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Veronica and Her Cloth
To Florence, my Word
To Helmut, my Image
And to Wanda,
My President of Vice
Veronica and Her Cloth
History, Symbolism, and Structure
of a “True" Image

Ewa Kuryluk

Basil Blackwell
Copyright © Ewa Kuryluk 1991

First published 1991

Basil Blackwell, Inc.

3 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA

Basil Blackwell Ltd

108 Cowley Road, Oxford, 0X4 IJF, UK

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the
purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Kuryluk, Ewa, 1946-

Veronica and her cloth : history, symbolism, and structure of a
"true" image / by Ewa Kuryluk.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-631-17813-9
1. Veronica, Saint, 1 st cent. - Legends. 2. Veil of Veronica.
3. Icons - Cult - History of doctrines. 1. Title.
BR1720.V43K87 1991
246'.53-dc20 90-40914
CIP

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library.

Typeset in 10 on 12 pt Trump Mediaeval

by Hope Services (Abmgdon) Ltd.,
Printed in Great Britain by T. J. Press Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall.
 Contents

Acknowledgements viii

List of Plates x

Explanations and Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Works xiv

Introduction 1

Part I From Word to Image - History

1 Image and Word - Greeks and Jews 13

2 Depictions of Christ - Early Christianity 24

(i) Symbols and Types 25
(ii) The Acheiropoietos 28
(iii) From Presence to Passion 33

Byzantium

3 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes 38

(i) King Abgar and Edessa 38
(ii) Icon Cult 47
(iii) John of Damascus 53

V
 Contents

(iv) From Drawing to Sculpture 56

(v) The Mandylion in Art 61

4 Women and Icons 65

(i) The Holy Virgin 67
(ii) Portable Icons and Textiles 71
(iii) Iconoclasm 80

Between East and West

5 From the Flemorrhissa to Berenice 90

(i) New Testament 91
(ii) The Hemorrhissa of Paneas 93
(iii) The Apocryphal Red Thread 96
(iv) Biblical Tactility 98
(v) Egyptian Hair and Royal Relic 102
(vi) The Gnostic Flood of Blood 107

The Vera Icon in the West

6 St Veronica 114
(i) The Roman Vernicles 114
(ii) The Acts of Pilate 116
(iii) The Cross and the Tomb 122
(iv) The Hemorrhissus 130
(v) The Double Portrait and the Holy Face 139

7 From History to Mythology 143

Part II Symbolism and Structure

8 Mirrors 153
(i) Medusa-Minerva 153
(ii) Mirrors and Menstruation 161
(iii) Sun and Moon 165
(iv) Platonism, Satire, and Theology 174

9 Cloth 179
(i) Greece 180
(ii) The Old Testament 183
(iii) Christianity 186

VI
 Contents

10 Skin 199
(i) Sharing and Transplantation 201
(ii) Masks, Heads, and Shrouds 205
(iii) The Flayed Skin 208
(iv) The Skin-Soul 213

Epilogue 221

Notes 225

Index 258
 Acknowledgements

This book is the product of almost a decade of research, generously

supported at each stage by various institutions and individuals.
Early in 1982, my first year in the United States, I received a three-
month Fellowship of the European Exchange Program at the
Institute for the Humanities at New York University. In the
academic year 1982-3, thanks to the interest of the Institute's
Fellows — Jerome Bruner, Anne Hollander, Hide Ishiguro, Temma
Kaplan, Einda Nochlin, Michael Scammell, Carl Schorske, Richard
Sennett, Susan Sontag, William Taylor, Luisa Valenzuela, Tomas
Venclova, Aileen Ward, and Edmund White - and to the understanding
of the Institute's Trustees, Aryeh Neier and George Soros, I was able
to conduct a seminar on "The Shadow, the Mirror, and the Double"
— and to outline this book.
Instrumental in my turning "Veronica" from loose notes into a
more coherent text was my 1984—5 Hodder Fellowship at the
Humanities Council of Princeton University, where my work
received attention and help from Robert Connor, Carol Rigolot, and
Alison Cook. My arrival in Princeton coincided with the publication
of "Mirrors and Menstruation" - my first major essay on Veronica
and my first substantial piece of writing in English - in the
magazine Formations. The encouragement of its editors, Jonathan
Brent and Frances Padorr Brent, was decisive in my switching from
my native Polish to English. In addition, Jonathan Brent, a literary
critic and a scholar of the Jewish Bible, has been my personal

viii
 Acknowledgements

"rabbi" in questions concerning the linguistic symbolism of the Old

Testament. In 1986 "Mirrors and Menstruation" won the General
Electric Award for Younger Writers.
Veronica and Her Cloth would never have been finished had I not
received the Rockefeller Fellowship at the National Humanities
Center in North Carolina. During the academic year 1988-9, which
I spent in this heaven for scholars, I was daily supported by kind and
knowledgeable members of the staff. My warmest thanks are
extended to everyone who shared this year with me, in particular to
Kent Mullikin, Executive Director, who tolerated my habits with
angelic patience; to Alan Tuttle, a living encyclopedia of a librarian;
to Richard Schramm who, first thing in the morning, discussed God
and the world with me; to Corbett Capps, Sandra Copeland, Jean
Anne Leuchtenburg, Nan Martin, Mary Donna Pond, Wayne Pond,
Val Rogers, and Pat Schreiber - contributors to my well-being; and
to George Brett, an artist and friend of the Center, who initiated me
into the secrets of the Macintosh Plus.
I acknowledge with gratitude the scholarly assistance of Ernst
Badian, Elizabeth Clark, faroslav Folda, Thorkild Jacobsen, and Janet
Knapp, and the inspiring influence of Richard Abel, Alan Brinkley,
Jack Cell, Walter Dellinger, Jonathan Dolhmore, Rita Dove, Howard
Erskine-Hill, Lilian Furst, Henry Louis Gates, Daniel Gunn, John
Higham, Barbara Hogdon, Larry Jones, Joe Loewenstein, Barry
Loewer, Robert Martin, Sarah Maza, Pat O'Brien, Nicolaas Rupke,
Philip Schuyler, Patricia Spacks, Lynne Tatlock, Fred Viehbahn,
Roy Weintraub, Michael White, and Zhouhan Yang, our dear co¬
fellow from Peking University, whose premature death shocked us
all.
In the transformation from first draft to book, Marina Warner and
Nicholas Wadley played decisive roles.
I want to thank all my friends who for years have been active on
behalf of the Veronica-Jesus exchange: Jean H. Hagstrum, Eva
Hoffman, Leszek Kotakowski, Jan Kott, Michael Kott, Marta
Petrusewicz, Julia Przybos, Alice Quinn, Jasia Reichhardt, Ann
Snitow, Edward Stankiewicz, A. Richard Turner, Jerzy Warman, and
Claude Weiss. My book is dedicated to Florence Stankiewicz, my
editor; to Helmut Kirchner, my collector of images; and Wanda
Rapaczyhska, who convinced me that there is no imprint without
matter.

IX
 List of Plates

Cover: Hans Memling, St Veronica, obverse, (ca. 1470-5), oil on oak.

Washington, National Gallery of Art.

1 Cariani (Giovanni Busi, ca. 1480-1547 or 1548), Meeting with

Veronica, oil on canvas. Brescia, Civici Musei d'Arte e Storia
(courtesy of the Civici Musei d'Arte e Storia di Brescia).

2 Jaime Huguet (Vails, 1415-Barcelona, 1492), Flagellation (detail),

tempera on wood. Paris, Musee du Louvre, RF 1967—6; photo: Ewa
Kuryluk.

3 Above: Abgar’s Messenger Receives from Christ the Linen

Bearing Christ’s Likeness. Below: The City of Hierapolis (where the
messenger stopped and hid the cloth for safe-keeping between two
bricks), miniatures 10 and 11 from "Letter to Christ, Preceded by
Psalms 91 and 35 and Followed by Christ's Reply and the Story of
the Holy Image," roll on seven joined pieces of thin vellum
(Constantinople, second half of the fourteenth century). New York,
Pierpont Morgan Library, Greek MS 499 to. 10, 11.

4 Our Lady of the Sign [Zndmenie] with metal work (seventeenth

century). Moscow, Russian Museum; photo after Nikodim Pavlovich
Kondakov, The Russian Icon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), Plate
58.

5 Rogier van der Weyden (Tournai, 1399 or 1400-Brussels, 1464),

Crucifixion, tempera on wood. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

X
 List of Plates

6 Mrs Canedo, one of the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo/'

demonstrating against the disappearance of her son, Arturo Canedo
(Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 1986). Photo: Ewa Kuryluk
(courtesy of Mrs Canedo).

7 The Beheading of St fohn the Baptist, illumination on vellum

(Bruges, 1445-60). New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 675,
fo. 43v.

8 Lorenzo Lotto (ca. 1480-1556), Venus and Cupid, oil on canvas.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mrs Charles Wrightsman
Gift, 1968.

9 Provencal Master, The Fountain of Blood (ca.l460), tempera on

wood. Avignon, Musee du Petit Palais (deposit of Musee Calvet).

10 Statuette of a mother-goddess [Kurotrophos] (Selinunte, end of

sixth century BC). Paris, Musee du Louvre, CA 2944; photo; Service
Photographique de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux.

11 Athena, called the Peaceful (detail), marble, adaptation of a

bronze statue in the National Museum, Athens (350-340 BC). Paris,
Musee du Louvre, Ma 530, 9840309 AGR, Collection Mattei,
later Collection Cardinal Lesch; photo; Ewa Kuryluk.

12 Left; Christ Cursing the Fig Tree-, right: Christ Healing the
Hemorrhissa, marble sarcophagus (Rome, mid-fourth century AD).
Vatican, Grottoes of St Peter's; photo; Ewa Kuryluk.

13 Silesian Master (Jacobus Beinhardt?), The Virgin Working on

the Seamless Tunic and St Luke Painting Her, wood, polychromy
destroyed, ca.l500, from St Mary Magdalene s Church, Wroclaw.
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe.

14 Simon Marmion (d. 1489), St Helena Assisting at the Miracle of

the True Cross, tempera on wood. Paris, Musee du Louvre; photo:
Roger-Viollet.

15 Mary as the Mulier amicta sole of the Revelation, The

Rothschild Canticles, illumination on vellum (Pranco-Llemish, late
thirteenth or early fourteenth century). New Haven, Conn., Yale
University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 404, fo.
64v.

XI
 List of Plates

16 Master of Guillebert ole Mets, Master of the Lee Hours, Master

of Wauquelin's Alexander, Book of Hours, illumination on vellum
(Flemish, 1450-60). Malibu, California, J. Paul Getty Museum, 84.
Ml. 67, fo. 13v.

17 The Holy Face of Laon (early thirteenth-century Slavic icon,

Serbia, Bulgaria or Russia). Laon, Musee de la Cathedrale (courtesy
of Mairie de Laon).

18 German School, The Meeting of Christ and Veronica, second

panel from left on top from the Hersfeld altar polyptych (late
fifteenth century), tempera on wood. Kassel, Staatliche Kunst-
sammlungen.

19 Pomeranian (Danzig?) painter. The Massacre of the Innocents,

from the so-called Jerusalem Triptych, left wing obverse, (ca. 1490-7),
tempera on wood. From the Jerusalem Brotherhood Chapel in St
Mary's Church, Danzig. Since 1945, Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe.

20 Veronica and Three Angels Holding the Holy Face, key of the
vault in the church of St Guenole, Batz-sur-mer, Brittany (1514);
photo: Roger-Viollet.

21 The Entombment, stone sculpture in the abbey of Solesmes-

sur-Sarthe (1496); photo; Ewa Kuryluk.

22 Workshop of two Danzig painters, Mary Breastfeeding fesus

and Christ as Man of Sorrow, left wing of a diptych (ca. 1430-5),
tempera on wood. From the Chapel of St Jacob, started in 1423 by
the Winterfeld family, at St Mary's Church, Danzig. Since 1945,
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe.

23 Master of the Strauss Madonna (Florentine School), Vir dolorum

between the Virgin and Mary Magdalen (ca.l405), tempera on
wood. Florence, Galleria dell'Accademia; photo; Ewa Kuryluk.

24 Master of the Holy Veronica, St Veronica with Sweatcloth

(fifteenth century), tempera on wood. Munich, Alte Pmakothek.

25 Francisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664), Veronica’s Sweatcloth, oil

on canvas. Stockholm, National Museum.

26 Yvon Adolphe (1817-93), Vision of fudas, oil on canvas. Le

Havre, Musee du Havre; photo: Roger-Viollet.

27 Virgin Crowned by Child and Trampling on a Siren (He de

France, second quarter of fourteenth century), marble. Paris, Musee

xii
 List of Plates

du Louvre, RF 580, former Collection Timbal acquired in 1882;

photo: Service Photographique de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux.

28 Mirror (Greece, fifth century BC), bronze. Paris, Musee du

Louvre, 1691; photo: Service Photographique de la Reunion des
Musees Nationaux.

29 Antonio Corradini (1668-1752), Veiled Woman (Allegory of

Faith?), marble. Paris, Musee du Louvre, RF 3088, acquired 1976;
photo: Ewa Kuryluk.

30 The Omnipresent and Omnipotent God, The Rothschild

Canticles, illumination on vellum (Franco-Flemish, late thirteenth
or early fourteenth century). New Haven, Conn., Yale University,
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 404, fo. 92v.

31 German School, Angel Holding a Cloth with the Head of John

the Baptist (qighteenth century), terracotta. Buenos Aires, Museo
Nacional de Bellas Artes; photo: Ewa Kuryluk.

32 Silesian Master, Pieta polychromed and gilt wood, ca.l370,

from Lubiqz (Silesia). Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe.

33 Giovanni Capassini, called Jean Capassin (Florence, date not

known-Tournon, 1579), Supper at Emmaus (detail), left wing of the
Resurrection Triptych, tempera on wood. Paris, Musee du Louvre,
RF 1980-183; photo: Ewa Kuryluk.

34 Head of God-Phallus, broken from a vase or lamp (Hellenistic

period), terracotta. Delos, Archeological Museum; photo: Ewa
Kuryluk (courtesy of the Greek Ministry of Culture, Director of
Antiquities).

35 Deposition and Entombment of fesus Christ, Lectionary,

(Flanders, third quarter of twelfth century), written and illuminated
on stiff vellum for the Abbey of St Trond, diocese of Liege. New
York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 883, fo. 51v.

xiii
 Explanations and Abbreviations
of Frequently Cited Works

I cite most of the classical texts from the Loeb Classical Library,
unless I find other translations more adequate and beautiful, or
more useful for my purpose. In order to make my book accessible to
non-specialist readers, I avoid burdening it with references to Greek
and Latin originals. When I am not satisfied with existing translations,
I supply my own. I use abbreviations for frequently cited works, for
separate books as well as series, which are then given either in notes
or in parentheses, with either book (poem, homily, etc.), chapter,
paragraph, or line indicated by arabic numbers, or with volume and
page numbers. I use as abbreviations either author's name or title of
book, or a combination of the two.

Age of Spirituality, Catalogue, Metropolitan Museum of Art,

November 19, 1977 through February 12, 1978, ed. Kurt Weitzmann
(New York: The Metropolitan Museum, 1979) = Age of Spirituality

A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian

Church, second series, trans. under the editorial supervision of
Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, reprint of the 1800-1900 edn, 14 vols
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978-9) = Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers

Court of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, "Story of the Image of

Edessa" (AD 945), the English translation of the official history of
the Edessene mandylion by Bernard Slater and boys of the Bradford
Grammar School, West Yorkshire, assisted by the Revd John

XIV
 Explanations and Abbreviations

Jackson, in Ian Wilson, The Shroud of Turin. The Burial Cloth of

Jesus Christl (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1979), Appendix C,
pp. 272-90 = "Story of the Image of Edessa"

Ernst von Dobschiitz, Christusbilder. Untersuchungen zur Christ-

lichen Legende (Leipzig; J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1899) =
Dobschiitz

Eusebius, The History of the Church, trans. G. A. Williamson

(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983) = Eusebius, Church History

J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3rd edn, rev. and enl., 12 vols (New
York; Macmillan, 1935) = Golden Bough

Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, 5 vols (Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1845) = Gibbon

Andre Grabar, La Sainte Face de Laon. Le mandylion dans Tart

orthodoxe (Prague: Seminarium Kondakovianum, 1931) = Sainte
Face

Carl Joseph von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 9 vols (Freiburg im

Breisgau: Herder'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1855-90) = Elefele

Edgar Elennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher,

English translation ed. by R. McL. Wilson, 2 vols (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1963—4) = NT Apocrypha

Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-

White, Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heinemann, 1936) =
Hesiod, Homerica

Irenee de Lyon, Contre les heresies, Latin-French, ed. Adelin

Rousseau and Louis Doutreleau, 3 vols (Paris: CERE, 1979) =
Irenaeus, Against the Heresies

Jacques de Voragine, La Legende doree, trans. J. B. M. Roze, 3 vols

(Paris: Edouard Rouvyre, 1902) = Golden Legend

Ewa Kuryluk, Salome and Judas in the Cave of Sex. The Grotesque:
Origins, Iconography, Techniques (Evanston, Ill.; Northwestern
University Press, 1987) = Salome and Judas

Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453 (Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 1986) = Mango

XV
 Explanations and Abbreviations

]. P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Latin series, 221 vols

(Paris, 1844-55) = Migne, PL) Greek series, 165 vols (Paris, 1857-
66) = Migne, PG

George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, trans. Joan

Hussey (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1969) =
Ostrogorsky, Byzantine State

Paulys Realencyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft,

neue Bearbeitung von Georg Wissowa, 23 vols. Stuttgart: J. B.
Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1894-1957 = Pauly-Wissowa.

Karl Pearson, Die Fronica. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Christus-
bildes im Mittelalter (Strassburg: Karl J. Triibner, 1887) = Pearson

Gertrud Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, trans. Janet Seligman,

2 vols (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1972) =
Schiller, Iconography

The Apocryphal New Testament, ed. Montague Rhodes James

(Oxford: Clarendon press, 1924) = Apocryphal New Testament

The Doctrine of Addai, the Apostle, ed. and trans. George Phillips
(London: Triibner, 1876) = Doctrine of Addai

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn (New York: Encyclopaedia

Britannica Company, 1910) = Britannica

The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper

Row, 1977) = Nag Hammadi Library

Theodoret and Evagrius, History of the Church, Bohn's Ecclesiastical

Library (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854) = Theodoret, Evagrius,
Church History

Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, Early Christian Art, trans. Christopher

Ligota (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1962) = Volbach, Christian Art

Kurt Weitzmann, The Icon. Holy Images - Sixth to Fourteenth

Century (New York: George Braziller, 1978) = Weitzmann, Icon

XVI
 Introduction

Wherever you go in Europe, if you should drop into the local church
of the most obscure of villages, you are likely to see on its walls
paintings or reliefs of the way of the cross and find, at station
number six, a man facing a woman who holds a piece of white cloth
in her hands. The cloth may be blank or it may bear the portrait of a
man, and if you are from a Catholic background or versed in
European art, you'll recognize the couple as Jesus and Veronica and
the cloth as her vernicle. You'll probably also recall the legend of
Veronica who, as Christ passed on his way to Golgotha, wiped his
sweating and bleeding face with her napkin, which received his
impression - the only "true" portrait Jesus left to humanity (Plate 1).
Pondering the vernicle, you may connect it with the famous shroud
of Turin, a linen sheet covered with the "true" impressions of a
man's front and back, supposedly representing the body of Jesus
Christ. The connection is justified. Both the vernicle and the shroud
of Turin belong to the so-called "true" images - known under the
Greek name acheiropoietos (not made by hand) and under various
Latin and Latin-Greek hybrids {vera imago, vera icon, veronica] - as
well as to a broader group of traces and relics testifying to Jesus'
actual presence on earth: "the marks of his knees" on the stone on
which he prayed, the "last prints in the dust of our Lord's feet" on
that spot on the Mount of Olives from which he ascended to heaven,
or the blood-covered column of flagellation (Plate 2).^
Once there were many acheiropoietoi and veronicae in circulation.

1
 Introduction

but in the course of time most of them were destroyed and the
remaining ones turned out to be mere artefacts. The only exception
is the shroud of Turin, whose existence has been recorded since the
mid-fourteenth century and whose curious nature we do not
understand.^ Therefore the subject keeps coming up in newspaper
articles about ever-new teams of specialists and the most up-to-date
techniques for determining the nature of the image and the
approximate age of the linen. Some of the results obtained in the 1960s
and 1970s were so extraordinary that they convinced the general
public of the shroud's authenticity and led to a flood of articles and
books, popular as well as semi-scholarly, suggesting that the shroud
was the burial cloth of fesus Christ, thus certifying the biblical
accounts and offering the ultimate proof of the Lord's existence,
crucifixion and - the most daring speculation - resurrection, divine
energy having served as an "X-ray" for fixing the image on the cloth.
However, the most recent experiments have undermined earlier
evidence, and on October 13, 1988 Anastasio Ballestrero, the
archbishop of Turin, announced that according to carbon 14 tests
the linen was fabricated between 1260 and 1390.“^
This verdict reintroduces the late nineteenth-century perception
of the Turin shroud as a fake whose credibility was then restored by
photography. In 1898, in connection with the 50th anniversary of
the Piedmont charter, the future Italian constitution, the shroud
was to be exhibited, and someone suggested to its owner. King
Umberto 1, that he have it photographed. The monarch wasn't
enthusiastic, but he could be persuaded, and he let a certain Secondo
Pia, a lawyer and amateur photographer, take pictures of the shroud.
Pia was shocked when he developed his pictures: on the glass
negative appeared not the shadowy figure he remembered from the
shroud - a "negative," as he then realized - but a distinct
photographic likeness - a "positive" of a man's front and back.^’
A minor miracle had occurred: the photographic negative brought
out the hidden positive, making everyone see an image that m
principle had always been on the cloth but that only photography
made accessible to the human eye. Needless to say, Pia's revelation
hit the press. His pictures were reproduced all over the globe and
returned the shroud to the orbit of public interest. The mysterious
piece of cloth has ever since remained the object of scrutiny by
scientists and scholars (who met at the International Sidonology
Congresses m Turin and published their Acts), and a topic of dispute
among theologians, journalists, and a multitude of believers.'’

2
 Introduction

The shroud did not disappoint the twentieth-century experts who

were and still are interested in it. In fact, their research has yielded
fascinating results. The man on the cloth seems to be the same age
as was the crucified Christ; the figure shows absolute anatomical
correctness, with the right type of wounds at the right spots. There
are signs of flagellation and severe beating (a broken nose), and
injuries from the crown of thorns and nails. This baffling fact
inspired experiments, with artists being asked to come up with a
similar image. Of course no artist ever succeeded, since it required
creating in one's mind first an anatomically correct positive and
then reversing it into an anatomically correct negative - a task only
one artist on earth might have accomplished: Leonardo, that genius
of anatomical drawing and mirror-writing (however, as we know,
even his drawings are anatomically incorrect). Electron microscopy
finds no brush strokes on the shroud, while on the other hand
chemical analysis has detected traces of blood saturated with
bilirubme, a pigment secreted by the liver under conditions of
extreme suffering.
Were the veronicae riddles similar to the shroud or were they
simply painted pieces of cloth imbued with an aura of the
miraculous? Since they no longer exist, the question cannot be
answered. But we still have in European churches devotional
artefacts that are regarded as the "true" images of the Eord, and so
we can assume that most vernicles were just pieces of painted
canvas. However, some, like the shroud, may have been produced by
strange processes. Then they must have confronted people with
problems similar to today's in regard to the Turin shroud. Mystified
by a phenomenon they could not understand, our predecessors
looked for explanations in magic, mythology, and religion - the
"science" of their day. Does it mean that the enormous bulk of
legends concerned with "true" icons came from the sudden
appearance of inexplicable images? Not at all. Although we don't
know how, by whom, and for what purpose the Turin shroud was
produced, one thing is certain: its production made sense only in the
Christian context, with people believing in the existence of a shroud
impregnated with the Eord's features, and eager to possess it. Thus
not even a macabre hypothesis can be excluded: that in the
thirteenth or fourteenth century a man might have been put to
exactly the same torture and death as Jesus Christ, and then
wrapped in a sheet in order to produce a relic. ^
In the period indicated by the latest carbon tests Europe was

3
 Introduction

flooded with religious treasures and acquired some of its first "true"
images.*^ After the sack of Constantinople in 1204 the imperial
collection of relics was looted by the crusaders, who probably got
hold of, among other things, the mandylion of Edessa, a towel or
napkin impregnated with Jesus' face, which shortly afterwards
appeared in the West.'^ This miraculous image, the most famous of
all the acheiropoietoi then known, was supposedly given by the
living Jesus to Abgar, the pagan king of Edessa. The historical
existence of the Edessene image was attested at the end of the sixth
century, but its mythical presence is much older. It dates back to the
late fourth- or early fifth-century Syriac Doctrine of Addai, a
legendary narrative of Edessa's Christianization, which tells the
story of the sick pagan King Abgar. Hoping to be cured by Jesus, he
writes a letter asking him to come to Edessa. Abgar's messenger, an
archivist and artist, arrives in Jemsalem shortly before the crucifixion,
reads the letter to Jesus, and receives from him an oral message for
his king. While Christ is speaking, he executes a likeness of Jesus
which arrives back in Edessa — a replacement for pagan representation
and a reminder of the difference between the abstract God Father of
the Old Testament and God Son - a visible reproduction.
The Edessene painting later metamorphosed into an acheiropoietos,
a "photographic" impression made by Jesus himself, which proved
his historical existence, symbolized his incarnation, endorsed
depiction, and played an important role m the iconoclastic controversy
(Plate 3). Christ's portrait was referred to as mandylion (from the
Latin mantele, "towel, napkin", and Arabic mandil, "veil, handker¬
chief"). The use of cloth is not surprising. Cloth, a particularly
suitable medium for (re)producing images, enjoyed special popularity
in Byzantine art. What stone was to the ancient Greeks, eloth was to
the Christian Greeks of Byzantium who revelled in representation
but felt uneasy about producing "graven images," explicitly forbidden
by Old Testament law. But cloth was favored for yet another reason.
A synonym for dress and skin, it represented the perfect material for
visualizing God's "clothing" m Mary's flesh. The Christian associa¬
tion of the Virgin's immaculate body with spotless white stuff was
rooted m the traditional Jewish and Greek perception of matter and
earth as a female - "without form and void" (Gen. 1:2) - to be
shaped by man.'*’
At the time of the sack of Constantinople the West already
possessed its own "true" image of Christ. It was kept in St Peter's in
Rome, was mentioned for the first time in connection with a

4
 Introduction

procession in 752, and was referred to as acheropsita}^ In the

following centuries several sources mention imagines salvatoris
which are either non hominis manu picta or attributed to the
apostle Luke. Were the Roman icons products of a local or foreign
tradition? The term acheropsita indicates the Greek origin of this
particular image, which most likely was not an impression on cloth
but a Byzantine icon. The first Christ picture termed veronica was
mentioned only at the beginning of the twelfth century. It was kept
in the chapel of the Sancta Maria ad Praesepe of St Peter's and
called sudarium (cloth for wiping off perspiration, handkerchief).
The relic disappeared in 1527 during the sack of Rome and we lack
exact clues to its nature. The name suggests that it was a loose piece
of cloth, but perhaps it was just a Byzantine painting on canvas. In
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the number of Eastern Christ
portraits increased in the West, but many of them were still treated
not as paintings but as acheiropoietoi.
The Veronica myth is derived from a New Testament episode
which was given further attention in the apocryphal Syriac and
Greek texts written during the first Christian centuries in Asia
Minor and often connected to the city of Edessa in Syria. The
relevant biblical scene (Mt. 9:20-2; Mk. 5:25-34; Lk. 8:43-8) is the
curing of the Hemorrhissa, the anonymous woman with the issue of
blood, a permanent menstruation, whose flux stops when she
touches the hem of Jesus' dress. The story, frequently illustrated in
early Christian art, was given substance in the Church History of
Eusebius, who identified the Hemorrhissa as a native of Caesarea
Philippi (Paneas) and related her to a reproduction: two bronze
statues facing each other. One of them represented the Hemorrhissa
resting on one knee in a pose of supplication, the other a man, who
supposedly resembled Jesus, stretching his hand out to the woman.
In the fourth-century Acts of Pilate, an apocryphal account of Jesus'
trial, the Hemorrhissa, one of the witnesses, is for the first time
called Berenice, a Macedonian version of the Greek name Pherenice
(= Phere-nike = bearer [of] victory) - an appropriate name for the
bearer of Christ's vera icon.
The name Veronica, the Latin form of Berenice, was not derived,
as one might have suspected and as was occasionally suggested,
from vera icon. But since nomen est omen, the popularity of
Veronica and her vernicle was certainly increased by the false
etymology. Why was the Hemorrhissa chosen as the recipient of
Christ's likeness? The answer does not seem too difficult. The

5
 Introduction

Hemorrhissa's flux comes to a halt when she touches Christ.

Menstruation stops when a woman is made pregnant hy a man. This
obvious physiological fact could not he made explicit in Christian
theology and scholarship. It was only hinted, obscuring the proper
meaning of the biblical scene and its development into the Veronica
legend.
The healing of the Hemorrhissa looms large because fesus stresses
his contact with the woman, by declaring that power has left him,
and insists on identifying the person to whom it has gone. The
divine "power" suggests a mystical conception like the Holy
Virgin's and relates the Hemorrhissa to the mother of Jesus, and her
curing to the incarnation. The affinity incited the imagination of
innumerable generations of Christians and enticed them to pursue
the exciting reverie of what happens to an earthly woman when she
becomes involved with Man-God. The fantasy developed according
to common sense. A symbolic pregnancy was followed by the birth
of a symbolic son - initially not a "true" image but just a statue of
Jesus. However, in life as in legend, the appearance of a thing has
more impact than its actual form. Once it was established that the
Hemorrhissa was the originator of Christ's portrait, the myth was
drafted and one could proceed toward more elegant solutions,
increasingly simple and more dualistic. In Eusebius's account the
statues of Christ and the Hemorrhissa faced each other at the
entrance to the woman's house. Were they alive, one might say that
they were reflected in each other's eyes. The mirrorlike setting
influenced the legend's final symmetry - formal as well as symbolic.
Edmund Leach has drawn our attention to the "markedly binary"
patterns of legends, their opposing categories and mirrorlike corres¬
pondences.^^ Every student of myth knows that he is right. But what
is the source of this drive toward duality and symmetry? The
development of the Veronica legend offers an answer. Myth, not
unlike art and science, replaces life's accidents and complexities
with form and structure. The mythologizing mind constructs
models of reality which, the simpler they are, the stronger their
appeal. Humans delight m symmetry and duality, probably because
of their bodies' symmetrical nature, the division into two sexes, the
duplicating character of procreation, and their sense of separation
into body and mind.''^
As the biblical Hemorrhissa episode develops into the Veronica
legend, new pairs of opposites emerge, joining and replacing the old.
First, we have a bleeding woman touching the hem of Jesus' dress.

6
 Introduction

Since in the New Testament his garment is associated with purity

and whiteness, her touch suggests staining his cloth with blood and
producing a red image on a white background. Second, Hemorrhissa's
flux becomes linked with the passion of Christ, and her bloodstained
skin (clothing) with his blood-covered body (garment). Out of these
correspondences the medieval version of the myth is distilled - a
marvel of symmetry: the man whose cloth has stopped the woman's
bleeding has his own flux of blood which she arrests with her cloth.
The sexual symbolism of the exchange between Jesus and Veronica
was fortified by ancient beliefs that procreation results from mixing
sperm with menstrual blood. But it took humanity almost a
millennium to arrive at the concept of a blood-image. The shift
coincided with a growing interest in Jesus' passion and crucifixion.
Abgar's old Christ portrait was given new origins in the tenth-
century Byzantine "Story of the Image of Edessa." What had once
been a painting, then a miraculous impression (made by nothing in
particular, water or sweat), became now a napkin impregnated by
the bloody sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane (Lk. 22:44).^"’^
Today the two main icons of Christianity are the madonna with
child and the crucifix. Illustrations of Christ's beginning and end,
they seem to have always been with us. But, in fact, they were not.
The madonna was in vogue earlier than the crucifix, when attention
was focused on Christ's incarnation and birth, and not his crucifixion.
The analysis of the two icons reveals an affinity between them. The
Jesus child appears against the middle of his mother's body (Plate 4);
the dead Christ is symmetrically spread out on the cross (Plate 5).
The woman bears the babe, the cross the corpse. But while Mary
holds Jesus or, as on early Byzantine icons, contains his embryonic
figure within herself, Christ's dead body hangs loosely from the
arms of the cross - like the vernicle suspended between Veronica's
outstretched hands. The similarity and difference between the
madonna and the crucifix makes us realize the change of character
undergone by the textile acheiropoietoi in the West. Once a token of
triumph, in the Middle Ages the "true" cloth became a symbol of
suffering and death. The serene mandylion turned into a sad shroud,
and Veronica into a pieta - mourning her dead son like an
Argentinian mother (Plate 6).
But the sexual symbolism of the vernicle was not lost. It was even
increased by the mystical eroticism and the artistic realism of the
late Middle Ages. The fifteenth-century double portraits of Veronica
and Christ show a human pair but evoke a cosmic couple, with the

7
 Introduction

woman-cloth functioning as the womb and earth, and Jesus' head as

the sun, penis, child. The presence of blood alludes to the red rays of
the setting sun, to sacrifice (through circumcision, castration, and
decapitation), to the fertilization of the earth (by means of male
effusion), and to menstruation, defloration, and childbirth. The
sense of sacrificial sexuality is reinforced by the similarity between
Veronica, Judith, and Salome - with the Baptist's body resembling a
lamb (Plate 7]d^ the theme's popularity reflects the fascination with
a sado-masochistic eroticism of torture and physical destruction.
In Judaism, a non-iconic religion, menstruation is tied to repro¬
duction and tabooed, the blood males shed at circumcision is treated
as sacred ink for the signing of the covenant with God — a masculine
divinity, invisible and linguistic - and for writing the Word. In
Christianity, a religion of incarnation, i.e. of material reproduction,
menstruation is needed, and so it is rehabilitated in the Hemorrhissa
episode. As physical femininity is added to spiritual masculinity,
language is joined by vision. Dissenting from Judaism in a late
Hellenistic world saturated with images, Christianity is initially
reluctant to embrace icons. But the existence of Jesus, a veia icon of
divinity created in Mary's flesh, calls for representation. The New
Testament adds to the linguistic God Father, who prefers to talk to
men, a visual God Son, a good friend of women, who after his
resurrection appears to Mary Magdalen, signaling his interest in
femininity even from beyond the grave.
The evangelists chose to present the new God as a kind of
feminist - a strategy that yielded results. Women flocked to
Christianity, became leading martyrs and saints, strengthened the
new religion in terms of numbers and grassroots influence, and
might have even played a role in defeating Mithraism, a monotheistic
religion of the Persian god of light whom the Chaldeans identified
with Shamash, their own sun-god, and the Greeks of Asia Minor
with Helios.During the first century BC the cult of Mithras
reached Rome and gradually gained a firm foothold as a result of the
increasing exchanges between the capital and its Asian provinces.
At the close of the second century AD the cult of Helios, the Roman
Sol Invictus, became the predominant religion of the Roman army.
The Emperor Nero celebrated himself m a colossal golden statue of
the Invincible Sun, and even m the fourth century the Emperor
Constantine, the legalizer of Christianity, had himself represented
as a sun-god. In the middle of the third century Mithraism was on
the verge of becoming a universal religion, and Christianity found
 Introduction

itself in danger, since the two faiths resemhled each other in their
teachings and rituals. Both were based on a fraternal and democratic
spirit, and insisted on strict moral conduct and self-control. A sacred
communion of bread, water, and possibly wine, which probably
commemorated a banquet of Mithras and Helios, was administered
by a priest to mystics upon their admittance to one of the advanced
degrees. However, Mithraism, a product of the autocratic oriental
world and a military culture, was a strictly male cult. Under no
circumstances might women be admitted, while males might
belong even as children.
The pro-feminine attitudes of Christianity began to change after
its victory. Now a state religion and an institution, Christianity
returned to more conservative positions, and the Church proceeded
to eliminate women from participation in ritual and office. Gradually,
women disappeared from the Church hierarchy and were chanelled
to nunneries. This inferior branch of the monastic movement was
active in evangelizing, in devotion, and in the icon cult, but had
little say in theology and ecclesiastical politics. This discrimination
against women was compensated by a symbolic glorification of
femininity. With time the cult of the Virgin - for which there was
little foundation in the gospels - gained enormous importance. By
undoing the original sin committed by Eve, the madonna provided
women with credibility and came to be regarded as the new mother
of humanity and the ehief mediator and intercessor before God; a
veiTvernicle spread between heaven and earth.
The textile acheiropoietos of Jesus is a Christian invention with a
long history (to which the first part of this book is dedicated). But
the "true" image phenomenon has its roots in Judaism and
Platonism, in religious beliefs and mimetic representation - common
in ancient Greeee and Rome, in Egypt and in the Far East - which
manifest universal mythological patterns of male-female reflecting
and reproducing, doubling and fusing. We eneounter the vera icon in
legends of the sun and moon, in strange stories of mirrors and
menstruation, in creation myths involving solar energy and blood,
matter and soul, head and body, sunrise and sunset, in accounts
relating beheading and skinning to love-making and proereation.
Like every new religion, Christianity put enormous effort into
presenting itself as absolutely unique, but at the same time it tried
to stay in touch with tradition by assimilating the very stuff it
wanted to suppress.
Using methods derived from anthropology, eomparative religion

9
 Introduction

and literature, structuralism, iconography, and psychoanalysis, I try

to explore the various possible origins, meanings, and functions of
Christ's portrait - a significant token of the transition from fewish
non-iconism to Christian iconism, and to elucidate the vera icon
concept - a central concern of human imagination. My interdiscip¬
linary study in culture is not intended to exhaust a vast topic that
has been well researched, although not recently. I am not interested
in duplicating old but good scholarship. Instead, I focus on structure
and functional complexity, and draw conclusions that in the past
scholars might have intuited, but did not dare to formulate for fear
of challenging religious orthodoxy and breaking taboos.
This book could not have been written without easy access to
early Christian Syriac and Greek manuscripts discovered, deciphered,
translated, published, critically edited, and compiled by nineteenth-
century scholars. On the basis of these primary sources, Ernst von
Dobschiitz wrote his Christusbilder (1899), a dissertation on the
oriental acheiropoietoi and the Latin vernicles. A tour de force of
knowledge and superhuman scrupulousness, it has remained the
best piece of scholarship in the field. But Dobschiitz fails to properly
organize his enormous material, to describe the vera icon in terms
of its structure, and to convey its cultural meaning. His book was
preceded by Die Fronica (1887), Karl Pearson's solid and useful but
uninspiring study on the medieval Veronica legends and their
representations in art. La Sainte Face de Laon (1931) by Andre
Grabar is the most illuminating work written in this century on the
mandylion in Graeco-Slav art and its transference to the West.
These erudite books helped me outline my territory. The flash of
inspiration was provided by personal drama, my own artistic
pursuits concerned with the fixation of traces on cloth, and the
disinterested interest of an atheist fascinated by religion.

