Other evidence from the literature of the first Millennia:
The Images on Jesus' Burial Shroud in Words from the PastWe might think, in our age of spectacular visual effects, that descriptions of Jesus' images, as if my magic, appearing on his burial shroud, are but the product of a fertile imagination. Such thinking is of course justified until we probe the literature.
Shortly after the image-bearing cloth was discovered in Edessa in 544 AD, shortly after the monk Leander's three-year visit to Constantinople in 579 AD, these words became part of an Eastertide rite of the church in Toledo, Spain.
Peter ran with John to the tomb and saw the recent imprints of the dead and risen man on the linens.About 200 years later, Pope Stephen III, in Rome, stated that Christ had . . .
spread out his entire body on a linen cloth that was white as snow. On this cloth, marvelous as it is to see . . . the glorious image of the Lord's face, and the length of his entire and most noble body, has been divinely transferred.We can not be certain that those words referred to the Image of Edessa. But on August 15, 944 AD, the image-bearing cloth was moved from Edessa to Constantinople with great fanfare and ceremony. And on that occasion, Gregory, the archdeacon and referendarius of Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople described the cloth as a burial cloth with a full-length body image and bloodstains. We know this from a sermon given by Gregory which was only recently discovered in the Vatican archives and translated in 2002.
And other documents have been found that describe the image-bearing cloth of Edessa. Documents found in Vatican library and the University of Leiden, Netherlands (the Codex Vossianus Latinus Q69 and Vatican Library Codex 5696, p. 35.) add to our understanding:
You can see [not only] the figure of a face, but [also] the figure of the whole body.But the Earliest Words Might Be 1st CenturyIn a poem, the Hymn of the Pearl, we find Jesus allegorically saying that in a garment, justifiably a burial garment, that he sees two entire images of himself, one facing outward and one facing inward -- in other words ventral and dorsal images.
TWO IMAGE - Within the Hymn of the PearlAlternative independent translations:Suddenly, I saw my image on my [ burial a ] garment like in a mirror
Myself and myself through myself [ or myself facing outward and inward b ]
As though divided, yet one likeness
Two images but one likeness of the King [ of kings c]
[A] justifiably, burial garment from other prior references to burial garment. And this phrase is pregnant with meaning: "And when I had put it on, I was lifted up unto the place of peace (sahltation) and homage."
[B] possibly, myself facing out and facing in as in frontal and dorsal views.
[C] possibly, the "King of king" as in Hans Jonas translation.
Translation by Hans Jonas: (The Two Images Segment)it seemed to me suddenly to become a mirror-image of myself:
myself entire I saw in it, and it entire I saw in myself,
that we were two in separateness, and yet again one in the sameness of our forms…
And the image of the King of kings was depicted all over it.Translation by M. R. James: (The Two Images Segment)
but suddenly, [when] I saw the garment made like unto me as it had been in a mirror.
And I beheld upon it all myself (or saw it wholly in myself) and I knew and saw myself through it,
that we were divided asunder, being of one; and again were one in one shape.
Yea, the treasurers also which brought me the garment
I beheld, that they were two, yet one shape was upon both, one royal sign was set upon both of them.
These quotes are a blind alley.
579- that refers to the gospel account, and it’s a stretch to see this as referring to anything other than the ancient equivalent of seeing a bed with the imprints of someone recently there still present.
The fallacious “Pope Stephen” quote. Quoting from an excerpt of a book published by Ian Wilson that’s searchable on the net: “For instance, interpolated sometime before 1130 into the text of a sermon attributed to the eighth-century Pope Stephen III was the following remark concerning the `holy face’ of Edessa: `For this same mediator between God and men, in order that in all things and in every way he might satisfy this king [i.e. Abgar] spread out his entire body on a linen cloth that was white as snow. On this cloth, marvellous as it is to see or even hear such a thing, the glorious image of the Lord’s face, and the length of his entire and most noble body, has been divinely transferred ... [italics mine].’” That’s in reference to the Abgar legend, and according to “Stephen” it was done by the living Christ in answer to a request by Abgar for an image, and hence could not possibly refer to the Shroud of Turin with its dead Jesus.
I just read the Gregory sermon and the image it describes was clearly only of a face, supposedly created while he wept in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Of what very little I could find on this, Codex Vossianus Latinus Q69 is supposedly describing a cloth given by Christ to King Abgar, at least according to a citation of the original book in Wikipedia, in which case it obviously relates to the false “Pope Stephen” quote of a cloth the living Christ sent to Abgar. I do not understand why the pro-Shroud sites are so circumspect about this.
The Hymn of the Pearl is irrelevant, and while I’m on the subject, a positing of a 1st century date for it is very fringe.
We’re again left with the 14th century French bishop, who was clear that the Shroud of Turin had no past beyond a few decades — not to mention there being an identifiable maker who admitted doing the job.