I believe the image in post #2 is from the Haghia Sofia in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) which used to be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Haghia Sofia was the HQ for the Eastern Orthodox Church for centuries. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. There were similar mosaics I saw in another church in Istanbul called the Khora church? Anyway, it was 16 years ago and I wasn't paying much attention to churches when I was 19 and in the Army.
You are correct.
You are correct!
There are no descriptions of Jesus' appearance in the New Testament. Nor are there any reputable descriptions in any known early Church sources. St. Augustine of Hippo made a point of this when he wrote his monumental works in the fifth century. Yet, starting in the sixth century a new picture, a new common appearance for Jesus emerged in eastern art. We see it today in all manner of pictures of Jesus: icons, paintings, mosaics and Byzantine coins. This common picture quality seems to have started in the Middle East about the same time that the Image of Edessa was discovered. Prior to this time, pictures of Jesus were mostly of a young, beardless man, often with short hair, often in story-like settings in which he was depicted as a shepherd.
Why No One Can Fully Explain the Pictures on the Shroud of Turin
Abruptly, throughout the Middle East, and eventually throughout eastern Mediterranean Europe, pictures of Jesus became full frontal portraits with distinctive facial characteristics. Jesus now had shoulder length hair, an elongated thin nose, and a forked beard. Numerous other characteristics appeared in these pictures, and some of them were seemingly strange and of no particular artistic merit. Many portraits had two wisps of hair that dropped at an angle from a central parting of the hair. Many pictures showed Jesus with large "owlish" eyes. Paul Vignon, a French scholar, who first categorized these facial attributes in 1930, also described a square cornered U shape between the eyebrows, a downward pointing triangle on the bridge of the nose, a raised right eyebrow, accents on both cheeks with the accent on the right cheek being somewhat lower, an enlarged left nostril, an accent line below the nose, a gap in the beard below the lower lip, and hair on one side of the head that was shorter than on the other side.
Jennifer Speake who wrote a chapter, "Jesus in Art," in J. R. Porter's Jesus Christ: the Jesus of History, the Christ of Faith, observed:
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Christ Pantocrator, an icon at St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai (550 C.E.) |
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Byzantine Justinian II solidus, a coin (695) |
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Icon of Christ at St. Ambrose, (now in Milan) (700s) |
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Christ Enthroned, a mosaic in the narthex of Hagia Sophia Cathedral (850 - 900) |
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Christ Pantocrator, a dome mosaic in a church in Daphni (1050 - 1100) |
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Christ the Merciful, a mosaic icon now in a Berlin museum (1000s) |
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Christ Pantocrator, an apse mosaic in Cefalu Cathedral, Sicily (1148) |
In the 1930's, French Shroud scholar Paul Vignon described a series of common characteristics visible in many early artistic pictures of Jesus. The Vignon marking, as they are known, all appear on the Shroud suggesting that it is the source of later pictures of Jesus:
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A square U-shape between the eyebrows. |
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A downward pointing triangle or V-shape just below the U-shape, on the bridge of the nose. |
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Two wisps of hair going downward and then to the right. |
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A raised right eyebrow. |
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Large, seemingly "owlish" eyes. This may be the result of coins placed over the eyes. |
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An accent on the left cheek and an accent on the right cheek that is somewhat lower. |
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A forked beard. This may the result of a chin band tied around the head to keep the mouth closed. |
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An enlarged left nostril. |
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An accent line below the nose and a dark line just below the lower lip. |
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A gap in the beard below the lower lip. |
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Hair on one side of the head that is shorter than on the other side. |