10
 Part I
From Word to Image
History
 « f
< «

I .t,

N.
>
4

1 l
 1

Image and Word - Greeks and

Jews

Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire-, you
heard the sound of words, but saw no form-, there was only
voice.
Deuteronomy, 4

. . . when the Only-begotten of God . . . of her womb was made

man, by an inscrutable miracle she became both the hand¬
maid of man by reason of the divinity and the mother of the
Word by reason of the flesh.
St Gregory the Great ^

It is an old tradition of European culture to perceive the distinction

between images and words in terms of "natural" and "conventional"
signs. Plato was the first to discuss the difference in Cratylus, where
he pointed out that reality can he represented either by vision or by
language: the portrait of a man or his name - "an imitation, just as a
picture is" {Cratylus, 430E);^ and where he stressed that words
require absolute correctness in order to be meaningful, while images
must remain imperfect, otherwise they turn to physical doubles. "If
some god should not merely imitate your colour and form, as
painters do," Socrates explains to Cratylus, "but should also make
all the inner parts like yours, should reproduce the same flexibility
and warmth, should put into them motion, life, and intellect, such

13
 From Word to Image - History

as exist in you," there would be not a Cratylus and his portrait, but
"two Cratyluses" (432 BC).
Mimetic images aspire to copy reality and thus are not unlike the
camouflaging colors of animals: they make a representation blend
with nature, disguising its artificiality and conventionality. The
more likenesses resemble their models, the more they give humanity
intellectual headaches. The "natural" looks of pictures allow them
to assume a life of their own, and to confuse and mystify the
beholder. At the heart of a mimetic image lies a paradox. The more
an image imitates a thing, the better, more directly, and rapidly are
we informed about it. But, on the other hand, it can the more also
mislead us into believing that painted grapes can be eaten. Images
appeal to our senses, they arouse us, and when they reproduce
beautiful and desirable aspects of reality, they make us long to
actually consume them. Looking at the appetizing lobsters of Dutch
still-lifes and TV commercials, we lick our lipS; and Playboy is
produced for contemporary Pygmalions falling in love with a "true"
image of a statuesque blonde. At first sight an image provides
immediate Icnowledge better than words do. But as we are captivated
by a likeness, we also begin to experience its manipulative power
and mistrust the charm of visual representation. When the spell of
images turns threatening, words appear safer - only, however, to
those who can read. The mimetic icon, on the other hand, is truly
democratic and offers itself to everyone who has eyes.
The ancient identification of image with nature, and word with
culture has had far-reaching consequences. Since nature has been
felt as feminine and culture as masculine, image and word have
been imbued with features and values derived from the experiences,
prejudices, and metaphors of sexuality. This symbolism is reinforced
by the spatial character of visual representation, which contrasts
with the temporality of language, a difference summarized by
William Blake, writing in the Vision of the Last Judgement: "Time
Space are Real Beings / Time is a Man Space is a Woman. Since
a female character has been projected onto the image, the icon has
been hailed as real as nature itself. But the image has also been
dismissed as mere appearance without depth or spirit, dumb, silent,
but, like a woman, pleasant to look at. The equation of imagery and
femininity resulted in the allegorization and reification of the
female body which, as Marina Warner has already observed, has
been considered the most suitable stuff for symbolic representation

14
 Image and Word - Greeks and Jews

and the ideal medium for the messages of men; thus maidens were
turned into monuments - statues of victory or liberty.'*
The choice of the female body as a medium for representation has
resulted not only from the nature-image equation, but from an even
more elemental identification of matter and femininity. Plato calls
the universal substance which receives the forms of all beings
"Mother" and "Receptacle," because "it is proper to liken the
Recipient to the Mother, the Source to the Father, and what is
engendered between these two to the Offspring" [Timaeus, 50). He
defines the mother as a kind of clay or wax which, in order to
"receive . . . over its whole extent the copies of all things intelligible
and eternal should itself, of its own nature, be void of all forms" (51).
In the same vein Aristotle writes; "the female always provides the
material, the male provides that which fashions the material" and,
more explicitly, "the physical part, the body, comes from the female,
and the Soul from the male" [Generation of Animals, 2. 4. 25).^
Classical Greek philosophy did not invent the femaleness of
matter. It is an old and universal concept. But Plato's and Aristotle's
clear formulations established a definition of culture with which we
still live today: culture as the product of masculine energy
activating, animating, and shaping female matter. Who wouldn't
agree with an ancient epigram, which asks: "Who gave a soul to
marble?" and answers: "This must be the work of Praxiteles'
hands. Derived from the experience of sexuality and therefore
extremely persuasive, this definition has been deeply interiorized,
appearing absolutely natural: not a construct but an eternal canon
present even in dreams. Long before Freud, we read in Artemidorus's
Interpretation of Dreams (second century AD) that "a writing tablet
signifies a woman, since it receives the imprints of all kinds of
letters. And in colloquial speech we also call children 'imprints.'"^
In the Greek Anthology a writing-tablet is called "the mystic
receptacle of the Muses" (14. 60), and Amor is ploughing and sowing
"the wheat-bearing furrow of Demeter" (16. 200) - marking female
surface, as in a famous painting by Lorenzo Lotto (Plate 8).
The pupil of the eye - the receptive physiological mirror and
duplicator - has female gender both in Greek and Latin and means a
girl or doll. The surface of water, an element inhabited by
femininity, is a mirror ready to trap not only a Narcissus: "The
dumb image of himself attracted Archianax the three year old boy,
as he was playing by the well. His mother dragged him all dripping

15
 From Word to Image - History

from the water, asking herself if any life was left in him. The child
defiled not with death the dwelling of the Nymphs, hut fell asleep
on his mother's knees" {Greek Anthology, 7. 170).
Throughout centuries artists, art lovers, and all visual types keep
stressing that one picture is worth a thousand words Thus Leonardo
declares painting superior to poetry, because "poetry places things
before the imagination in words, while painting really places the
objects before the eye, and the eye accepts the likenesses as though
they were real" {Treatise on Painting, 1. 21).^ The great master of
mimetism asks the rhetorical question: "what poet can put before
you in words the true image of your adored one with as much truth
as the painter?" (1. 22), argues that "the eye . . . the window of the
soul, is the principal way through which the mind can most
copiously and magnificently consider the infinite works of nature"
(1. 30), and concludes that "therefore it appears that God loves
painting and loves him who loves and cherishes it, and He delights
to be adored in it rather than in any other form representing Him"
(1. 18).
This view was contradicted by iconophobes. Focusing on the
limitations of visible and material images, they argued that the
strength of pictures lies in their ability to display, but that language
alone can articulate ideas. In the iconoclastic interpretation, images
appeared superficial and inferior to the eloquence and spirituality of
words. Whenever language was preferred to imagery, the arguments
in its favor tended to associate the flow of words with such
masculine ideals as energy and intellect, change and progress, and to
oppose them to the stereotypes of the female condition — stable,
passive, and obeying the cyclical laws of nature. Aristotle perceived
"the male as possessing the principle of movement and of generation,
the female as possessing that of matter," considered heaven and the
sun as the sources of spirit and energy, and called them "generator"
and "father" {Generation of Animals, 1. 2. 5-15).
Since Plato's day the image-word debate has played an important
part in European philosophy and theology, art and literary criticism.^
In certain periods the controversy was perceived as central to
religion, morality, and politics, and was turned into a deadly serious
conflict in which the friends and enemies of imagery fought and
exterminated each other. Although in Christian culture ieonoclastic
periods were only episodic, some support for iconoclasm has stayed
alive at the hack of the European mind, at times surfacing and
inspiring a philosophical, religious, and moral puritanism - male-

16
 Image and Word - Greeks and Jews

oriented, faithful to the letter of the law, and unsympathetic to

representation and womanhood. Is non-iconism linked to the awe of
nature and femininity? I believe that it is, and I would like to
suggest the reasons for this connection by comparing Greeks, the
visual artists, to Jews, the linguists.
Polytheism and iconism are the keywords of Greek culture. Its
j religion of incarnate divinities and its mimetic art developed out of
I specially favorable geographical and climatic conditions and reflected
; a sedentary way of life, with city-states becoming intellectual and
artistic centers. The richness of the Greek landscape and the
I spectacular changes of seasons resulted in a symbiotic relationship
1 of people and nature. Offering endless sensual stimulation, nature
inspired the creation of stable cultural structures - visual, material,
I and illusionistic. They reflected the richness of nature and con¬
trasted with its flow. Favored by natural conditions, the Greeks paid
I tribute to nature, deifying her as Athena or Aphrodite, Artemis or
! Demeter.
A linguistic monotheism defines Judaism. Traditionally, the
Jewish rejection of images has been related to nomadism. "The
jl purpose of the law forbidding images," writes Joseph Gutmann,
j "seems to have been to assure loyalty to the invisible Yahweh and
; to keep the nomads from creating idols or adopting the idols of the
I many sedentary cultures with which they came in contact during
j their desert sojourn.This does not exhaust the problem. The
(' Jewish non-iconism has to be also associated with the predominance
j of language whose development might have been stimulated by
i movement, the blankness of desert, and the intensity and hardship
of nomadic life; and it is connected to the perception of nature in
terms of trouble and threat with which the nomads coped by means
j of culture. A common tongue, providing the wandering tribes with
’ unity and identity, might have led to the worship of a single God-
Word, a symbolic "leader" of all of them. Indeed, the Jewish Logos
seems to be the deified product of people who, in order to survive in
! a harsh environment and to preserve their cultural autonomy, had
to obey the voice of their literate elite. The Old Testament keeps
reminding the reader that nature is the cause of pollution, infection,
and disease - language the source of purity, spirituality, and
I salvation.
' The Jews viewed nature with extreme caution. This produced
complicated dietary laws, and since blood was considered the juice
of life, the eating of any flesh containing it was forbidden (Lev.

I
17
 From Word to Image - History

17:14; 19:26). Women were probably not more diseriminated against

by the Jews than by other aneient cultures. But the exclusively
masculine and linguistic character of Judaism seems to have
intensified the male fear of the reproductive and iconic character of
femaleness which manifests itself in menstruation. Furthermore,
because of leprosy, a disease endemic from earliest historical times
in the Nile valley and delta, a negative link was established between
discharge and the horrible illness which begins with "stains" on
skin. Providing Moses and Aaron with legislation, God first gives
them regulations concerning people whose various diseases (in
particular leprosy) make their bodies run "with discharge" (Lev.
15:1-15), and then proceeds to define sexual impurity in men and
women. An emission of semen makes a man "unclean until the
evening" (Lev. 15:16); an intercourse with a woman which results in
ejaculation pollutes both partners for the same amount of time (Lev.
15:18), and it makes unclean "every garment and every skin on
which the semen comes" (Lev. 15:17). Consequently, every contact
with sperm is to be followed by the bathing of one's whole body and
the washing of bedding and clothing. Stricter rules are applied to the
female discharge. Menstmating women remain impure and infectious
for seven days, and the same is true for men who lie with them (Lev.
15:19—24). Females suffering from hemorrhage are considered
polluted for the entire duration of their illness and are treated as
social outcasts (Lev. 15:25-7).
The staining of skin and garments with blood, semen, and other
bodily fluids can be perceived as depiction. This reveals, perhaps,
one of the hidden links between the rejection of imagery and the fear
of discharge, particularly of female flux. But representation and
menstruation are related to each other in a more fundamental way.
The bleeding is symptomatic of a woman's ability to reproduce, and
representation equals reproduction. The connection is reflected in
the story of Rachel. She steals the household idols of her father
Laban (in Hebrew "white") and hides them m the camel saddle.
When Laban enters Rachel's tent to search for them, she remains
seated on the saddle with the idols and explains that she cannot rise
and greet her father because of her period (Gen. 31:19-35).
"Unclean" (leaking) women are made whole - and pregnant with a
likeness - by men blocking their menstrual blood with sperm. This
is hinted at in the story of Bathsheba.
It happened, late one afternoon, when Uavid arose from his eouch and
was walking upon the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the

18
 Image and Word - Greeks and Jews

roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful... So David
sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with
her. (Now she was purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she
returned to her house. And the woman conceived.
(2 Sam. ll;2-5)

In the Confraternity-Douay version of the Old Testament, which is

based on the Latin Vulgate, the hint is made explicit; "And David
. . . took her, and she came in to him, and he slept with her: and
presently she was purified from her uncleanness, and she returned
to her house, having conceived" (2 Kgs. 11:4-5).^^ It seems that this
translation was inspired by Jesus' incarnation and the biblical
Christ-Hemorrhissa episode — two instances of God's purifying and
sealing off earthly females. Both Testaments reflected the ancient
belief, expressed by Aristotle and reported by Pliny, that menstrual
blood is required for reproduction:

Not only does this pernicious mischief occur in a woman every

month, but it comes in larger quantity every three months . . . just as
in certain women it never occurs at all. The latter, however, do not
have children, since the substance in question is the material for
human generation, as the semen from the males acting like rennet
collects this substance within it, which thereupon immediately is
inspired with life and endowed with body.
[Natural History, 7.15. 66)'^

In the Old Testament reproduction is related to vision. King

David's seduction through sight resembles the original sin. Eve was
tempted to eat from the tree of knowledge because "it was a delight
to the eyes" (Gen. 3:6). The delight was followed by Adam and Eve
consuming the fruit together. This resulted in the improvement of
their vision and the realization of their condition: "Then the eyes
of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (Gen.
3:7). The knowledge acquired through vision led to their expulsion
from paradise and their introduction to sexuality. The David-
Bathsheba episode represents a similar sequenee of vision-seduction-
reproduction.
Menstrual blood is associated with natural reproduction and
iconic representation; blood shed in ritual (saerifice of animals,
circumcision) is connected to divinity and language. The Old
Testament frequently juxtaposes culture and proereation. God first
orders Abraham to offer him animals, then makes with him the

19
 Prom Word to Image — History

covenant of circumcision (Gen. 15:9-10 and 17:10). While menstrual

blood pollutes, cultural blood purifies. After having killed "the ram
of ordination," Moses marks Aaron with its blood by smearing it
"on the tip of Aaron's right ear and on the thumb of his right hand
and on the great toe of his right foot" (Lev. 8:22—3). And God orders
Aaron to do the same with the altar: "he shall take some of the
blood of the bull, and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the
mercy seat . . . then he shall kill the goat . . . and bring its blood
within the veil . . . sprinkling it upon the mercy seat" (Lev. 16:14-
15).
Sacrificial blood is the sacred ink with whieh the eontract
between man and God is signed. Moses first "told the people all the
words of the Lord" (Ex. 24:3), then "wrote all the words of the Lord"
(Ex. 24:4). Subsequently, he built an altar, sacrificed an ox, and

took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he
threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, and
read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, "All that the Lord
has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." And Moses took the
blood and threw it upon the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the
covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all
these words."
(Ex. 24:6-8)

The pattern is established in Genesis of men's closeness to

language and culture, women's affinity to nature and reproduction.
God first tells Abraham about the law of circumcision and then
announces that his 90-year-old wife will bear him a son, ordering
that her name be changed from Sar'ai to Sarah (Gen. 17:15). Sarah's
role is limited to procreation, and her passive participation in
language brings to mind Plato's remark in Cratylus that one
frequently changes the name of one's slave, since it's all convention
and the habit of the user. God receives women into the community
of the faithful by naming them, and he lets them participate in
language by allowing mothers to name their children (Gen. 29:32-5).
The "Canticle of Deborah" (Jgs. 5:1-31), the famous judge, accounts
for women's sharing in the legal language of the later Judaism. But
the very fact that women remain "uncircumcised" [arel], a word
which figuratively means "obstructed" and describes the lips of
someone who does not speak fluently and the heart and ear of people
incapable of listening to the voice of reason, leaves them out of
cultural discourse and religious ritual. Women's reproductive role

20
 Image and Word - Greeks and Jews

renders them unfit for the cult of the Word and makes them
resemble the uncircumcised foreigners and unfaithful co-religionists:
"thus says the Lord God: 'No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and
flesh . . . shall enter my sanctuary. But the Levites who went far
from me, going astray from me after their idols . . . shall bear their
punishment'" (Ezek. 44:9-10).
Women's tendency to "go astray" (= after likenesses) starts with
the appearance of menstruation. From then on they are ready to
procreate - and to compete with God's creation. The hatching of life
in female matter makes men feel out of control, envious of the
womb, and compelled to prove the inferiority of natural creation —
female and iconic - vis-a-vis divine creation - masculine and
linguistic. In each society the proofs are many. In Judaism the
covenant of circumcision seems to be, among other things, such a
proof. Hence the enormous importance of the circumcision mark,
an "inscription" on the male sexual organ linking maleness to
divinity. No wonder the scar is interpreted as a source of linguistic
inspiration and "true" speech. According to the Midrash, when King
David examined his naked body he was upset by its bearing no
evidence of a commandment fulfilled, until he discovered his
circumcision mark. The sight of it filled him with joy and made him
compose Psalm 12 ("On the eighth," a reference to circumcision
which is undertaken on the eighth day after birth): a prayer against
the "lies" of the unfaithful which suggests to God that they be
silenced by means of a radical "circumcision" performed on their
false lips and tongues:

Help, Lord; for there is no longer any that is godly;

for the faithful have vanished from among the sons of men.
Every one utters lies to his neighbor;
with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.
May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts.
(Ps. 12:1-3)

Early Christianity, on the other hand, linked sacrificial blood not

to word and culture but to image, body, and reproduction. St Ephraim
(d. ca.373) the influential Syrian theologian, interpreted "their"
(Jewish) circumcision as "your" (Christian) sealing mark and
considered the sealing an infusion of divinity into humanity,
transforming bodies into "temples for God." Consequently, the

21
 From Word to Image — History

Jewish ritual in which blood is used as sacred ink and applied to

surfaces, metamorphosed into a physical process evocative of
insemination: "As for the anointing of Aaron my brethren, it was
the vile blood of beasts, that is sprinkled in the horns of the altar . . .
wherein the living and all-lifegiving Blood, is sprinkled inwardly in
your bodies, is mingled in your understandings, is infused through
your inmost chamhers" {Hymn for the Feast of the Epiphany,
3.11)d^ Since the Virgin is frequently referred to as the "house" and
"temple" of God, the metaphor of the faithful impregnated with
God's juice is clearly modelled after incarnation.
In his "Semiology of Sexuality" Pierre Guiraud observes that the
divine Logos, whom he interprets not so much as Word but, more
specifically, as Verb, is a vehicle of action equivalent to the semen
and its ejaculation.^'^ The same seems to apply to circumcision, a
sudden release of blood which imitates, if anything, ejaculation
(time, speech), and not the slow and steady (spatial) flow of
menstruation. The language of Genesis creates at least a poetic
connection between male blood and male creation, as opposed to
female blood and procreation. Adam, the name of the first man, is
evocative of dam (blood) and the verb damd(h) (to resemble). Adam
is made after God's "likeness" [kldemutenu). The verb "to resemble"
and the noun "likeness" have the same root; ddmd(h). All this
amounts to little more than a play on words. But on the other hand
the biblical flow of poetic allusions may echo the Babylonian
tradition of man's creation out of divine blood. On a badly mutilated
Babylonian tablet God Marduk announces:

My blood I will take and bone I will [form].

I will set up man that man . . .
I will create man to inhabit [the earth].

Judaism has its roots in the Babylonian-Assyrian tradition with

which it shares many aspects - last but not least the importance of
language. Enlil, "Lord of the true word," plays a central role in the
Babylonian pantheon; and Nabu, the son of Marduk and originally a
water-god, is credited with the invention of writing, understanding,
and wisdom, and has the stylus of a scribe as his attribute. "The
original personification of Enlil," writes Morris Jastrow, "as the
mighty onrushing storm whose voice is heard in the roar of the
thunder leads to an elaborate symbolism of the 'word' of the deity,
which becomes a synonym of his power"

22
 Image and Word — Greeks and Jews

The word which rages in the heavens above,

The word which causes the earth below to quake,
The word which strikes terror among the Anunnaki.
Beyond the seer, beyond the diviner,
An onrushing storm which none can oppose.*^

Greek iconism is easier to explain than the unique position of

Jews, surrounded by and moving between the iconic cultures of
antiquity, and still (or therefore) resisting representation — even
equating the invisible with the unspeakable by giving their God a
name that can neither be uttered nor written, i.e. made into
representation. Continuing this tradition, the Mandaeans conceived
their Redeemer as the Word or the Son of the Word, and identified
his coming with a cry and its reply.
But this is only one side of the coin. On the other side one has to
remember that the Old Testament proscriptions about representation
lack consistency. God himself appoints the craftsmen Bez'alel and
OhoTiab "to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and
bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood . . . that
they may make . . . the tent of meeting, and the ark of the testimony,
and the mercy seat . . . and all the furnishings of the tent. . . and the
finely worked garments" (Ex. 31:4-10). The degree of tolerance
towards imagery depended on various circumstances, differed from
place to place, and changed in the course of Jewish history, with
periods of relative acceptance of figurative representation being
followed by iconoclastic fervor and then again by iconophilic
attitudes. Among the famous third-century AD mural paintings at a
Dura Europos synagogue we find, for instance, a Jewish equivalent
of Veronica with her cloth: Moses spreading between his hands a
scroll covered with writing.When we compare the two icons, we
grasp the difference between the two religions. The man with the
divine Word conveys the essence of Judaism, the woman with the
"true" portrait of the incarnate Word the core of Christianity.

23
 2

Depictions of Christ — Early

Christianity

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s
hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not, they have eyes, but
they see not,
they have ears, but they hear not, nor is there any breath in
their mouths.
Like them be those who make theml - yea, every one who
trusts in theml
Psalm 135

The second person of the Trinity had been clothed with a real
and mortal body-, but that body had ascended into heaven-,
and, had not some similitude been presented to the eyes of his
disciples, the spiritual worship of Christ might have been
obliterated by the visible relics and representations of the
saints.
Gibhon

Early Christians mistrusted images. Although they dissented from

Judaism, they felt bound by the second commandment: "You shall
not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve
them" (Ex. 20:4-5). The rejection of representation served an

24
 Depictions of Christ - Early Christianity

important practical goal. It helped the new religious community to

set itself apart from the pagan world of late antiquity with its
pictorial propaganda, as Jews had done in the past. According to the
early second-century "Apocalypse of Peter," which echoes the Old
Testament, a special section of hell is reserved for the worshippers
of images:

and beneath them shall the angel Ezrael prepare a place of much fire:
and all the idols of gold and silver, all idols, the work of men's hands,
and the semblances of images of cats and lions, of creeping things and
wild beasts, and the men and women that have prepared the images
thereof, shall be in chains of fire and shall be chastised because of
their error before the idols, and this is their judgement for ever.^

(i) Symbols and Types

Reading early Christian theologians, one realizes that they worried

less about the violation of the second commandment, and more
about the faithful being seduced away from spirituality and
ascetism by the sensuality of Hellenistic culture. In his Exhortation
to the Greeks, Clement of Alexandria (d. ca.211) condemns the
splendid marbles of Zeus and Venus, Heracles and Leda with an
almost lewd fervor, arguing that under the guise of charming forms
they sanction not goodness and virtue but licentiousness, volup¬
tuousness, and perversion, and that those who enjoy seeing them
"commit fornication" and "adultery," and "prostitute themselves."^
The Exhortation is the text of a man who believes that in order to
defeat pagan cults one must destroy their visible foundations - the
entire imaginary museum of the past. In order to get rid of religious
competition, Clement chooses the iconoclastic approach, vulgarizes
and demonizes depiction, and frightens his potential readers.
Adoration of idols, he says, reflects your craving after evil; and
succumbing to the smile of a statue, you prevent the salvation of
your soul. However, to reject pagan representation is one thing, to
reject all representation another. Clement denounces the seductive
illusionism of Greek and Roman art. But he fears not only the
impact of large-size sculpture but even the magic of tiny realistic
representation, such as gems with portraits of lovers or mistresses
reminding people of their erotic passions. He recommends to
Christians - as an antidote - rings engraved with a dove or a fish, a

25
 From Word to Image - History

ship or a lyre, an anchor or a fisherman [Paedagogus, 3. 11. 59:2-

60:1). Clement's attitude was in keeping with the earliest stage of
Christian art. It covered the first two centuries, was dominated by
symbolic or ideographic representation, in particular by the most
common ideograms of Christ (fish, lamb, vine, and cross), disregarded
classical skills and ideals, and mirrored the clandestine conditions
of a battered religion. The simplicity and small scale, the amateurish,
childlike and doodling quality of the Christian arte povera was,
when seen against the sumptuous and monumental naturalism of
the late Roman empire, an artistic provocation.
In the development of Christian art, geography has to be taken
into account. As it moves from Palestine, the non-iconic place of its
birth, to Italy and the Hellenized territories of Asia Minor,
Christianity becomes embedded in the world of representation, and
the Church leaders soon recognize the importance of figurative
depiction as an excellent tool for bringing the faith to the broad
mass of people - illiterate, but raised in the rich pictorial tradition of
the Roman empire. Thus a distinct move towards figuration can be
seen as the third century progresses. Produced by recent converts
from the various pagan religions, the Christian art of that era works
by means of analogy, as classical types and the formal vocabulary of
the Graeco-Roman world are used to evoke the God of the New
Testament. Jesus is presented as a handsome, beardless youth in the
attire of a shepherd, doctor, magician, musician, lover, and hero. He
is modelled after Orpheus taming the wild beasts with the sound of
his lyre; after Hercules feeding the dragon with poppy seed; after
Amor, whose love affair with Psyche is interpreted as God's love for
the human soul; after the Sol Invictus, the sun-god of the Roman
legions, riding in his carriage through the sky; and, in particular,
after the Good and Fair Shepherd. Equally familiar to Christians and
pagans, the biblical figure was inspired by the Greek imagery of the
shepherd-god Aristaios or Apollo Nomios, and of Hermes Kriophoros,
the ram-bearer at Tanagra, and it was further popularized by the
early second-century Shepherd of Hennas, a hortatory Ghristian
text representing the Ghurch in Rome.
Symbolism and camouflage ended in 313 with the Edict of Milan.
The Ghurch went public and lost its fear of being submerged by
pagan representation. Erom now on it was in control - able to forbid
unacceptable depiction and destroy pagan art. The fourth- and fifth-
century illustrators of the Bible began to develop their own
iconography and style by applying classical models to Old and New

26
 Depictions of Christ - Early Christianity

Testament stories. Early theology was obsessed with the idea of

correspondences between the two Scriptures, and so was the art of
the era. Moses striking the rock represented Christ of the Living
Water; the story of Jonah stood for Jesus' resurrection; as Daniel in
the lions' den, Jesus incarnated the victory of innocence and the
soul's deliverance from sin and death; and in the sacrifice of
Abraham, he appeared as the victim. But the most popular themes
were the gospel miracles, and in particular the resurrection of
Lazarus.
Had Jesus been part of the classical world, his looks might have
caught the eye of an artist and he might have been portrayed while
he was still alive. But since no portrait of him existed, early
Christian art depicted him not as a particular man but a type. As the
extraordinary tale of Christ's life and death spread throughout the
Roman empire, people's curiosity was aroused and legends of his
"portraits" as well as the "portraits" themselves began to appear as
early as the second century. Since sensitivity to the second
commandment was still considerable, the producers and owners of
Jesus' pictures were denounced as enemies of Christianity, pagans,
and heretics. In a way characteristic for the creation of legends,
Pilate, the persecutor of Christ, was also condemned for portraying
his victim. Repeating probably malicious gossip, St Ireneaus
(b. ca.l37) assails the Carpocration Gnostics for having images -
painted as well as executed in other media — which they hold for
Christ's portraits made by Pilate, and for exhibiting and worshipping
them together with the busts of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle
{Against the Heresies, 1. 24. 5). Larrar suggests that from these
pseudo-likenesses the Emperor Alexander Severus (208-35), an
open-minded Syrian prince, derived his statue of Jesus Christ which,
according to Lampridius, he kept in his lararium with others of
Abraham, Orpheus, and Apollonius of Tyana.'^
In the first quarter of the fourth century the first portrait of Jesus
sponsored by a biblical woman made its appearance. Grateful for her
healing, the Hemorrhissa had commemorated herself and Jesus in
"a wonderful memorial of the benefit the Saviour conferred upon
her" (Eusebius, Church History, 7. 18:1). There can be hardly any
doubt that Eusebius saw the double portrait and was told its story.
However, we shall never know when the statue was actually made
and whom it really depicted. It might have belonged to the popular
genre of votive sculpture and been erected by the city of Caesarea to
an emperor, with the inscription "to the Saviour [Soter]" or "to the

27
 From Word to Image - History

Benefactor [Euergetes]" — a traditional way of addressing rulers - or

it might have shown Asclepius or some other healer or hero."^ It is
quite likely that after Constantine's Edict of Toleration a piece of
old pagan junk was "rediscovered" and given a new meaning by the
local Christian community eager to show that from the very
beginning it had been in touch with Jesus.
Eusebius's account is not only crucial for the formation of the
vera icon legend, but also significant in respect to Christ's
portraiture. Eusebius is known for his disapproval of depiction, his
doubting of the assumed content of "holy" pictures, and his
discouraging of people eager to acquire icons. But in this particular
case he does not dismiss as nonsense the possibility that the
monument might indeed depict Jesus and the Hemorrhissa. To the
contrary, he seems to sanction this view. Why? Is Eusebius so
convinced of the sculpture's authenticity? Hardly. More likely, he
finds that in view of the Christian victory the time is ripe for this
specific portrait of Jesus - one that comes from biblical times,
establishes a link between divinity and femininity, and is associated
with healing, the breaking of the menstrual taboo, and incarnation.
Eusebius's sympathetic treatment of the Jesus—Hemorrhissa story
looks like a shrewd move by a Church politician keen to have the
past fit the needs of contemporary history. In his Life of Constantine
Eusebius keeps stressing the straight line leading from God to the
emperor. Here he conveys a similarly direct contact between Christ
and a disadvantaged woman - the least of the least becoming the first
owner of God's portrait. The acceptance of the Jesus-Hemorrhissa
image signals the Church's changing attitude towards the depiction
of the living Jesus: once pagans and heretics were blamed for
portraying him, now the wish to obtain his likeness is interpreted as
a sign of devotion. In the Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes, an
apology for the faith written ca.410, the cured Hemorrhissa is an
Edessene princess called Berenice. She leaves the monument - "the
record of the deed" - to her son to remind him of "something done
recently."^

(ii) The Acheiropoietos

L’appetit vient en mangeant. As the number of figurative images of

Jesus increased, so did the hunger to see him not as he might have

28
 Depictions of Christ - Early Christianity

been but as he really was. It seems that around the middle of the
sixth century this desire for the specific had a share in the
appearance of a new kind of representation: a likeness derived
directly from Christ, and therefore called acheiropoietos (d;r^ipo77otT?To?,
"not made by [human] hand").*^
The term acheiropoietos does not come from classical Greek but
from the koine of the Judeo-Christian community, since it has
not been traced any further back than the New Testament.^
Acheiropoietos was first used as a designation of the godmade and
permanent as opposed to the manmade and perishable in the letters
of Paul and the Gospel of Mark. "For we know," Paul writes, "that if
the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from
God, a house not made with hands [my italics], eternal in the
heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1). In a similar vein he compares Adam, the first
man and "a living being," with Christ, "the last Adam" and "a life-
giving spirit," and explains that "it is not the spiritual which is first
but the physical. . . The first man was from the earth, a man of dust;
the second man is from heaven" (1 Cor. 15:45-7). Paul also uses
acheiropoietos in reference to the spiritual Christian circumcision
which has replaced the Jewish custom: "in him [Jesus] also you were
circumcised with a circumcision made without hands [my italics]"
(Col. 2:11). In the Gospel of Mark the distinction between the
manmade and the divine is attributed to Jesus by the false witness
who at the Lord's trial asserts that "we heard him [Christ] say, 'I will
destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will
build another, not made with hands' [my italics]" (Mk. 14:58).
In early Christian writings acheiropoietos was used rarely and
mostly in reference to the quoted New Testament passages; it had
then a broad sense and designated everything that had resulted from
divine creation - including nature and humanity. The concept of the
acheiropoietos has its origins in the Platonic and Neoplatonic
philosophy according to which all earthly things have their
prototypes in heaven; these prototypes, the product of God's spirit,
were termed acheiropoietoi and became the subject of the third-
century controversy between the realists (Methodius of Olympus)
and the spiritualists (school of Origen) who quarrelled about the
right interpretation of Paul's words in 2 Cor. 5:1. But acheiropoietos
turned from a fairly obscure theological term to a more common
word only in Byzantine days, when it began to be used as a
designation for images "not made by hand."
The creation of the miraculous acheiropoietoi was modelled after

29
 From Word to Image - History

the physical phenomena of projection and reflection; it was

associated with perception and dreaming, imagining and art¬
making; it alluded to real and spiritual birth and rebirth, to sexuality
and procreation, baptism and resurrection, and to Jesus' incarnation
and return from the dead. The divine production of the acheiropoietoi
involved excretion and/or emanation. Water and other fluids, light,
fire, and spiritual energy played the role of agents and were applied
to various kinds of matter (textiles, wood, stone, etc.) which were
marked by them: stained and wetted, impressed and impregnated,
cast, burnt, dyed, incised, engraved, etc. The miracle was mediated
by women.
The Byzantine acheiropoietoi echo the ancient divine images
which were believed to fall from the sky. Their mythology was
indebted to the existence of meteors, and they were treated as
powerful phylacteries. In ancient Greece these godmade representa¬
tions were referred to as diipetes (fallen from the sky) and were
mostly associated with Pallas Athena who "shot through the sky as
some brilliant meteor" {Iliad, 4. 73);^ hence the name palladion
(statue of Pallas). The most famous palladium of Athena belonged to
Troy. It was thrown from heaven by Zeus at the founding of the city
and kept as a pledge of Troy's safety. In order to induce the goddess
to protect the town. Hector asked his mother to take out "the
largest robe, and the one that was most beautifully enriched with
embroidery, as an offering to Minerva" {Iliad, 6. 295). Later legends
tell us that the palladium was carried off from the goddess's temple
by Odysseus and Diomedes, who thus made the capture of Troy
possible, and they mention a second palladium which was taken to
Italy by Aeneas and kept in the temple of Vesta in Rome."^ But the
Roman capital possessed also its own divine object: the ancile of
Numa, a shield which descended from the sky m response to the
king's prayers.
In the second half of the sixth century a portrait of Christ fell from
heaven to make God's existence credible to a pagan woman,
Hypatia, who claimed that she could not believe in what she did
not see. A native of Camuliana (or Camuha), a small city in
Cappadocia, northwest of the capital Caesarea-Mazaca, she found in
the pond of her park a painted canvas on which she immediately
recognized the likeness of Christ. She took the picture out of the
water, realized that it was completely dry, and wrapped it in her
mantle. A second wonder occurred then: the image impressed itself
on her dress, producing a faithful replica of the Lord's portrait.

30
 Depictions of Christ - Early Christianity

Convinced by the miraculous apparition of God's existence, Hypatia

was converted to Christianity.
The oldest version of the Camuliana picture story was written in
Syriac after 560 but before 574, the year when the icon was
transferred with pomp to Constantinople.*^ The legend does not tell
us when the miracle happened, and the fact that Hypatia was a
pagan does not necessarily mean that it should be dated back to the
pre-Constantine era, since until the time of Justinian there was a
considerable number of pagans in Asia Minor, especially among the
rural population. A later version of the legend cites the time of
Emperor Diocletian (AD 284—305) for the origins, and the rule of
Theodosius I (379-95) for the rediscovery of the portrait, but this
also proves nothing, since Diocletian's violent persecution of
Christians had rendered this period particularly suitable for legends.
Had the picture existed before the legend was written? Perhaps, but
probably not for very long. In any case, it did not play then the role it
came to play in the last quarter of the sixth century. The fame of the
portrait increased when its first copy — produced directly on
Hypatia's mantle — was transferred to Caesarea, the capital of
Cappadocia, and when subsequently a second copy was added to the
first. It was obtained through the devotion of a Christian woman
from Diobulion (in the Amaseia diocese of Pontus) who had a
church built m honor of the holy icon. In 554 Diobulion was raided
by barbaric hordes but, although the church was razed to the ground,
the picture survived. Eager to rebuild the sanctuary, the local
population was supported by the emperor, and in connection with
this, one of the imperial officials had a clever idea - to make the icon
earn its own income. In the years 554-60 Christ's portrait was
paraded in procession through the whole area, raising the hopes of
the Savior's imminent advent in the Christian community. Inter¬
estingly enough, the author of the story refers only to the copy from
Diobulion as acheiropoietos, an indication, perhaps, that this was
still a new term at the time of his writing. But the use of
acheiropoietos in respect to the copy might have also meant that the
original was considered an image that fell from the sky, while "not
made by hands" seemed a term appropriate for an icon miraculously
reproduced on earth.
In 574 the original Christ portrait from Camuliana was transferred
to the imperial collection of relics at Constantinople simultaneously
with parts of the Holy Cross from Apameia m Syria.In the capital
the Lord's likeness impregnated new fabric and gave birth to another

31
 From Word to Image - History

copy. In the days of the Emperor Tiberius II (578-82) Mary, a sick

widow, who hoped to be cured by means of the Holy Face, asked
that the "true" image be lent to her for forty days. Because of Mary's
patrician origin and piety, her wish was granted. When she obtained
the canvas, she covered it with a cotton sheet of identical size and
put it into a drawer in her house-chapel. Soon after, her condition
deteriorated, and since she could not get up any more, she asked her
maid to bring her the drawer. The servant, however, was prevented
from fulfilling her mistress's wish by flames burning at the very spot
where the icon was kept. The miraculous event attracted a crowd,
which included a priest, and everyone saw the fire. When it
subsided, the holy picture appeared untouched by it, and in addition
an exact copy of the original was visible on the cover sheet; Mary
touched it, and was immediately healed. Before her death the widow
presented her own copy to a nunnery in Melitene in East Cappadocia.
During the Persian wars under the Emperor Heraclius (610-41) the
nuns fled to Constantinople, taking the icon with them. In the
capital they were received by the Patriarch Sergius, who confiscated
their treasure; but as misfortune befell him and heavenly visions
admonished him to return the relic, he restored the icon to the nuns,
who then kept it in their convent in the capital.
In the first half of the seventh century Constantinople thus
possessed two Cappadocian Christ acheiropoietoi, one in the
imperial collection of relics, the other in a nunnery. But by the time
the Melitene icon arrived in the capital, the Camuliana picture had
become the main palladium of the Byzantine empire, and during the
Persian wars was often carried by the army. The field marshal,
Philippicus, fighting under the Emperor Maurice (582—602), displayed
Christ's Camuliana acheiropoietos before his troops to raise the
spirits of the soldiers. Also under the Emperor Heraclius Jesus' holy
portrait assisted the army. This central position of the palladium
might have been the reason for interpreting the Melitene portrait
not as just another original impression, but as a copy of the
Camuliana acheiropoietos
As they were paraded in processions through the countryside,
displayed in church at religious festivals, shown to the army before
battles, brought out for purposes of healing and salvation, the
acheiropoietoi and their copies replaced Jesus and reproduced his
miracles. The "true" images, their number steadily increasing
because of easy reproduction (multiplication through mere touching),
represented a new type of portraiture. They were "xerox" copies of

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 Depictions of Christ - Early Christianity

God fixed by his divinity — not human action. From this time on we
need, however, to distinguish between the "proper" acheiropoietoi
and their artistic reproductions. The first were supposed to be truly
mimetic and were therefore executed in approximately the same
size and medium as the original; the second were more or less exact
renditions of the acheiropoietoi in drawing, painting, mosaic, relief,
sculpture, weaving, embroidery, etc., which had either the form of
separate pictures or were included in pictorial programs. Whenever
an artistic reproduction constituted an autonomous image, the
borderlines between an acheiropoietos and its depiction were easily
blurred and the artefact ended up being worshipped as if it were "not
made by hand," especially when the depiction found itself in a place
far removed from the original location. Clearly, everyone longed to
have the real thing, and thus acheiropoietoi were manufactured by
clever craftsmen and traded around by shrewd businessmen, as are
today's "original prints" - "miraculously" printed by a deceased
Chagall or Dali in a Soho loft.

