreisbach says: ‘that in its original Orthodox version, “Veronica” of the West may
originally have been Mary Magdalene and/or the hemorrhissa of the East.’ ..... Now it is this woman with the issue of blood who is first given the name Bernike/ Bernice /Veronica in Chapter 7 of the Acts of Pilate (ca. 2nd to 4th century A.D.). At this point Judah Segal provides us with the following and highly significant insight: Significantly, there is confusion between the sacred handkerchief of Edessa in the East and the Veil of Veronica or Bernice of Paneas in Palestine in the West. The legends of Paneas and Edessa are curiously interwoven.
The evangelist Addai is said to have been born in Paneas - or at Edessa. ...[and it was] Bernice of Paneas [who] dedicated a statue of Jesus as a thanksgiving offering on being healed from sickness [Emphasis added]. Could it be that the Magdalene was the original woman with “the
issue of blood” who went on to stand by the cross at the Crucifixion [Mk. 15:40] and was the first to discover the Empty Tomb and the Resurrection [Jn. 20:1; 11-20]? (www.shroud.com/pdfs/dreisbch.pdf ).
In the Vindicta Saluatoris (St Omer English text), the following paragraph is written:
‘And it turned out as they pondered thus, that they found a woman whose name was Veronica, and she was very Christian, and loved and honoured among the whole populace because she was the same Veronica who had touched the hem of the Saviours garment, and was healed from the flow of blood. She has a certain portion of the Saviours garment, and held it in great honour and kept it always because of Christ face’.
In the Latin VS manuscript this is written: ‘And he (Volosianus) ordered Pilate to be punished with foulest of deaths. And he took the face of the Lord and went aboard the ship at the same time as them. Then Volosianus said (to Veronica): ‘Woman, whom do you seek?’
She said: ‘I also seek [ the image of ] my Lord, which the Lord gave to me ... And which you have taken from me against the Law ......and although I deserved ill, give me back the [the image] of my Lord ....all her people began to weep and Veronica said; Daughter of Jerusalem, do not weep for me but over yourselves...’
In the corresponding Anglo-Saxon text it is reported:
‘Then Volosianus said to her (Veronica), ‘Woman, what do you seek?’ She answered him; I seek my Lord, and oh, I ask you, what have I done that I may not have my Lord? Truly I tell you, if you will not give him up to me, I shall never leave until I see where you have put Him and I will worship and ever serve him as long as I live’.
Doumergue posits that the text here is adapted from the Gospel of John, where the ‘image of Christ’ is but a metaphor for the ‘body of Christ’. And it is Veronica, originally Mary Magdalene, who has custody of this image/body.
From the Gospel of John: but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over
to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, ‘Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him’
Is Doumergue right, that Mary Magdalene gained custody of the body of Jesus, and ensured this body received a proper burial? Or did she indeed receive or take from the sepulchre, on that first day of the week, the burial clothes of her beloved Jesus and did she take them home with her and worship them, only later to have them taken from her? I do not have the more complete French text that Doumergue refers to in his book. That text talks of a tomb memorial being made for Jesus at the instigation of Pilate. But the associations are nevertheless intriguing and deserve further research.
A page from the manuscript of Saint Omer 202 which contains the ‘Avenging of the Saviour’
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the woman with the haemorrhage touching the hem of Christ’s coat
Below - The Codex Pray. This has been dated with precision to between 1192 and 1195. A number of experts believe that the shroud shown in a painting in this book is the Holy Shroud which is at Turin today. It shows the anointing of the body of Christ as he was being wrapped in the Shroud, and, it shows the discovery of the empty Shroud by Mary Magdalene on Easter morning after the Crucifixion (bottom). What is quite interesting is how detailed it is - especially in regard to the body positioning of the dead person wrapped in the Shroud. I thought this kind of detail was only realised after the negative of the famous photographs were taken at the turn of the last century.
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