I've long been told, and assume, that ancient representations of Jesus -- i.e., the Christ Pantocrater -- were based not on any personal knowledge of His appearance, or even on some Jewish-Semitic archetype, but rather on contemporary Greek images of Zeus, such as the one above, from Ephesus. That was merely a theory, usually propounded by critics of the Shroud origins of the modern Christ iconography.
However, early representations of Jesus, much closer to the era of reverence for Zeus, were young, clean shaven men depicted as shepherds with a very Mediterranean appearance some would call Apollonian. The question has to be asked why the early Christian church would suddenly decide that Jesus Christ at the age of 33 would look like Zeus, a god that was then several centuries out of vogue?
The bearded appearance of Jesus, one that we recognize today as the image of the Christ, only started after the discovery in ~525-544 AD of the Image of Edessa (most likely the Shroud, folded, doubled in four, so that only the face was visible), hidden in the Gate of Vaults. Comparative studies find almost a hundred points of congruence between the Shroud and this later iconography, including the square between the eyes, the raised cheek, the representation of the blood trail on the forehead as wisps of hair, etc. Many of these icons even included the sharp cloth fold across the neck on the Shroud. Comparisons to the statues of Zeus find fewer than 15 points of congruence... about the amount one would expect of an image of any bearded man.
Anyway, I'm no expert, am only saying that to me, the Shroud image looks like a Knight Templar. And of course this is no new idea. It's also been suggested (with bitter irony) that the image is of a certain specific Templar named Jacques de Molay.
The theory that the man on the Shroud is Jacques de Molay has one major problem. Forensic pathologists have concluded that the image is most certainly that of a dead man... but de Molay was BURNED alive at the stake on March 18, 1314 and his body was totally destroyed.
Obviously the issue is, was there a pre-Templar history to the shroud? For that answer, I suppose we'll have to wait until a more careful analysis of various shroud materials is done.
There certainly is evidence of a pre-Templar history to the Shroud.
On August 15th, 944, Gregory Referendarius, Arch Deacon of the Hagia Sophia, delivered a sermon on the occasion of the arrival of the Image of Edessa to Constantinople. Much of the sermon is based on allegory and spoken in flowery language leading to difficulty in translation of actual meaning, but some of it is quite clear. In his sermon Gregory described the image on the cloth as "the form" of Jesus, not "the face" or "visage." In Greek, the word for "form' is defined as "body" not "face" or "visage." When he spoke of the face of the image, he specifically used either the Greek word for "face" or "visage," but when speaking of the overall image, it was always "Form".
"And miraculously, just as he made everything from nothing in his divine strength, he imprinted the reflection of his form on the linen."
In addition, Gregory uses the Greek words for "linen" that are the singular form of "Othonia", used in Luke's gospel as the Greek word equivalent for "sindon", a Shroud, which indicates Referendarius' knowledge that the Image was actually a a grave cloth.
Gregory comments on the presence of both sweat and blood on the image and specifically mentions the ability to see the "source of Living Water" well known to refer to the blood and miraculous water that flowed from Christ's side when it was pierced by the legionnaire's spear.
". . . blood and water there, here sweat and image. Oh equality of happenings, since both have their origin in the same person. The source of living water can be seen and it gives us water, showing us that the origin of the image made by sweat is in fact of the same nature as the origin of that which makes the liquid flow from the side."
Still more pre-Templar evidence:
"A tenth century codex, Codex Vossianus Latinus Q 69[7] found by Gino Zaninotto in the Vatican Library contains an eighth-century account saying that an imprint of Christ's whole body was left on a [cloth] kept in a church in Edessa: it quotes a man called Smera in Constantinople: "King Abgar received a cloth on which one can see not only a face but the whole body" (in Latin: [non tantum] faciei figuram sed totius corporis figuram cernere poteris)."
150 years after the Image of Edessa's arrival and Gregory's sermon, we find more pre-Templar evidence of the Shroud's existence in Constantinople:
"Nicholas Mesarites, in 1201 the overseer of the imperial relic treeasurey in Constantinople and thus eyewitness, described the sindon (Shroud) in his care. "In this place the naked Lord rises again [anistatai--]and . . . the burial sindons can prove it [ekdelon--]." Scavone, Daniel. "Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail, and the Edessa Icon", Collegamento pro Sindone Internet, October 2002.
Two years later, before the sacking of the city by the Crusaders, Robert di Clari reported:
"In the church of Our Lady of Blachernae [the Blacharnae Palace being the more recent dwelling of the Byzantine emperors] the sydoines [Grave clothes] of Jesus stood up straight every Friday [cascus devenres se drechoit tous drois] so that the figure of Our Lord could be plainly seen there." ibid, Scavone, D.
From the arrival of the Image of Edessa, the
"Mandylion", the inventory of the relics held in Constantinople included the "Shroud of Our Lord"... but strangely, not the Mandylion. The shroud disappeared from the inventory, along with hundreds of other inventory items, with the sacking of Constantinople by the knights of the 4th Crusade in 1204.
About a year after Constantinople was plundered, Theodore Ducas Anglelos, in a letter to Pope Innocent III wrote: "The Venetians partitioned the treasure of gold, silver and ivory, while the French did the same with the relics of saints and the most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after His death and before the resurrection."
"early representations of Jesus, much closer to the era of reverence for Zeus, were young, clean shaven men depicted as shepherds with a very Mediterranean appearance some would call Apollonian. The question has to be asked why the early Christian church would suddenly decide that Jesus Christ at the age of 33 would look like Zeus, a god that was then several centuries out of vogue?""Comparisons to the statues of Zeus find fewer than 15 points of congruence... about the amount one would expect of an image of any bearded man."
Extraordinarily interesting. That change in imagery from "young Apollo" to "older Zeus" has long been commented on, and assumed to correspond with the apotheosis of Christianity -- from persecuted fringe group to the Roman Empire's officially enforced state religion. And so it's assumed -- along with the rest of the Church, Jesus Himself was "promoted:" from Apollo to Zeus.
From Wikipedia:"The oldest known surviving example of the icon of Christ Pantocrator (illustration, right) was painted in encaustic on panel in the sixth or seventh century..."
Wiki: "It was only when the overpainting was cleaned in 1962 that the ancient image was revealed to be a very high quality icon, probably produced in Constantinople."
Swordmaker: "The theory that the man on the Shroud is Jacques de Molay has one major problem. Forensic pathologists have concluded that the image is most certainly that of a dead man... but de Molay was BURNED alive at the stake on March 18, 1314 and his body was totally destroyed."
If I remember that history, de Molay was first severely tortured, then allowed a long recovery before being burned at the stake. So the suggestion is that during de Molay's recovery, the Shroud was used as a miraculous aid to healing. The image then would result from de Molay's high fever and sweating. That's the suggestion.
I would question how "forensic experts" could conclude the image was "most certainly" that of "a dead man."
But anyway, the history you cite sounds as strong as any -- at least to the sixth century. It would remain to establish that this particular material is that referred to in the histories, by dating the material. It seems the previous effort was done rather clumsily, indeed astonishingly so, considering the original plans. Presumably, we will eventually see more carefully analyzed results.
If the material is as ancient as claimed, then whether it was used to aid de Molay's recovery would simply be an interesting side note.