(iii) From Presence to Passion

Early Christianity looked for victory on earth and sub specie

aeternitatis, and thus for images of Christ's presence, power, and
triumph, and it backed away from visions of Jesus' suffering and
death. Although Jesus' shroud, provided by Joseph of Arimathea,
assumed a significant position in the Bible, the so-called sindones
(burial sheets) with the impressions of Christ's entire body appeared
later (towards the end of the seventh century) than the "true"
portraits of the living God.^*^ The worship of Christ's shrouds and
the idea that his images were made by blood, not water or sweat,
was related to a shift in the perception of the Lord reflected in
Christian art. The bucolic imagery of a youthful shepherd, famous
doctor, and brilliant teacher was increasingly abandoned in favor of
Christ as a bearded and serious ruler, a Last Judge and Pantocrator -
and the theme of suffering began to move closer to center stage. Of
course, the essential deed of Jesus' life was his death. Since the
crucifixion established Christ as the divine head of a new religion,
the authors of the New Testament never forgot about death
hovering above his head. The evangelists condense Jesus' biography
to less than a hundred days, "but for the last two or three days of his

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 From Word to Image - History

life, they provide a detailed, almost hour-by-hour scenario. And the

climax of that scenario is the account of Good Friday and of his
three hours on the cross."
In early Christianity the cross functions as a symbol of triumph
and a talisman. The way to the faith leads through the cross. Thus
the life of the militaristically gifted Constantine who defeats
Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, converts to
Christianity, issues the Tolerance Edict of Milan in 313 and makes
Christianity into a state religion, a vita which is not a via crucis, is
intimately tied to the cross (the discovery of the vera crux is
attributed to his mother). The Church Fathers interpret the cross as
a sign of salvation and a medium for immortality that wards off evil
and defeats death. Ephraim points out that fesus "is the Son of the
carpenter. Who skillfully made His cross a bridge over Sheol that
swallows up all, and brought over mankind into the dwelling of life"
{Homily 1.4). And he contrasts the cross of life with the tree of
death: "To the first Tree that which killed, / to it grace brought forth
a son, / O Cross offspring of the Tree, / that didst fight against thy
sire! / The Tree was the fount of death; / the Cross was the fount of
life" {Nisibene Hymn, 14. 8).
In early Christian art the cross, a symbol, attribute, and emblem
of Christ, tends to be omnipresent. Many compositions are inspired
or dominated by the shape of the cross, the coherence of others is
provided by the repetition of the cross sign. Christ is equipped with
a cross-staff, angels carry crosses, and in the good shepherd scenes
the cross provides the beholder with a sense of premonition. A golden
cross-staff introduces a mood of melancholy into the otherwise
idyllic mosaic lunette in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (d. 450) at
Ravenna, where Jesus, a handsome young shepherd with a pensive
look, holds the cross with his left hand, while caressing the soft
muzzle of a white sheep with his right hand. In the niid-sixth-
century mosaic m the apse of Sant'Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna,
crucifixion is blended with transfiguration. The picture is dominated
by a luminous, jewelled cross emerging from a cloudy sky spread
above a blooming earth. The cross is enclosed in a star-studded blue
circle and carries Christ's small bust, which resembles a medallion
worn around the neck. The Savior's head, a tiny circle, marks the
center of the universe and brings to mind the archaic Chinese
pictograph of the sun, a circle with a dot in the middle, and the
identical Egyptian hieroglyph. In the cosmic solar landscape

34
 Depictions of Christ - Early Christianity

surrounding the Savior matter appears as islands of white - clouds,

sheep, and the white tunic of St Apollinaris.
The cross is everywhere, but the first crucifixion scene comes
relatively late. It dates from about 420-30 and is to be found on a
Roman ivory plaque.*^ The composition juxtaposes Jesus' cmcifixion
^ith the suicide of Judas, the Savior with the Traitor, and the cross,
the new tree of salvation, with the tree of evil from whose branch
Jesus ex-pupil hangs. Christ's straight body and arms form a right
angle, his loincloth has the shape of a cross, and his entire figure,
shown in perfect frontality and symmetry, follows the shape of the
cross. This calm and emblematic homo-crux is contrasted with the
tormented silhouette of Judas, whose face, turned towards Jesus, is
depicted in profile, and with the aggressivity of Longinus, whose
raised arm holds the lance piercing the Lord's side.^° The set of
oppositions infuses drama into the relief. Agony, however, is absent
from the figure of Christ. A victor over sin and death, he is shown
with his eyes wide open (Judas's eyes are closed) - a tranquil,
immortal ruler whom Mary and John quietly adore rather thari
mourn.
Crucifixion was not a frequent motif in early Byzantine art, but it
seems that the monastic painters of the East were the first to
transform Christ from a victorious solar youth into a suffering man.
A miniature in the late sixth-century Syriac Rabbula Gospels shows
a worn-out bearded Christ hanging on the cross in his seamless
tunic, whose body and dress are being pierced with the Roman
soldier's lance.This transformation might have been influenced
by the ascetic aspect of oriental monasticism, and by the artists'
reaction to Monophysitism, which interpreted Christ's nature as
purely divine and thus not subject to pain.^^ Syria was the homeland
of men who aspired to resemble living crosses even before the
arrival of Christianity. Long before Simeon the Stylite (who took up
residence atop a column in 423), a pagan ascetic in Hierapolis
mounted a column twice a year to meditate m perfect peace (Lucian,
De dea Syria, 28-9).
In the Utrecht Psalter (ca.830) Christ is shown on the cross for the
first time with his eyes closed.The oldest type, the Christus
triumphans with open eyes, feet and hands fitting the shape of the
cross, and a regal crown was not abandoned, but it was superseded
by the suffering types, the Christus patiens with his head bent and
eyes closed and the Christus dolorosus, dying or dead, his face, body.

35
 From Word to Image - History

and loincloth covered with blood and distorted by agony, and with a
crown of thorns on his head.^"^ These types influenced the medieval
Veronica veils. From the thirteenth century onwards the Holy Face
was shown either alive (serene or suffering) or dead (calm or
disfigured by torture), with or without the crown of thorns and drops
or traces of blood.

36
Byzantium
 3

Icon Addicts — Icon Foes

(i) King Abgar and Edessa

In Eusebius's Church History King Abgar, a successful monarch

dying from an incurable disease, hears about Jesus Christ who,
because of his miracles, "became in every land the subject of excited
talk and attracted a vast number of people in foreign lands very
remote from Judaea" (1. 13:1). Hoping for relief, Abgar sends a
messenger to Jesus with a letter in which he writes: "I. . . beg you to
come to me, whatever the inconvenience, and cure the disorder
from which I suffer. I may add that I understand the Jews are treating
you with contempt and desire to injure you: my city is very small,
hut highly esteemed, adequate for both of us" (1. 13:7—9). Jesus
replies, promising Abgar to have one of his disciples come to Edessa
and cure the king. This promise is fulfilled, when after Christ's
resurrection and ascent into heaven the Apostle Thomas (or "Judas,
also known as Thomas," 1. 13:11), sends Thaddaeus, one of Christ's
seventy disciples, to Edessa.'
In Jesus' reply the first two sentences are particularly significant.
Before starting the letter proper, Jesus stresses the importance of
faith that can do without appearances. The first sentence, "Happy
are you who believed in me without having seen me!" (1. 13:11),
alludes to Thomas (or Thomas Judas, the Twin Judas), who lacks
such faith. Eight days after the resurrection Christ visits his pupils,
has Thomas put his finger in the wound in his side, and scorns the

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 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes

incredulous apostle; "Have you believed because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe" (Jn. 20:29). The
second sentence, "For it is written of me that those who have seen
me will not believe in me, and that those who have not seen will
believe and live" (1. 13:11), reinforces the point by referring to the
Old Testament, where God says to Isaiah; "If you will not believe,
surely you shall not be established" (Is. 7:9). Thus Jesus first praises
Abgar for relying solely on words and only then explains that he is
busy completing his mission on earth and therefore cannot come.
In the Church History Jesus' short letter is followed by a
subjoined Syriac document describing the apostle's arrival at
Abgar's palace, a remarkable scene which introduces an image: "At
the moment of his entry a wonderful vision appeared to Abgar on
the face of Thaddaeus. On seeing it Abgar bowed low before the
apostle, and astonishment seized all the bystanders,- for they had not
seen the vision, which appeared to Abgar alone" (1. 13:14-15). Then
Thaddaeus lays his hands on the king and cures him instantly. This
is the beginning of Edessa's evangelization: "So Abgar instructed
his citizens to assemble at daybreak and hear the preaching of
Thaddaeus . . . All this happened in the year 340" (1. 13:21-2) of the
Seleucid era, ca.AD 30, the probable year of the Ascension.
Abgar's illness is not specified, but his surname "Uchama" (black)
suggests that he might have been suffering from leprosy or, more
precisely, from either the "black" or, on the contrary, the "white
leprosy" - in accordance with the per antiphrasin tendency of all
mythology to treat opposites as synonyms. In later versions of the
legend leprosy is often ascribed to the king. But so is gout, an illness
probably suggested by Eusebius, who mentions not only the curing
of Abgar, but also of a certain "Abdus son of Abdus, who had gout"
(1. 13:18).
Eusebius finished his Church History ca.325. The exact date of
the Doctrine of Addai (Addai=Addaeus=Thaddaeus), a much longer
and more detailed account of the Abgar-Jesus correspondence, is
still not established. In 1848 the first, incomplete version of the text
was discovered by W. Cureton in two British Museum manuscripts,
dating probably from the fifth and sixth centuries, and published in
Ancient Syriac Documents under the title The Doctrine of Addaeus,
the Apostled Cureton believed that he had found

a considerable portion of the original Aramaic document, which

Eusebius cites as preserved in the archives of Edessa, and various

39
 From Word to Image - History

passages from it, quoted by several authors . . , which seem to be

sufficient to establish the fact of the early conversion of many of the
inhabitants of that city, and among them, of the king himself,
although his successors afterwards relapsed into Paganism.^

Cureton's fragment confirms the existence of an Abgar—Jesus

correspondence, but it does not narrate the story of the initial
contacts between the two men, since it begins after Addaeus's
arrival in Edessa and deals mostly with his apostolic activity.
George Phillips, the President of Queen's College in Cambridge, was
luckier than the curator of the British Museum. Browsing through
the manuscripts of the Imperial Public Library of St Petersburg, he
came across the entire Syriac text of the Doctrine, more than the
double of what had been published by Cureton. His Doctrine of
Addai, The Apostle (1876) contains the narrative of the Jesus
portrait executed by Hannan, the king's archivist and painter, and
the story of the invention of the "true" cross by Protonice
(Petronice). Phillips recognized the invention legend as a later
interpolation, but otherwise assumed that his find was the text
Eusebius had "before him, when he wrote the thirteenth chapter of
the first book of his Ecclesiastical History."'^
Phillips's belief was not shared by others. The German scholar
Richard Adelbert Lipsius undertook a critical analysis of the
Doctrine of Addai, and other existing texts mentioning the Abgar-
Jesus relationship, in his Edessenische Abgar-Sage (1880) and
arrived at the conclusion that Eusebius's account preceded Phillips's
version, which he dated to the middle of the fourth century.^ While
Phillips maintained that the Protonice interpolation, almost identical
with the story of the cross invention by Helena, the mother of the
Emperor Constantine, was the legend's original version, Lipsius
claimed the opposite.^ In his "Origins of the Edessene Church and
the Abgar Legend" (1888), the French theologian L.-J. Tixeront tried
his best to date the story of Edessa's Christianization as far back as
possible insisting that the Doctrine of Addai was the "lightly
retouched and interpolated" text seen by Eusebius.^ But he admitted
that both the story of Christ's portrait and that of Petronice had to
be regarded as additions from "the year 380 or even 390."^ Dobschiitz
assumed that the Doctrine of Addai was written ca.400, a prevailing
view in the twentieth century, although Steven Runciman, for
instance, disagreed with it m his "Some Remarks on the Image of
Edessa" (1931). Placing the text "somewhere in the middle of the

40
 Icon Addicts — Icon Foes

fourth century," he considered it as "definitely . . . post-Nicene in

its theology, that is to say, to have been written after 325, though on
the other hand it clearly antedates the religious problems of the fifth
century."^
In the Doctrine of Addai - whose author identifies himself at the
end as Labubna, the king's scribe - the story begins three years later
than in Eusebius's Church HistoryAbgar, the son of King Ma'nu,
a contemporary of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, sends on October 12,
343 of the Seleucid era (AD 33) two of his courtiers and Elannan, his
"tabularius" and "sharrir," with important state papers to the
Roman procurator Sabinus, the governor of Syria, Phoenicia, and
Palestine, residing in Eleutheropolis. On their way back the
travellers encounter a great crowd of people who, attracted by the
news of Jesus' miracles, head for Jerusalem. The three join them and
visit Jerusalem for ten days. During that time Hannan "the keeper of
the archives," writes down "everything which he saw that Christ
did" {Doctrine of Addai, p. 3) and upon his return to Edessa gives his
notes to Abgar. They arouse the king's interest and make him think
of a journey to Jerusalem. But he is too afraid of getting into a
conflict with the Romans, and instead writes a letter to Jesus and
gives it to Hannan. The secretary leaves Edessa on March 14 and
arrives in Jerusalem on April 12. He finds Christ in his house at
Gamaliel and hands him the letter. It starts with the words: "Abgar
Ukkama [the Black], to Jesus, the Good Physician, who has appeared
in the country of Jerusalem. My Lord: Peace. I have heard of Thee
and Thy healing, that it is not by medicines and roots Thou
healest, but by Thy word Thou openest the eyes of the blind." The
king warns Jesus "that the Jews murmur against Thee and persecute
Thee, and even seek to crucify Thee" {Doctrine of Addai, p. 4) and
invites him to Edessa.
Jesus receives the letter and delivers to Hannan a verbal message.
Its content mostly coincides with the text reported by Eusebius and
the "subjoined" Syriac document. Christ explains that

that for which I was sent here is now finished, and I am going up to my
Father, who sent me, and when I have gone up to Him, I will send to
thee one of my disciples, who will cure the disease . . . and restore thee
to health; and all who are with thee he will convert to everlasting life.
Thy city shall be blessed, and no enemy shall again become master of
it for ever.

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 From Word to Image - History

While Jesus speaks, Hannan paints his portrait. Then the archivist-
artist returns to Edessa, relates to the king everything he has heard
from Jesus, and gives him the portrait which Ahgar receives "with
great joy, and placed . . . with great honour in one of his palatial
houses" {Doctrine of Addai, p. 5).
The image episode illustrates the transition from the linguistic to
the iconic tradition. Eusebius's account is focused on Jesus' letter -
God's written word. The Doctrine of Addai, on the other hand,
introduces God's picture and diminishes the significance of divine
communication by changing script into a spoken message. The
acceptance of Ghrist's image requires the rejection of pagan
representation. This point is made in the following story of
Protonice, who sets out for Jerusalem after she has "denied the
paganism of her fathers . . . and the idolatrous images which she had
worshipped" {Doctrine of Addai, p. 11), and in several other
passages. The text also establishes a connection between depiction
and incarnation. Addai, "the disciple of Jesus Christ . . . who came
down from heaven, and was clothed with a body and became man"
{Doctrine of Addai, p. 18), explains the nature of his teacher;

For the will which inclined Him to the birth from a virgin, also made
Him condescend to the suffering of death, and He humbled the
majesty of His exalted divinity, who was with His Father from
eternity. He of whom Prophets of old spake in their mysteries; and
they represented images of His birth, and His suffering, and His
resurrection, and His ascension to His Father . . . His body is the pure
vestment of His glorious divinity, by which we are able to see His
invisible Lordship.
{Doctrine of Addai, p. 19)

Jesus has to be recognized as the new "head" of the world and thus
the subsequent disruption of Christianity is related to this part of
the body: Aggai, the successor of Addai, and the maker of chains and
silks at the King's court, refuses to produce a headband for Abgar's
son, who has converted hack to paganism, and is killed. Rebuking
both the Jews, who insist on an invisible God, and the pagans, who
pray to other "heads," the Syriac legend prepares the ground for the
transformation of Jesus' portrait into a miraculous acheiropoietos
by stressing that God's likeness is "not made by hands." Addai tells
the Edessene crowd that the reason for his inability to cure some
people with Christ's word is their cult of "the work of their hands;"
and he admonishes them to "flee . . . from things made and created

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 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes

. . . that in name only are . . . called gods . . . and draw near to Him,
who in His nature is God . . . and is not made as your idols, and also
not a creature, and a work of art" {Doctrine of Addai, pp. 26-7).
The subsequent history of Christ's portrait has to be seen in the
context of Christianity gaining a foothold in Edessa, and of pro- and
anti-iconic movements in the Eastern Church. An important center
of early Christianity, Edessa (today Urfa, Turkey) is the Greek name
of Urhai ("Western" in Aramaic), an ancient city in Northwestern
Mesopotamia, some 70 miles east of the Euphrates, which played
already some role in the early Babylonian-Assyrian times, when it
was populated by Hittites and Semites. In the later Assyrian age the
population was mostly Aramaic-speaking and there is some evidence
that Jews settled in the vicinity of Urhai towards the end of the
seventh century BC. The town was renovated and called "Edessa" in
304 BC by Seleucus I Nicator. In 132 BC Edessa became the capital
of the Osroene state and the seat of a local dynasty of kings, most of
whom bore the name Abgar.‘^ Theirs was a delicate position
between two contending empires, Parthian and Roman. For a time
Parthian predominance yielded to Armenian, and at the time of the
expeditions of Lucullus, Pompey, and Crassus, Edessa was an ally of
Rome. In AD 114 King Abgar VII entertained Trajan, but in 116 the
city rose against Rome and was sacked by the imperial army.
Hadrian restored Edessa as a dependency of Rome, but when under
Marcus Aurelius Mesopotamia was recovered from Parthia, Harran
and not Edessa was chosen as the capital of the Roman colony.
A city on the crossroads, Edessa shared in the Hellenistic culture
of Syria but was influenced by the West and the Near and Far East -
Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, India and, China. It had
a mixed population of Jews, Arabs, Syrians, and Greeks, and
a multireligious identity. The common language was Aramaic.
A Roman garrison was stationed in the city, and synagogues
coexisted with sanctuaries of various astral divinities, the sun-god
Shamash, the twins Nergal and Sin, represented perhaps by a pair of
pillars and connected with the Greek Dioscuri, Aziz and Monim,
probably identical with the Phosphorus (morning star) and Hesperus
(evening star), and Bel (Jupiter) and Nebo (Mercury), the favourite
gods of Abgar the Black, against whom Addai preaches: "For I saw in
this city that it abounded greatly in paganism, which is against God.
Who is this Nebo, an idol made which ye worship, and Bel, which ye
honour? . . . Bath Nical . . . also the sun and the moon ... Be ye not
led away captive by the rays of the luminaries and the bright star"

43
 From Word to Image - History

{Doctrine of Addai, pp. 23-5).^^ Astarte-Venus was worshipped in

Edessa under the name of Atargatis, and fish, perhaps sacred to her,
were kept in the pools of the citadel. Christianity reached Osroene
in the course of the second century. Parts of the New Testament
were then translated into Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic which was
spoken in the area. At the onset of the third century AD King Abgar
IX bar Ma'nu (179-214) was converted to the new faith and soon the
country followed in his footsteps. The early Syriac-speaking Church
used not the gospels, but Tatian's Diatessaron, "a harmony of our
Four Gospels, made into one narrative by combining, rather than by
selecting, the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."^^ Only at
the beginning of the fifth century, under the episcopate of Rabbula,
bishop of Edessa from 411 to 435, the Peshitta, a Syriac version of
the canonical Scriptures of the New Testament, began to replace the
Diatessaron.
The Christian culture of Edessa and, more generally, of Syria and
Cappadocia was shaped by the clash of two major traditions: the
non-iconic attitude of the Semitic population, which was prone to
succumb to the Monophysite heresy questioning the dogma of
Christ's dual existence as God and Man and thus hostile to
representation, and that of the Greeks, devoted to depiction and
hence supporting the orthodox line.^'^ Consequently some of the
first religious disputes between the old Judaic way of the Word and
the new Christian way of the Incarnate Word — Image — were carried
out in and around Edessa, with Jewish, Arab, and Syrian circles
mostly dismissing representation, and the Greek community strongly
supporting it.
The controversy was reflected in the legends of Jesus' letter and
portrait. They dated the origins of Christianity - in a way typical for
all mythology — to the times when Jesus was still alive, so that by
the fourth century it was generally believed that the Edessene
church had started in his lifetime, when Osroene was ruled by King
Abgar V the Black (AD 13—50).*'’ The existence of a letter of Jesus —
whatever this piece of writing might have been - was documented
from the end of the fourth century. The pedantic pilgrim Egeria,
who visited the region between 381 and 384 and met with the
bishop of Edessa, reports that he led her to the gate through which
Abgar's messenger had arrived from Jerusalem and read her "the
actual letters" (she has nothing to say about Christ's portrait).**’ The
Edessenes considered Jesus' letter as the city's main prophylactic,
and although a Roman synod of 494-5 declared it a fake, the letter

44
 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes

continued to be accepted as authentic for much longer in the

Eastern Churchd^
Edessa was spared assault for a long time and this good fortune
was attributed to the presence of Christ's letter. But in the first half
of the sixth century conflicts flared up between the Romans and the
Persians, during which King Chosroes I of Persia advanced into
Mesopotamia and attacked Edessa. In 540 he twice laid siege to the
city, and had twice to withdraw, once because of a rheumatic pain in
his face, another time because of a bad omen. However, in 544 he
returned and this time the situation grew critical. This was not any
more, as Procopius puts it, a campaign against the Roman empire,
but "against the God whom the Christians reverence" and his
promise to protect Edessa through the magic power of his letter
inscribed above the city's gate.**^ To overtop the high, strong walls
and penetrate the town from above, the Persians started to build a
huge tower. But before it was finished, the defenders burrowed
underneath it, made a chamber, filled it with inflammable material,
and set it on fire. The elaborate Persian construction began to burn
from below and, as it was consumed, Chosroes withdrew.
Some forty years later Evagrius (ca.536-600), a church historian
and bishop of Edessa, repeated Procopius's account to the point of
the underground chamber set on fire, and then gave it an unexpected
turn. The fire, he says, did not catch and, in "utter perplexity", the
Romans brought out

the divinely wrought image, which the hands of men did not form, but
Christ our God sent to Abgarus on his desiring to see Him.
Accordingly, having introduced this holy image into the mine, and
washed it over with water, they sprinkled some upon the timber; and
the Divine power forthwith being present to the faith of those who
had so done, the result was accomplished which had previously been
impossible: for the timber immediately caught the flame, and being in
an instant reduced to cinders, communicated with that above, and the
fire spread in all directions . . . On the third day the flames were seen
issuing from the earth, and then the Persians on the mound became
aware of their unfortunate situation . . . [and] endeavoured to
extinguish the pile, by turning all the water-courses , . . The fire,
however, receiving the water as if it had been oil or sulphur . . .
continually increased, until it had completely levelled the entire
mound and reduced the aggestus to ashes.
{Church History, 4. 27)

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 From Word to Image - History

Evagrius's report implies that Edessa possessed Jesus' "true"

image. If so, why was it not mentioned by Procopius? Since
Procopius was based in Constantinople and close to imperial circles,
he might have been reluctant to present the victory of the Roman
army as due to a miracle rather than military strength. But
Dobschiitz suggests that Evagrius deliberately introduced Christ's
acheiropoietos — the first time the term was used in respect to the
Edessene image — as an argument against anti-iconic sentiments.
Profiting from the tradition established by the Doctrine of Addai,
the clever bishop might have wanted to create the impression that
the picture had been in the city ever since it had been brought back
from Jerusalem.
Why do we assume that Evagrius falsified history? At the time of
the Persian attack Jacob bar Addai (or Baradaeus, 541—78) acted as
the bishop of Edessa.The Syrian theologian was known as an
aggressive organizer of the Monophysite Church. Its doctrine
disputed the duality that had arisen from Jesus' incarnation and thus
found itself counter to the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon
(451) - which declared that Christ was endowed with two natures,
each perfect and distinct from the other, and was at once God and
Man - and counter to the ecclesiastical center in Constantinople.^^
In this situation the local Greek community may have deeided to
circulate rumors of the actual presence of Abgar's picture, and
Evagrius, famous for his scholarship and orthodoxy, may have
wanted to lend his pen to the pro-iconic cause and introduced en
passant, the best way to suggest that something has been around
for ever, an image which before had existed only in legend. His
account makes clear that the army badly needed a powerful
talisman in order to defend Edessa against external enemies. It is
therefore not unlikely that Ghrist's miraculous portrait was created
with an eye to military circles. But the imperial army and Greeks
close to Constantinople needed Christ's acheiropoietos also as an
amulet against an internal enemy.
In the seventh century the image of Edessa assumed a historical
presence. Jesus' gift to Abgar did not remain in the niche over the
city gate, but was moved to St Sophia, the main church of the Greek
community, where it was kept in a golden shrine. On major Church
festivals the cloth was exhibited and seemed to have been the cause
of much visual excitement, although it is hard to distinguish what
people saw on it from what they projected onto it. Obviously the
worshippers animated the likeness on the cloth with their own

46
 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes

fantasies, so that the portrait appeared alive and in constant

metamorphosis. Thus on Easter Sunday some pilgrims witnessed
how the face of Christ changed its age: at six in the morning he
looked like a child, at nine he resembled a boy, at twelve a youth,
and at three he was an adult ready to take up the cross for
humanity's salvation.The icon soon began to overshadow the
letter, so that in subsequent centuries Edessa, once famous for being
under the protection of Jesus' Word, came to be mostly associated
with his Image.
Before the end of the sixth century acheiropoietoi had a solid
presence in the camps and cities of the Eastern empire. "Of these
pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts of a human pencil,
could only pretend to a secondary likeness and improper title; but
there were some of higher descent, who derived their resemblance
from an immediate contact with the original . . . The most
ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation with the image
of Edessa. Abgar's icon was commemorated in new legends. We
hear that the daughter of King Chosroes, the very same whose army
had been defeated at Edessa with the help of Christ's "true" portrait,
was possessed by a demon. Eler father tried to get hold of the
Edessene image but was tricked by the local population: they made
an exact copy and sent it to him instead of the original. Nevertheless,
as soon as the replica reached Persian soil, the demon felt it and,
terrified by its holy power, abandoned the girl's body. Another
duplicate was worshipped by the Persian King Khavad I, the
husband of Chosroes's mother, in gratitude for a victory that had
been foretold to him by Christ.It seems that at the end of the
seventh or the beginning of the eighth century the Edessene
Monophysites, competing with the Greeks, acquired their own
"true" image of Christ, a surprising event if one considers their
dislike of representation.^^

(ii) Icon Cult

In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries the worship of Christ

portraits, encouraged by the emperors, came to resemble the cult of
the imperial images, an old tradition that had hardly been disrupted
by the triumph of Christianity. The Emperor Constantine (b. 288?-
337) liked to combine the visible cult of himself and his family with
the cult of Christian signs and apparitions, to present himself as a

47
 From Word to Image - History

providential man singled out by heaven, and to promote Christ at

the same time as himself. This is reflected in the spectacular legend
of the emperor's conversion, reported by Eusebius who professes to
have heard it from Constantine himself. The monarch

said that about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline,
he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens,
above the sun, and bearing the inscription. Conquer By This. At this
sight he himself was struck with amazement, and his whole army
also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed the
miracle . . . And while he continued to ponder and reason on its
meaning, night suddenly came on; then in his sleep the Christ of God
appeared to him with the same sign which he had seen in the heavens,
and commanded him to make a likeness of that sign which he had
seen in the heavens, and to use it as a safeguard in all engagements
with his enemies.
(Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 1. 28-9p^

On the following day Constantine had his vision made into a

luminous image and a talismanic weapon of the victorious God and
the triumphant emperor:

A long spear, overlaid with gold, formed the figure of the cross by
means of a transverse bar laid over it. On the top of the whole was
fixed a wreath of gold and precious stones; and within this, the
symbol of the Saviour's name, two letters indicating the name of
Christ by means of its initial characters, the letter P being intersected
by X in its centre; and these letters the emperor was in the habit of
wearing on his helmet at a later period.
(1.31)

The solar shine of the cross was complemented by the symbolism of

cloth, evocative of Jesus' humanity - something the imperial family
could share with the incarnate God:

From the cross-bar of the spear was suspended a cloth, a royal piece,
covered with profuse embroidery of most brilliant precious stones;
and which, being also richly interlaced with gold, presented an
indescribable degree of beauty to the beholder. This banner was of a
square form, and the upright staff. . . bore a golden half-length portrait
of the pious emperor and his children on its upper part, beneath the
trophy of the cross.
(1.31)

48
 Icon Addicts — Icon Foes

This clever ieon of Christ-cum-Constantine was used by the

emperor as a safeguard against adversary forces. The cross was
carried at the head of the imperial armies and was impressed on the
shields of the soldiers. The same sort of political magic was applied
hy Constantine in the choice of site and name for his capital. He
ealled the city after himself, but claimed that the site for the future
Constantinople had been revealed to him in a dream. He dedicated
the city to the Holy Virgin, but had his own likeness earried in
procession on the anniversary of his new capital's inauguration on
May 11, 330. Constantine never tired of demonstrating his unique
divine connection, insisting that God, "the Supreme Governor of
the whole universe, hy his own will appointed Gonstantine ... so
that, while others have been raised to this distinction by the
eleetion of their fellow-men, he is the only one to whose elevation
no mortal may boast of having contributed" (1. 24). Hungry for
divinity as much as his pagan predecessors, Constantine had
himself shown on coins in the act of ascending to heaven.
What the early Christian theologians feared and preached against
- the confusion of Christ's portraits with pictures of the pagan gods,
heroes and rulers - took a new turn as Constantine decided to
suspend a cloth with his own image on the cross. The ambition of
the Christian sovereign and his family threatened to uproot the
privileged position of Jesus, and soon of Mary too. This tendency
toward divinization continued through the fifth and sixth centuries
with emperors eager to bring themselves close to God. Around 473
the Emperor Leo I had himself, his wife, daughter, and grandson
painted around the throne of the Virgin.Half a eentury later
Justinian I and his wife Theodora were shown in two symmetrical
representations on the curtains in the choir of St Sophia: on one
they were blessed by Christ, on the other by the Virgin.New in
terms of Christian iconography, such depictions revived the old
Graeco-Roman tradition of gods mixing with humans, and served
the emperors' personal piety. Portrayed in the company of the holy,
the ruler shared in as well as competed with divinity.
In the sixth century strong pro-iconic appeals were issued by the
capital's bureaucracy. Hypatius of Ephesus, from 531 to 536 the
ehief adviser for ecclesiastical affairs to Justinian I, played a major
role around 531, when the emperor invited Monophysite leaders to
Constantinople to accept the Christological formula of the Council
of Chalcedon, and in 536 at the Council of Constantinople, when
Monophysitism was banished. In his "Mixed Enquiries," answers to

49
 From Word to Image - History

questions asked by Julian, bishop of Atramution in western Asia

Minor, preoccupied with the second commandment, Hypatius took
a commonsense approach. He explained that God opposed idolatry,
but not the usage of images by the uneducated and weak, who had
nothing but their eyes and needed to be "led by the hand."^^
The cult of icons, relics, and miracles revived the ancient
sympathetic magic which had never disappeared, but until the fifth
century led a somewhat subdued existence. Its renewed strength
becomes clear when Eusebius's original report on the Hemorrhissa
is compared with the Latin translation made by Rufinus ca.402—3.
Writing about the Christ-Hemorrhissa monument in Paneas,
Eusebius mentions "an exotic plant, which climbed up to the hem
of the bronze cloak and served as remedy for illnesses of every kind"
{Church History, 7. 18:2). Rufinus emphasizes this point by stating
that the plant derived its healing powers from its contact with the
figure of Jesus.
In the sixth century tales of magic multiplied and branched out.
Around 530 Theodosius, a visitor to the Holy Land, tells us of the
impression of Christ's chest, hands, and face left on the column of
the flagellation in the Sion Church in Jerusalem; 40 years later
Antoninus Martyr, another pilgrim, recalls in addition to Jesus'
chest and hands the imprints of his feet on the floor of the
praetorium where he stood during his interrogation by Pilate.
From these impressions mensurae were taken, an expression whose
meaning is not well understood. They may have been strings, strips
of papyrus or cloth used for measuring Christ's figure, or wax
impressions which then served as talismans and were applied to the
relevant limbs of sick people or worn around the neck;'^^ possibly,
the mensurae or numerical values were transcribed on small tablets
suitable for suspension and used as amulets.The account of the
miracles of St Artemius, composed in the second half of the seventh
century, tells us that body parts were cured by the melted wax from
a seal bearing the saint's portrait; as the patient awoke from his
sleep, he found the seal in his hands or, alternatively, received the
wax drink from the saint.
Gradually the reverence given to the icons of God, the Virgin, the
saints, and the Christian emperors came to resemble ancient idol
worship. Around the beginning of the fifth century the statue of
Christ and the Hemorrhissa at Paneas was transferred from a place
near the public fountain to the diaconal church. The statue of the
Emperor Constantine I in the Forum Constantini was worshipped

50
 Icon Addicts — Icon Foes

with burning candles, incense, and prayers. In the wilderness

hermits began to develop the habit of praying to the icons of Mary
with the child and lighting candles in front of them. While in the
fourth century proskynesis was practiced only before the cross, by
the first half of the sixth century icons of Christ and saints were
worshipped that way too.'^^
The icon worship made it possible for pagans, Jews, and Muslims
to charge Christians with idolatry. Identical accusations were
brought by Christians against pagans and, since the former were in
power, resulted in persecution. Under Justinian pagans were
imprisoned, earried in public procession, and saw their books and
the icons of "their foul Gods" destroyed.'^'’ Jewish criticism was
taken more seriously and provoked the Church Fathers to appeal to
them for understanding. At the beginning of the seventh century
Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus, wrote a remarkable defense
against the Jews, pointing out those passages of the Old Testament
which legalize and even require representation. Indeed, God com¬
mands Moses to "make two cherubim of gold" (Ex. 25:18); and he
has an angelic architect, "with a line of flax and a measuring reed in
his hand" (Ezek. 40:3), show to Ezekiel a heavenly temple, on whose
"walls round about. . . were carved likenesses of cherubim and palm
trees" (Ezek. 41:17-18). On the basis of God's command to Moses,
King Solomon builds the sumptuous temple decorated with carved
and molten images (I Kgs. 6:14-36). Even though Solomon might
have exaggerated in his desire for figurative sculpture, he was not
condemned for this. Therefore, wrote Leontius, "if you wish to
condemn me on account of images, then you must condemn God for
ordering them to be made.""^^
Trying to establish a compromise between Old and New Testa¬
ment, Leontius argued that Christians who worship icons behave
like Jews who do obeisance to the words contained in the Bible, but
not to parchment and ink; he compared the cult of relics to the
sentiments of Jacob who, kissing the bloody coat of Joseph, felt as if
he held his son in his arms; and he concluded with an appeal to
everybody's emotion: "haven't you, when wife or children have
died, taken some garment or ornament of theirs and kissed it and
shed tears over it and were not condemned for doing so? You did not
do obeisance to the garments as to God; through your kisses you did
but show your longing for those who once had worn them."^^ This
sounds not unreasonable. But the common sense that makes us
sympathize with Leontius turns out to be not quite the driving force

51
 From Word to Image - History

behind his thinking. Ultimately, he believes in magie: "often blood

will gush forth from the icons and the relics of the martyrs, and
foolish folk, though they see this, are not persuaded; they treat the
miracles as myths and fables.
In the sixth century the imperial court endorsed the worship of
images in its struggle against the Monophysitism flourishing in the
provinces, and forged links between religious and imperial icons.
But in the eighth century Constantinople became the center of
violent opposition to sacred images, and the emperors found
themselves in conflict with the provinces, where holy objects and
images, collected and administered by the monasteries, had become
the means for gaining economic and political power. Using miracles,
relics, and icons, the monks were able to control the mass of the
faithful and to extract ever new payments. Thus the iconoclastic
decrees of Leo III were immediately understood as attacks on the
role and status of the monasteries."^*
Volumes have been written on iconoclasm. It has been studied
from the point of view of theology and interpreted as the climax of
the old conflict between the Word and the Image, the Old and the
New Testaments. It has been seen as the opening of the cultural gap
that early Christianity attempted to bridge, when it held on to the
non-iconic approach of the Jews, but on the other hand tolerated the
pro-iconic tradition of the Greeks and increasingly encouraged the
production of religious artefacts. Iconoclasm has been analyzed in
terms of the competition between imperial and eeelesiastical power
and, more specifically, in terms of the political and economic
struggle between the central power of the emperor and the
peripheral influence of the monasteries. The rejeetion of icons has
also been regarded as due to Jewish and Muslim influence. The
modern view combines the various approaches, but tends to stress
the political and economic aspects of iconoclasm. Considering the
tendency to place enemies without rather than within, today we
take less seriously the Muslim and Jewish inspirations so often cited
by the defenders of icons. There hardly existed an iconoclastic
conspiracy directed against Christianity. Grabar points out that the
first iconoclastic decrees issued in 726 by the Emperor Leo III were
preceded by the anti-iconic measures taken a few years earlier by
Caliph Yazid 11.But after the caliph's death in 724 his laws were
obliterated, and when two years later iconoclasm flared up again,
this happened not in Damascus but in Constantinople. There was
no simultaneous action because neither of the two rulers wanted to

52
 Icon Addicts — Icon Foes

be accused of following in the footsteps of his opponent. This also

explains why the caliphs, while fighting idolatry in their own
religion, closed an eye when it came to representation flourishing in
the large Christian community of their empire. The iconoclastic
excesses of Constantinople gave them an opportunity to appear
tolerant. Still, there is a certain irony in the fact that John of
Damascus, the theoretician and leader of the iconodule party, was a
resident of the Muslim state.

(iii) John of Damascus

John Damascene (d. before 754), one of the most eloquent theologians
of his time, was actively involved in the struggle against the
iconoclasts. In his last years he travelled through Syria preaching
against them, and he risked his life going to Constantinople. Around
730, while living at the monastery of St Sabbas in Palestine which
was then ruled by tbe caliph, John wrote several treatises in defence
of images.The astuteness of these remarkable texts was sharpened
by the extent of the destruction going on in Byzantium under the
iconoclastic Emperor Leo III. Regarding the veneration of icons as an
inevitable consequence of the incarnation, John treated the Edessene
mandylion as a central symbol of Christ's humanity and an
essential proof of God's endorsement of icons.
Material representation followed from Jesus' presence on earth.
Since Christ's divinity was clothed in flesh, the invisible was made
visible. It was "impossible to make an image of the immeasurable,
uncircumscribed, invisible God" {Oratio 1.7) of the Old Testament.
But Christ has "become visible for our sakes by partaking of flesh
and blood" (1.4), so that

you may draw His image and show it to anyone willing to gaze upon
it. Depict His wonderful condescension. His birth from the Virgin,
His baptism in the Jordan, His transfiguration on Tabor, His sufferings
which have freed us from passion. His death. His miracles which are
signs of His divine nature . . . Show His saving cross, the tomb, the
resurrection, the ascension into the heavens. Use every kind of
drawing, word, or color. gj

But what about the second commandment? Here John's strategy

was attack. He argued that in the Old Testament representation was

53
 From Word to Image - History

forbidden because of the Jewish proneness to idolatry and that to

Christians, more mature than their unsteady predecessors, the
commandment was just given "to avoid superstitious error" and not
to prevent depiction. We are "no longer children, tossed to and fro
and carried about with every wind of doctrine ... no longer under
custodians, but we have received from God the ability to discern
what may be represented and what is uncircumscript" (1.8). John's
ostentatiously dualistic interpretation of the two Gods and two
Scriptures was indebted to Platonic and Neoplatonic thought. The
language and imagery of the Hellenized Syrian theologian replayed
the concepts and metaphors of divinity which becomes accessible to
humans through imperfect shadows and reflections and uses images
to show them past, present, and future:

Since the creation of the world the invisible things of God are clearly
seen by means of images. We see images in the creation which,
although they are only dim lights, still remind us of God. For instance,
when we speak of the holy and eternal Trinity, we use the images of
the sun, light, and burning rays; or a running fountain; or an
overflowing river; or the mind, speech, and spirit within us; or a rose
tree, a flower, and a sweet fragrance. Again, an image foreshadows
something that is yet to happen, something hidden m riddles and
shadows. For instance, the ark of the covenant is the image of the
Holy Virgin and Theotokos, as are the rod of Aaron and the jar of
manna. The brazen serpent typifies the cross and Him who healed the
evil bite of the serpent by hanging on it. Baptismal grace is signified by
the cloud and waters of the sea. Again, things which have already
taken place are remembered by means of images.
(1.11-13)

Seeing nature and culture, language and representation as phe¬

nomenal, John spoke about everything, including words written in
books, in terms of images, but rejected even the slightest hint of the
Manichean type of duality which distinguishes between spirit as the
positive and matter as the negative principle. For him both spirit
and matter represented divinity - the first the invisible Father, the
second the incarnate Son:

In former times God, who is without form or body, could never be

depicted. But now when God is seen in the flesh conversing with men,
I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter;
I worship the Greator of matter who became matter for my sake, who

54
 Icon Addicts — Icon Foes

willed to take His abode in matter; who worked out my salvation

through matter. Never will 1 cease honoring the matter which
wrought my salvation.
(1.16)

The pro-iconic treatises of John Damascene are written with

clarity and precision, but they also boil with emotion. Their
passionate tone was due to John's temperament and the gravity of
the iconoclastic threat. Indeed, there was much more at stake than
m the past when Eusebius robbed a woman of her pictures of Peter
and Paul in order to save her from idolatry and when Epiphanius
tore a church curtain.By the eighth century the Christian world
was full of high-quality artefacts, and so John's words reflected not
only the concerns of an orthodox theologian but also the anxiety of
an art lover. Following in the footsteps of Plato, the Damascene
regarded sight the noblest of the senses, observed how images
stimulate the eye and the mind, and proclaimed that "what the
book is to the literate, the image is to the illiterate" (1.17).
The Damascene did not write in defense of images only. He
wanted relics to be protected too. Thus he described how matter
acquires miraculous properties touching the body of Christ or the
saints, compared this contact to the process of perception in the
course of which the soul is penetrated by what the eyes see, argued
in favor of magic, and revelled in a whole range of acheiropoietoi:
Peter's shadow, Paul's handkerchiefs and aprons, "the cave and
manger of Bethlehem, the holy mountain of Golgotha, the wood of
the cross, the nails, the sponge, the reed, the holy and saving lance,
the robe, the seamless tunic, the winding-sheet, the swaddling-
clothes, the holy tomb which is the fountain of our resurrection"
{Oratio 3.34).
Like every great iconophile, John of Damascus was extremely
sensitive to the beauty of the world and the charm of pictures and
poetical comparisons. Like every sensuous man with mystical
inclinations, he strove to uncover divinity and communicate with it
through visuality and tactility. His hunger for direct illumination
resulted in a flood of metaphors of veiling and unveiling, clothing
and undressing, seeing and touching, impressing and impregnating,
penetrating and burning in. John's language reflects his delight in
the physicality of God-Man and the materiality of creation; "after
we have smelled or tasted, or touched, we combine our experience
with reason, and thus come to knowledge" (3. 24). This sensuality

55
 From Word to Image - History

renders the eminent scholar sympathetic to simple people's need of

images, relics, and miracles providing an immediate and spontaneous
exchange between divinity and humanity.
A passionate defender of images and a believer in miracle and
magic, John of Damascus was predestined to resurrect the mandylion
of Edessa and to fill the Abgar legend with a new emotionalism.
While Eusebius and the Doctrine of Addai present Abgar as a sick
man who wants to be cured, the Damascene makes the king
resemble himself. His Abgar

was set on fire with divine love by hearing of the Lord, and sent
messengers asking Him to visit him. But if this request were declined,
they were ordered to have His likeness painted. Then He, who is all¬
knowing and omnipotent, is said to have taken a piece of cloth and
pressed it to His face, impressing upon it the image of His
countenance, which it retains to this day.'^^

This Christ did in order to make people understand his divinity

through a material image. John's argumentation was echoed by the
Council at Nicaea (787) where Abgar's portrait of Christ was
invoked several times. The iconoclasts were equally aware of the
Edessene mandylion's power of persuasion. They destroyed entire
codices or those parts of them in which the miraculous image was
mentioned; and they were probably also responsible for the
disappearance of the acheiropoietos of Camuliana, which in the
mid-sixth century was transferred to Constantinople, in the seventh
century served as the capital's main palladium, but was not heard of
any more in the eighth century.

(iv) From Drawing to Sculpture

Come to me; in thee will 1 forget idols and all graven images.
Jacob of Sarug, "Canticle"'*^

After the victory of the iconodules the image of Edessa fell into
oblivion. But when around the mid-tenth century military activity
increased on the eastern frontier and the Byzantine army crossed the
Euphrates, penetrating into Mesopotamia, the Emperor Romanus
Lecapenus (920-44) remembered the mandylion. By then the
imperial collection of relics and holy icons had acquired an

56
 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes
enormous reputation, and he was eager to have the famous icon join
it. He decided therefore to capture the acheiropoietos from the
Muslims, to whom Edessa had fallen. The imperial army laid siege
to the city and the general, John Curcuas, informed the emir that in
exchange for the portrait of Christ he would spare Edessa, and even
release 200 Muslim prisoners. Consulted on the matter, Baghdad
decided to give up the picture for 20,000 pounds of silver, and a year
later Abraham, bishop of Samosata, received the icon in the name of
the emperor, in spite of protests by both the Christian and Muslim
inhabitants of Edessa. An angry crowd followed the bishop to the
banks of the Euphrates and would have recaptured the icon, had not
the bishop's boat been wondrously speeded across the river. On
August 15, 944, the day of the Assumption of God's Mother, her
son's acheiropoietos reached Constantinople, passed the night at
the church of the Holy Virgin at Blachernae, was carried in a
triumphal procession around the city walls and through the Golden
Gate to St Sophia, and was deposited in the palace of Bucoleon, in
the chapel called Pharos (the cloak).
All this happened at a politically awkward moment. A quarter of a
century earlier Romanus Lecapenus had usurped the throne of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913-59), the son of Leo VI, who now
saw the chance of recovering it. Ironically, although it was
Lecapenus who had secured Christ's portrait for the capital, the
icon's arrival coincided with an outbreak of popular resentment and
was used by Constantine to drive the usurper out of power. First,
rumors were spread that when the Edessene image had stayed at the
monastery of the Holy Mother of God, a possessed man, upon seeing
the icon, prophesied that Constantine Porphyrogenitus would
regain power. Within months of the portrait's arrival in the capital,
the prophecy was fulfilled. Grateful to the icon which seemed to
have intervened on his behalf, Gonstantine commemorated the
mandylion by a festive homily written for the first anniversary of its
arrival in Constantinople. The text, entitled "Story of the Image of
Edessa," was attributed to the emperor himself. According to
Dobschiitz, however, it was inspired by Constantine but written by
a court official.^^ The homily was read on August 16, 945 during a
special ceremony in St Sophia, and shortly after, a variant of the
story was composed for the menaeon. With these two texts a firm
tradition was established, and the day of the acheiropoietos's arrival
in Constantinople was turned into an important calendar feast-day.
The "Story of the Image of Edessa" announced the triumphal

57
 From Word to Image — History

advent of a unique picture: not just another "true" image produced

by an emanation or apparition of God, but a portrait made by the
living Jesus himself. The imperial homily combined older legends
and historical accounts, added new details, reported on the portrait's
transfer, and mentioned the wonders performed by the image on its
way to the capital and in Constantinople. The first official history of
the Edessene image fully endorsed the cult of icons and served the
political goal of inaugurating and legitimizing Porphyrogenitus's
delayed takeover. According to Weitzmann's persuasive argument,
the earliest representation of the Abgar legend and the mandylion
was executed in Constantinople in the mid-tenth century under the
supervision of the emperor. On a partly lost triptych, which was
discovered in St Catherine's monastery on Mount Sinai, King Abgar,
dressed in imperial regalia and proudly displaying the cloth with
Christ's face, is Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself, the new
owner of the image of Edessa and a monarch renowned for his love
of art and his dabbling in painting.^*
The imperial homily was written with the purpose of welcoming
into the church all images, not only flat but also sculpted, and this is
particularly clear in the passage relating how the miraculous
impression of Christ's face first replaced a pagan statue and
subsequently gave birth to a graven copy.

A statue of one of the notable Greek gods had been erected before the
public gate of the city by the ancient citizens and settlers of Edessa to
which everyone wishing to enter the city had to offer worship and
customary prayers . . . Abgar then destroyed this statue and consigned
it to oblivion, and in its place set up the likeness of our Lord fesus
Christ not made by hand . . . And he laid down that everyone who
intended to come through the gate, should - in place of that former
worthless and useless statue - pay fitting reverence and due worship
and honor to the very wondrous miracle-working image of Christ.
("Story of the Image of Edessa," 15)

As long as Abgar and his sons were alive, piety was displayed before
Jesus' portrait. But their successors fell away from Christianity,
reverted to paganism, and wished to remove the image from its
prominent position. Fearing its destruction, the local bishop "lit a
lamp in front of the image, and placed a tile on top. Then he blocked
the approach from the outside with mortar and baked bricks and
reduced the wall to a level in appearance" (ibid.).
As in Evagrius's Church History, the acheiropoietos resurfaced on

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the occasion of King Chosroes's assault on Edessa. But this time the
discovery had a romantic touch. In the last critical night of the
Persian attack,

there appeared to the bishop (Eulalius it was) a well-dressed, awe¬

inspiring figure of a woman, larger than human, who advised him to
take the divinely created image of Christ, and with it to entreat that
the Lord would give a complete demonstration of his marvelous acts.
The bishop replied that he had no idea whether the image existed at
all, or, if so, whether they or anyone else had it. Then the apparition in
woman's form said that such an image lay hidden in the place above
the city gates in a way which she described. The bishop was
convinced by the clearness of the vision which appeared to him, and
therefore at dawn he went ... to the spot . . . and found this sacred
image intact, and the lamp which had not been put out over so many
years. On the piece of tile which had been placed in front of the lamp
to protect it he found that there had been engraved another likeness of
the image which has by chance been kept safe at Edessa up to the
present time.
("Story of the Image of Edessa," 16-17)

Thus exactly on the same spot where during Jesus' lifetime a

pagan statue had stood, and where subsequently his "true" likeness
had been first venerated and then walled off, a graven portrait of the
Lord was found. The sequence exemplifies the stages in Christianity's
aeceptance of representation. First, when pagan sculpture was
rejected and figurative depiction mistrusted, a pagan statue was
replaced neither by a sculpture nor by a painting of Christ but by an
immaterial and shadowlike "true" impression of his face. Then the
miraculous portrait took over the function of the pagan statue
becoming a subject or worship and the city's phylactery. Finally, the
cloth gave birth to a graven replica.
A brick copy burnt by fire, a symbol of divine energy, was not
invented at Constantine's court. It is a reference to the so-called
keramidia, "true" Christ portraits on tiles mentioned around 900 in
various Syriac and later also in Armenian and Slavic legends.The
holy briekstones, a specialty of the region between Hierapolis and
Edessa (both cities were reputed to possess them), had their origins
in the fact that on his way from Jerusalem Abgar's messenger
stopped in Hierapolis and hid Jesus' portrait in a heap of tiles (Plate 3).
At midnight the tiles were set on fire which, however, did not
damage the portrait. To the contrary, in addition to it Ananias

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 From Word to Image - History

discovered "in one of the tiles nearby, another copy of the likeness
of the divine face" ("Story of the Image of Edessa," 9). The brick
copy was kept in Hierapolis, while he continued with the original to
Edessa. In a Slavic version of this legend the name of Abgar's
messenger, scribe, and painter is Lucas - a fusion of the Doctrine of
Addai with legends of St Luke as painter and portraitist of the Virgin
and her son.
Porphyrogenitus's "Story of the Image of Edessa" uses the
rediscovery of the acheiropoietos to proclaim the total acceptance of
Christ's images, flat and graven. But it also introduces a female
element by making a woman responsible for the mandylion's
invention. This contrasts with the legend's earlier versions, from
which femininity is conspicuously absent. What is the reason of this
innovation? Unlike the stories of the Camuliana, Dibulion, and
Melitene acheiropoietoi, the Abgar myth was first concerned with
Word, then with Image. The portrait's appearance was preceded by
the correspondence between two men, not a relationship between
Jesus and a woman. The image was originally a painting, not a vera
icon, and thus the allusion to Jesus' incarnation in Mary's flesh
remained subdued. But in the tenth century, after the victory over
iconoclasm, the complete absence of femininity was untenable.
Thus a female figure was added, if not to the creation, at least to the
reinvention of the mandylion. The elegant apparition evoked the
Holy Virgin as well as Edessa in whose womb (walls) Jesus' "true"
image not only survived but also grew a twin - a solid brick.
The model for such personification of Edessa could have been
provided by the sixth-century Syriac "Canticle" by Jacob of Sarug, a
glorification of the city in the style of the Song of Songs. In this
beautiful poem the sick King Abgar the Black is replaced by Edessa
who "sent to Christ, by an epistle, to come to her and enlighten her.
For all Gentiles she to Him made intercession that he would quit
Sion which hated him, and come to the Gentiles who loved him.
She sent to him and besought him that he would enter into
friendship with her" ("Canticle," 15-19). Edessa admits that she is a
prostitute. However, unlike the whore Jerusalem, she burns with
desire to reform herself by abandoning her past and welcoming the
Lord: "The harlot that was standing in the market-place heard of his
fame from afar, as she was erring with idols, playing the girl with
graven images. She loved, she desired him while he was far away,
and begged him to admit her into his chamber" (ibid., 25-8).
Giving herself to her "beloved bridegroom," Edessa asks him to

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 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes

bless her "with the kisses of his mouth/' and to "let Gabriel rejoice"
by making her pregnant. Rejected by Jerusalem, Christ weds Edessa
and makes her triumph:

I am black and comely: ye daughters of Sion, pure is your envy,

because the son the glorious one has espoused me to make me enter
into his chamber. When I was odious he loved me, because he is able
to make me clearer than water. Black was I in sins, and comely am I
become, because I have turned and repented: I have cast away in
baptism all that odious colour, because the Saviour of all creatures has
washed me clean in his pure blood.
(ibid. 23-9)

The transformation from blackness into clarity celebrates vision,

illumination, and purification. Both in the "Canticle" and in the
"Story of the Image of Edessa," the city has to free herself from the
dirty dimness of pagan depiction first. Only then can it receive the
God of Light or his image. Jacob's poem predates the rediseovery of
Christ's portrait and does not mention the acheiropoietos. But the
imagery of the reformed prostitute rejecting her old idols for the
sight and touch of a new lover makes one feel that the legend of
Christ's iconic gift to Edessa had a solid presenee in the city, so that
it was more than easy for Evagrius to "reinvent" Jesus' portrait.
The "Story of the Image of Edessa" reinforced the Greek aspect of
the Abgar legend. The disclosure of the secret hideout by a woman
and the discovery of two images - one a shadowy impression on
cloth, the other a tile - resembles a Greek legend which attributes
the invention of mimetic painting and relief to the daughter of the
Corinthian potter Butades. The girl "was in love with a young man;
and she, when he was going abroad, drew in outline on the wall the
shadow of his faee thrown by a lamp. Her father pressed clay on this
and made a relief, which he hardened by exposure to fire" (Pliny, NH
35. 43. 151).

(v) The Mandylion in Art

When did Christ's mandylia and keramidia enter the iconography of

Byzantine art? Considering the variety of their legends, one would
assume that it happened in the course of the sixth and seventh
centuries. However, no documents mention frescos, mosaics, or

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 From Word to Image - History

sculptures showing either one of the Cappadocian archeiropoietoi or

the image of Edessa, and the first existing depiction of Abgar's
portrait is the mid-tenth-century triptych from Mount Sinai. The
painting is divided into two zones; the upper one shows the apostle
Thaddaeus on the left and King Abgar on the right; both are seated
on thrones and identified by inscriptions. The king wears on his
head the Byzantine imperial crown with the pendulia, and on his
feet pearl-studded purple shoes, another distinction of Byzantine
emperors; and he holds in his hands the holy image of Edessa which
has just been given to him by a messenger. The lower row depicts
four monastic saints. The icon is framed in such a way as to appear
as a unit, but in fact Thaddaeus and Abgar are painted on two
separate vertical panels of equal size which are two wings of a
triptych. The triptych has been reconstructed by Weitzmann who
assumes that "the Mandylion which Abgarus holds in his hands is
but a miniature version of the bigger one in the lost central plaque.
The icon, the earliest representation of King Abgar and the sacred
cloth, is a touchstone in the history of art. But it also arouses
expectations in regard to the Lord's portrait. We hope that it will
make us discover how the sixth century, and possibly an even earlier
age, imagined and depicted Christ. However, our expectations are
frustrated, since the icon turns out to be a product of its own time.
The roundish face of Jesus, framed by loose strands of hair and a
rounded beard, resembles other tenth-century Christ heads, "while
for the original relic, rediscovered in 544 AD, we would assume
quite a different type, i.e. the Syrian-Palestinian type with the
pointed beard.This proves that Dobschiitz was right to believe
that the various depictions of the Edessene acheiropoietos, which
was seldom seen without its protective cover, were not based on real
studies of the cloth but rather on legendary descriptions and the
changing ideals of art.^^ Painters reproduced on the mandylion the
current iconographic types of Christ's face, and thus their depictions
tell us little about the original nature of the Edessene acheiropoietos.
The pictorial programs convey the artists' fascination with Christ's
simultaneous dual presence as a real man and as a relic, and with his
letter and image as means of mediation between God and humanity.
To bring out the aspects relevant for the eleventh-century artists
and their public, certain episodes of the Abgar legend were preferred
to others, as can be seen in several illustrated menologia into which
Constantine's homily has been incorporated. In one of them, from
about the second half of the eleventh century, the illuminator chose

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 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes

to illustrate the following three scenes from the "Story of the Image
of Edessa"; King Abgar in bed, handing the letter for Jesus to a
messenger; Jesus surrounded by a crowd of people and the painter
standing at a distance, the impressed cloth in his hands; and finally
the baptism of Abgar by Thaddaeus, with a servant holding in his
hands a towel, reminiscent both of the cloth with which Christ
wiped himself after his own baptism and of the acheiropoietos.^^
Another menologion, from 1063, shows four episodes: Abgar on the
sick-bed; Christ sitting on a hill and writing the letter,- the
messenger with the cloth standing in front of a seated Jesus whom a
crowd surrounds; and the bringing of the portrait to the king.^^
Since both Jesus' letter and his image were considered talismans,
the descriptions and reproductions of the story were occasionally
made into amulets too. This applies to the Pierpont Morgan Library
scroll (Plate 3).^^ It contains, m addition to a list of perils which
could be avoided and of illnesses which could be cured thanks to
Jesus' letter, the following sentence; "the one who carries this letter
in purity, away from uncleanness and all bad things, will obtain
through this letter the salvation of his soul, and his body and will be
kept in security. The portable form indicated that the scroll
functioned as a magically potent "true" copy of the letter and the
image.
According to legend, Abgar's Jesus portrait was spread out on and
attached to a board. This particular way of presenting the cloth was
reflected in the first iconographic type of Christ's mandylion, which
can be found in Graeco-Slav art of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. In the second half of the thirteenth century a new type
was introduced: the suspended cloth. It appeared almost simultan¬
eously in the East and West, but Grabar suggests that its origins
were occidental and might have resulted from how the Edessene
mandylion was exhibited in the West.^^ Even if this is right, we still
need to explain why the hanging type became the classical
representation of the "true" image in Western art. The cause might
have been the cloth's attribution to Veronica and the fact that the
vernicle enjoyed its greatest popularity between the end of the
fourteenth and the end of the seventeenth century, when the
passion version of the Veronica legend prevailed and the bloodmade
portrait could be seen in analogy to Christ's blood-covered body
hanging on the cross. With time the illustrations of the Abgar legend
became rare, but the mandylion remained one of the great themes of
Byzantine art and until the late nineteenth century was depicted on

63
 From Word to Image - History

portable icons and frescos. In the mural cycles of churches and

monasteries the depictions of the mandylion and the keramion
often face each other, or the mandylion, the symbol of the
beginning, is shown on a building's east side vis-a-vis the shroud, a
token of death, pictured in the west.^"^ In medieval Eastern and
Western art the mandylion may be carried by two angels, their
winged figures bringing to mind the ancient victories and accentuating
the cloth's divine origin, or saints, usually Peter and Paul, a
replacement for Abgar's forgotten ambassadors. The angel-type,
which prevailed in Byzantium, did not achieve a great popularity
in the West, where the Holy Face was made into an attribute of
St Veronica. However, occasionally one comes across intriguing and
moving variations of the predominantly Eastern theme in Western
art. In a fifteenth-century Flagellation by Jaime Huguet a small
angel-anima-amor arrives at Christ's face with a napkin in his (her?)
hands, while two other heavenly companions collect the Lord's
blood into their cups (Plate 2).
While in the East the mandylion was depicted in a standard
iconographic form, in the West the development went in the
opposite direction. As Latin art moved toward realism, Christ's
portrait acquired personal features. This general trend was additionally
supported by the presence of Veronica. Since she was modelled after
actual women, the face of the man on her cloth was also adjusted to
local types or ideals and made to fit her figure and her many roles as
bride, wife, mother, widow, nun, or saint. In consequence Christ's
"true" likenesses came to resemble the faces of peasants or noble
chevaliers, young monks or worn-out beggars. This resulted in a
richness of iconography, expression, and meaning.

64
 4

Women and Icons

Byzantine mythology suggests women's particular fondness of

Christ's portraits and acheiropoietoi. And so does history. In a letter
to the sister of the Emperor Constantine, Eusebius rebuked the
princess for her desire to possess a picture of Jesus. But he spoke not
to her alone. The end of his letter indicates that he warned women
in general and considered their delight in depiction a sign of
ignorance and idolatry. "Once," Eusebius wrote,

a woman brought me in her hands a picture of two men in the guise of

philosophers and let fall the statement that they were Paul and the
Saviour . . . With the view that neither she nor others might be given
offence, I took it away from her and kept it in my house, as I thought it
improper that such things ever be exhibited to others, lest we appear,
like idol worshippers, to carry our God around in an image.'

Did women really feel a particular fondness for icons, or was this
just one of men's prejudices about women? It is an uneasy question,
and particularly delicate for female scholars, as has already been
observed by Judith Herrin;

When I first read Byzantine accounts of female devotion to icons, I

dismissed them as yet another example of the common slurs on
womankind perpetrated by uniformly male writers. After closer
inspection, I feel that this opinion should be revised. For what we read
about their attachment to icons is surely a reflection of their

65
 From Word to Image - History

homebound situation, their restricted access to churches and their

frustrated religious passion.^

To this she added in a later book: "For women especially, possession

of an icon permitted a most satisfying form of Christian devotion,
independent of church liturgy, officials, or environment. In the
privacy of their homes, women set up their icons and poured out
their distress, prayer, and gratitude to the figure, whom they came
to know in a very personal way."'^ Still, Byzantine women's
devotion to icons remains a problem for a historian. No female
testimonies exist, and so one has to rely on legendary narratives and
men's stereotyped accounts of women. But since my study traces
the genesis and structure of a myth, legends and stereotypes are my
reality. On the other hand, I have no doubt that icons were essential
to Byzantine women's religiosity, well-being, and intelligence.
In her study of medieval female mystics Caroline Walker Bynum
observes that it was the physical, material side of Christianity and,
in particular, of the human Christ that attracted them. Because of
the traditional identification of femininity with body, masculinity
with spirit, man signified "the divinity of the Son of God and
woman his humanity."'^ No doubt, Byzantine women identified
with the human Christ as much as Western mystics. In addition,
seeing was essential to women because of their illiteracy and the
visual austerity of their existence. In Byzantium women were
deprived of vision even more than in ancient Greece and Rome — a
deterioration due to Christian puritanism. A decent Byzantine
woman was expected to be veiled in public and even at home, to
keep away from the windows, and in company to keep her eyes fixed
on the ground.^ Married women were granted more freedom than
unwed girls, but they were nevertheless extremely limited in what
they were allowed to see. In fact, outside their homes, they might
gaze intently at one thing only — at the holy icons of their religion.
Contemplating pictures, women trained themselves in the art of
seeing. They might not have realized the manifold implications of
their attachment to icons, but their intuition told them to treasure
and defend images. Protesting against the destruction of icons,
women rebelled against the very premises of Byzantine culture
which confined them to obliqueness.

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 Women and Icons

(i) The Holy Virgin

The Byzantine women's image-worship is related to the cult of the

Holy Virgin which has little foundation in the gospels. In the New
Testament the mother of God plays a peripheral role and is denied
importance hy Jesus himself. While he was preaching, she arrived
with his brothers and asked to speak to her son. But Christ refused
and "replied to the man who told him, 'Who is my mother, and who
are my brothers?' And stretching out his hand toward his disciples,
he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the
will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother' "
(Mt. 12:48—50). The passage suggests Mary's limited function. Her
womb was used to bring God into the world. But once this had been
accomplished, she was transformed back into just a woman - one of
the many females who ministered to Christ, accompanied him on
his way to Golgotha, and mourned his death.
The first important step toward the Virgin-cult was taken by the
Council of Ephesus in 431. It asserted the completeness of Christ's
humanity and entitled Mary to be considered the Theotokos (Bearer
of God). The debate at the Council was centered on how the Word
became flesh in the treasure-house and paradise of Mary's body and
how through her the world was provided with a filial replica of the
paternal original.^ Endorsing the concreteness of the incarnation,
the theologians made an indirect decision about representation.
They embraced the notion of material reproduction and thus opened
the door for replication - from the miraculous multiplication of
relics and acheiropoietoi to the production of artefacts. Some years
later the first "true" portrait of the Virgin and child - allegedly
painted by St Luke - was discovered by Eudocia, the wife of the
Emperor Theodosius II (408-50), and in 450 found its way into the
imperial collection of relics in Constantinople.^ This holy icon
inspired ordinary pictures, and the demand for them increased in
proportion to the popularity of the Virgin festivals.^
The cult of Mary was introduced by theologians, but flourished
through the piety of converts from various pagan religions dominated
by the Great-Mother divinities (Ge Themis, Aphrodite, Astarte, Isis,
Demeter, Kybele, Anaitis, Maia). The early Church Lathers were
aware of the appeal of these goddesses and therefore attacked them
with vehemence. Clement of Alexandria referred to Aphrodite as a
harlot deified by the king of Cyprus, called the king and other

67
 From Word to Image - History

sponsors of feminine cults "originators of mischief, parents of

godless legends and deadly daemon-worship;" and he derided the
"unutterable symbols of Ge Themis, marjoram, a lamp, a sword, and
a woman's comb, which is a euphemistic expression used in the
mysteries for a woman's secret parts.The same tenor still
prevailed in the sixth century. During the conversion of a pagan
house into a chapel of the archangel Michael and the Immaculate
Virgin, a young mosaicist infected his hand, while removing from
the wall "the picture of the unclean Aphrodite" - and had to be
cured by a saint.
By establishing Mary as the escort of the Holy Trinity the Church
filled the vacuum that had been left by the demise of the ancient
goddesses. A new Great Mother who, however, procreated without
sex, the Holy Virgin contrasted pagan sensuality and promiscuity
with purity and abstinence, and stood for a perfect new woman - the
opposite of Eve who had caused the Fall. In his twelfth Homily on
the birth of the Lord, Ephraim, a pioneer of Mariolatry, defined the
difference between the two women in terms of chastity reflected in
clothing. Eve, who "sewed fig leaves together" (Gen. 3:7) into an
apron, could not protect her virginity; Mary, on the other hand,
received from God an enormous garment of glory and thus could
cover the nudity of all mortals - in addition to her own.
Did the worship of Mary make women rise in the eyes of men, and
in their own eyes? Did the Theotokos cult prompt Byzantine society
to elevate the publie standing of women? None of these questions
can be answered with a clear yes or no. But we know that women
enjoyed the greatest equality before the Edict of Toleration. In times
of persecution, when everyone was needed, women were welcome
to throw away their lives as martyrs and saints. Once the heroic
days were over, the Church organized itself according to the old
paternalistic patterns and admitted women only to its lowest ranks.
They could climb no higher than the position of deaconess, and after
the sixth century their presence declined even at that humble office.
Since their only liturgical function was the baptism of girls, they
became superfluous when baptism was performed immediately
after birth. The glorification of Mary, whose spotlessness no
woman could attain, might have even rendered the deaconesses'
situation more preearious. In any case, under the Emperor Justinian I
(527-65) a draeonian law was passed: a deaconess who broke her
vow of chastity was punished by death.While the Virgin was
assumed into heaven, on earth women began to disappear from the

68
 Women and Icons

clergy and their ambitions were restricted to philanthropy. But even

charity, being tied to money, was open mostly to wealthy women.
The same applied to a woman's monastic career. In order to be
accepted by a nunnery, she was obliged to make a substantial
contribution in gold or land.^^ "Byzantium produced a number of
female saints, many of them from wealthy backgrounds, very few of
humble origins.
The history of Mariolatry shows that the worship of ideal
femininity does not imply women's emancipation. Still, the presence
of the Theotokos must have reassured female Christians. Did they
influence the instituting of the Virgin-cult? Hardly. Men ruled the
world and the Church. But, on the other hand, images and legends
remind us of the importance of Mary in women's lives and suggest
that they strongly supported her cult. Women flocked to Sozopolis
in Asia Minor where a Theotokos picture - a precursor of the
innumerable madonna icons which work miracles to our day - was
believed to cure them of infertility.^^ The sixth-century widow
Turtura, standing at the feet of the Holy Virgin and holding in her
hands a scroll with thanks to Mary, speaks for female devotion, and
so does the story of Mary the Egyptian, a prostitute who at the sight
of the Virgin's icon in Jerusalem repented, was converted, and
metamorphosed into a saint. In medieval iconography Mary the
Egyptian - her hair her only dress - is treated as a twin sister of Mary
Magdalen, with whom she occasionally guards the crucifix (Plate 9).
Emperors were compared to Christ, empresses to his mother, and
thus feminine imagery was injected into the masculine culture of
Byzantium.
The Theotokos images were derived from the ancient figures of
mother goddesses, such as the sixth-century BC statuette of the
Greek Kmotrophos from Selinunte (Plate 10) or the Egyptian Isis
with the Horus child; and they were influenced by various classical
representations of females furnished with portraits or masks. In the
period separating the rule of Justinian II (565-78) from that of
Maurice (582—602) the Theotokos began to replace the ancient
Victory (Nike), a deity that was still evoked in an epigram inscribed
on a statue of Justinian I in the Hippodrome.On gems engraved in
the times of Justinian II and Tiberius II (578-82) one finds a frontal
image of Nike with one or two crowns in her hands and flanked by
two crosses. Eater her place was taken by the Virgin with the child.
The baby Jesus appears either in his mother's arms, lap, or in an oval
medallion placed at the axis of Mary's body and suggestive of an

69
 From Word to Image - History

embryo, a painted or embroidered roundel sewn onto the Virgin's

garment, and of a textile acheiropoietos - with the infant Jesus
impressed on or shining through his mother's fabric. The medallion
was derived from an imago clipeata - a buckler or shield frequently
held by Nike which was to assure the victory of those carried by
her.^^ In late antiquity the oval symbolized the transport of the soul
to heaven. "When Christians employed this shape they may, at least
at the beginning, have still been aware of the significance of the
clipeus as associated with the lifting of the soul to heaven.But
the Byzantine Theotokos also echoed the veiled figures of the
ancient Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses, and her daughters,
especially Melpomene and Thalia equipped with masks, and she
was vaguely reminiscent of Athena carrying on her front the
likeness of Medusa (Plate 11).
The early Byzantine Theotokos, straight and flat as a plank,
carries the infant Jesus, her image of victory, in a ceremonial,
triumphant way. She appears on flags flying from the masts of the
ships that bring the Emperor Heraclius (610—41) from Carthage to
Constantinople.On a sixth-century icon two soldier saints.
General Theodore Stratelates and St George, stand guard at the
Virgin's throne, while a stream of light descends upon her head from
the hand of God.^‘ The Theotokos pictures do not illustrate
affection or motherhood. They efface Mary as a person and instead
draw attention to femininity as the locus of procreation. As Word
turns to Image, God provides the message, the Virgin the medium,
and the two are fused: "The Son of the Most High came and dwelt in
me, and I became His Mother; and as by a second birth I brought
Him forth, so did He bring me forth by the second birth, because
He put His Mother's garments on, she clothed her body with His
glory" (Ephraim, Hymn on the Nativity, 11).
A mediator between divinity and humanity, the Byzantine
Theotokos grew into the official protectress of Gonstantinople. In
610 her likeness was imposed on the imperial throne, and in 626 the
Virgin's icon of Blachernae was placed on the gates of the capital.
The Blachernae type, a Virgin orans with her hands raised in prayer
and the Jesus medallion over her breast, was reproduced on
Byzantine coins and survived in Russian art, for instance in Our
Lady of the Sign [Znamenie], the palladium of Novgorod from the
fifteenth century until the October Revolution.This famous
twelfth- or thirteenth-century Russo-Byzantine icon was endlessly

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 Women and Icons

copied and imitated and thus helped preserve the early clipeus-
acheiropoietos madonna type until modern times (Plate 4).
From the sixth century the Byzantine cult of the Virgin was
supported by the existence of her relics. The origins of Mary's dress,
maphohon (long veil), girdle, shroud, and/or other graveclothes,
were described in several confusing and contradictory legends.
Mary's clothing was either found in her tomb and sent to
Constantinople by Juvenal, the bishop of Jerusalem, upon the
request of the Empress Pulcheria who built for it the Theotokos
church at Blachernac; or it was discovered by two Byzantine
patricians, Galbius and Candidus, in a Jewish woman's house near
Jerusalem (or at Capernaum) and deposited at Blachernae by the
Emperor Leo I (457—74) and his wife Verina (or Veronica), after they
had built for it a sanctuary. The Virgin's robe was described in a text
written, perhaps, by a certain Theodore Syncellus in 619. He
established a one-to-one correspondence between the Mother of
God and her garment, which not only clothed her, but also wrapped
"the Word of God Himself, when he was a little child;" and he
stressed the robe's dual nature, at once material and divine. Although
the dress was "woven from perishable wool," it "had suffered no
destruction at all, but was completely intact, whole and indestruct¬
ible, evidence of the indestructibility and untouchability of the
wearer.
In 619, when the Avars raided the outskirts of Constantinople
where the Virgin's church of Blachernae stood, Mary's robe began
working miracles. And in 626, when the capital found itself under
the Avars' siege, the city felt protected by Mary's constant
attention. She started appearing to her people - and even to their
enemies - as a veiled lady or a warrior maiden fighting against the
foreign invaders.In those difficult days the icons of the Virgin
were flanked by those of Christ, and the patriarch used to carry
round the walls a likeness of the Theotokos together with the
Camuliana acheiropoietos of her son.

(ii) Portable Icons and Textiles

The idea of Christ's mandylion was developed within the frame¬

work of Byzantine art which preferred two-dimensional images to
sculpture and delighted in encaustic pictures, iconic fabrics, and

71
 From Word to Image - History

small reliefs in terracotta, marble, metal or ivory (to which the

keramion was indebted). A wide distribution of icons was promoted
by the development of the encaustic, an ancient method of painting
in wax:

It is not agreed who was the inventor of painting in wax and of designs
m encaustic. Some people think it was a discovery of Aristides,
subsequently brought to perfection by Praxiteles, but there were
encaustic paintings in existence at a considerably earlier date, for
instance those of Polygnotus, and Nicanor and Mnasilaus of Paros.
Also Elasippus of Acgina has inscribed on a picture enekaen ("burnt
in"), which he would not have done if the art of encaustic painting had
not been invented.
(Pliny, NH 35. 39. 122-3)

Pliny further reports that

in early days there were two kinds of encaustic painting, with wax and
on ivory with a graver or oestrum (that is a small pointed graver); but
later the practice came in of decorating battleships. This added a third
method, that of employing a brush, when wax has been melted by fire;
this process of painting ships is not spoilt by the action of the sun nor
by salt water or winds.
[NH 35. 41. 149)

In Byzantium the encaustic was developed later than fresco and

mosaic, but existed already at the time of Eusebius, who mentions
an encaustic panel above a palace gate, presumably in Constantinople,
in his Vita Constantini (3. 3. 46). The flexible technique, which lent
itself particularly well to portraiture, became popular in the second
half of the fifth century and came to maturity at the time of
Justinian I. One could paint in encaustic on ivory, polished wood, or
canvas of every size and shape and produce large pictures as well as
portable miniatures which facilitated and personalized worship.
Executed in shimmering browns or mother-of-pearl nuances of
exquisite greys, blues, and reds, the pictures expressed a wide range
of feelings and conveyed immediacy and liveliness. The Byzantine
Painter’s Guide directed the artists to paint the Virgin as an
attractive woman with the "complexion the colour of wheat, hair
and eyes brown, grand eyebrows, and beautiful eyes, clad in
beautiful clothing, humble, beautiful and faultless" [Britannica,
4:908).

72
 Women and Icons

The encaustic technique - with its quickly drying pigments and

the rapidity of its brush strokes - inspired analogies between artistic
creation and the appearance of mirror images and shadows; it
suggested the mercurial speed of sexual impregnation - and of
memorizing and remembering, with "the image imprinting itself on
the phantasia like a seal ... on wax."^*^ Encaustic icons seemed so
"true" that they made people cry. In his description of the portrait of
the martyr St Euphemia, Asterius, the bishop of Amaseia, writes:

The virgin stands dressed in a grey tunic and himation showing

thereby that she is a philosopher . . . Two soldiers are leading her to
the magistrate, one dragging her forward, the other urging her from
behind. The virgin's appearance shows a mixture of modesty and
firmness; for, on the one hand, she bows her head down as if ashamed
of being gazed at by men, while on the other, she stands undaunted
and fearless in her trial . . . The representation proceeds: a number of
executioners, stripped down except for their short tunics, are
beginning their work. One of them seizes the head and lays it down,
thus preparing the virgin's face for punishment; another stands by and
cuts out her pearly teeth. The instruments of torture are hammers and
drills. But now tears come to my eyes and sadness interrupts my
speech: for the artist has so clearly painted the drops of blood that you
might think them to be trickling down in very truth from her lips, and
so you might depart weeping.

Asterius's reaction to the painting of St Euphemia is analogous to

what we feel today when looking at color photographs of our
contemporary martyrs and victims — but not when looking at
Byzantine paintings. What was then considered mimetic appears
stylized to us - and not only because our criteria have changed. The
Byzantine approach to portraiture echoed the mimetic aesthetics of
the Greeks which strove for the identity of the person - the beloved
of the Corinthian girl - and his image - the shadow she outlined on
the wall. When Byzantine painters could not copy their models,
they dreamt about them or visited them in heaven. Thus St Mary
the Younger, a local celebrity, "appeared in a dream to a painter who
was a recluse . . . She was wearing a white robe and had a red veil
over her head . . . the painter asked her who she was and . . . she
answered . . . T am Mary from the city of Bizye . . . whom . . . until
now you have not seen . . . So, as you see me now, paint my
image.' And still in the fourteenth century Nicephorus Callistus
wrote in the eulogy of a great painter: "Either Christ Himself came

73
 From Word to Image - History

down from heaven and showed the exact traits of His face to him
who has such eloquent hands, or else the famous Eulalios mounted
up to the very skies to paint with his skilled hand Christ's exact
appearance."'"*^
Mimetic painting produces a peculiar sensibility, and thus a
culture dominated by illusionistic icons may be more prone to
sudden outbursts of irrationality than a culture m which sculpture
prevails. The materiality of sculpture stimulates, but also partly
satisfies the desire to possess and consume. Under the touch of a
Pygmalion, marble turns to flesh and a statue transforms into a
mistress. Mimetic painting, on the other hand, ignites passions that
cannot be satisfied, causing - as in the ancient Narcissus -
destructive hallucinations and obsessions. Contemplating a sixth-
century encaustic icon of a frontal and yet asymmetrical face of
Christ, one is mesmerized by the intense gaze of his wide-open eyes
— and gets a hint of the psychological intensity involved in the clash
between iconodules and iconoclasts.
Did women work as professional painters in Byzantium? The
answer is probably no, although painting was accessible to women
in ancient Greece. Pliny mentions several Greek women artists:

Timarete the daughter of Micon who painted the extremely archaic

panel picture of Artemis of Ephesus, Irene daughter and pupil of the
painter Cratinus who did the Maiden at Eleusis, a Calypso, an Old
Man and Theodorus the Juggler, and painted also Alcisthencs the
Dancer; Aristarete the daughter and pupil of Nearchus, who painted
an Asclepius. When Marcus Varro was a young man, laia of Cyzicus,
who never married, painted pictures with the brush at Rome (and also
drew with the cestrum or graver on ivory), chiefly portraits of women,
as well as a large picture on wood of an Old Woman at Naples, and
also a portrait of herself, done with a looking glass.
{NH 35. 40. 147-8)

In his De Claris mulierihus, a compilation of stories about famous

women, Boccaccio included the women painters recorded by Pliny.
In the French translation of Boccaccio's book (Paris, 1403) we find
charming miniatures of the ancient artists. Their names are slightly
changed or misspelled, and they are dressed in contemporary outfits
and dedicated to Christian subjects. Thamar paints a madonna with
child; Irene works on a diptych; Cyrene covers with paint the robe
of a Holy Virgin statue, while a finished picture of Christ's face
leans against the back of her desk; and Marcia (laia) executes a self-

74
 Women and Icons

portrait with the help of a mirror.The imaginary portraits were

modelled after reality. By the beginning of the fifteenth century
women painters, most of them nuns, had been contributing for some
time to Western art and in particular to manuscript illumination.
The most famous of them was Herrade of Landsperg, the prioress of
the Saint-Odile nunnery, who toward 1170 illustrated the Hortus
deliciarumd^
The early Greek and the late medieval activity of female artists
makes one expect to find women painters in Byzantium. But not a
single document refers to them, and the only hint that women
might have dabbled in painting comes from the legend of the "true"
portrait the Theotokos painted of herself. The picture was considered
an acheiropoietos and in the tenth century was still in the
possession of the Abramite monastery situated on the outskirts of
Constantinople.'^'^ It is likely that the strictly domestic existence of
women and the lack of visual stimulation and education prevented
them from making a contribution to Byzantine painting. But they
might have also been overlooked, since art was mostly anonymous:
only a few wall paintings carried signatures, and icons almost
never.
Another kind of light and portable icon was created through
weaving and embroidery. The walls and pillars of Byzantine
churches were covered with rich textiles, a tradition inherited by
Christianity from antiquity and occasionally opposed by anti-iconic
theologians. Thus Epiphanius of Salamis (d. ca.403) entreated the
Emperor Theodosius "that the curtains which may be found to bear
in a spurious manner . . . images of the apostles or prophets or of
Lord Christ Himself should be collected from churches, baptisteries,
houses and martyria and that thou shouldst give them over for the
burial of the poor."^*^ But the custom survived and flourished, and in
the sixth century the inner decoration of St Sophia included altar
curtains on which

art has figured the countless deeds of the Emperors, guardians of the
city: here you may see hospitals for the sick, there sacred fanes. And
elsewhere are displayed the miracles of heavenly Christ, a work
suffused with beauty. And upon other veils you may see the monarchs
joined together, here by the hand of Mary, the Mother of God, there by
that of Christ, and all is adorned with the sheen of golden thread.^^

Byzantium delighted in garments decorated with icons. An ivory

plaque (ca.500) shows Ariadne, daughter of the Emperor Leo I,

75
 From Word to Image - History

wearing on her robe an embroidered panel with the likeness of a

man, a prince or emperor depicted as consul;'^^ and the bottom of the
cloak of Theodora, the wife of Justinian 1, as depicted in mosaic at
San Vitale in Ravenna, is embellished with a line of figures perhaps
representing the adoration of the Magi. The habit of wearing icons
was first mentioned around AD 400 by St Asterius. He deplored the
"wickedness" of those who

have invented some kind of vain and curious broidery which, by

means of the interweaving of warp and woof, imitates the quality of
painting and represents upon garments the forms of all kinds of living
beings, and so they devise for themselves, their wives and children
gay-colored dresses decorated with thousands of figures . . . When they
come out in public dressed in this fashion, they appear like painted
walls to those they meet. They are surrounded by children who laugh
among themselves and point their fingers at the pictures on their
garments . . . You may see lions and leopards, bears, bulls and dogs,
forests and rocks, hunters and [in short] the whole repertory of
painting that imitates nature . . . The more religious among rich men
and women, having picked out the story of the Gospels, have handed
it over to the weavers - I mean our Christ together with all His
disciples, and each one of the miracles the way it is related. You may
see the wedding of Galilee with the water jars, the paralytic carrying
his bed on his shoulders, the blind man healed by means of clay, the
woman with an issue of blood seizing [Christ's] hem, the sinful
woman falling at the feet of Jesus, Lazarus coming back to life from
his tomb. In doing this they consider themselves to be religious and to
be wearing clothes that are agreeable to God.'^^

Garments with biblical imagery created an immediate bond

between strangers and defined them as a group. The habit testified
to Christianity's strength as well as to religious tolerance. But why
did the Byzantine Christians wish to identify themselves in the
ostentatious way of college students? A mixture of decoration and
devotion, the Byzantine iconic clothes make one suspect a relatively
superficial religiosity that tries to cover up its insecurity and lack of
depth with excessive ornamentation. But pictured clothes can also
be interpreted as a symptom of desire for personal and direct forms
of worship, and a sign of strong magical beliefs. The embroideries
and weavings of Christ, the Virgin, the saints, and miracle-scenes
might have functioned as phylacteries keeping away evil in a way
similar to amulets, which still in the eighth century were suspended
in the rooms of newborn children and around their necks.This

76
 Women and Icons

would explain the popularity of healing and revival scenes. In

addition to being magically potent, iconic garments acted as
powerful tokens of memory by establishing an intimate bond
between humanity and divinity, the living and the dead.
The pictured garments of early Byzantium have not been
preserved. We know about them from descriptions and artistic
depictions, and imagine them in accordance with the later tradition
of Byzantine weaving and embroidery - probably not that different
from its beginnings - which since the fourteenth century has been
richly documented. It is not easy to speculate about the origins of
the Byzantine iconic clothes and to decide whether they were just
by-products of the woven and embroidered church curtains, or if
they were influenced by oriental textiles or/and the painted shrouds
produced in Egypt from the first century AD until the end of the
fourth century.But one can get an idea of how the Byzantines
looked in their pictured dresses by contemplating some of the still
existing Egyptian shrouds. They show bodies covered with pictorial
textiles, with only faces, hands, and feet left naked. The contrast
between the bare skin and the overall decoration creates — as in
Gustav Klimt's portraits of women inspired by Byzantine art - a
sense of vulnerability. Faces and limbs give the impression of
yearning to escape from the prison of their hieratic clothing - and
from the text-icon-skin of their existence. Burial shrouds and
portraits dwindled in Egypt after 392, when the Emperor Theodosius
had issued an edict penalizing pagan cults. But textiles with Christ
and the Theotokos flourished in Coptic art. A well-preserved sixth-
century Egyptian tapestry shows the Virgin with Christ in her lap
between the archangels Michael and Gabriel; above her head a
mandorla with Christ enthroned is being flown to heaven by two
angels.
The Egyptian skill in dyeing cloth might have influenced the
production of Christian acheiropoietoi, not painted by hand but
perhaps obtained in a secret procedure:

In Egypt they also colour cloth by an exceptionally remarkable kind of

process. They first thoroughly rub white fabrics and then smear them
not with colours but with chemicals that absorb colour. When this
has been done, the fabrics show no sign of the treatment, but after
being plunged into a cauldron of boiling dye they are drawn out a
moment later dyed. And the remarkable thing is that although the
cauldron contains only one colour, it produces a series of different

77
 From Word to Image - History

colours in the fabric, the hue changing with the quality of the
chemical employed, and it cannot afterwards be washed out,
(NH35. 42. 150)

Byzantine art inherited its interest in the human figure from

antiquity, but it infused into the ancient tradition rigidity and
frontality and replaced the softness and richness of the bodily
expression with overornamented clothing. Faces, hands, and feet
were still rendered with a considerable degree of realism but, as the
rest of the body was neglected, they looked as if they had been cut
out and inserted into a semi-abstract textile mosaic. This effect
contributed to the spiritualization of the human likeness, but it also
transported it from the world of the living to the eternal nowhere, a
universe immersed in light but devoid of the pulsating warmth of
life. Afraid of the sensuality conveyed through naked or lightly
clothed bodies, Byzantium opted for the remoteness and stillness of
figures ironed flat and covered with layers of heavy fabric. While
flesh was denied, the expressive qualities of faces were stressed and
eyes were given special attention. They were enlarged, opened wide,
and lost in contemplation.
Byzantine painters were fascinated by drapery, but they used it for
different reasons and effects than the Greek sculptors, to whom
fabric was a medium for shaping a body and making flesh visible. In
contrast to the light, often transparent Greek tunics, Byzantine
artists piled on cloth in order to hide bodies under heavy garments.
In life as well as in art, icons over clothes diverted attention away
from the wearer's body toward holy portraits and scenes. Flesh was
buried beneath real and symbolic covers, and bodily presence was
replaced with elaborate depictions of bygone events and figures.
People's unique existence was bound up in religious imagery and
individual features were hidden under symbolic garments acting as
holy armor and shields. Zeus and Aphrodite descended onto earth
wearing nothing, Ghrist and the Virgin were veiled to their
fingertips. As the veneration of flesh yielded to the worship of
garments, the naked emperor of the past gave way to the emperor's
richly decorated clothes. Where once a Venus stood, facing the
world and displaying her unadorned beauty, now a Virgin sat, her
eyes modestly cast down, a spindle or needle in her hands.
Mary spins and weaves in the second-century Protevangelium
lacobi; she is considered the creator of a woven cloth with pictures
of Christ and the apostles kept in Jerusalem and seen by Arculf;'^'^

78
 Women and Icons

and she is shown busy with textile work on Byzantine frescos,

mosaics, and icons. The texts and pictures reflected typical female
occupations and set examples. Although the professional textile
producers mentioned by Asterius seem to have been men, we know
that Theoctista (b. ca.740 in Constantinople), the mother of
Theodor of Studion, wove clothes for the entire community;and
we ean assume that in early Byzantium women were as involved
with textiles as were those in the empire's latter days - from the
eleventh century onwards - when "within the household, the model
occupation for a woman was spinning, weaving, and making
cloth. Textiles and garments were made in Byzantine nunneries.
And after the eleventh century women held a number of textile-
related jobs such as making linen, carding wool, spinning and
weaving. Interestingly, the dyeing of wool was reserved for men, an
echo, perhaps, of the traditional perception of women providing the
stuff, men the juice of life. But even then women who earned money
by clothmaking were an exception and not the rule; female work
was considered proper insofar as it met the needs of a household but
did not enter the marketplace.Thus the image of a woman
spinning, weaving, and embroidering functioned for centuries as a
powerful stereotype of domesticity, and as such it was frequently
used by Byzantine men to remind women of their place. Writing
about the origins of the second civil war, the historian Doukas tied
it to Anne of Savoy's inability to govern, and had John Vi's friends
compare the empire under her rule to a weaver's shuttle that worked
ineffectively and spoiled the cloth.In his funeral speech George
Tornikos praised the princess Anna Comnena (d. ca.ll53), a student
of philosophy and theology and a writer, for her extraordinary
erudition which she achieved in spite of "belonging to the fragile
and delicate sex, good only for weaving, the distaff and the
spindle.
The portable and intimate character of Byzantine art enabled
people to carry and wear images as talismans and tokens of memory,
and it created its own symbolism — especially evocative in regard to
femininity. Women who carried or wore portraits, in particular of
males, on or underneath their robes or in their hands were
reminiscent of the Theotokos with the clipeus or Jesus in her arms,
and they could be easily associated with pregnancy and motherhood.
This contributed to the misogynist perception of iconodule women
as girls fond of their dolls. Thus we are told that Irene, the wife of
the iconoclast Emperor Leo IV (775—80) and after his death a

79
 From Word to Image - History
brilliant and ruthless ruler, kept icons under her pillows;”^^ that
Theodora, the wife of Theophilus (829-42), another enemy of
images, used to hide the holy pictures under her clothes and, when
interrogated by her husband, replied; "These are my dolls; they are
pretty and I love them very much;"^^’ and that the old Empress
Euphrosyne, who after her retirement from the court kept venerating
images in her cloister, had in her cell a case filled with "beautiful
dolls" and taught Theophilus's daughters to kiss the icons each time
they visited her.^^

(iii) Iconoclasm

Byzantine iconoclasm coincided with the period of wars against the

Arabs and the cultural downfall of the empire when intellectual
brilliance, education, and art patronage - worlds accessible to
women - were replaced by military goals and the crude puritanism
of emperor-soldiers. Some of the horrors of iconoclasm might have
been exaggerated or even invented after the iconodule victory, but
there is hardly any doubt that a holocaust of precious buildings,
books, icons, and relics took place, as monasteries, churches,
libraries, and archives were turned to ashes. Directed against
material representation, iconoclasm possessed an anti-feminine
edge.
The iconoclasm of Byzantine emperors was preceded and accom¬
panied by anti-iconic movements in the Muslim empire and the
Jewish communities. The question to what extent these tendencies
contributed to the zeal of Constantinople's rulers remains contro¬
versial. But one can probably assume that the emperors, as they
engaged in a fight against their own people and heritage, were
tempted to pluck whatever ideological support there was in the air.
Thus Leo III (717-41) was nicknamed, presumably not without
reason, the "Saracen-minded," and although he persecuted Jews and
forcibly converted them to Christianity, he might have been
influenced by them.'‘’^ Since most Byzantine painters were monks,
monasteries functioned as centers of icon production and cult.^'^ We
have much less information about the activity of nuns."’"^ But even if
they did not paint, their worship of images was certainly not less
intense. Kassia (b. between 800 and 805), the founder of a nunnery
named after her and the only woman of her time who achieved fame
as a poet, was persecuted for her support of the iconodule cause and

80
Cariani (Giovanni Busi, ca. 1480-1547 or 1548), Meeting of Jesus with Veronica.
 2 Jaimc Huguct (1415-92)
Flagellation (detail).

i<rwvt

d-Aa
3 Above: Ahgar’s Messenger
Receives from Christ the Linen
Bearing Christ’s Likeness. Below;
The City of Hicrapolis (where the
messenger stopped and hid the
cloth for safe-keeping between two
bricks), Constantinople, second
half of the fourteenth century.
 4 Our Lady of the Sign
{Znamenie), Russian icon,
seventeenth century.

5 Rogier van der Weyden (1399 or 1400-64), Crucifixion.

 6 Mrs Canedo, one of the "Mothers of
the Plaza de Mayo" (Buenos Aires,
Oetoher 1986).

7 The Beheading of St John the Baptist,

Bruges 1445-60.

8 Lorenzo Lotto (ca. 1480-1556), Venus and Cupid.

 :Vr:ttK'ssy;^"^s
iW-^0/

•r •’wBsafOfliwiyiflinreaiiiiMet■fita'fettirffete&Bga\Blanitot.T-.»>Tafeitf'ji»rM8aBBBrBitig-
J ;^uiffi-atarMrftugiiriignai!Biff l^uiitn^wftfelfatte^

9 Provencal Master, The Fountain of Blood, ca.l460.

10 Statuette of a mother-goddess 11 Athena, called the Peaceful

[Kuiotrophos], Selinunte, end of (detail showing the hide of
sixth century BC. Medusa) 350-340 BC.
12 Left: Christ Cursing the Fig Tree-, right: Christ
Healing the Hemorrhissa, Rome, mid-fourth century.

13 Silesian Master (Jacobus

Bernhardt?) The Virgin
Working on the Seamless
Tunic and St Luke Painting
Her, ca.1500.
14 Simon Marmion (d. 1489), St Helena
Assisting at the Miracle of the True Cross.

15 Mary as the Mulicr amicta

sole of the Revelation, Franco-
Flcmish, late thirteenth or early
fourteenth century.
16 Master of Guillebert de Mets,
Master of the Lee Hours and
Master of Wauquclin's Alexander,
Book of Hours, Flemish, 1450-60.

17 The Holy Face of Laon, Slavic

icon, early thirteenth century.
 Women and Icons

helped imprisoned and exiled monies.'’^ And in the mid-eighth

century, amidst iconoclastic fury, St Anthousa dedicated a nunnery
to the Holy Virgin and had it built on an island in Lake
Daphnousios. Later she added a monastery for men on the shores of
the lake. She ruled both and had in both the veneration of icons
preserved - a true demonstration of courage in those dangerous
days.^*^
The beginning of the iconoclast controversy is usually dated to
726, when Leo III ordered the removal of a Christ picture from the
Chalke (Bronze) Gate of the imperial palace. The gate was a large
structure which "seems to have been adorned with many imperial
statues . . . and ancient objects, such as four Gorgon heads from the
Artemision at Ephesos, two philosophers from Athens, a cross
erected by Justinian, and a statue of his general, Belisarios, with
golden rays."^^ The icon of Christ was probably a painting
commissioned and placed on the gate by the Emperor Maurice (582-
602) who had dreamed of Jesus' likeness appearing on the Bronze
Door. The picture was positioned above the emperor's statue and
acted as an important phylactery for Constantinople. As the news of
Leo's order reached the capital, a violent demonstration erupted and
a crowd of "pious women" killed the officer whom the emperor had
charged with the icon's removal. This is mentioned in the second
letter of Pope Gregory II to Emperor Leo III which, however, may be
a forgery.^® But this does not concern us. To the contrary, a forgery
would support our point that women were perceived as inherently
iconodule. Iconoclasm certainly strengthened this perception, since
it was directed not only against icon worship but also against the
cult of the Holy Virgin, a campaign in which Constantine V (741-
75) excelled.
Constantine's surname, Copronymus, was explained by Theo-
phanes (b. between 752 and 760) as due to the fact that at his bap¬
tism the imperial infant "defecated in the holy font."'’^ Theophanes,
who held several offices under Constantine V but later retired from
the world, founded a monastery, and became a leading exponent of
the iconodule cause, is regarded as a strongly prejudiced historian.
He is, however, an unsurpassed source of pro-iconic propaganda
presented against the most fantastic iconoclast horrors, and he
certainly gets one thing right: the massive popular discontent with
the iconoclast rule — with its theological sophistry on the one hand
and sheer brutality on the other. Constantine's violent persecution
of the iconodules was tied to his anti-Mariolatry. Thus in 761 John,

81
 From Word to Image - History

the abbot of the Monagria monastery, was put into a sack and
thrown into the sea upon his refusal to step upon an icon of the
Virgin.The emperor's most famous roundabout attack on Mary
took the form of an obscene and - to our minds - eminently
Freudian joke. To exemplify her merely temporary significance, he
compared his purse, first filled with gold and then emptied of it, to
Mary in partu and post partumd''^ Consequently, he wanted her to
be called Christotokos (Mother of Christ) instead of Theotokos
(Mother of God) and tried to forbid prayers to the Virgin and such
exclamations as "Mother of God, have mercy on me" {Chronicle of
Theophanes, September 1, 767-August 31, 768).
In Theophanes's report the dispersion and destruction of icons
and relics (the corpse of St Euphemia, for instance, was thrown into
the sea) are often juxtaposed to the torture and dismemberment of
monks and nuns - a technique which links the crimes committed
by the iconoclasts to the passion of Jesus. Other iconodule
documents draw attention to the iconoclast intrusion into private
life and Constantine's aim to eliminate not only artefacts but also
religious language. People who possess relics or are caught wearing
an amulet are punished as much as those who are intercepted in
prayer. The inhabitants of the capital are forced to swear by Christ's
blood and body that they won't worship icons. In the Acts of
Constantine's iconoclastic council held in the capital in 754, Lucifer
himself is denounced as the inventor of idolatry, and artists are
portrayed as greedy fools: "How senseless is the notion of the
painter who from sordid love of gain pursues the unattainable,
namely to fashion with his impure hands things that are believed by
the heart and confessed by the mouth!
According to Theophanes, Constantine's "fury against the holy
churches and the revered icons" was punished with a plague which
- how appropriately! - announced itself in the form of cloth
acheiropoietoi and hallucinations turning into "true" images:

Suddenly and in some unseen fashion, a great number of small oily

crosses began to appear on men's cloaks, on the holy garb of the
churches, and on their curtains. People grew distressed and dismayed
because they were perplexed by this kind of sign. The wrath of God
mercilessly destroyed not only the folk in the city, but also those in
all Its suburbs. Many men had delusions and, as it seemed, while they
were delirious they thought they were traveling with strange, harsh¬
faced men . . . The sick folk also saw these people entering houses,

82
 Women and Icons

killing some of their inhabitants, and wounding others with swords.

Most of the things they said happened just as they had seen.
{Chronicle, September 1, 746-August 31, 747)

Popular discontent was realized and used by Irene (752-803), the

wife of the Emperor Leo IV (775—80), who came to power after her
husband's death, when she became regent for her ten-year-old son
Constantine. Irene immediately demonstrated her sympathy for the
iconodules by restoring famous relics: a crown that had been taken
by her husband from St Sophia, and the corpse of St Euphemia,
which had been saved by a miracle. Her activity was interpreted by
Theophanes as the dawning of a new age:

The pious began to speak freely, the word of God began to wax, those
who wished to be saved began to be appointed without hindrance, the
monasteries began to be delivered, and everything good began to
become manifest. At this time a man digging in Thrace found a coffin.
He cleaned it and, looking inside, found a man lying in it. There were
also letters inlaid on the coffin, whose content was this: "Christ was
certainly born of the Virgin Mary, and I believe in Him. Sun, look on
me again in the reign of the Emperors Constantine and Irene."
{Chronicle, September 1, 780-August 31, 781)

Irene suppressed a rebellion in favor of Nicephorus, the emperor's

brother, which involved high officials sympathetic to iconoclasm, and
proceeded to restore the veneration of images. But it took her almost
four years to replace the iconoclast patriarch of Constantinople with
Tarasius, her secretary, and two more years to prepare the Council
of Constantinople which was to reverse the iconoclast legislation. It
met in mid-786 in the church of the Holy Apostles, but was broken
up by soldiers from the local guard regiments who had remained
faithful to Constantine V. The failure did not discourage Irene.
Pretending that there was an Arab menace, she transfered the
iconoclast troops from Constantinople to Asia Minor, and brought
in iconodule regiments from Thrace. Around that time the empress
replaeed the destroyed icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate with a
portable mosaic showing his likeness, and in 787 she convoked the
seventh ecumenical Council.'’'^ It opened in September at the
church of St Sophia in Nicaea and served as the forum for a
passionate plea on behalf of images. Iconoclasm was condemned as
heresy, the writings of its proponents were ordered destroyed, the
veneration of icons was restored, and Byzantium was formally

83
 From Word to Image — History

reunited with Rome. In the following years Constantine tried to

snateh power from Irene, hut failed and was punished. He died, after
his eyes had been stabbed out by her orders. The blinding, which had
been committed by a mother and a defender of images, had a
horribly ironic touch and led to the creation of legends. Associating
sight with light, the sun with masculinity, and the moon with
femininity, they attributed a 17-dayTong eclipse of the sun to
Irene's crime.
Citing numerous earlier sources, Charles Diehl (along with other
historians) claims that Irene's fight against iconoclasm was prompted
by her coming from Athens, where in her youth she had supported
the iconodule cause.They argue that at her wedding the ambitious
girl was forced to renounce her pro-iconic convictions by her future
father-in-law, and thus entered the marriage with feelings of
frustration and resentment. She continued to venerate images, but
had to hide her devotion from her husband, conspired against him
before his death, and fell into disgrace. "This," fudith Herrin
believes, "is patently false. Constantine V would never have
allowed his son and heir to marry into a known iconophile
family. Still, the crux of the matter is that Irene was a convinced
iconodule who managed to temporarily restore icon worship and
consequently became an extremely popular ruler. But she failed
with the economy and foreign policy, and the iconoclast elements
were not all dead either and awaited their revenge. In 802 a
revolution swept Irene away. The empress was dethroned, exiled to
Lesbos and forced to support herself by spinning.
Irene's successor, the usurper Nicephorus I (802-11), was not an
enemy of images, and under the rule of Michael I (811-13) the
iconoclasts tried to seize power only once, but did not succeed.
But in the following period persecution resumed. Leo V the
Armenian (813-20), a distinguished general of the two previous
emperors, removed the Christ likeness, which had been reinstated
by Irene, once again from the fapade of the Bronze Door, and in 815
an iconoclastic synod was convoked by the emperor and held in
St Sophia. It repudiated the Council of Nicaea and attacked Irene -
and femininity - stating that

the Church of God remained untroubled for many years and guarded
the people in peace; until it chanced that the imperial office passed
from [the hands of] men into [those of[ a woman, and God's Church
was undone by female frivolity: for, guided by most ignorant bishops,

84
 Women and Icons

she convened a thoughtless assembly, and put forward the doctrine

that the incomprehensible Son and Logos of God should be painted [as
He was] during the incarnation by means of dishonored matter. She
also heedlessly stated that lifeless portraits of the most-holy Mother
of God and the saints who share in His [i.e. Christ's] form should be
set up and worshipped, thereby coming into conflict with the central
doctrine of the Church. Further, she confounded our worship ... by
arbitrarily affirming that what is fit for God should be offered to the
inanimate matter of icons, and she senselessly dared state that these
were filled with divine grace, and by offering them candlelight and
sweet-smelling incense as well as forced veneration, she led the
simple-minded into error.^"*^

Five years later Leo V was murdered and followed by Michael II

(820-9), called Psellus (the stammerer), an even less sophisticated
soldier-type. He could hardly read and write, but possessed a sense
of moderation, something his educated son Theophilus lacked
completely. An enthusiast of Muslim culture and a romantic
puritan, Theophilus (829—42) dreamed of reviving iconoclasm and
specialized in extravagant brutality. By his order the right hand of
the monk Lazarus, a famous painter of icons, was cut off, and four
infamous verses were branded with a red-hot iron onto the forehead
of the priest Theodore Graptus.^^ But history repeated itself. The
emperor's wife Theodora continued secretly to venerate icons, and
after his death, when she became regent for her three-year-old son, she
regarded the changing of her husband's religious policy as her single
most pressing task.^° In 843 she convoked a local synod, deposed
John the Grammarian, the iconoclast patriarch of Constantinople,
elected Methodius as his successor, confirmed the decisions of the
Council of Nicaea, and compiled a blacklist of iconoclasts from
which her husband, however, was excluded. Apparently the empress
lied on hehalf of Theophilus, pretending that on his deathbed the
emperor had abjured the iconoclast heresy. This conjugal affection
was further emhellished in a legend telling of Theodora's dream in
which she saw her husband condemned by the supreme court of
heaven; it was presided over by the Theotokos, with the baby Jesus
in her arms.^*
Theodora returned the Christ mosaic, which had been hidden
away by Leo V, to the Chalke Gate, thus completing the story of this
prominent Christ icon.^^ Its saga can indeed be perceived as
symbolic of women's opposition to iconoclasm. On February 19,
843, Theodora celebrated her victory with piety and pomp. All night

85
 From Word to Image - History
she prayed at the church of the Holy Virgin at Blachernae and in
the morning proceeded from there, amidst a jubilant crowd, to
St Sophia. The defeated iconoclasts participated in the procession
and had the final anathema thrown at them. The Church recognized
Theodora's role in the restoration of icons. She was sainted, and the
Greek Church still celebrates her Feast of Orthodoxy on the first
Sunday in Lent.^'^
The iconodule victory found the capital bare of icons — and
painters. Lazarus, whose hands had been mutilated by Theophilus,
was one of the few artists who survived, but after 843 his energy
went into Church politics and not painting. For 20 years after the
restoration of orthodoxy St Sophia remained without decoration,
reminding people of the iconoclasts; "Those men, after stripping the
Church, Christ's bride, of her own ornaments, and wantonly
inflicting bitter wounds on her, wherewith her face was scarred,
sought in their insolence to submerge her in deep oblivion, naked as
she was."^^ These are words of Photius, patriarch of Constantinople
(858—67 and 877—86), for whom "the real triumph over Iconoclasm
occurred not in 843, but in 867, at the moment when the images
were set up in St. Sophia" - and Ecclesia's naked body was covered
with a splendid new dress. The icon of the Virgin was the first to
adorn the bare walls of the cathedral, and Photius celebrated it in a
homily, written specially for this occasion, from which the previous
quote is taken. His text honors womanhood and art, beauty and
vision, the mystery of incarnation and representation:

With such a welcome does the representation of the Virgin's form

cheer us, inviting us to draw not from a bowl of wine, but from a fair
spectacle, by which the rational part of our soul, being watered
through our bodily eyes, and given eyesight in its growth towards the
divine love of Orthodoxy, puts forth in the way of fruit the most exact
vision of truth. Thus, even m her images does the Virgin's grace
delight, comfort and strengthen us! A virgin mother carrying in her
pure arms, for the common salvation of our kind, the common
Creator reclining as an infant - that great and ineffable mystery of the
Dispensation! . . . With such exactitude has the art of painting, which
is a reflection of inspiration from above, set up a lifelike imitation.

Photius glorifies the Virgin as the female medium of creation that

has triumphed over men's destruction. Similarly, a miniature in the
Byzantine Khludov Psalter (second half of the ninth century)
compares the image-breakers to Christ's executioners by contrasting

86
 Women and Icons

an iconoclast - effacing a round icon of Jesus with a sponge attached

to his lance - with the crucifix flanked by two Roman soldiers. The
juxtaposition alludes to a popular pamphlet attacking Constantine V,
whose anonymous author draws such a parallel: "As the lawless
ones, mixing gall and vinegar, applied it to Christ's mouth, so also
these, mixing water and lime and placing a sponge on a stick, have
applied it to the incarnate face of the precious image and have
obliterated it."^^ Jesus' nimbused head and the round Christ icon
whose paint is being washed off look identieal, and the gesture of
the iconoclast mirrors that of the soldier with the sponge on his
lance. A broad, feminine-shaped vase collects Jesus' fluids; the
liquefied paint drips from the iconoclast's sponge into a twin
receptaele. The female principle preserves what masculinity destroys.
But, on the other hand, both scenes evoke insemination and
sacrifice - the feeding of femininity and mother earth with male
juiee.

87
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Between East and West
 5

From the Hemorrhissa to

Berenice

The Heavenly Circuit-, Berenice’s Hair-,

Tent-pole of Eden-, the tent’s drapery-.
Symbolical glory of the earth and air!
The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle’s eye.

Some found a different pole, and where it stood

A pattern on a napkin dipped in blood.
W. B. Yeats, "Veronica's Napkin"’

The victory over iconoclasm cemented links between women and

images, strengthened the position of the Holy Virgin, increased
the symbolic value of femininity, and thus prepared the ground for
St Veronica, a madonnalike female dedicated exclusively to the
promotion of Christ's portrait. Veronica was sanctified by the Latin
Church, but her legend originated in the Bible and was shaped by
various traditions. Eastern and Western, pagan and Jewish, orthodox
and heretical. Not unlike the Abgar myth, her story also supported
Image against Word, but it shifted the focus from the image to the
woman, and from iconism to incarnation. While King Abgar and
Jesus communicated with each other by means of correspondence —
language - the Hemorrhissa and Christ came into contact hy
touching each other. An official relation between two public men was

90
 From the Hemonhissa to Berenice

thus replaced with a private affair, intimate and even embarrassing-

a love story of sorts; action moved from center to backstage; and a
straightforward account about a sick king, a famous healer, and
messengers travelling between Syria and Palestine turned into an
erotic reverie. The fantasy involved the taboo subjects of female
physiology and sexuality, it was soaked with speculations on the
secret intercourse between a woman and an incarnate God, and it
addressed the questions of women's religious and social status. The
structure of the Veronica legend, which begins with a woman's and
ends with a man's flux, reflects the plasticity and fluidity of a secret,
apocryphal, and dreamlike inner dimension reminiscent of a "soft-
walled labyrinth," to speak with Gaston Bachelard.^ Finding one's
way through this labyrinth, where sexes are fused and sexual
relations obscured, requires the adoption of an open, mixed method
that does not fear intuition and speculation.

(i) New Testament

In the New Testament various women seek and get Jesus' help,
accompany the Lord and minister to him.*^ The anonymous
Hemorrhissa (the bleeding one) belongs to this female entourage.
Her curing takes place in Capernaum and is embedded in a larger
episode; the revival of a young girl who has just died. The
Hemorrhissa's touching Christ is followed by his touching the girl -
a sequence that contributes to the rise of erotic associations. The
dual miracle does not lack drama. Shattered by the apparent death of
his daughter, Jairus, the head of the local synagogue, implores Jesus
to return her to life. Fulfilling his wish,

Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples. And behold, a woman
who had suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind
him and touched the fringe of his garment; for she said to herself, "If I
only touch his garment, I shall be made well." Jesus turned, and
seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you
well." And instantly the woman was made well. And when Jesus
came to the ruler's house, and saw the flute players, and the crowd
making a tumult, he said, "Depart; for the girl is not dead but
sleeping." And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put
outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. And
the report of this went through all that district.
(Mt. 9:19-26)

91
 From Word to Image — History

Since in Jewish culture menstruating women and dead bodies

were considered unclean, the scene, and in particular the touching
of the Hemorrhissa, showed Jesus' disregard for religious law. He
broke a central taboo responsible for a far-reaching exclusion of
women from religious service and public life, and for limiting their
contacts with men. Since no man could ever be certain that the
women he encountered were not having their periods, the Jewish
fear of menstruation resulted in an extensive separation of the sexes.
Acknowledging that he had been touched by an unclean female, and
touching a girl who in addition to being dead might have been
menstruating, Jesus broke the law obliging men to stay out of reach
of "her who is sick with her impurity" (Lev. 15:33).
The curing of the Hemorrhissa and the girl's resurrection
represent two separate episodes which are, however, tied by
"twelve" - a significant number in connection with female
physiology. Since menstruation usually starts at 12, this was
considered the nubial age for Jewish girls.^ In the Gospel of Mark, in
particular, the repetition of "twelve" stresses the sexual component
and acts as the women's common denominator: the Hemorrhissa
has been suffering from her flux of blood for 12 years (Mk. 5:25); the
resurrected girl is 12 years old (Mk. 5:42). In Mark the Hemorrhissa's
healing is also given greater prominence than in the other gospels.
There Christ turns about in the crowd inquiring: "Who touched my
garments?" and, despite his disciples' pointing out to him that it is
merely the crowd pressing around him, he asks for a second time:
"Who touched me?" At this point the Hemorrhissa "came in fear
and trembling and fell down before him, and told him the whole
truth" (Mk. 5:30-3). In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus' question: "Who
was it who touched me?" is answered by Peter: "Master, the
multitudes surround you and press upon you" (Lk. 8:45). (Peter's
participation might have contributed to his presence in pictorial
programs containing the curing of the Hemorrhissa. In Western art
Peter and Paul occasionally appear with Veronica or hold the
vernicle.)
The healing of the Hemorrhissa and the resurrection of the young
girl may seem public and even theatrical. But their high visibility is
misleading. What happens between Jesus and the two women is
shrouded in secrecy, and hidden attraction and exchange are only
hinted at. This is particularly true in the Hemorrhissa episode.
Drawn to Jesus, the woman approaches the Lord from behind. Jesus
does not see her, but feels her touch because of the reaction it

92
 From the Hemorrhissa to Berenice

provokes in him: the "power" that goes out of him, penetrating the
Hemorrhissa and stopping her bleeding. The incident takes a split
second, but the speed does not diminish its significance. To the
contrary, it suggests the imperceptible quickness of sexual arousal
and conception. Like two strangers falling in love in the middle of a
street, Christ and the Hemorrhissa become aware of each other
through a mysterious coupling of male-female chemistry. The
sexual aspect is reinforced by events progressing from the external
and public to the internal and intimate. The cessation of the
Hemorrhissa's bleeding occurs outdoors, the revival of the young
girl indoors. Before entering Jairus's house, Jesus requested that the
crowd be put outside, and "allowed no one to follow him except
Peter and James and John the brother of James" (Mk. 5:37). Christ's
way leads from an involvement with an adult woman straight into
the bedroom of an adolescent who turns out to be "not dead but
sleeping" (Lk. 8:52); and who, upon his magic touch, has "her spirit
returned," and gets up at once (Lk. 8:55).
The resurrection of the 12-year-old girl echoes rites of initiation
for the onset of puberty in which children lacking full sexual
determination are submitted to a symbolic death, followed by a
rebirth in which the child is replaced by a young male or female.
The healing of the Hemorrhissa and the girl's revival form a
symbolic sequence suggestive of conception and birth and are
imbued with further significance in the Gospel of Mark. There the
two women's involvement with Christ is followed by the story of
Salome's involvement with the Precursor. Salome, the teenage
daughter of Herodias, dances for King Herod, her stepfather, and
arouses him so much that he vows to grant her whatever she wishes.
She asks and receives "the head of John the Baptist on a platter"
(Mk. 6:25). In contrast to the good females' "intercourse" with
Christ, John's affair with the wicked Salome, the chief female
villain of the New Testament, ends in death.^ Still, the Jewish
princess is introduced to sexuality, comes in contact with John's
blood, and obtains, like the future Veronica, a holy man's disembodied
head - a "true" likeness, a famous relic, and a solar trophy (Plate 7).

(ii) The Hemorrhissa of Paneas

Eusebius's account of the Hemorrhissa differs from the Bible in two

important points. First, she is not a native of Capernaum but of

93
 From Word to Image - History

Paneas; second, the issue is not the miracle, but its representation in
art. Let us begin with the change of place. Capernaum, a town
situated about three miles southwest of the Jordan's entrance into
the sea of Galilee, is mentioned 16 times in the gospels and enjoys
considerable fame as a center of Jesus' mission. But Paneas, located
at the source of the Jordan, was important too. Under the reign of
Tiberius the city was extended by the tetrarch Philip and called
Caesarea Philippi; and it was connected to a crucial New Testament
passage. In the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi Jesus hinted at the
Messianic purpose of his life and his resurrection, but he "strictly
charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ" (Mt.
16:20).
The Paneas revelation announces Christ's forthcoming transfig¬
uration which will reveal the fundamental duality of the incarnate
God by replacing the living Jesus with the resurrected Lord — a
divine replica. This association with doubling might have been the
mythological reason for considering Paneas the right place to
possess Jesus' likeness: the double portrait of the Lord and the
Hemorrhissa facing each other. From the fourth century onwards
Edessa was famous for possessing Christ's letter to King Abgar,
while Paneas derived its fame from Jesus' image which documented
his involvement with a local woman. The mythical presence of the
statue was more important than its actual existence. In fact, several
stories suggest that Jesus' portrait was destroyed by the Emperors
Maximin (308-14), Julian the Apostate (361-3), or other enemies of
Christianity.*^’ We hear of pagans who broke Jesus' statue and of
Christians who managed to save the head, which was then kept in
the local church.*’ The symbolic decapitation stresses the predomin¬
ance of God's head over the rest of his body, links Jesus to other gods
and heroes who lost their heads (Orpheus, Holofernes and, in
particular, John the Baptist, Jesus' precursor), and is relevant for our
understanding of how and why Jesus' entire figure became reduced
to just his face.^ In the legend of Julian the Apostate, the emperor
ordered the statue of Jesus to be destroyed and replaced with his own
likeness. But lightning hit the imperial monument and made it
collapse, while at the same time Christians restored the statue of
Jesus and returned it to its previous place.In the sixth century
pilgrims were apparently shown a statue of Christ m the church of
Paneas and reported that it was made of golden bronze and that its
face shone with miraculous light."'' The various testimonies are not
without contradictions. Asterius of Amascia, writing towards the

94
 From the Hemorrhissa to Berenice

end of the fourth century, seems to have believed that by his day the
Christ-Hemorrhissa bronze no longer existedd° But his and other
authors' doubts always went against the opinion of the Paneas
people, who cherished their monument and maintained that it stood
on their main square, next to the fountain - a suitable location for a
sculpture devoted to fluxd’
The popularity of the Hemorrhissa-Jesus encounter in fourth-
and fifth-century Christian art might have been partly due to the
fame of the Paneas statue. The healing episode is always embedded
in a pictorial program whose various scenes complement each other.
In a wall painting of the Catacomb of SS Marcellinus and Petrus
(Rome, second quarter of fourth century) a slender, youthful Christ
dressed in white extends his right hand to the Hemorrhissa kneeling
behind him, her feminine roundness and heaviness accentuated by
the earthy color of her tunic and palla. The composition appears
suitable for a female tomb, since it contains a female orant and two
other scenes of Jesus' encounters with women; Christ and the
Samaritan woman (Jn. 4:7-30), and Christ healing the bent woman
(Lk. 13:11-13), a rarely reproduced episode. The front of an ivory
casket (second half of the fourth century) shows in the middle
Christ as teacher and philosopher presenting the scroll of the law to
his pupils. On the left he plays the doctor healing the Hemorrhissa
(or the assumed gardener appearing to Mary Magdalen, as the scene
is occasionally and, I believe, incorrectly interpreted) and on the
right a shepherd addressing his dog.^^ Priorities are clearly set: the
woman, kneeling at Jesus' feet, and the dog, jumping up to him,
flank the centerpiece. On a mid-fourth-century sarcophagus (Vatican,
Grottoes of St Peter's), to the left Jesus touches the fig-tree making it
wither, to the right he puts his hand on the head of the Hemorrhissa
(Plate 12). A similar symbolism is displayed on a Roman marble
relief from around 400, also in the Vatican: on the right Christ stops
female flux, on the left St Peter causes water to flow from the wall of
his prison. But juxtapositions celebrate the spiritual strength of
male saintliness capable of transforming femininity and matter. In
the early sixth-century mosaic decoration of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo
in Ravenna the scene of the Hemorrhissa's healing is placed
between the Samaritan woman at the well and the healing of the
blind man.

95
 From Word to Image - History

(iii) The Apocryphal Red Thread

Mary's first period, which is soon stopped by God's intervention, her

pregnancy and Jesus' birth, are the main subjects of the second-
century Protevangelium facobi {Book of fames)The Holy Virgin's
apocryphal biography describes how she was brought to the temple
at the age of three and remained there until 12, when she had to go,
"lest she pollute the sanctuary of the Lord" {Book of fames, 8:2);
how, upon God's advice and under his supervision, she was
instantly married to Joseph, a widower, selected for her by the Holy
Spirit; and how she was subsequently mystically wed by God. As in
the gospels, the significance of "twelve" was reinforced by repetition
meant to ring a bell. Before asking the Lord about his plans in regard
to the 12-year-old menstruating Mary, "the high priest took the
vestment with the twelve bells and went in unto the Holy of the
Holies and prayed concerning her" {Book of fames, 8:3).
After having introduced menstruation, conception and pregnancy,
the Protevangelium facobi disguises these delicate topics with the
symbolism of spinning red thread and weaving red cloth — common
metaphors for blood coagulating and solidifying into flesh. Mary,
already married to Joseph but still undefiled, is selected by a council
of the priests to execute, together with six other virgins, a veil for
God's temple. Lots are cast in order to assign each girl another part
and color (gold, white, hyacinth) of the curtain. But "the lot of the
true purple and the scarlet fell unto Mary" {Book of fames, 10:1)
who went home and began to spin. Her work was interrupted by the
annunciation, which had a dual form, linguistic and iconic, and was
structured by the opposition of the outdoors and indoors. First Mary
was informed about her good fortune by word, then by image. As she
made a brief break in her spinning and went to fetch water from
outside, she heard a voice, but did not understand the meaning.
Therefore a vision followed. As she returned "to her house and set
down the pitcher, and took the purple and sat down upon her seat
and drew out the thread ... an angel of the Lord stood before her
saying: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace before the Lord of
all things, and thou shalt conceive of his word" {Book of fames,
11:1-2). The disembodied voice echoed the Old Testament tradition
of God's conversation with men. But since the young girl could not
grasp the abstraction of language. Word was followed by Image, and
the action moved indoors - and right into the womb.

96
 From the Hemoiihissa to Berenice

The Book of fames contradicts the stereotype of the Virgin as an

ideal of absolute purity and the exceptional woman who, alone of all
her sex, is spared the uncleanness of the female condition. The
second-century Mary does not yet coincide with the traditional
figure of the Holy Virgin, unstained {sine macula] and seen in
opposition to an ordinary woman ''who belongs to time and flux."'^^
In the future not only menstruation but even a visible pregnancy
will be avoided in Mary's iconography. But in this early apocryphal
gospel female physiology is not yet taboo, and Joseph is shocked by
his young wife's pregnancy. Reading the description of the elderly
husband s outrage, one realizes the degree of the author's own
amazement and his desire to render the miracle more accessible by
means of the blood-spinning and weaving metaphors - reflections of
the ancient belief in the generative faculty of the menstrual
discharge. But the production of the purple fabric functions not only
as an effective symbol of Jesus' clothing in Mary's flesh. It suggests
the royal purple of the world's future sovereign and the scarlet robe
in which the Roman soldiers dress the King of the Jews. It also
foreshadows medieval representations of Jesus' infancy which
show Mary knitting for her child the seamless tunic (Plate 13) - the
outfit worn by Jesus during his passion. The weaving of the "red
thread" into the "red veil" conveys the transition from fluidity to
solidity, from time to space, from a dot (sign, letter, word) to
surface and texture, and from the immediacy of conception to the
emergence of a "true" image. The annunciation is immediately
followed by the Virgin's finishing and depositing the Lord's red veil
in the temple. Taking the textile from the girl's hands, the priest
treats Mary with such reverence as if she were already bringing him
the baby Jesus.
Paradoxically, the very same text which is inspired by the
intricacies of female sexuality also claims Mary's perpetual physical
virginity - against the New Testament, which indicates that after
Jesus' birth Mary's marriage with Joseph is consummated, as it
mentions the Lord's brothers. The Protevangelium contrasts Mary's
menstruation with her symbolic continence expressed in metaphors
of sound vessels. They are used twice, each time at a crucial point of
the narrative. Just before the annunciation, as Mary is about to be
turned into God's receptacle, she fills a pitcher with water. That the
pitcher stands for herself becomes clear when, doubting his wife's
faithfulness, Joseph brings Mary to the temple to have her virginity
tested. She is given "to drink of the water of the conviction of the

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Lord . . . and sent. . . into the hill-country" and expected to be leaky;

but "she returned whole" {Book of fames, 16:1-2).
loseph was satisfied with this proof of his wife's purity; the author
of the Protevangeliiim wasn't. He introduced a skeptical woman by
the name of Salome who, upon hearing that a virgin had given birth
requested to insert a finger into Mary's vagina.^'" She found the
hymen intact, but was punished for her disbelief by divine fire
which burnt her hand. The idea to prove Mary's absolute purity by
means of an anatomical examination strikes one as rather drastic,
especially by Christian standards. It certainly renders the Book of
James a problematic reading. Therefore it is not surprising to learn
that Mary's apocryphal biography was considered heretical and
listed in the first index of forbidden books, attributed to Pope
Gelasius I but probably dating from the sixth century or later.
The Protevangelium reflects concerns and patterns of imagination
similar to those of the Hemorrhissa legend. Both deal with the
breaking of the fewish taboo of menstruation and the "healing" of
unclean women through God's touch; both present female flux as a
pollution which, however, should not be dreaded but respected for it
leads to incarnation,- and both are unable to resolve Christianity's
fundamental tension between a simultaneous insistence on physic-
ality and spirituality. The apocryphal story of Mary's anatomical
examination is based on the biblical disbelief of the Apostle Thomas
whose finger is inserted into the wounded side by the resurrected
Christ himself - a strange, at once immaterial and material double
of his former self: in the noli me tangere scene he is a divine enigma
inaccessible to human touch, in the Thomas episode a living corpse.

(iv) Biblical Tactility

Under the influence of the Virgin-cult, Christian theology began to

fuse and confuse the various biblical females, thus proceeding
towards a single feminine escort of Christ - a multifunctional
mother—spouse-bride-anima. A connection between the Hemor¬
rhissa and Mary Magdalen, out of whom Christ casts seven devils
and who then becomes his devoted pupil, was established in a fourth-
century Greek text.*^ It identified the woman with the issue of
blood with the Ganaanite woman's daughter from whom Ghrist
expelled a demon (Mt. 15:22-8). A reason for this identification
might have been an association between menstruation and redness

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 From the Hemorrhissa to Berenice

(or red earth). The etymology of Phoinike, an old Greek name for
Phoenicia or the land of Canaan, points to "red" and "purple" -
colors that were used as epithets of Astarte, the mother of the
Phoenician gods.^*^ A late fourth- or early fifth-century Latin sermon
nursed similar analogies. Arriving at Mary's and Martha's house in
Bethany, Christ found the two women sick. And since he "loved
Martha and her sister" (Jn. 11:5), he cured them both: Mary was
exorcized and Martha's hemorrhage was stopped.
Religious imagination favored Mary Magdalen, the first witness of
the resurrection and the addressee of Christ's "don't touch me" - an
admonition which released a flood of erotic fantasy. Since in the
New Testament most women remained anonymous, the Magdalen's
big advantage lay in her having a name and being mentioned in each
evangel. Her biblical significance inspired the Gnostic Gospel of
Mary m which Peter says to her: "Sister, we know that the Savior
loved you more than the rest of women. Preparing the ground for
the medieval anima mysticism, Cyril of Jerusalem (ca.315-86) fused
Mary Magdalen and the Holy Virgin; and he compared Jesus to the
bridegroom of the Song of Songs, and Mary Magdalen and other
women to his bride-souls:

But before He entered through the closed doors, the Bridegroom and
Suitor of souls was sought by those noble and brave women. They
came, those blessed ones, to the sepulchre, and sought Him Who had
been raised, and the tears were still dropping from their eyes, when
they ought rather to have been dancing with joy for Him that had
risen. Mary came seeking Him, according to the Gospel, and found
Him not. . . Are then these things also written? He says in the Song of
Songs, On my bed I sought Him Whom my soul loved. At what
season? By night on my bed I sought Him Whom my soul loved:
Mary, it says, came while it was yet dark. On my bed I sought Him
by night, I sought Him, and 1 found Him not... He not only rose, but
had also the dead with Him when He rose. But she knew not, and in
her person the Song of Songs said to the Angels, Saw ye Him Whom
my soul lovedl [Lecture 14. 12)^‘

In a homily by Gregory the Great (ca.540-604), Mary Magdalen is

coalesced with the nameless but extremely affectionate prostitute
who approached Jesus, an alabaster flask of ointment m her hands,
as he dined in Simon's house.Shocking Christ's entourage, the
woman "standing behind him at his feet, weeping . . . began to wet
his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head,

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 From Word to Image - History

and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment"
(Lk. 7:38). Simon in particular was so upset by the scene that "he
said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would have known
who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a
sinner'" (Lk. 8:39). Jesus guessed Simon's thoughts and rebuked
him with the famous remark: "her sins, which are many, are
forgiven, for she loved much" (Lk. 7:47). Gregory's fusion was
inspired by the fact that Mary, the sister of Martha, did exactly the
same as the prostitute (Jn. 11:2)- and it transformed Mary Magdalen
into a contradictory character, a hybrid of impurity and virtue,
sensuality and spirituality.
The importance of Martha and Mary was also due to their
relationship with Lazarus, whose return from the dead shows Jesus
in solidarity with women and foreshadows Christ's own resurrection.
The revival of Lazarus is preceded by a parable built around the
number "twelve" which divides day (traditionally male) and night
(traditionally female) as well as those who can see (=be clear in their
heads=believe) from those who can't. In the Lazarus episode women
see and believe, men don't - and thus have to be convinced by
means of a miracle: "Then Jesus told them plainly, 'Laz'arus is dead;
and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may
believe'" (Jn. 11:14-15). While the apostles, led in their doubt by
Thomas, the Twin, still hold Jesus for a man who together with
them will be stoned to death in Bethany (Jn. 11:16), Martha
considers him "the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into
the world" (Jn. 11:27).
Lazarus's revival borders on the macabre, Jesus' resurrection is
permeated with sublimity. But otherwise similarities abound.
Martha removes the stone from Lazarus's tomb (Jn. 11:39-41);
Magdalen Mary comes early in the morning to Jesus' tomb and sees
that the stone has been taken away (Jn. 20:1). Lazarus discards the
bandages with which his hands and feet have been bound and the
fabric in which his face has been wrapped (Jn. 11:44), as he walks
towards his sisters; Christ leaves his shroud and headcloth in the
tomb (Jn. 20:6-7) and in the outfit of a common man meets Mary
Magdalen, who takes him for a gardener.
The New Testament suggests that Jesus revived Lazarus because
of his affection for Mary, whose lamenting the death of her brother
"deeply moved" him (Jn. 11:33); it establishes a correspondence
between Jesus' pity and the compassionate feelings of women who
are present at his crucifixion, who observe the wrapping of his

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 From the Hemorrhissa to Berenice

corpse by Joseph of Arimathea, and who arrive at his tomb with

spices to anoint the dead man; and it chooses women as the first
recipients of the good news of Christ's resurrection. What is the
reason for this choice? It seems to be due to combined stereotypes
about women, the traditional naive believers in miracles and dealers
in wondrous gossip. But, more importantly, women's devotion to
Jesus reflects the evangelists' desire to link them to the incarnate
God. Their presence connects Christ's death and rebirth to gods of
vegetation mourned by goddesses.
A passionate woman with beautiful long hair searching for the
dead Christ and lamenting his death, Mary Magdalen continued a
familiar tradition (Plate 9). She resembled Venus, Ishtar, Isis, or
Anaitis searching for the corpse of Adonis, Tammuz, Osiris, or Baal;^^
and as Adonis and Tammuz were gods of vegetation, the Magdalen's
mistaking Jesus for a gardener reinforced the analogy with ancient
mythology.Coalesced with Mary the Egyptian and other reformed
prostitutes, the relatively colorless New Testament Magdalen came
to embody carnality, sensuality, and seduetiveness. This added to
Christian iconography the badly needed figure of an attractive and
fleshly female contrasting and complementing the madonna. As the
divinization of the Holy Virgin discouraged allusions to her
physiology, female incontinence was projected onto the Magdalen -
an attractive Madonna-Hemorrhissa. This link to flux might have
inspired, as Marina Warner has already suggested, medieval legends
in which after Jesus' death Mary Magdalen is put to sea together
with her brother Lazarus, Mary Jacobi, and Mary Salome, and drifts
in an unseaworthy boat from Palestine to Southern Franee.^^
In the Coptic Book of the Resurrection of Christ by Bartholomew
the Apostle, the Hemorrhissa is included among the women coming
to the Lord's tomb:

Early in the morning of the Lord's day the women went to the tomb.
They were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James whom Jesus
delivered out of the hand of Satan, Salome who tempted him, Mary
who ministered to him and Martha her sister, Joanna {al. Susanna) the
wife of Chuza who had renounced the marriage bed, Berenice who was
healed of an issue of blood in Capernaum.

In medieval art Veroniea and the Magdalen, each equipped with

her respective attributes, often stand at the crucifix (Plate 5).
Veronica displays a white cloth imprinted with the Lord's blood-red

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 From Word to Image - History

"true" portrait, while Mary Magdalen, her splendid hair suggestive

of a natural veil, holds in her hands a pyx evocative of Christ's
anointment. The fabric stained with blood and the container filled
with ointment hint at femininity consumed - deflowered, impreg¬
nated, infused with seed. In the Middle Ages St Mary Magdalen
patronized the producers of wine and perfume, and the weavers.
And Veronica protected - under the name of Venice or Venisse -
the female flux, and was celebrated on Mardi Gras by women
offering her candles (symbols of Christ) and clean sheets.Occa¬
sionally, the combined remembrances of the Holy Virgin, St Mary
Magdalen and St Veronica resulted in such images as the mid¬
fourteenth century Maddalena cristofora by Paolo Veneziano.^^ In
his Byzantine-like depiction of the Magdalen's assumption, Christ's
portrait appears on her breast like a clipeus or Holy Face on,
respectively, the front of the Theotokos and Veronica. But here the
icon is borne not by cloth but by the Magdalen's sumptuous hair -
yet another female medium suitable for being impregnated with
Jesus' "true" likeness and yet another symbol of flux.

(v) Egyptian Hair and Royal Relic

In mythology nomen est omen, with names and their (mis)readings,

(mis)spelhngs and (mis)translations influencing the development of
characters and plots. A name's various readings and meanings,
associations with other names (and words), and metaphors may
define a personality as well as a legend's plot. Each mythological
figure owes a lot to the real or invented people with whom it shares
the same or similar name(s), as well as to words resembling or
evoking its name(s). Up to our day the most famous of all the
Berenices has remained the Egyptian Queen Berenice II (ca.269-221
BC), the daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene, and the wife of Ptolemy
III Euergetes. We even possess her picture on a third-century BC
coin showing a beautiful woman in profile, her head covered with a
veil.'^*’ Berenice II is still remembered because of her hair. During her
husband's absence on an expedition to Syria, she cut her locks and
dedicated them to Venus for the king's safe return. They were
deposited in the goddess's temple at Zephyrium, from which,
however, they mysteriously disappeared. The mystery was solved in
a way flattering to the queen by the court astronomer, Conon; he
said that her locks had been carried to heaven and placed among the

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 From the Hemoiihissa to Berenice

stars, and he named a constellation he had just then discovered

Coma Berenices - the Hair of Berenice.
The queen's sacrifice was commemorated by Callimachus (active
ca.250 BC), the Greek poet and chief librarian of the Alexandrian
library, in his poem The Lock of Berenice, which has been preserved
as a small fragment. Its narrator is the hair complaining bitterly
about Its separation from the queen's head. Not even the honor of
being assumed to heaven can "outweigh the distress which I feel
that I no longer shall touch that head, from which when [Berenice
was] still a maiden I drank so many frugal scents, but did not enjoy
the myrrh of the married woman's [hair]."^^ Callimachus's verses
are mostly known from the translation by the Roman poet Catullus
(?84—54 BC), who studied in the school of the Alexandrian poets. In
his own version of the Coma Berenices - the title of his 66th poem -
Catullus used the analogy between Berenice's agony, caused by her
husband's departure, and the despair of her locks, separated from her
head, as a pretext to play an erotic hide-and-seek game, ambiguous
and full of surprises. His Berenice, a woman consumed with passion
and longing, is one of those "lovers" who "cannot bear to be far
away from the side of him they love" (66. 31-2) and in his absence
"brush away the tears" (66. 30).'^^
Catullus's verses are permeated with sexual imagery: with
metaphors of the soft (female hair) yielding to the hard (steel); of
delicate matter being carried away by male energy; of intimate and
passionate contacts and dark pursuits. In his vision Berenice's hair
resembles a luminous hymen, a woman's most precious membrane,
and its lament evokes a female mourning her defloration. The
dazzling flow of metaphors makes us realize that Berenice's cut hair,
not unlike Veronica's veil, suggests the loss of virginity and the
material manifestation of this loss - the blood-stained sheet which
in Muslim countries is still exhibited after the nuptial night. The
vera icon of Berenice's hair celebrates a femininity which is first
consumed and then rewarded by men - assumed to their heaven
where, however, a female may feel as uncomfortable as the hair of
the Egyptian queen:

Then Venus - that among the various lights of heaven, not only
should the golden crown taken from the brows of Ariadne be fixed,
but that I also might shine, the dedicated spoil of Berenice's sunny
head - me too, wet with tears, and transported to the abodes of the
gods, me a new constellation among the ancient stars did the goddess

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 From Word to Image — History

set . . . touching the fires of the Virgin and the raging Lion . . . But
though at night the footsteps of the gods press close upon me ... I do
not so much rejoice in this good fortune, as grieve that parted, ever
parted must I be from the head of my lady,- with whom of old, while
she was still a virgin, delighting herself with all kinds of perfumes, I
drank many thousands. Now, ye maidens, when the torch has united
you with welcome light, yield not your bodies to your loving spouses.
(66. 59-80)

Catullus's Hair of Berenice reflects the ancient taste for fluidity

and metamorphosis. But his poem must have also appealed to early
Christians who could see the hiblical women connected to Jesus
through flesh and skin, hair and flux as Berenices reborn. The
memory of Queen Berenice was kept alive not only by the
constellation named for her and verses written about her but also
through the existence of two other Egyptian princesses; Berenice,
also called Cleopatra (d. 80 BC), and Berenice (d. 55 BC), the sister of
the great Cleopatra and the wife of Archelaus, who had been made
king of Comana in Pontus (or in Cappadocia) by Pompey. At the
beginning of the Christian era the name rang a bell because of two
Jewish princesses. Berenice, the daughter of Salome and sister of
Herod I; and Berenice (b. ca.AD 28), the daughter of Agrippa I, king
of Judaea, and a scandal of a woman.Josephus reports that her
reputation was so bad that when her father died, the population of
Caesarea dragged her statues to brothels. She married her father's
brother, after his death lived with her brother, Herod Agrippa II, and
together with him participated in the trial of Paul (Acts, 25:23). In
66, at the beginning of the Jewish insurrection, Berenice found
herself in Jerusalem and interceded at the tribunal of the procurator
Florus. Josephus describes the episode in the style of a reformed-
prostitute-story;

Now she dwelt then at Jerusalem, in order to perform a vow which she
had made to God; for it is usual with those that had been either
afflicted with a distemper, or with any other distresses, to make vows;
and for thirty days before they are to offer their sacrifices, to abstain
from wine, and to shave the hair of their head. Which things Berenice
was now performing and stood before Florus's tribunal, and besought
him (to spare the Jews].
[The Jewish War, 2. 15. SIS-M)'^"*

As her compatriots struggled for independence, Berenice joined the

Roman party, gained the favor of the old Emperor Vespasian (AD

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 From the Hemorrhissa to Berenice

70—9), and conquered the heart of his son, the Emperor Titus (79-
81), who carried out the siege of Jerusalem and destroyed the city.
Agrippa and Berenice, to whom Titus had promised marriage,
followed him to Rome and were allowed to reside in the imperial
palace. This created such an outrage that Titus felt obliged to send
Berenice hack to the East.^^^ In medieval legends both the father and
the son are cured by means of Veronica's cloth from either leprosy or
other skin illnesses, and convert to Christianity. For the sake of
historical perspective we should remember that Pliny's Natural
History, our main source of information on ancient menstruation
beliefs, was written during Vespasian's reign, and dedicated to
Titus.
The Byzantine chronicler John Malalas (ca. 491—578), a follower
of Eusebius, the Doctrine of Addai, and Macarius Magnes, mentions
in his Chronographia a prominent Hemorrhissa—Berenice from
Paneas. In an obvious imitation of the Abgar—Jesus correspondence,
she writes an official letter to the toparch Herodes Agrippa asking
him for permission to erect a monument of Jesus and herself, and
promptly receives a positive response.The noble status of the
biblical Hemorrhissa was also expressed by the Emperor Julian's
reaction to the Paneas monument.He first had the statues of Jesus
and the Hemorrhissa destroyed and then replaced with a portrait of
himself in the company of Zeus and Aphrodite. The appearance of
aristocratic lady-friends of Christ reflects the ambitions and activities
of the female members of the imperial family. Typical examples
are the legends of Saint Helena (ca.247-ca.327), the mother of
Constantine the Great, or Protonice (Petronice, Patronice), a
fictional wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius (AD 41-54) - who
was married four times, but to no woman by such a name. The
Protonice account, contained in the Doctrine of Addai, was written,
according to Phillips, earlier than the almost identical legend of the
cross invention by St Helena.^^ He may be wrong, but this does not
concern us here. Obviously, both legends are close in time and
products of the growing fascination with relics: the verae icones and
the verae cruces.
A relic usually looks perfectly ordinary but works miracles
because of an imperceptible power derived from contact with the
holy. The relic's "true" nature is invisible and thus reveals itself not
through sight but through touch. Anything that comes in contact
with God is injected with his divinity transforming objects and
humans into relics. By "overshadowing" Mary, a Jewish girl, God

105
 From Word to Image - History

the Father turned her into the Holy Virgin - a relic. Jesus, the
offspring of divine tactility, was a relic - and the origin of the
Christian cult of relics.Jesus looked like a man, but his touch
wrought miracles, contradicting visible evidence and proving him a
divinity. The Petronicc legend deals with the question of how to
recognize a relic. The "true" cross is found along the line of a logic
that would have also worked for identifying Jesus. Imagine that you
are seeking Christ, whom you have never seen. On your way you
encounter three fellows, one of whom may be he. How do you figure
it out? You touch each of them and see what happens. That is the
story of Protonice. Impressed by "the signs and wonders, and
marvellous works" done in Rome by Simon, one of Jesus' disciples,
the pagan empress converted to Christianity; she "arose promptly
and descended from Rome to Jerusalem, she and her two sons with
her, and her one virgin daughter," in order to see "Golgotha, on
which Christ was crucified, and the wood of His cross on which He
was suspended by the Jews, and the grave in which He was placed"
{Doctrine of Addai, pp. 10—12).
When the imperial family entered the grave, a miracle signalled to
them that they had found the right spot. Protonice's "virgin
daughter fell down and died, without pain, without disease, and
without any cause of death" (p. 12). The princess was killed by God
— very much with his traditional taste for untouched young girls —
not without a reason. A dead female body was needed for a
performance of resurrection and for the solution of the otherwise
insoluble riddle: which one of the three crosses belonged to Jesus?
This was realized by Protonice's bright son. Upon his suggestion the
empress took one cross after the one other, placing each on top of
her daughter. When the "true" cross touched the dead virgin, "in the
twinkling of an eye . . . her daughter became alive, and she arose
suddenly, and praised God, who had restored her to life by His
cross" (p. 14).
In the cross, as in all great religious symbols, opposites coincide. It
can symbolize the femininity of the world (mother) axis, bearing the
crucified Jesus like a Theotokos or a medieval vierge ouvrante, or
his masculinity. In this particular legend the cross acts as a phallus,
and the episode borders on obscenity. A fifteenth-century French
depiction of the miracle shows how the cross, placed right on the
young girl's womb, makes her rise from the stretcher and pull apart
the sheets with which her naked body has been covered (Plate 14).
The finding of the cross and other relics is not, as Peter Brown has

106
 From the Hemoiihissa to Berenice

pointed out, an invention but an identification^^ In the Protonice-

Helena legend the "true" cross, ’which has been identified ’with a
female body, can be subsequently perceived as God's gift to the girl.
The reanimation of the Roman princess is modelled after the revival
of Jairus's daughter, but the substitution of Christ by his cross
makes it resemble sexual initiation even more than in the Bible.
Since the resurrection is preceded by killing, ’with God acting as the
girl's murderer, a sinister sexuality is introduced and the problem of
Father delivering his Son - and every human being - is addressed.
The identification of the "tme" cross demonstrates the contradictory,
good-evil character of divinity - and of our most common erotic
reverie: the fantasy of first exposing the objects of our longing to
mortal danger, and then rescuing the beloved.

(vi) The Gnostic Flood of Blood

In the second-century Gnostic cosmogonies the biblical Hemorrhissa

appears under the name of Prunice {Prounice, Prounicos, Prunicus,
Pruneicos, etc.).'^^ She is regarded as a feminine principle of the
universe and identified with Sophia (Wisdom) and Mother Achamoth
- "the second Sophia . . . banished ... to the region of emptiness and
shadow," who is "the abortion, the mere negative side of the higher
wisdom, at first wholly formless, then wrought to a form in
substance, but not in knowledge.Prunice's flux is seen in
analogy and contrast to divine emission and Jesus' bleeding. But
while God's emanations resemble the streaming of (sun)hght and
semen, Pmnice's discharge is perceived as a form of procreation. Thus
the Valentinian Gnostics use Prunice in the sense of "bearer," believe
in several Prunices (each has a different name), and interpret the 12
years of her flux as her 12 emanations or children.But Pmnice's
menstmation is also regarded as a global blood-flood endangering the
existence of the world.
In the past the knowledge of Prunice was mostly derived from the
treatises written against the heretics by Irenaeus, the late second-
century bishop of Lyons, and the Panarion of Epiphanius (ca.315—402).
Both ridicule the concept of Pmnice, accuse the heretics of obscenity,
and dismiss the Gnostic Fiemorrhissa as a cover for pleasure and
voluptuousness. Origen (ca.185-ca.254) mentions Prunicus in
Contra Celsum, his refutation of The True Word by Celsus, a

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 From Word to Image - History

second-century opponent of Christianity. Origen first quotes Celsus

who writes:

They have further added one on top of another sayings of prophets,

and circles upon circles, and emanations of an earthly Church, and of
Circumcision, and a power flowing from a certain virgin Prunicus,
and a living soul, and heaven slain that it may have life, and death m
the world being stopped when the sin of the world dies . . . And
everywhere they speak in their writings of the tree of life and of
resurrection of the flesh by the tree - I imagine because their master
was nailed to a cross and was a carpenter by trade. So that if he had
happened to be thrown off a cliff, or pushed into a pit, or suffocated by
strangling, or if he had been a cobbler or stonemason or blacksmith,
there would have been a cliff of life above the heavens, or a pit of
resurrection, or a rope of immortality, or a blessed stone, or an iron of
love, or a holy hide of leather. Would not an old woman who sings a
story to lull a little child to sleep have been ashamed to whisper tales
such as these?
{Contra Celsum, 6. 34)'^®

Paradoxically, Celsus's confusion of Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic

teachings reinforces his point hy revealing the metaphorical core of
religion and its origin in the imaginary. Bringing together emanation
and flow, circumcision and Prunicus, Celsus shows the centrality of
the light-and-blood (=emission) symbolism as ways of linking
divinity and humanity. Celsus's brilliant and merciless critique
suggests that the Gnostic obsession with blood-flux is derived from
Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity. That's why Origen takes
his argument so seriously and replies:

The phrase about emanations of an earthly Church and of Circumcision

was perhaps taken from some who speak of a certain heavenly
Church, and say that the church on earth is an emanation from a
higher world, and that the circumcision described in the Law is a
symbol of a circumcision which has taken place in some heavenly rite
of purification. Prunicus is the name given to Wisdom by the
Valentinians, according to their own deceived wisdom; and they want
to make out that the woman who had an issue of blood for twelve
years is a symbol of Wisdom. It was because this fellow, who muddles
together everything from Greeks, barbarians, and heretics, misunder¬
stood this that he spoke of a power flowing from a certain virgin
Prunicus.
{Contra Celsum, 6. 35)

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 From the Hemorrhissa to Berenice

The Prunice mythology reflects the Gnostic idea of multiple

worlds, spheres or periods of times which are called aeons (in Greek
literally "period of time" or "lifetime") and conceived as God's
emanations or thoughts. The first aeon was fully charged with
divine power that was gradually lost as aeons kept breeding aeons.
Gnostic writings differ in their explanation of aeons, but they
usually maintain that their number increased proportionally to
their distance from the divinity and that the lower aeons possessed
proportionally less energy. In some systems the aeons were
considered agents of illumination and divinity, in others they were
interpreted as material hindrances, layers of time and space
separating the human soul from its heavenly origins and obscuring
the eyes and the mind. The aeons could be male (and include one or
several Jesuses and Judas, the 12th aeon) or androgynous, but mostly
they were female.
In the Apocryphon of John, an important tractate composed before
AD 185 and still used by heretical sects in the eighth century,
Pronoia ("Providence," "Forethought"), God's first emanation, is a
female aeon combining divine spirituality with earthly physicality.
Pronoia is the "image of the invisible, virginal Spirit who is perfect"
and "the womb of everything for she is prior to them all.""^^ In the
Trimorphic Protennoia, a treatise roughly contemporaneous with
the Apocryphon of fohn, God's Protennoia ("the First Thought")
acts as a heavenly redeemer. She descends three times from the
universe of Life and Light into the mortal world, appearing first as
Father or Voice, second as Mother or Sound, and third as Son or
Word. The purpose of Protennoia's trips to earth is to reveal the
hidden, to awaken those who sleep, to make remember those who
have forgotten, and to bring salvation through knowledge and the
"Five Seals" - five secrets which "complete the virtue of Intellect"
and are perceived as a sort of spiritual or intellectual clothing
achieved in the process of illumination: "he who possesses the Five
Seals . . . has stripped off the garments of ignorance and put on a
shining Light.
The most popular aeon is Sophia (Wisdom). In The Sophia of Jesus
Christ, a revelation discourse composed in the first two centuries
AD, Sophia perfects her greatness by reflecting God "without a
word," acts as the consort of the Immortal Man, and is called the
"All-Begettress," "First-Begettress," "All-Mother," "Love-Sophia"
and "Silence.The Apocryphon of fohn and other Gnostic
writings report about Sophia's fall, which is caused by her disobedi-

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 From Word to Image - History

ence - her desire to bring forth without the permission of the Great
Spirit. The fallen Sophia-Achamoth, whom Irenaeus compares to
the unformed Platonic matter, becomes a source of corruption,
emitting increasingly inferior aeons or elements. Her tears turn to
water, her hysterical laughter to light, and her sadness to solid
substance.For the Barbelonites a Sophia-Pmnice is the first
emanation of the first angel - and a lonely single. Envious of married
creatures, she flows to the very bottom (of matter), where she gives
birth to Protoarchon, a creature of ignorance and presumption and
the creator of the world.The Ophites call their Sophia—Prounikos
the "Left" and the "Male-Female" and consider her an emanation of
the First Woman — mother of all living beings and spouse of God
Father and God Son. She falls from the "domain of Fathers" into the
inferior world of matter, becomes incarnate, floats on water, issues
seven aeons, inspires the creation of Adam and Eve, introduces the
couple to sexuality and death, and is responsible for the birth of John
the Baptist and Jesus Ghrist.^^ In Gnostic cosmogonies the 12 years
of the Hemorrhissa's flux transform into the 12th aeon or into in an
apocalyptic 12-year-long passion-flood which, had Christ not appeared,
would have annihilated the world. But as she touches the hem of his
tunic — symbol of the last quarter of the moon - the flux stops and
creation is saved.
The vision of the terrible Hemorrhissa might have been influenced
by the Zoroastrian myth of the Great Whore. She awakened
Ahriman, the Destructive Spirit of the universe, who for 3,000 years
had remained in "stupor for fear of the Blessed Man," and inspired
him with her promise of destruction saying: " 'I shall afflict the
water, I shall afflict the earth ... I shall afflict all the creation . . .'
And she related her evil deeds so minutely that the Destructive
Spirit was comforted and . . . leapt forth and kissed the head of the
Whore; and the pollution which is called menstruation appeared on
the Whore.The sight of her blood encouraged Ahriman. He took
the form of a serpent and "trampled upon all the world and made it
as dark as the darkest night . . . And upon the waters he brought
brackishness . . . And upon the earth he let loose reptiles . . . And . . .
he brought concupiscence and want, bane and pain, disease and lust
. . . and sloth.
The Zoroastrian myth of the Great Whore represents an excep¬
tionally forceful confession of the male fear of female sexuality - a
horror so intense that it needs cosmic dimensions to express itself.^*^
While the gospels break through the magic spell of menstruation.

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 From the Flemorrhissa to Berenice

the mythology of a menstrual flood issued from a primordial whore

is echoed in the Revelation. The Apocalypse presents global evil
under the guise of female figures and metaphors in which obscenity
is combined with flux and redness. Thus we have "the great harlot
who is seated upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth
have committed fornication, and with the wine of whose fornication
the dwellers on earth have become drunk" (Rev. 17:1-2); and the
"woman sitting on a scarlet beast" who "was arrayed in purple and
scarlet," was "holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations
and the impurities of her fornication," and who was "drunk with
the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of fesus" (Rev.
17:3-6). Dominated by hatred of the material, physical, and female.
Revelation presents the entire earth as an unclean and poisonous
menstruating monster, the beginning and end of all evil, and
opposes her to the good, full woman - "clothed with the sun" (Rev.
12:1) - i.e. pregnant with a male child (Plate 15). In order to
accomplish salvation, Christ, the lamb-soldier of the Apocalypse - a
bloodbath of a book - has to destroy the Whore and her satanic
companion, the "great red dragon" (Rev. 12:3) pursuing God's bride.
The narrative stresses the contrast between the deadly female flux
and the salvatory character of blood shed in God's struggle against
evil, and in consequence between the stained garments of sinners
and the robes of martyrs made pure and white "in the blood of the
Lamb" (Rev. 7:14). And it glorifies the holy juice of the Lord "who
loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood" (Rev. 1:5).
The legends of the Zoroastrian Whore, the Apocalypse Prostitute,
and the Gnostic Sophia-Prunice-Achamoth identify the menstrual
flux, unclean and dark, with evil femininity. Good femaleness, on
the other hand, corresponds somewhat to the "face of the waters"
over which "the Spirit of God was moving" (Gen. 1:2) - a fluidity
that is illuminated and made into a mirror by divinity.

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The Vera Icon in the West
 6

St Veronica

(i) The Roman Vernicles

The appearance of an acheiopsita in Rome in the middle of the

eighth century was not accidental. The cult of the mandylion may
have been introduced by the Greek Pope John VII (705-7), and the
iconoclast controversy in Byzantium further popularized the "true"
image concept in the West and made Rome, where the papacy
consequently opposed the destruction of images, emerge as the new
center of orthodoxy. In 1216 the Hemorrhissa's claim that she had
obtained the impression directly from Jesus was acknowledged, her
cloth (the one kept in St Peter's) was authenticated, and an office of
the Holy Face, with its own invocations and dispensations, was
instituted by Pope Innocent III, the initiator of the horrible crusade
against the Albigenses.* The invocations. Salve sancta facies and
Ave facies praeclara, were included in medieval prayerbooks
[Horae] and illustrated with miniatures (Plate 16); and the number
of Veronica depictions in Western art began to grow.
The Catholic Church celebrates St Veronica on 4 February and
calls her a "matron." But in medieval calendars the day is often
indicated as that of Veronica the Virgin.^ The choice of the date
reflects an ancient tradition. The name Februarius (since 452 BC the
second month of the Roman calendar) is derived from februare
(purify) or from Februa, the Roman festival of expiation and
lustration, which was held in the second half of February. In this

114
 St Veronica

month also the Lupercalia took place, a festival dedicated to the

purification of women by the priests of Pan Lyceus. The Anglo-
Saxons called February "Sprout Kale," for the seasonal sprouting of
cabbage, and later it was known as Solmonath, in reference to the
sun returning from low latitudes.^ For this reason other saints
related to the old opposition (and coincidence) of bleeding and
purification (through solarity) are also remembered in February.
Candlemas or the Purification of the Virgin, the most ancient
festival in honor of Mary commemorating the presentation of Christ
in the temple, is celebrated on the second (her feast is considered the
day of homosexuals in Bulgaria), and in France St Fiacre, the patron
of hemorrhoids, male flux, and gays, is occasionally feted together
with St Veronica on Mardi Gras.‘^
The historian Giraldus Cambrensis (1146?—1220) mentions two
Roman "true" icons and attributes the picture from the Lateran
Holy Savior's church to St Luke (whom the Virgin had asked to paint
her son), the image from St Peter's to "Veronica matrona."^ The
description of the Sancta Maria ad Praesepe vernicle of St Peter's by
Gervase of Tilbury, the Anglo-Latin writer and traveller of the late
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, seems to suggest that the
cloth (canvas?) has shown not only Christ's face but also his
shoulders.^ Other Roman churches also boasted Christ's authentic
portraits. San Silvestro in Capite, for instance, claimed to possess an
Abgarus (another "true" Abgarus was in Genoa).^ As masses
flocked to the relics, the demand for copies reached such proportions
that by the late Middle Ages the Roman vera icon copyists founded
a guild.^ But since replicas were treated not as paintings but as new
acheiropoietoi, churches and cloisters throughout Europe acquired
their own "vernicles" and organized their own cults of the Holy
Face.
A special fame was achieved by the "true" image which Jacques
Pantaleon de Troyes, the future Pope Urban IV, sent in 1249 as a gift
to his sister Sybil, the abbess of the Montreuil-les-Dames nunnery
near Laon (Plate 17). The arrival of the picture, which was to become
the region's most precious relic, transformed the humble convent
into an important center of worship and pilgrimage. The icon's
celebrity reached its apogee in the second half of the fifteenth
century, but Christ's likeness continued to attract crowds, promote
the creation of Holy Face fraternities, and fuel the mass production
of devotional articles until the French Revolution. It has been
suggested that the Laon picture was a copy of the St Peter's

115
 From Word to Image - History

veronica, but Grabar has proved that the Laon acheiropoietos

which, in fact, carries a Cyrillic inscription, was a Slavic icon from
Serbia, Bulgaria or Russia brought to Rome as a present from one of
these countries' rulers.^
As interest in the passion grew, and as the Veronica legends began
to dwell on her obtaining the "true" image at the via crucis, the
Roman mandylions of the living Jesus were joined by the vera icon
of his dead face. It was covered with large drops of blood, had a
macabre touch, and inspired a new kind of sancta facies invocation.
It is not clear since when the relic had been kept in the sacristy of
St Peter's. But it replaced the Sancta Maria ad Praesepe vernicle (lost
since 1527), and it was widely circulated in ever cruder copies until
the twentieth century. The existence of the various Holy Faces
stimulated mystical and artistic visions. But in the West, unlike in
Byzantium, the actual presence of Christ's "true" likenesses was
overshadowed by the enormous bulk of the St Veronica legends —
romantic, erotic, and propagandistic - which made the woman with
the cloth a more popular subject than the vernicle alone.

(ii) The Acts of Pilate

The growing importance of Rome was mirrored in the legends of

relics and icons travelling not any more to the East, but to the West.
This change of direction brought into focus a whole set of new
issues, the most important of them being the emperor's responsibility
for what happened to Christ under Pontius Pilate, the Roman
governor who came to Judaea from the household of Tiberius (42
BC-AD 37). This question is already raised in the Doctrine of Addai
which contains a letter of the baptized King Abgar to the Emperor
Tiberius urging him to punish the Jews for what they did to Jesus.
To this Tiberius replies;

With respect to that which the Jews have done with the cross, Pilate
the governor hath also written . . . But because the war of the
Spaniards who have rebelled against me is going on at this time,
therefore I have not been able to avenge this matter; but I am prepared
... to make a charge legally against the Jews, who have not acted
legally. And because of this, as to Pilate, who was made by me
governor there, I have sent another in his place, and I have dismissed
him with disgrace, because that he departed from the law, and did the
will of the Jews, and he crucified Christ for the gratification of the

116
 St Veronica

Jews, who according to that which I hear of them, instead of the cross
of death, it was fitting that He should be honoured, and ... be
worshipped by them, especially as they saw with their eyes all which
He did.
[Doctrine of Addai, p. 37)

The notion of Tiberius's anti-Jewish stance was inspired by

Suetonius ("Tiberius," 36), according to whom the emperor's fight
against foreign cults in Rome included particularly severe measures
against the Jews. Their religious vestments and accessories were
burnt, men of military age were drafted into the army and removed
to unhealthy regions, and those too old or too young for the service
were expelled from the capital and threatened with slavery if they
returned. The Doctrine of Addai echoes the Bible, which establishes
Pilate as the criminal behind the stage through the metaphor of his
washing the symbolic blood of Jesus off his hands (Mt. 27:24) - a
cornerstone of Christian iconography and sensibility. When passion
episodes were added to miracle scenes in the late Constantinian
period, Pilate washing his hands became a leading theme, particularly
popular on fourth-century Roman sarcophagi.Quoting the "Greeks
who have chronicled the Olympiads," Eusebius reports that "in the
reign of Gains . . . the governor of our Saviour's day, was involved in
such calamities that he was forced to become his own executioner
and to punish himself with his own hand: divine justice, it seems,
was not slow to overtake him" [Church History, 2. 7. 1). The suicide
of Pilate, modelled after that of Judas who "hanged himself" (Mt.
27:5), likens one to the other presenting both as targets of God's
justice.
The most popular source of information on Pilate's reporting to
the imperial authorities on Jesus' trial is the so-called Acts of Pilate
which is mentioned already in first-century Christian sources,
but was probably written much later. Eusebius speaks of com¬
munication between Pilate and the Emperor Tiberius [Church
History, 2. 2. 1), but he does not refer to Christian Acts of Pilate,

although some mention of them would have been natural. This is all
the more striking in that he knows pagan Acts (anti-Christian), which
were fabricated under the persecutor Maximin and which at his
command had to be read in the schools and committed to memory . . .
Accordingly the prevailing view today is that the Christian Acts of
Pilate were first devised and published as a counterblast to the pagan
Acts . . . and that previously there had been nothing of the sort.^^

117
 From Word to Image - History

The existence of the Grundschrift of the Christian Acts of Pilate,

known also as the Gospel of Nicodemus, is accounted for since
ca.375 or 376. The date of the oldest of the extant Greek versions is
given in the prologue as 425.’^
In the Acts of Pilate, a brilliant piece of propaganda, the Roman
governor (an apparatchik) and Jews (a bunch of criminals) are the
accused. Jesus, on the other hand, has his divine sovereignty
recognized by the Roman emperor himself - although the latter is
only present in effigie. As Jesus comes into Pilate's office, passing
the standard-bearers.

the images of the emperor on the standards bowed and did reverence
to Jesus. And when the Jews saw the behaviour of the standards . . .
they cried out loudly against the standard-bearers. But Pilate said to
them: "Do you not marvel how the images bowed and did reverence
to Jesus?" The Jews said to Pilate: "We saw how the standard-bearers
lowered them and reverenced him." And the governor summoned the
standard-bearers and asked them: "Why did you do this?" They
answered: "We are Greeks and servers of temples, and how could we
reverence him? We held the images; but they bowed down of their
own accord and reverenced him."
{Acts of Pilate, 1:5)

The scene was inspired by Josephus's report about the opposition

which Pilate met when he attempted to allow the legions to enter
Jerusalem with their ensigns (=icons), and it was rendered still more
impressive by repetition. Pilate orders the disbelieving Jews to
select the 12 strongest men from among themselves and make them
carry the standards, and then has Jesus re-enter.

And Pilate summoned those who before carried the images, and said
to them: "I have sworn by the safety of Caesar that, if the standards do
not bow down when Jesus enters, I will cut off your heads." And the
governor commanded Jesus to enter m the second time. And the
messenger did as before and besought Jesus to walk upon his kerchief.
He walked upon it and entered m. And when he had entered m, the
standards bowed down again and did reverence to Jesus.
[Acts of Pilate, 1:6)

The imperial portraits' transformation into the animated acheiro-

poietoi infused with the spirit of Tiberius demonstrates how his

118
 St Veronica

incompetent administrator and the Jews fail to grasp Jesus' true

nature. Pilate's threat to cut off the heads of the standard-bearers
sounds like a joke, since only painted heads have enough brains to
recognize and salute God. Jesus' entrance into Pilate's office is
modelled after the adventus of the emperor, with Christ, the divine
Caesar, greeted by the worldly ruler. The positive action of icons is
followed by an equally positive - and iconic - intervention of
femininity. The wife of Pilate appeals to her husband, as in the Bible
(Mt. 27:19), to spare the "righteous man" because of a dream she had
at night. But the Jews have the nerve to reject her plea on the ground
that Jesus is a sorcerer — who "has sent a dream to your wife" {Acts
of Pilate, 2:1). Furthermore, they denigrate incarnation, accusing
Jesus that he was "born of fornication," that his "birth meant the
death of the children in Bethlehem," and that his father Joseph and
his mother Mary "fled into Egypt because they counted for nothing
among the people" (ibid., 2:3). All this is contradicted by the
appearance of 12 witnesses whose defence of Christ makes the
governor exclaim: "I call the sun to witness that 1 find no fault in
this man" (ibid., 3:1). Still, the trial continues with a Pilate—Jesus
dialogue on truth (which, Jesus claims, comes from heaven), with
the appearance of Nicodemus cured by Christ from a 38-year-long
illness, and the voice of Berenice. The former Hemorrhissa is not
allowed to participate but cries out from a distance about her
healing from her 12-year-long flow. Her oral report is dismissed by
the Jews: "We have a law not to permit a woman to give testimony"
(ibid., 7:1).
In the Acts of Pilate the Hemorrhissa is called Berenice for the
first time, and thus the text's significance for the development of
the Veronica legend has been long recognized. But the astonishing
sequence of events, which involves icons coming alive, female
dreams and testimonies, blood and incarnation, has not been fully
assessed. First, imperial icons become animate and revere Christ.
Second, they are carried by 12 standard bearers who allude to
Berenice's name (Pherenice="victory bearer"), to the 12 years of her
flux and, possibly, to the Gnostic idea of 12 offspring. The 12 Greek
men responsible for icons are followed by the 12 defense witnesses
evocative of the 12 apostles. Third, Jesus walks on his kerchief
(leaving on it, one guesses, the "true" traces of his feet). Fourth,
Christ is defended by women. Fifth, pagan icons and both Roman
and Jewish females are connected to incarnation and presented as
good. Sixth, the Hemorrhissa's voice counts more than the legal

119
 From Word to Image - History

debate of Jewish seholars. Conelusion: Word has ehanged its plaee of

residence. True divinity has abandoned men and their language and
moved into images and women.
A masterpiece of mythological manipulation, the Acts of Pilate
foreshadows the fall of evil men and the career of Berenice. She
begins to rise in the legends of the Healing of Tiberius [Cura
sanitatis Tiberii], whose manuscripts go back to the eighth century
but probably date from the sixth. Gravely ill, the Emperor Tiberius
hears from Thomas, a Jew, about the wonders worked by Jesus, and
sends his officer Volusianus to bring the famous doctor from
Jerusalem to Rome. By the time Volusianus arrives in Jerusalem,
Christ is no more. Pilate is arrested and forced to admit his guilt,
and Volusianus is informed that Veronica (she is also called Basilla
in some early copies), a Hemorrhissa from Tyre, possesses the egona
of Jesus. This the woman first denies, but under threat she produces
the image. Volusianus worships it and returns to Rome, taking with
him Veronica, her picture, and Pilate. Upon their arrival Tiberius
banishes the governor without seeing him, receives Veronica and,
seeing her icon, is immediately cured. The Jerusalem woman is
rewarded with money, and the emperor builds a shrine for Christ's
portrait and is baptized.
In the Healing of Tiberius the figures of Pilate and Veronica form
the two poles of the narrative, with him personifying the evil of doubt
and opportunism, with her allegorizing the courage to support the
persecuted God, to abandon Judaism, and to propagate Christianity.
In Rome, Veronica assumes the role of a missionary from the Holy
Land, and she signals with her emigration the doomed fate of
Jerusalem. This is further elaborated in the Vindicta Salvatoris, a
Latin prose work written in Aquitaine ca.700, in which, according
to Dobschiitz, the story of Veronica is for the first time presented
against the background of a penal expedition to Palestine, and the
destruction of Jerusalem (in AD 70 by Titus). The Vindicta and the
French Venjance, which sprang from it in the late twelfth century,
account for the increasingly aggressive character of the pilgrimage
to the Holy Land which started as a penance and ended as a
crusade. In order to be admitted to the sacrament of the Eucharist,
penance had to be performed through fasting, flagellation, or
pilgrimage, and led to penitentiary pilgrimages which probably
started around 700. In the tenth century, under the influence of the
Cluniac revival, they became increasingly popular and numerous,
and came to resemble military expeditions. In 1064 seven thousand

120
 St Veronica

armed men marehed to Jerusalem under the leadership of the

archbishop of Mainzd^
The Venjance introduces a French king, Titus (the Emperor Titus
reborn) or Tyrusd^ He rules in Burgidalla (Bordeaux) and suffers
from a cancer in his right nostril that has eaten away his face up to
his eye. A ship carrying a Jewish messenger, Nathan, on his way to
Rome to bear a treaty to Tiberius (who is also sick with ulcers and
nine kinds of leprosy) is stranded on Titus's shore. From Nathan the
king learns that he could have been cured by the prophet Emmanuel
who, however, has meanwhile been crucified by the Jews. Hearing
this bad news King Titus, adding hatred to Abgar's indignation,
exclaims: "Woe to you, Tiberius, in whose realm such things are
done. I would have slain these Jews with my own hand for
destroying my Lord. At this word the wound fell from his face and
he was healed.The cured King Titus is converted to Christianity
and sends for Vespasian to assist him. An army of 5,000 men arrives
and they sail off to Jerusalem. After seven years of siege the starving
Jews finally surrender and are punished in various ways imitative of
Christ's passion: sold at 30 for a penny, cast lots upon and cut up
into four parts, crucified head downwards, or pierced with lances.
Then a search for the likeness of Christ is initiated, and Veronica is
found. Titus sends a message to Tiberius asking him to have
Velosian come to Jerusalem and examine the case. Velosian comes,
puts Pilate in an iron cage and interrogates Veronica, who initially
denies that she possesses Jesus' likeness. But under the threat of
torture she confesses to having a linen cloth, which she worships
daily, and produces it. Velosian robs the woman of her treasure,
envelops the image in a golden cloth, locks it in a box, and prepares
himself to return to Rome. But Veronica insists on coming with
him, and so he takes her. In Rome the miraculous picture cleanses
the emperor's body from leprosy and restores him to health. (The
healing was rarely shown in art, but the Metropolitan Museum in
New York possesses a Flemish tapestry from 1510 with Veronica
curing the Emperor Vespasian with her veil.)
The medieval versions of the Vengeance are constructed around
the destruction of Jerusalem and the pleasure of seeing its inhabitants
suffer. Inspired by the crusaders' savageries and their taste for
horror, they can be read as manuals in sadism. In a fourteenth-
century Erench text, during the city's siege the starving Jews resort
to cannibalism (women eat their children) and Pilate's death is
preceded by his dismemberment. On each of 21 consecutive

121
 From Word to Image - History

mornings another part of his body is cut off (ears, hands, and arms
are followed by the penis and the tongue); after every amputation he
is smeared with oil and honey, to attract flies, and bound to a pillar
on a public square. In order to justify the excess, Pilate is made to
look like Satan in the company of devils - squatting on the walls of
his prison like gargoyles on Gothic cathedrals.

(iii) The Cross and the Tomb

The horrible requires the sweet. The more blood flows, the more
sentimentality is projected onto the figure of the Hemorrhissa
Veronica, the Good Woman of Jerusalem who prefers exile to
abandoning Ghrist's portrait. Some medieval legends leave us with
the impression that Veronica is the city's only survivor and that of
Jerusalem's splendor nothing has remained but her likeness of the
Savior. As the New Sodom is razed to the ground, the woman and
the picture are preserved to bear testimony to God's presence on
earth. Acting against the grain of her culture, Veronica, a Jewess for
Jesus, is praised for the grant amor she feels for the Lord - and for
becoming the first collector of Ghristian art.^°
Veronica's acquisition of the Holy Face follows two basic
scenarios. The first, older one, describes a casual or intimate
encounter of Veronica, a "friend" of Jesus Christ, and the Lord in the
streets of Jerusalem or at the woman's home.^^ In Dit is Veronica
(ca.II60), a German poem, Veronica is so fond of Jesus that she
comes to Luke and asks him to paint a portrait of Christ.The
evangelist executes the picture, but when Veronica compares it to
Jesus' face, she finds that it doesn't resemble him. Luke excuses
himself for his failure and tries again. After he has painted three
pictures but has not satisfied Veronica, Jesus himself intervenes. He
explains that in heaven alone, from where he has been sent, is his
likeness known, and he suggests she invite him for a meal. Sitting at
Veronica's table, the Lord washes his face and, as he dries it with a
towel, the cloth is impregnated with his true features. In the
Vengeance, Veronica meets Jesus on her way to the painter whom
she wants to portray the Lord.^"* Christ understands her wish
without words, takes the canvas out of her hands and, imprinting
his face on it, leaves her a better picture than a painter could do. In
the oldest version of the Healing of Tiberius, Veronica herself is the
artist who has painted {depinxit) Jesus on her handkerchief.^'^

122
 St Veronica

The second, more recent and popular variant of the legend, was
introduced in the thirteenth-century French Bible en frangois of
Roger d'Argenteuil, a didactic prose compilation of Christian
legends and doctrinal expositions, which in the fifteenth century
was translated into English.On his way to Golgotha Christ passes
Veronica who carries her handkerchief to sell it on the market:
"And when she saugh oure Lord so sweting and so vilan'ou'sly
demened, she had gret sorou . . . And she vnlappid the couerchif and
sprad it to him seid, 'Sir, holdith this couerchif and wipe the suete
from youre visage" [Bible en frangois, ch. 17, 18-24). The new
version echoes the fact that since the twelfth century there existed
in Jerusalem a via sacra or dolorosa which led from Pilate's house to
the Mount of the Skull and was thought to correspond to Christ's
last walk on earth. In the fourteenth century the Franciscans took
control of it, identified the 14 stations at which Jesus stopped, and
turned the via crucis into Jerusalem's most attractive sightseeing
tour. According to William Wey's Loca sancta in Stacionibus
Jerusalem (1483), at the station number six pilgrims were shown the
house of Veronica, standing next to that of Pilate, in front of which
Jesus broke down under the burden of his cross. No doubt, they were
also told about blood and sweat streaming from Jesus' face, and
about an admirable woman rushing out with her veil, handkerchief,
napkin, or apron to assist the Lord:

Das bluet vnd auch der swaisz

Vber sein angesicht ran
Feronica trang durch alle man
Vnd wischet im sein antlicz wert.^^

The Jesus-Veronica encounter is made into a melodrama in

passion plays, which between the fifteenth and the eighteenth
century function as religious soap operas and theatrical parallels to
the contemporary pictorial programs of the viae crucis and calvaries.
The passion plays contrast the torture and death of Christ with the
feelings of compassion, love, and sorrow experienced by Veronica, a
tearful young bride or a worn-out widow, whose words imitate the
speech of ordinary women overcome by grief. Recurring motifs are
love and separation, the features of Christ's face and the wish to
remember them. A Veronica asking Jesus for a portrait to make sure
she does not forget her "dearest Lord's" face brings to mind the
Corinthian girl who outlined the shadow of her lover, especially

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when the impression is referred to as a "token" or "sign of love."^^

Presenting Veronica with his likeness, Christ admonishes her to
remember him.^*^ Upon receiving the portrait, the Veronica of a
French passion mystery speaks of herself as "full of grace," a phrase
usually applied to a pregnant woman and the Holy Virgin with
child.But she also may assume a motherly role and wipe the face
of Jesus of the dirt with which it has been covered by the Jews
spitting at him."^^
The Veronica legends influenced the iconography and composition
of the sculpted and painted passion and calvary altars which began
to appear in European churches in the first half of the fourteenth
century.In most of them Veronica is solidly present in the large
crowd accompanying Christ and witnessing his crucifixion. Some¬
times she is even present twice, as on the huge Crucifixion panel by
Derick Baegert (active ca. 1476-1505) who in the background shows
Veronica approaching Christ with her napkin, and in front with the
Holy Face suspended between her hands.The woman who meets
Jesus looks different from the owner of his picture - a suggestion of
Veronica's transformation. In the back she wears a heavy dark
outfit, in front she is shown in a light white dress - elegant and
decollete - and a solar turban, crimson-colored and embroidered
with gold.
The drama reaches its climax in separate altar panels depicting
the meeting of the two, and no painting is more suggestive, at least
to modern sensibility, than Hieronymus Bosch's Encounter of
Christ and Veronica, a study of sublimity and beastliness.'^'^ The
artist draws our attention to humanity's two extremes. On one side
we have the incarnate God and the compassionate woman, on the
other the monstrous mob which surrounds them. The persecutors'
eyes bulge out of their sockets, mouths gape wide, teeth are bared
with cannibalistic greediness. The incredibly banal evil possesses an
overpowering vitality - which the good face with total helplessness.
Christ and Veronica keep their eyes shut, hold their lips tight. They
seem to doze or, rather, he has already slipped away into an
unworldly dream, while she embraces amidst the scum her delicate
vernicle- a Platonic shadow. The blurred face of Jesus manifests the
enigma of divinity, the unattractive face of Veronica the enigma of
compassion. United in resignation, both seem insubstantial and
pale, incapable of surviving amidst brutality whose contours are
carved with the sharpness of a knife.
Strange reminiscences of the vernicle, the shroud, the crucifixion

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 St Veronica

and resurrection are included in Bosch's triptych of the hermits

(Palazzo Ducale, Venice). On its right wing a white piece of linen
shimmers in the cave of St Giles, a patron of lepers, beggars, and
cripples, and next to it, detached from the cloth, floats Christ's face
in the air, a veil-membrane of an icon and an anima-hallucination.
On the left wing, dedicated to St Anthony, a large sheet is suspended
on the branch of a bare tree. Under it appears a vision-temptation of
a naked woman whose womb a snake approaches - an obvious
allusion to the Fall caused by Eve's succumbing to the snake.
A personification of physical nature, sin, and death. Eve, unlike
St Veronica, is coupled not with fabric that has been impregnated by
Christ, but with burial cloth - blank female matter prone to
corruption.
The symbolism of Veronica as metaphysical wife and her cloth as
spiritual child is evoked by Rogier van der Weyden in his triptych of
the Crucifixion (Plate 5), an exceptionally beautiful painting and an
excellent example of Veronica's role in medieval Europe. Its central
panel with the crucifix, the Virgin, John, and the two donors is
flanked by Mary Magdalen on his right, and St Veronica on his left.
The dead Christ's head is bent and reposes on his right arm. Blood
trickles from his side and stains the white loincloth. Mary kneels at
the bottom of the cross, embracing it and almost touching blood
streaming from the wound in her son's feet. Her blue dress
corresponds with the blue outfits of two angels flying on both sides
of the cross, and white cloth is draped around her head. John, all in
red, supports the Holy Virgin; the donors pray. Mary Magdalen is
completely covered with a dark green cloth and holds in her palm
the pyx. Veronica, on the other hand, resembles the Virgin. Her head
is draped in a white fabric, and one catches the glimpse of a blue
dress under her red mantle. A white napkin with Christ's portrait is
suspended between her fingertips.
The position of the two women vis-a-vis the crucifix and the
colors of their garments symbolize the roles played by the Magdalen
and Veronica. Standing to Christ's right, the traditional side of life,
and blending with the landscape, the figure of Mary Magdalen
suggests her affinity to physical nature and her position as the
companion of the living Jesus. The pyx reminds the viewer of the
care she took of the Lord's skin and the sensuality of her devotion.
Veronica's outfit is dominated by red and white, the colors of the
Eucharist. They contrast with nature's bloom, allude to passion and
death, and point to the care she took of the Lord in his agony. Each

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 From Word to Image - History

woman displays a tactile attribute, but Mary Magdalen suffers from

a disadvantage. Hers is the intimacy remembered by the skin. She
mourns her loss and the sorrow seems to be flowing into her tiny
vessel, as if she wanted to transform into a meaningful object
something Christ's death has rendered a mere shell. Her palms are
saturated with memories, but she has nothing to show the world but
an empty token of her affection. The Magdalen's grief contrasts with
the pride of Veronica — a younger and more attractive woman than
Mary Magdalen - designated by Christ's gift as his symbolic bride
and mother.
The Crucifixion bears a similarity to Rogier van der Weyden's
triptych illustrating the life of John the Baptist. On its central panel
— all male - the Precursor baptizes Jesus, while on each wing a
woman appears. In Magdalen's place we find the Virgin holding in
her arms the newborn Baptist, while Elizabeth recovers in bed. In
Veronica's place we encounter Salome with the Baptist's severed
head - another famous relic. The juxtaposed scenes reflect the
imaginary analogy between birth (being cut from a mother's body)
and decapitation, the separation of head and body, as well as the
traditional perception of women bearing men into life and receiving
them into death.A similar contrast is pursued by the Master of
Flemalle. The left wing of his triptych (ca.l430) is missing, but the
middle shows Mary breastfeeding Jesus, while on the right wing an
old Veronica-Pietu, her face wrinkled and worn, mourns the death of
her son - his face impressed on a small, transparent silk handker¬
chief that to us looks like a photograph.
Medieval German and Central European depictions of the Veronica-
Jesus encounter stress the sadistic features of Christ's tormentors
and occasionally show, like the Hersfeld polyptych (Plate 18), Christ
and Veronica holding the napkin between themselves like a couple
walking their child; the Holy Virgin, as if blessing their union,
stands behind her son's spouse pointing with her hand to her own
womb. An almost identical composition is contained in The
Jerusalem Triptych (ca. 1490-7) by a Pomeranian Master.'^'^ While
the parental pair is holding the symbolic offspring on the left wing's
back, the front, rather appropriately, shows the slaughter of the
infants, their white outfits sprinkled with blood (Plate 19). The
triptych is constructed around the opposition of the staining blood
and the purifying water related to Jesus and the Samaritan flanking
the well, and to Christ's baptism in the Jordan.
In Italian art indebted to a Mediterranean sense of equilibrium.

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 St Veronica

Christ's tormentors appear vulgar but less monstrous than in the

North, and explicit hints at sexuality and procreation are replaced
with subtle eroticism. In Cariani's (Giovanni Busi, ca. 1480-1547 or
1548) Meeting of fesus with Veronica (Plate 1), the two come
together up front and on the left, the traditional side of the good in
Christian iconography, while on the right and further back, the
Roman soldiers proceed — without excessive cruelty. Cariani shows
Veronica and Jesus in profile and has them literally mirrored in each
other's eyes. But he juxtaposes the worn-out figure of Jesus, his lips
parted in agony, with the roundish silhouette of Veronica. Her face
is sad and attentive, her lips are closed. The young woman's head is
covered with a transparent veil which, flowing down her body,
designates her as the mystical bride and creates a contrast to the
crown of thorns. Jesus' face, blurred and frontal, is more a stain of a
likeness than a portrait and does not resemble the handsome and
intense man who, leaning forward, passionately addresses the
woman. The two seem to have accidentally found each other in the
middle of a crowd and, magically fused by mutual delight, forgotten
how little time and space there is left for them. The artist depicts
them magnetically drawn to each other, encapsulated in the soap-
bubble of a split-second romance - with nothing between them but
the vernicle, a sign of their togetherness and separation. In another
version of Jesus' encounter with Veronica on his way to Golgotha,
Cariani shows her with a huge and still blank linen sheet - a future
shroud.'^^
Calvaries, sculptural representations of the crucifixion erected in
and near churches, cemeteries, or on top of the hills one usually
climbs following a via crucis (a sequence of sculptural groups or
small chapels showing the stations of the cross) became popular in
the late fifteenth century and inherited their iconography from the
crucifixion and passion altars. In Southern, Central, and Eastern
Europe calvary hills [Sacro Monte, Kalvarienberg, Gora Kalwaria]
are frequent.^*^ But in France, and especially in Brittany, calvaries
were placed at the center of ecclesiastical complexes consisting of a
church, a triumphal gate, and an ossuary or chapel. Many of the
Breton calvaries were destroyed, but those that have been preserved
-at Guimiliau (1581), Plougastel-Daoulas (1602), and Saint Thegonnec
(1610) - are among the most famous in the world. Executed in
granite by anonymous artists, they convey the down-to-earth
robustness of a popular culture. Ghrist's ending is recreated on top
of a platform where a large crowd (perhaps as many as 200 people as.

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 From Word to Image - History

for instance, at Guimiliau), partly dressed in contemporary costume,

surrounds the crucifix or three crosses. St Veronica, her flat front
covered with an amulet-like mask of Christ, stands out everywhere
- reminding one of the ancient heads of Medusa and of the Edessene
keramion. But nowhere is the solar magic of Christ's face more
apparent than on the voute of the Breton St-Guenole church in Batz-
sur-mer, where a veiled Veronica and three angels save the sun-face
from being buried in the ground by ascending with it to heaven
(Plate 20).
Veronica and her cloth, or the vernicle alone, are included in
sculptural entombment groups recreating the Holy Sepulchre in
ferusalem. Christ's grave, a cave cut into rock, was reshaped and
enshrined by Constantine the Great, and later it was surrounded by
a rotunda. The first descriptions of the Sepulchre go back to the first
half of the fourth century and mostly correspond to what Bishop
Arculf saw when he visited Jerusalem after the Persian (614) and
Muslim (634) invasions, which seem to have left Christ's tomb
untouched. He mentions that the stone, out of which the tomb is
hewn, "is not uniform, but appears to be a mixture of white and
red."^^ The detail, based either on the cleric's observation or his
desire to symbolize, no doubt conveyed to the readers the vision of
Christ's earthly nature. Upon their return home, some pilgrims felt
compelled to commemorate their visit to Jemsalem by building archi¬
tectural copies of the Sepulchre, mostly in cemeteries, of which the
oldest is the seventh-century Mellebaudis Memorial in Poitiers.In
the eleventh century a number of such copies existed, and in
addition whole churches were designed as imitations of Christ's
tomb. Later, the sepulchres moved indoors, to ossuaries and chapels,
and remained extremely popular through the seventeenth century.
The veneration of Christ's shroud at Lirey increased the interest
in his burial. Its depictions focus on the linen sheet which is often
contrasted with the vernicle. In the abbey at Solesmes-sur-Sarthe, a
village in Western France, a remarkably lifelike and expressive
sepulchre scene (1496) is sheltered by a stone niche with a
beautifully carved front (Plate 21). The arched opening reveals a
group of eight figures gathered at the tomb. Mary Magdalen mourns
in front of the sarcophagus, while a small angel, the vera icon of
the living Holy Face in his hands, flies up above Christ's dead
head. A late echo of this famous sculpture can be found at the
St Theogonnec chapel which is dominated by a baroque Saint
Sepulchre (1699-1702), sumptuous and polychrome, the work of the

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 St Veronica

Breton sculptor Jacques Lespaignol. He has entrusted the vernicle to

a melancholy but superbly dressed Veronica, not young but still
beautiful — a local belle who has been to Paris at least once.
Highlighted by her golden hair-ornaments and embroideries, Jesus'
fresh and animated face looks ready to detach itself from the white
fabric and to ascend. Immediacy and urgency are in the air, as if
Christ had just expired and Veronica had quickly covered his face
with her cloth, obtaining not a deathmask but the eternally brilliant
cast of a solar God. In both French compositions, the vernicles
allegorize resurrection, the shrouds death.
In eighteenth-century art Veronica's encounters with Christ begin
to develop the emotional overflow - the surest sign of religious
ossification — that leads to the kitsch of most nineteenth- and
twentieth-century calvaries and stations of the cross. As mediocrity
took over, iconographic and formal subtleties, complexities, and
ambiguities were replaced with the false sentimentality designed to
draw crocodile tears from indifferent eyes. An exception is the
Station VI by Domenico Tiepolo (1727—1804) in the church of San
Polo in Venice, an exquisitely colored and composed dynamic
painting in which the crowd progresses from the left to the empty
right. Depicted in the foreground but with her back to the beholder,
Veronica faces Christ who, as he is being led on a rope by a true
zbirro, breaks down under the burden of the cross. Turning to her -
and us - he seems to address her and plead for mercy. One is
particularly taken with Tiepolo's treatment of fabric, especially the
garment of Veronica, smooth, soft, inviting touch - all silk and
sheen. The artist's interest and strength are in surfaces and
movement. The expression of Jesus' face, on the other hand, has the
stereotyped and theatrical quality of overacting - a hint at the
direction the theme will take in the future. Not far from San Polo, in
the church of Santa Maria del Giglio, the sixth station by Gaspare
Diziani moves a step closer to the Hollywood type of contemporary
Ghrist pictures, with strong feelings flashing in and out of a crude
chiaroscuro. The painting foreshadows the exhaustion of Ghristian
art as a vehicle of formal and iconographic innovation, and makes us
realize that in the approaching era of photography the Veronica
theme has either to change radically or disappear.
The focus on the passion brought into the foreground the
instruments with which Christ was tortured, transformed certain
passion episodes into emblems of suffering, and resulted in the
creation of the curious iconographic type of the Arma Christi - the

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"arms of Christ." Since Jesus' victory over death culminated in his

crucifixion, everything with which he had been tortured and killed
was turned (a typical religious paradox) into the "weapons" of his
triumph. The first and most decisive weapon, the crux invicta, was
joined by the lance, crown of thorns, scourge and rod with sponge
attached, and the symbolic men tearing Christ's garments - already
present in the Utrecht Psalter Crucifixion (ca.SSO)."^^ Later the Arma
Christi iconography was enriched with the collagelike inserts of the
kiss of Judas, Pilate washing his hands, the mocking and flagellation
scenes, Peter hearing the cock-crow, ladder, nails, chalice, shroud,
and vernicle. A prominent role was assigned to Christ's seamless
tunic, a symbolic double, which often appears suspended on the
cross.A collection or selection of these objects and scenes
constitutes the background of many Pieta or Man of Sorrow {Vir
dolorum] representations - pictures bathed in blood.

(iv) The Hemorrhissus

He is clad in a robe dipped in blood.

Revelation, 19

Lord, you are my lover,

My desire.
My flowing fountain.
My sun.
And I am your mirror.
Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead'^'^

The obsession with Christ's passion culminates in late medieval

literature and art, which revel in visions of Jesus working at the wine¬
press, streaming with blood as a fons pietatis, and impregnating with
his juice the earth, the skin of pious women, and his loincloth, shroud,
and vernicle. Christ's transformation into a Hemorrhissus reveals
the intensification of the Jewish blood mystique by Christianity,
and makes us realize what a bloody book the Bible is. In the New
Testament the word "blood" occurs around 100 times and refers
mostly to the redemptive blood of Jesus which cleans, nourishes,
and assures immortality.'^'^ The Revelation, a particularly blood-
soaked text, presents Christ, somewhat in contrast to the gospels, as
the lamb which has been transformed into an avenger punishing the

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 St Veronica

whole universe with a flood of blood. The Savior of the Apocalypse

causes "hail and fire, mixed with blood" (Rev. 8:7) to fall upon the
earth and makes the moon and sea, rivers and fountains, rain and
wine metamorphose into blood. Leading the armies of heaven, he
rides on a white horse wearing a blood-covered robe.
The basic color pattern of the Revelation consists of red-and-
white, although the two colors are more often implied than named.
The meaning of white is mostly positive. Red, on the other hand,
denotes perfection whenever it refers to the blood of the Lord,
badness when it is associated with female flux. In ancient mythology
and early Christian theology a similar distinction applies to water.
The water of the Lord purifies and spiritualizes, while terrestrial
water can be either a blessing or a scourge. Ephraim contrasts the
redeeming blood of Christ with the earthly flood: "it has been
proclaimed, that that lowly blood which Noah sprinkled, wholly
restrained Thy wrath for all generations; how much mightier then
shall be the blood of Thy Only Begotten, that the sprinkling of it
should restrain our flood." [Nisibene Hymn, 1.2).
Red and white are the colors of the Eucharist, the main ritual of
Christianity introduced by Jesus himself, who

took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and
said, "Take, eat; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he
had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you;
for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for
the forgiveness of sins."
(Mt. 26:26-8)

The sacrament of the Eucharist has its roots in Jewish tradition.

Hebrews treated wine as a surrogate for blood and poured it out at
the base of the altar.Early Christians regarded the Eucharist as the
only true and valid image of Christ and opposed it to pagan
depiction and representation in general.Following in the footsteps
of this tradition, the Emperor Constantine V rejected all images of
Christ with the exception of the Eucharist. But the Eucharist can be
interpreted as an image in yet another sense. Wine stains bread in
the same way hlood does when it appears on skin or impregnates
cloth. Opposing the vera icon of the Eucharist to sculpture and
celebrating it as a sort of "true" painting, Ephraim has the Holy
Virgin say to her child: "Lo! Thy Image is shadowed forth in the
blood of the grapes on the Bread; and it is shadowed forth on the

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 From Word to Image — History

heart with the finger of love, with the colors of faith. Blessed be He
that by the Image of His Truth caused the graven images to pass
away" {Hymn on the Nativity, 11). The Eucharistic bread sprinkled
with wine reminds Ephraim of Jesus' wounded body on the cross —
and an icon. But Theodoret of Cyrus (b. 393) compares the crucified
Lord to a page covered with script: "on his body every man like
letters marks the prints of his sins.""^^
In early Christianity the Eucharistic meal occasionally consisted
of water instead of wine. The use of water was possible for all
representatives of the docetic heresy, who denied the material
reality of Jesus and interpreted him not as a man of blood and flesh,
but merely as an apparition. Since all was semblance, one fluid
could easily be substituted for another, and Christ himself could
assume the form of water. In the Valentinians' view Jesus passed
through Mary as water passes through a tube (Irenaeus, Against the
Heresies, 1. 7. 2). But the interchangeability of water and blood was
also prompted by the description of Christ's death on the cross.
After his expiration "one of the soldiers pierced his side with a
spear, and at once there came out blood and water" (Jn. 19:34). All
this inspired the legend of the white pelican (a water bird) feeding its
offspring with its own blood.
Erom Augustine's time the pelican functioned as a popular
symbol of the Redeemer, and from the late Middle Ages the bird
stood for the Eucharist, too."^^ The idea was influenced by the
Physiologus, whieh tells us that the pelican

is an exceeding lover of its young. If the pelican brings forth young and
the little ones grow, they take to striking their parents in the face. The
parents, however, hitting back, kill their young ones and then, moved
by compassion, they weep over them for three days . . . On the third
day, their mother strikes her side and spills her own blood over their
dead bodies . . . and the blood itself awakens them from death. Thus
did our Lord speaking through Isaiah say: “I have brought forth sons
and have lifted them up, but they have scorned me" [Is. 1:2]. The
Maker of every creature brought us forth and we struck him . . . The
Lord ascended the height of the cross and the impious ones struck his
side and opened it and blood and water came forth for eternal life . . .
blood because it is said, "Taking the chalice he gave thanks" [Mt.
26:27 and Lk. 22:17], and water because of the baptism of repentance
]Mk. 1:4 and Lk. 3:3]. The Lord said, "They have forsaken me, the
fountain of living water," and so on ]Jer. 2:13]. Physiologus, therefore,
spoke well of the pelican.

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 St Veronica

The Physiologus passage relates both the male and female bird to
Christ, but it particularly stresses the role of the mother pelican and
thus associates the Lord with femininity. This interpretation is not
surprising. Offering to nourish humanity with his own blood and
flesh, Jesus takes on a maternal role and inspires visions of the Savior
as an incontinent female. Imitating the Lord, Christian saints kept
bleeding. When a sponge was introduced into the coffin of St
Euphemia, it resembled, when it was drawn out, a sanitary napkin
"covered with stains and clots of blood;" and "so great has been the
quantity of blood thus extracted, that both the pious sovereigns and
the assembled priests, as well as the congregated people, all share in
a liberal distribution, and portions are sent to those of the faithful
who desire them, in every place under the sun" (Evagrius, Church
History, 2. 3).
Dreams of wounds, stigmata, and blood abound in the writings of
medieval male mystics, some of whom even perceive themselves as
"menstruating" in order to imitate the feminine and maternal
physicality of Christ.But the preoccupation with flux is even
more pronounced in the texts of women. Eollowing the ancient
tradition, they glorify the sacrificial bleeding of Christ and interpret
menstruation in negative terms, even when they regard it as
necessary for generation. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), the
famous German scholar and mystic, believes that life is concocted
from a mixture of semen and menstmal blood; and that menstmation
has its origin in Eve's sin. As the first woman looked at the snake,
she was flooded by a stream of desire which opened her blood
vessels. She began to bleed and was made receptive for the influx of
sperm, which, had she remained untouched and closed, could not
have penetrated her.^^ Hildegard divides menstruation into four
kinds, each corresponding to a woman's humoral temperament, and
expresses her preference for the lighter flow of "sanguine" women,
who "suffer only a moderate loss of blood, and their womb is well
developed for childbearing, so they are fertile and can take in the
man's seed;"^^ the extensively menstruating melancholics, on the
other hand, are suspected of having "a weak and fragile womb," and
of being unable to "lodge or retain or warm a man's seed."^'^
Female mystics often interpret Christ's redeeming blood as a
sacrifice to women. This sacrilegiously eroticized idea is suggested -
and made acceptable — by the role of the Holy Virgin, the prominent
position of biblical women and female saints, and, most importantly,
by the feminine gender of anima and ecclesia, holy cities and

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 From Word to Image - History

Scriptures [biblia], and of the planet earth. As words become

women, God's metaphorical brides, spouses, and mothers are born.
The convention of an amorous discourse between the Lord and the
Soul allows women poets and mystics to pursue their daring dreams
of God overflowing with desire for his Anima or bleeding to death
not for the general benefit of humanity, but for the particular delight
of femininity. In order to provide his mistress with continuous
ecstasy, the mystical Lord keeps filling her with his juice. To prove
his absolute devotion, he offers himself on her altar - a lamb drained
of the last drop of blood, and a Hemorrhissus.
In women's mystical dreams the divine lover never rests. All
motion and emotion, he penetrates everywhere in his search for
femininity - oppressed, obscured, hidden, and locked away — and he
embraces and animates the most inferior of souls. In Yonec, a
famous lay by Marie de France (flourished ca. 1175-90), a young
wife, kept atop a solitary tower and jealously guarded by her old
husband, is visited by a bird, a traditional symbol of the Holy Spirit,
which flies through her window and turns into a young man. They
fall in love and spend their nights together, but are discovered by the
husband who inserts splinters of glass into the window frame. The
bird is caught and bleeds to death.(The symbolic story brings to
mind a real one: the castration of Abelard (1079-1142) as punish¬
ment for his affair with Heloise.)
In European mysticism the most passionate homage to divine flux
is paid by the German mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca.l212-
ca.l294), a Dominican Beguine whose revelations, known as Das
fliessende Licht der Gottheit {The Flowing Light of the Godhead],
were widely distributed in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century
Europe and might even have influenced Dante.Mechthild's God is
a stream of spirit, light, and fire. He is rain and dew, sweat and
semen, blood and wine, milk and honey. He is pure energy - motion,
emotion, and locomotion in one - and the only force that can
activate the Soul by dissolving her solidity into the liquidity of
longing. God makes the "little vessel" of the anima "overflow,"
"leap into love," "laugh," "sing," "dance," "fly," "swim," "climb."
His light is the expression of love, and as he begins to shine, the soul
starts to flow, and they unite: "Thus, Lord: Your blood and mine is
one, immaculate; / Your love and mine is one, undivided; / Your
dress and mine is one, unsoiled.
The power of Mechthild's poetry comes from the fusion of the
abstract and cosmic with the concrete and human, and the

134
 St Veronica

mercurial speed of changing metaphors. In one line God appears as

the eternal flood, in another as the dew dripping into the flower.
Here he is a charming young groom from the Song of Songs, there an
agonizing Jesus Christ. And the Soul transforms constantly, too. She
is a fish swimming in God's water, a bird flying in his air, and an
elegant bride who wants to please him as much as he wants to
appeal to her:

Vide mea sponsa:

Look, how beautiful my eyes are.
How lovely my mouth is,
How burning my heart is,
How fine my hands
And how quick my feet are.
Come and follow me!
[Flowing Light, 1. 29.)

The Soul follows, arrives at the bed of love, and hears God say;

Stop, Lady Soul!

Soul: What do you command. Lord?
God: You shall be naked!
Soul: Lord, why shall this happen?
God: Lady Soul, you are assumed into my nature,
There shall be nothing between me and you.
(Flowing Light, 1. 44)

Each of Mechthild's revelations aims at mystical union which is

modelled after physiology and sexuality (copulation, pregnancy,
lactation), alchemy, and astrology, the fertilization of earth by rain
and light, the burning of matter by fire and sun, and after reflection
and projection, staining and impressing, painting and writing.
Hers is a panta rei poetry in which everything begins and ends in
flow. The flux is caused by love which opens "his wounds and her
breasts" [Flowing Light, 1. 22). And the world's axis is determined
by two icons of liquidity: the bleeding Christ and the Holy Virgin
streaming with milk. This juxtaposition inspired medieval icono¬
graphy and, in particular, German painting, in which blood and milk
are often complemented with streaming hair. Thus the left wing of a
Danzig diptych (ca.l435) shows Jesus filling the chalice and Mary
feeding the child (Plate 22), while to the right Mary Magdalen -
dressed in her hair — is assumed to heaven.
From Mechthild's glorification of fluids, menstruation alone, a

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curse caused by Eve's sin, was exempt. A nun and a writer, she had
no use for menstrual blood. Her poetry was inspired by physiology,
but her life's business was not sex but its sublimation into text.
A linguist and creator of culture, she wanted God to make her
ejaculate, not menstruate, and she renounced her iconic and
reproductive stance — instead turning to script and time. Mechthild's
dress did not bear a "true" image, it was covered with words.
Granting the Soul's wish, God rewarded those who helped her put
together her book with a textile text: "They have written the book
in golden script, / Now all the words / Shall stand on their
outermost dress" [Flowing Light, 2. 26).
Mechthild, her book against her breast, saw herself as a prophetess,
equal to Moses with God's tablets in his hands. Her text was divine
too. It "flowed from the living godhead into sister Mechthild's
heart" and was "written by her hand" [Flowing Light, 6. 43). But to
her, God did not speak about legal matters. He dictated an erotic
opus magnum, a poetic reverie of touching, coupling, mixing, and
fusing, which swirls with images derived from the mythology of
Mary Magdalen and the Hemorrhissa. The Soul - a skin-dress-
page—vemicle - dies for the impregnation with divinity.^^ She wants
her menstrual blood-flood transformed into ink — and a stream of
words. Regarding herself as a medium for God's cultural communica¬
tion with humanity, Mechthild and her heroine, the Soul, represent
the opposite of a hermetically sealed vessel or a closed book.
A book, Mrs Jameson tells us, symbolizes the Bible and wisdom,
when the infant Jesus holds it in his hands.But "in the hands of
the Madonna, it may have one of two meanings. When open, or
when she has her finger between the leaves, or when the Child is
turning over the pages, then it is the Book of Wisdom . . . When the
book is clasped or sealed, it is a mystical symbol of the Virgin
herself.The nineteenth-century British writer delights in the
Virgin's closed and blank nature - an ideal of femininity she
considers her own. One has to recall such attitudes, still common
today, in order to appreciate Mechthild's desire to identify herself
with divine energy - and to liquefy into language. Rebelling against
millennia of menstrual opaqueness and silence, a religious poet
finally claims the right to write a sacred text. Still, her extraordinary
collection of mystical love poetry exemplifies the paradox of a
woman's participation in culture. On the one hand, Mechthild
revels in femininity - the link to God's humanity. On the other
hand, aspiring to culture, she denounces her own physiology. Her

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dilemma is still with us, and so is her achievement. Cultural

contribution begins with lucidity and language.
Mechthild's poetry influenced the iconography of Christ as fons
vitae or puteus aquaium viventium, a fountain of living water, and
as fons pietatis, a font of blood. In the 1460 Fons pietatis by a
Provencal Master (Plate 9) the crucifix, spread out against a vast
landscape and a cloudless sky, rises out of a sarcophagus-shaped
fountain. Its upper basin is furnished with four heads (of an eagle,
bull, lion, and angel), emblematic of the four evangelists, through
which blood is discharged into a lower container. The Fons is
flanked by Mary Magdalen and Mary the Egyptian - two saints
particularly popular in Provence, their long golden hair running
down their bodies and joining the blood running out of God; and it is
surrounded by writing. A white scroll covers the front of the
fountain's base, two white page-flags fly above the women's heads,
and a small white shred with Christ's monogram is nailed to the
cross above his head. Executed partly in red, the script extols
divinity's "human image" - and frames it in Word.
Allusions to the fusion of sexes, the symbolic masculinization of
women, and the feminization of Christ permeate fifteenth-century
literature and art. Julian of Norwich (d. ca.l413), addressed the
Savior as "my kind Mother, my gracious Mother, my most dear
Mother," and wrote: "Eor the flood of mercy that is his most dear
blood and precious water is plenteous to make us fair and clean. The
blessed wounds of our Saviour are open, and rejoice to heal us. The
sweet gracious hands of our Mother are ready and diligent about us"
{Revelations, 61).*^^ Mystical fervor inspired art. In the Vir dolorum
(Plate 23) painted ca.l405 by the Master of the Strauss Madonna,
Christ rises from the tomb streaming with blood. Above his head a
pelican feeds its young and the Arrna Christi are displayed in the
background. The picture's horizontal axis is given by the edge of the
sarcophagus, the vertical by Jesus' body. On the right he is supported
by his mother, her body and head wrapped in a dark blue mantle; on
the left Mary Magdalen, dressed in glowing reds and pinks and with
her sumptuous blond hair flowing down her body, holds him by the
arm and rests her head on his hand. In the center of the sarcophagus
the vernicle is suspended from the edge in such a way that it seems
to prolong Christ's body and functions as his loincloth; at the level
of the genitals, the head appears.
The picture's color scheme offers an apotheosis of solar glory and
redeeming blood. On the golden background, reds, pinks, rusty

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violets and browns predominate. Patches of vivid purple and

crimson, distributed throughout the painting, integrate the com¬
position, and red is omnipresent in the Arma Christi emblems.
There Jesus wears a purple coat and cap, his tunic, hanging on the
ladder, is of a rusty hue, slightly lighter in shade than the color of
the headgear worn by the soldier arresting him; a torch in the
executioner's hand and the cockscomb flame; Pilate's sleeves are
lined with red, and he washes his hands in a rusty bowl into which
water is poured from a red-brown pitcher. This symbolic redness is
strengthened by the omnipresence of actual blood. It marks the
spots where nails have been driven into the cross, trickles from
Jesus' forehead, stains his right hand - close to where his mother's
lips touch it. There are blood traces on his arms, breast, stomach,
hair, and the rope tied around his neck; his nimbus resembles a
reddish cloud. Mary Magdalen's head reposes in the wound of Jesus'
left hand, while from his right side blood flows into the chalice and
down the belly - impregnating the vernicle.
An orgy of medieval blood mysticism, the Vir dolorum brings to
mind Mechthild's and Julian's visions. While the blood of Christ
(and of the pelican, his symbolic extension) feeds the sacramental
vase and creates the vernicle, the Savior offers his body not so much
to humanity as to femininity - with the women's lips touching his
skin. This is conveyed by the painting's horizontal division which
separates it into male and female spheres. The users of the Arma
Christi are all men. Equipped with their phallic instruments, they
torture Jesus, or, at best, betray (Judas) or deliver him. Thus the
picture's superior level, the traditional side of sky and heaven, is
occupied by a men-sponsored hell. Below lies the earth where Jesus'
pain is shared and lamented by women. Getting stained with his
blood, they establish a communion between themselves and God
and participate in his resurrection and transfiguration.
In order to avoid being carried away by the pathos of the Vir
dolorum and similar scenes uniting the Hemorrhissus and the
various Hemorrhissae, one should compare it with a frivolous
painting by Lorenzo Lotto (ca. 1480-1556) which also deals with a
woman's marking by a male. A symbolic marriage scene, it shows a
reclining naked Venus onto whose exposed belly, already covered
with loose petals torn from a rose (defloration), a winged infant
Amor is urinating through a marriage wreath, a symbolic hymen,
from which a candle is suspended in such a way that it appears
burning inside a shiny triangle created by the candlestick and chain

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(Plate 8). A vaginal shell above Aphrodite's head and two large pearls
dangling from her left ear manifest her aquatic origins, fluidity, and
fertility. Her welcoming pose demonstrates her readiness to reproduce,
and in this the Renaissance painter seems to delight as much as
Cupid. But the Christian in him reminds him of Eve and the Fall.
Obeying his faith's moral obligation, he includes a viper hissing its
tongue at the ancient goddess of love.

(v) The Double Portrait and the Holy Face

In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries the figure of

Veronica with Christ's likeness gained popularity as an autonomous
and almost profane subject: a portrait of a woman (shown either
whole, as bust, or reduced to face and hands) with the portrait of a
man. Depending on the sizes of Veronica's and Jesus' faces, their
proportions in relation to each other, and the way Christ is depicted
- as suffering, bleeding and dead or serene and full of life - the
Veronica cum Christo pictures convey either a ritual and symbolic
meaning or assume the character of private portraiture. The larger
Christ's head in relation to Veronica's face, the more it suggests
divinity and solarity. This aspect is often accentuated by a nimbus,
rays, or trickles of blood, and occasionally it is supplemented with
water symbolism.^^ A fifteenth-century miniature of a slight, veiled
Veronica, completely covered and dominated by Christ's huge
radiating face suspended over a well, seems to assure cosmic
fertility through the marriage of fire and water; the cloth and well
are flanked by two rabbits - animals assigned to both Venus and
Mary as goddesses of nature.The fifteenth-century Master of the
Holy Veronica evokes in his vision of the dark, thorn-crowned and
bleeding head of Christ - solar and terrestrial at once - the black
Holy Faces of Byzantine art, reinforces the vernicle's monumentality
through the contrast with tiny angels squatting at the bottom, and
creates a cosmic portrait reminiscent of contemporary depictions of
the Baptist's head floating in the air amidst angels (Plate 24).
From the fifteenth century onwards the double portraits of
Veronica and Jesus focused increasingly on the human individuality
of the pair and their particular relationship, tragic or almost idyllic.
The single most serene picture of the couple was painted by Hans
Memling. His St Veronica (Cover) is conceived as a virgin-bride lost
in memories of her handsome Jesus and an allegory of the vita

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contemplativa. Sweet and young, she kneels under a hazy but

cloudless sky in a solitary meadow amidst a peaceful landscape
transfused with golden light and crowned at the horizon with the
silhouette of a city. She is attired in the fashion of her day, modestly
but finely. White cloth is draped around her neck, a transparent veil
covers her forehead, and a white linen turban hints at her eastern
origins. Her dress is purple, her mantle dark blue, and the white
napkin, which she holds with the tips of her fingers, is made of the
same material as her neck- and headgear. Christ's face is framed by
shiny blond hair with a tint of copper, and a delicate blond beard. It
is slightly larger and darker in complexion than Veronica's but
otherwise almost its twin. The two are approximately the same age
and match each other in every respect. Their faces, soft and calm,
are illuminated from within, but Jesus has a stronger presence.
While Veronica's eyes are cast down to the ground, Christ faces the
beholder with melancholy. His sadness and the flow of Veronica's
red dress create a slight tension in the otherwise perfectly idyllic
picture. Suspended over the purple of Veronica's womb, Jesus' face,
fresh and quite untouched by pain, celebrates union and incarnation.
Alone with each other in the grand solitude of nature, the pair
personifies Platonic harmony and reverie a la recherche du temps
perdu. Look, the artist seems to say, Veronica has caught on her
cloth the most desirable man on the planet earth. But alas - he lives
on only on her napkin. She touched him for a split second, then lost
him for ever and was left with nothing but his portrait - and her
memory of their brief meeting and quick parting.
A daydreaming female was a popular motif of the minne-
saturated late medieval art, and so was the theme of a woman with a
mirror (image). As long as her dream was concerned with the
adoration of a (divine) man reflected in her mirror, the woman stood
for virtue and her action for reproduction. Incarnation was symbolized
not only by Veronica but also by the Lady with the Unicorn, another
personification of the Holy Virgin, catching with her mirror the
"true" image of the immaculately white animal with a huge
miraculous horn - a popular figure of Jesus.If, on the other hand, a
seductive or naked female reflected herself, and not a man, in a
setting suggestive of luxury and fluidity, she was likely to embody
sin and sterility. In the famous "Apocalypse Tapestry" (executed in
Paris by Nicolas Bataille between 1375 and 1380) the charming girl
sitting on a tiny island in the sea, combing her long blond hair, and
contemplating her face in a mirror, signifies the Great Prostitute of

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 St Veronica

the Revelation.And Vanity, attributed to Hans Memling — and

indeed a twin sister of his Veronica — is pictured against a bucolic
landscape that alas is neither austere nor bathed in metaphysical
light.^^ Flowers spring up under her feet and instead of divine
memories, two dogs keep their mistress company. Vanity is naked,
except for sandals and the pearls in her loosely floating hair, and she
admires herself in a looking-glass.
In the Spanish art of the sixteenth and seventeenth century El
Greco (1541-1614) and Francisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664) explored
in their vernicle pictures subtle oscillations between life and death.
Zurharan executed five versions of the vera icon, but his masterpiece
is Veronica’s Sweatcloth (Plate 25) - a "photo" of an enigma.
El Greco's Veronica has many faces. He painted her as a middle-aged
Martha-Pietd, common, sorrowful, with a linen napkin whose edges
are embroidered with red and whose Christ, his hair matted with
blood, resembles a Medusa (Toledo, Museo de Santa Cruz). Or he
painted her as an aristocratic bride, dressed in red silk with a blue
silk scarf thrown over her left shoulder, holding in her slim hands a
white napkin, all silk and lace, through which the colors of her
garments shimmer; where the red meets the blue, the face of an
emaciated but handsome and well-groomed Jesus appears; a southern
cavalier, dark-haired, black-eyed, and full of temperament, he is a
good partner for his Hemorrhissa-Princess (Munich, Alte Pinakothek).
El Greco also rendered the Holy Face alone (Prado); a portrait of
Christ resurrected, it shows his forehead marked with thorns. The
popularity of vernicles in Spain influenced the vocabulary of the
corrida: the bullfighters' red cloth is called "veronica.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries paintings and sculptures
of St Veronica and the Holy Face were mostly confined to church
decoration and executed by minor artists. The process reflected the
abandonment of traditional Christianity and religiosity by Europe's
cultural elite. While Veronica with the Lord's disembodied head
remained the delight of country priests and female devotees and the
obligatory subject for provincial craftsmen and Sunday painters,
Salome with the Baptist's head moved to center-stage. She was
transformed into the a reborns icon of terrible femininity by
German Romantics and French Symbolists; she was adored hy fin de
siecle decadents and dandies throughout Europe; and she was
admired on the covers of avant-garde books and magazines, and in
theaters and art salons hy the contemporaries of Oscar Wilde and
Aubrey Beardsley.In fact, I know of only two nineteenth-century

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French vernicle paintings that seem worth mentioning, because of

their unorthodox iconography7° One is the St Veronica by Paul
Delaroche (1797-1865), the picture of a woman sleeping on the floor
of her poor abode; above her head the vernicle is suspended - a
Christian woman's dream. The Vision of Judas (Plate 26) by Yvon
Adolphe (1817-93) pursues a similar idea and revives the medieval
Arma Christi motif. Startled by the apparition of Satan, Judas faces
the tortured "true" likeness of his teacher - the mirror and token of
his crime - while blood money slips out of his linen sack. Linking
the devil and his pupil, the vernicle conveys a pessimistic view of
humanity — a collection of suspects requiring supervision. It was
donated to the Musee du Havre by the French Ministry of the
Interior - a proper police present revealing relations between sacred
icons and secular law, and pointing to the sense of shame and guilt
at Christianity's core.

142
 7

From History to Mythology

The history of Christianity shows that John of Damascus was right:

incarnation implied representation. But in a world saturated with
incarnate divinities and their depictions, this created a problem.
Christianity found itself in competition with a multitude of pagan
cults and had to prove that there was a difference between Jesus and
the many Apollos and Amors. In order to establish Christ, masses of
potential converts had to be convinced of the actual existence of a
unique Man-God. Material proofs of his presence on earth were
highly desirable; photographs would have been extremely helpful.
Thus were achieropoietoi invented - traces, relics, and likenesses of
the one and only 'True" God.
The Ghristian vera icon was derived from the mimetic culture of
antiquity. The Byzantine mandylion and keramion are twins of the
drawing and the mask produced by a Gorinthian girl and her father,
the ceramicist Butades. The story of a female outlining her
departing lover's shadow is congruent with both the Abgar and the
Hemorrhissa legends, and it parallels our habit of photographing
those who are close to us before their departure, and of taking
snapshots of celebrities. The Greek legend, like its Ghristian
counterparts, links physiological and artistic reproduction, relates
eroticism to the urge to replicate, and suggests that mimetic
depiction is stimulated by a fear of loss. Gapturing her lover's
contour, the girl produces a naturalistic token of memory evocative
of procreation. Had he "overshadowed" her, her body would bear a

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living duplicate — and an artistic copy, a compensation, would not

be necessary. Pliny's aneedote reminds us of what we know quite
well: that we render with greatest faithfulness what we are bound to
lose or cannot obtain. In keeping with the Platonic vision of reality
as a mere shadow-play preserved in the perishable fabric of life by
women and artists, the Greek myth ascribes the origin of art to a girl
in love, Veronica's Corinthian cousin.
The acheiropoietoi mythology achieved two goals: it proved
Jesus' historical existence, with "tme" images serving as photographs,
and it visualized the Word's incarnation, in opposition to the
invisible and immaterial Jewish God. But incarnation was considered
the essential issue. Therefore the early versions of the Abgar and the
Hemorrhissa legends were coneerned with Christ's reproduction,
not with a vera icon. While the Abgar legends added depiction to
language, the Hemorrhissa stories focused on divinity's replication
in female flesh. The first accounted for theological debates between
men and displayed a theoretieal edge; the second reflected popular
piety - people's fascination with female mediation between divinity
and humanity - which was soon supported by theologians. The
development of the Berenice legend paralleled the establishment of
the Virgin-cult. While Mary was divinized as the locus of incarnation,
the Hemorrhissa began to transform into a symbolic madonna.
A bearer of God's "true" likeness and the main propagandist of
representation, she became a saint, while Abgar, who had corres¬
ponded with Jesus and replaced pagan statuary with Christ's painted
portrait, was forgotten. The Edessene forms of depiction - Christ's
mandylion and keramion - have kept their popularity until our day,
and the Paneas monument was revived as the sixth station of the
cross.
The Greek acheiropoietoi of Edessa signaled the transition from
mimetic statuary, the dominant art form of elassical antiquity, to
painting, mosaic, weaving, embroidery, and small reliefs, the main
arts of Byzantium. Ultimately the mandylion overshadowed all
other acheiropoietoi because of its light and portable nature and the
appeal of its symbolism. Remmiseent of elothing and skin, the
textile "true" image was ideal for illustrating the paradoxical
duality-unity of God-Man and for connecting the dogma of incarnation
to the sacrament of the eucharist. Jesus' impression on cloth was
conceived as "true" not only in resemblance but also in substance.
The impression was "true" as Christ's shadow and blood. The cloth
was as "true" as his body and skin. On the one hand more mimetic

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than any classical marble statue, on the other hand less solid than
any conventional artefact, the mandylion - everything one moment,
nothing the next - enjoyed a singular position, did not collide with
the second commandment, and effectively conveyed both physicality
(through materiality) and spirituality (through ephemerality).
The "true" image was intimately related to Christ's death and
resurrection. In the Doctrine of Addai the portrait was obtained just
a day before the crucifixion, while in medieval legends it was
deposited in Veronica's hands at the very last moment. Thus both
the Eastern mandylion and the Western vernicle were seen in
analogy to Jesus' burial clothes and his corpse. But Christ was
resurrected, and so was his shroud. What seemed dead became
animated, what appears material became spiritualized. Turning into
an acheiropoietos, the cloth metamorphosed into a double of Jesus:
the image of his soul. The body-shroud-anima metaphors inspired
iconic textiles. But the development of the Christian cloth culture
was also determined by the textile tradition of antiquity, and
especially of Egypt where still in the Christian era the deceased
were provided with painted shrouds and masks - second skins and
dresses for their journey to eternity. One could think of the Christ
acheiropoietoi in terms of spiritual doubles removed from the dead
for the benefit of the living. The ancient Egyptian practice in the
preservation of dead bodies and in shrouding them suggests Egypt as
the place where the shroud of Turin might have been fabricated, in a
complicated process based on secret knowledge that might have
involved some special treatment of the corpse (obtained in a murder
based on the imitatio Christi], and of his skin, as well as of the fabric
in which he was wrapped.
With time the blood that had impregnated the mandylion began
to receive ever greater attention. Christianity inherited the centrality
of blood from Judaism, but the history of the vera icon shows that
originally menstruation - female blood responsible for incarnation -
attracted attention, while the blood of Jesus started to be significant
only in the Middle Ages. Why? Several explanations come to mind.
That the mass of recent converts had a deep horror of blood and thus
avoided blood imagery. That as long as Christians had to give their
own blood for a cause that might be lost, they did not want to be
confronted with the passion and death of their God and leader.
On the contrary, they wished to be comforted and encouraged
by visions of his miraculous career and resurrection. But after
Christianity was instituted as a state religion and the faithful began

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 From Word to Image - History

to shed the blood of the unfaithful, the icons of Christ's martyrdom

acquired a new function: they justified what Jesus' followers did to
others. The crucifixion was first depicted after the Edict of Milan.
Veronica's sanctification coincided with the extermination of the
Albigenses. Stressing the terrible fate suffered by the Lord and
contrasting pagan and Jewish cruelty with Christian compassion,
the medieval theater of horror proved the right to commit atrocities
in the name of Christ. But the growing centrality of Jesus' blood
followed, perhaps, also a theological logic. Once well established,
Christianity could allow itself to revive and reinforce the Judaic
tradition of male sacrificial blood. But as the sacred ink of the Jews -
the stuff of their culture and language - was transformed into the
natural (=human) paint of physical and iconic reproduction, as
Christ's "power" was identified with his blood, and as the incarnate
God's "true" likeness was produced out of his own and the
Hemorrhissa's combined effusions — a massive hemorrhage might
have appeared as absolutely necessary for having the world go
around.
The presence of the Hemorrhissa episode in three gospels and the
early metamorphosis of the anonymous woman with the issue of
blood into "a victory-bearer" exemplify the abolishment of the
Jewish menstruation taboo and the rehabilitation of women's flow,
which in the Jewish Bible had been identified with the ills of nature
and humanity. The evangelists decided to tackle the delicate issue
of female bleeding not in connection with God's mother. But they
modelled the healing of the Hemorrhissa after Mary's infusion with
divinity as well as after the Old Testament scenes linking menstru¬
ation to reproduction. Sealed off by God Father, Mary became the
Holy Mother of God Son. Sealed off by God Son, the Hemorrhissa
turned into St Veronica - the Holy Bearer of his Vera Icon.
The divinization of Mary and the sanctification of Veronica
helped women acquire cultural visibility, but did little for their
social status. The exceptional position of the madonna, a Virgin-
Mother, confronted Christian females with an absurdity — and the
choice of just two ways of life. They could be mothers, but then not
virgins, and give birth, but not to Jesus Christ. Or they could be nuns
espoused to God and pregnant with his spirit - but not with babies
or "true" icons. The obscene joke of the Emperor Constantine V,
who demonstrated the nothingness of Mary post partum by taking
gold out of his purse, offended the worshippers of the Theotokos.
But even today the joke would be generally approved were it applied

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 From History to Mythology

not to the Holy Virgin but to some Christian housewife. The curing
of the Hemorrhissa loses much of its appeal when we realize that it
revives ancient stereotypes of femininity and results in the birth of a
propagandistic pre-photograph of Jesus, the new God of Light. Still,
the way to emancipation leads through acceptance and visibility.
The presence of females in the New Testament contributed to the
presence of women in Christian culture. The cult of the Virgin and
the legend of the Hemorrhissa inspired Byzantine women with
iconodule feelings, made Byzantine empresses struggle against the
iconoclasts, and prepared the ground for medieval female mystics
assimilating themselves to language, culture, and energy, and
rejecting the traditional icon-nature-space equation.
Christian iconism, with its abundance of painting, small sculpture,
and textile icons, facilitated private worship by women, providing
them with the illusion of being in touch with the godhead. But, on the
other hand, portable icons also perpetuated women's social isolation,
reinforced their domestic role, and condemned them to contemplation
and passivity. We confront here a paradox. Since self-recognition
and reflection require vision, we have to acknowledge the positive
role of Christian icons. But when self-recognition results in the
confirmation of stereotypes, its achievement is dubious. There can
be hardly any doubt that in the first place the Christian inclusion of
women and feminine icons strengthened women's sense of identity.
But later Christian pictures contributed to femininity's freezing in
the Virgin—Veronica stereotype - the archaic vision of femaleness as
the reproducer and propagator of masculinity.
But the vernicle, matter impregnated with divinity, symbolized
not only the inferiority of femininity. A prototypical religious
image, it exemplified the claylike quality of humanity — a passive,
ignorant body to be illuminated and molded by divinity, and to be
crowned and led to salvation by the one and only "true head."
Similarly, the mixing of divinity and humanity in the Virgin's body
had repercussions for the entire Christian community, inspiring
both men and women with the wish for union with deity, and
eroticizing religious language and practice. In Christianity sexuality
acted as an equalizer, with male mystics dreaming of menstruation
and female mystics losing themselves in reveries of ejaculation.
Thus differences of sex and social status were bridged and effaced,
heaven and earth were happily married, and the ecstatic happy few
floated to paradise in a stream of love.
Christianity's democratic approach - its acceptance of the sick.

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 From Word to Image - History

blind, and lame, the hemorrhissae and the lepers, all of whom were
promised vision and visibility, the restoration of their skins and
souls - was based on Christ's readiness to touch everyone. The
evangelists tied tactility to vision, affirmed the utopia of divine-
human togetherness, and filled the New Testament with sensuality
and potential eroticism. But they also insisted on purity and
spirituality, tendencies which were later stressed. Denying its own
sexual and physical implications, Christianity created insoluble
contradictions. The woman who gave birth to God remained a
Virgin; the woman whose menstruation was arrested by God,
became pregnant with his picture; the God of love was butchered
like a sacrificial sheep; and he was resurrected both as an
untouchable ghost and as a macabre living corpse. Oscillating
between materiality and abstraction, Christianity at once incited
and denied carnal appetites. It revived an archaic mix of cannibalism,
human sacrifice, and sexuality, and then tried to heal the wound
inflicted by its own sado-masochistic fantasy with an innocent ritual
of bread and wine or God's romantic shadow on a woman's veil. The
contradictions were reflected in the history of the Eastern acheiro-
poietoi - embedded in wars, iconoclastic folly, and military expedi¬
tions to recapture relics. And they were mirrored in the medieval
legends of the heartbreaking encourter of Christ and Veronica on the
way to Golgotha. Created by the guilty conscience of the crusaders,
the sentimental stories inflamed the faithful with feelings of hatred
and revenge, fueling and perpetuating anti-Semitism and religious
intolerance.
But the historical approach does not exhaust the complexity of
the "true" image. Many of the icon's aspects are rooted in the
mythology of the sun and the moon - pre-Christian, archaic, and
fairly universal - and the related vast body of legends dealing with
active and passive mirrors, creation and reproduction, blood and
skin, body and soul, birth and death, human sacrifice and resurrection
— i.e. with sexual and cosmic symmetries and psychophysical
dualities that further illuminate the vera icon phenomenon.
Christ's solarity and terrestriality, Veronica's opaqueness and
luminosity, and the changing character of the vernicle correspond to
a variety of legends obsessed with the sun's rising from, travelling
through, and reposing in female matter. In mythology the sun is
represented by a mirror-disk, a face or a head. Red light at sunset is
usually metaphorized as the blood of a dying man, a decapitated
hero or warrior, but it is also connected to menstrual blood - a

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fertile reproductive flux as well as a corrupt chthonic fluid which is

suspected of polluting mirrors, obscuring light and blocking vision.
The solar-lunar mythology reflects two central anxieties. The
fear that the sun may be eclipsed for good by the moon, like the son
blinded by the Empress Irene; and the equal horror that it may not
be able to rise from the womb-tomb of the earth. In Japanese
mythology the sun is personified by a goddess and symbolized by a
mirror, but this does not diminish the fear of the eclipse, which is
conveyed in the legend of the goddess shutting herself in a cave and
leaving the world in darkness. That the sun does not have to be
masculine is also suggested by the Greek mythology of Medusa,
possibly a solar monster, whose head appears on the luminous front
of the sky goddess Athena and on the shield of her father Zeus. In
the East the popularity of Jesus' heads as potent phylacteries was
enhanced by the omnipresence of the heads of Medusa. Her legends
elude easy interpretation but seem to indicate the possibility of a
belief in two suns, the luminous day-sun of heaven, and the black
night-sun of the underworld, associated with bleeding, blindness,
and reproduction.
Mirror mythology confronts us with a huge bulk of legends
describing the soul as a reflection and the marriage between body
and soul. The erotic character of the mirror in religion and poetry
finds its expression in the actual shapes of mirrors, which in turn
influence new forms and concepts. It is not easy to decide which
parts of the universal mirror mythology are relevant to the effigies of
Christ. Obviously, the Platonic and post-Platonic tradition based on
shadow and mirror symbolism and the Egyptian solar religion have
to be taken into account; and one has to consider the actual mirror
fabrication of the Mediterranean world. But the borderline position
of Edessa, the birthplace of the Byzantine mandylion and a city
influenced by the Ear East, makes it reasonable to offer a brief survey
of those aspects of the Indian, Chinese and Japanese sun, moon, and
mirror mythologies that show some affinity with the Christ vera
icon.
Intercultural patterns make us better understand why the acheiro-
poietoi with God's face played a more significant role than those
showing his entire body, explain the affinity between heads and
bodies (vaginas, wombs, or skins) and between the blood shed in sex,
death, and birth and the cosmic phenomena of rain, dew, and
sunlight. For millennia sunrise and sunset have been described as
death and rebirth. The evening bloodbath is followed by the

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morning resurrection, as the solar head emerges from our planet's

maternal womb clothed in blood vapors. Fear about the sun's non-
appearance was probably the main reason for sacrificing animals and
humans to solar divinities - their blood acting as the vital juice with
which the earth was impregnated and fed. Human sacrifice or, more
precisely, the sacrifice of skin and blood, body and head is treated in
the last two chapters of Part II. Because of the textile nature of the
Christian acheiropoietoi, the chapter on skin is preceded by that on
cloth, our second skin. The coincidence and opposition between
skin and cloth has to be realized before we can deal with flayed skin,
the most perfect of all "true" images.

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 Part II

Symbolism and Structure

P;
 8

Mirrors

(i) Medusa—Minerva

Initiation begins at the first menstruation. This physiological

symptom imposes a break, the girl’s forcible removal from her
familiar world; she is immediately isolated, separated from
the community. The segregation takes place in a special
cabin, in the bush, or in a dark corner of the house. The
catamenial girl is obliged to remain in a particular and quite
uncomfortable position, and must avoid exposing herself to
the sun or being touched by anyone.
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane^

Religions come and gO; images persist. A popular icon is more likely
to survive than to disappear. The "true" faces of Christ were
preceded by the masks of Medusa. It is certain that her omnipresence
in Graeco-Roman antiquity contributed to the popularity of Jesus'
and the Baptist's disembodied heads which, like those of Medusa,
were depicted as either dark or light, and often with serpentine hair.
Medusa's heads — horrible as well as beautiful, and occasionally
furnished with beards - persisted throughout the Byzantine period,
and at the beginning of the second millennium they could still be
found on Russian amulets called zmeeviki (images with snakes).^
Medusa or the Gorgon was an ancient deity of the underworld
{Odyssey, 11. 633). Her monstrosity and fluidity were conveyed by

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 Symbolism and Structure

her hair, which consisted of live snakes curling around her head.
The "true" likeness of the Gorgon's face decorated both the aegis of
Zeus {Iliad, 5. 741) and the shield of his daughter Pallas Athena
(=Minerva). The mythology of Medusa is constructed around
mirrors and menstruation and goes back to Hesiod, the Homeric
Hymns, and Pindar. But her most popular legend is told by Ovid
(43 BC-AD 17). Medusa "was once most beautiful in form, and the
jealous hope of many suitors. Of all her beauties, her hair was the
most beautiful" (Met. 4. 794-7).^ Upon her defloration the charming
young girl was transformed into a creature so appalling that
whoever gazed at her was turned into stone. Medusa was raped by
Neptune, the god of the sea, in the temple of Minerva, and polluted
with her blood the goddess's sanctuary. "Jove's daughter turned
away and hid her chaste eyes behind her aegis. And, that the deed
might be punished as was due, she changed the Gorgon's locks to
ugly snakes" {Met. 4. 798-801).
Let us visualize the scene: Minerva, a goddess who in her purity
and masculinity so much resembles her father Jupiter as if she were
his "alter ego," hides behind her aegis, while the highly polished
surface of her armor-mirror catches the reflection of the bleeding
Medusa. Ovid's idea of one woman mirroring the other at the
moment of sexual initiation comes from his knowledge of the
mythical identity between Minerva and Medusa.'^ Athena, the
luminous goddess of sky, is described as a pure film of light
comparable to aether, the dawn or the twilight. Medusa, the other
self of Athena, stands for the staining and corruption of the virginal
membrane. She personifies her menstruating femininity which is
first demonized and then eliminated. The trapping of Medusa's
reflection-soul in Minerva's mirror is followed by the girl's trans¬
formation, exile, and death. Minerva expels the leaky monster to the
western outskirts of the world and has her beheaded by Perseus,
whom she guides to Medusa's hiding place. The goddess equips him
with her own aegis, a solar shield-mirror-weapon, which saves
Perseus from being killed by Medusa's terrible sight. He looks
"upon the image of that dread face reflected from the bright bronze
shield his left hand bore" and, while she is sound asleep, he smites
"her head clean from her neck" (Met. 4. 782-5).
As Medusa lay bleeding to death, her dreadful likeness was caught
again by Minerva's mirror - to stay there forever. The Gorgon's
severed head became the main symbol and attribute of Minerva
who, "to frighten her fear-numbed foes . . . still wears upon her

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 Mirrors

breast the snakes which she has made" {Met. 4. 802-3). Perseus
executed Medusa, but the moving spirit behind the act was
Minerva, the honorary male of the Greek Olympus. By murdering
Medusa, she shed off her female physiology, sexuality, and destiny
which would have collided with her power as the virgin-goddess of
heaven. The monster's fluid, serpentine reflection at once tarnished
and shielded - like the soul-portrait of Dorian Gray - the
immaculate goddess. Minerva remained a hermetically sealed
virgin, but her aegis was marked with female flux and fertility. Out
of the dying Medusa's blood twins were born, the "swift-winged
Pegasus and his brother" {Met. 4. 785-6).
In order to realize the various implications of Ovid's tale, one has
to recall the mythology of Pallas Athena, Medusa, Poseidon
(Neptune), and Perseus.^ Athena is best known as a masculine
goddess of heaven, wisdom, war, and the protectress of cities.
Hesiod's Theogony and the Homeric Hymn To Athena tell us that
she was born immaculately, not from her mother's womb, but from
her father's head. Zeus had inseminated Metis (Thought), the
daughter of Okeanos, before he learned that the son born from her
would threaten his power. Therefore when Metis was about to bring
forth the child, he transferred it to himself by swallowing his
pregnant wife; then his head was split by Hephaestus (Prometheus
or Hermes), possibly a metaphor of a cloud split by lightning, and
Athena emerged from it: a bright-eyed maiden, "equal to her father
in strength and in wise understanding" {Theogony, 895-6).^ The
goddess's birth was accompanied by thunderstorm and lightning,
and gold rained from the sky. A true warrior, Athena came forth in
full armor,

sprang quickly from the immortal head and stood before Zeus who
holds the aegis, shaking a sharp spear: great Olympus began to reel
horribly at the might of the bright-eyed goddess, and earth round
about cried fearfully, and the sea was moved and tossed with dark
waves, while foam burst forth suddenly; the bright Son of Hyperion
stopped his swift-footed horses a long while, until the maiden Pallas
Athene had stripped the heavenly armour from her immortal
shoulders.
{To Athena, 28. 7-14)

This heroic entrance announced a divinity of storm and war, but

Athena embodied also female virtue. Greek art represented her
with a spear in her right hand, m her left a distaff and spindle or

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 Symbolism and Structure

shield. The legends of Athena's weaving allegorized domesticity and

alluded to her peaceful, lunar character and her appearance as
clouds. Athena, the goddess of heaven and culture, was contrasted
by Medusa, an archaic deity of nature - physical and terrestrial,
aquatic and animalistic - whose "true" image was displayed on her
aegis. This duality resulted in a double name and in legends
permeated with contradictions and confusions. Athena's surname
Pallas, used by Homer and Hesiod, was explained in various ways.
Pallas was either a male giant — occasionally Athena's father himself
- whom the goddess had defeated, or a woman, the daughter of
Triton, whom Athena had accidentally slain.^ The latter was
obviously identical with Medusa. The bronze shield with the image
of Pallas or Medusa developed from a hide and garment: a goatskin
worn by the goddess. With time the skin of the horned animal,
which in Greek mythology was associated with voluptuousness and
fertility (and in Christianity with badness), came to be regarded as
the flayed-off skin of the Gorgon (Plate 11).^ So the dead creature
which had originally clothed Athena metamorphosed into her
panic-provoking emblem and shield.
The figure and mythology of Athena combine the opposites: high
and low, sky and earth, pure masculinity and impure femininity.
She was born from Zeus's head, but on earth and near water - on the
banks of the river Trito after which she was called "Tritogeneia."
She was a virgin, but snakes and male divinities of fire and water
abounded in her company, signaling sexuality, fecundity, and
menstruation.^ In one of Athena's oldest legends Hephaestus
(Zeus's "midwife" at her birth) passionately pursued the goddess
and ejaculated his semen on her. In order to avoid insemination,
Athena enveloped his ejaculate in a cloud, a symbol of herself, and
let it fall to the earth where Erichthonios or Erechtheus was born of
it. A man with the head of a snake, he was equated with the first
man and the sea-god Poseidon (Neptune). Other stories presented
Poseidon as the father of Athena whom he had engendered together
with Koryphe, the daughter of Okeanos.^*^
The myths suggest a dual threat to Athena's purity. She is
endangered from without by the appetite of men who desire her -
and whom she tries to scare to death by wearing on her breast a
monstrous image suggestive of decapitation, castration, and men¬
struation,- and she is threatened from within, by her own Medusan
nature yielding to sex. Descriptions that aim at conveying Athena's
hermetically sealed chastity dwell on her armor, shield, and

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helmet. Medusa, on the other hand, seems to consist of nothing but

naked skin, hair, and flux; poison emanates from her eyes, and she
bleeds in sex and death. But there are allusions to incontinence and
blood in Athena's legends too.^^ Because of a spear wound, she was
portrayed with her leg bound in a red cloth. The statue of Athena
Parthenos at Athens turned round from east to the west and spat
blood.Pandora, the beautiful First Woman who opened the box
filled with filth and thus polluted the earth, belonged to Athena's
entourage. And in order to guide Odysseus to the palace of
Alcinous, the goddess disguised herself as a young girl with a pitcher
{Odyssey, 7. 26).
Preserving the likeness of Medusa in the appearance of Athena,
Greek mythology acknowledged that this divinity of culture was
still endowed with the Medusan power of nature. A personification
of the Urgrund, the material source of all being, the Gorgon
represented the terrible side not only of Athena, but also of
Aphrodite and Artemis. A double-winged Medusa with two black
swans, the sacred animals of Aphrodite, is depicted on a seventh- or
sixth-century BC plate from Rhodes.A bloodthirsty demon of
fertility, she is endowed with huge hanging breasts, two pairs of
wings, and locks that resemble snakes. Her eyes and mouth gape
wide open, her tongue protrudes, her fangs stand up, and her hands
squeeze the birds' necks. But the swans look as if they were enjoying
her cruelty, their feet clinging to the legs of their dame sans merci -
not belle but potent. This ancient portrait of Medusa celebrates a
female sexuality that appears beastly and appalling as well as
admirable and triumphant. The Gorgon's everlasting elan vital is
stressed by the repeated use of the swastika, a sign of the life/death
cycle (similar to the life/death wheel and the orobouros, the snake
biting its tail). The Gorgon's leg is tattooed with a swastika,
swastikas mark the swans' bodies and the background, and the
shape of the Gorgon itself is vaguely suggestive of a swastika.
Similarly, a Medusa, flanked by two lions and equipped with a
serpent girdle, assumes a swastika form on the pediment of the
sixth-century BC Artemis temple in Corfu.
Medusa is banished by Minerva to the shores of the Western
ocean, where the sun's journey ends in the underworld. The obscure
periphery is described as "back" in terms of time and space; it is
primordial and primitive, and the backstage of the world. To reach
Medusa's exile, Perseus has to travel "far through trackless and
secret ways, rough woods, and bristling rocks" {Met. 4. 777-8). The

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 Symbolism and Structure

killer of the monster — the son of Danae whom Zeus has penetrated
disguised as a golden shower — is Athena's half-brother. He is a
splendid solar hero, the opposite of Poseidon, the arehaic and
aquatie lover of Medusa.Perseus's luminosity is highlighted by
the presenee of Minerva's aegis. A sun-shield and extra eye, it
reinforees the contrast between the executioner and his victim,
semi-blind female trash vegetating in the silent darkness of the
cosmic backyard. The entrance to Medusa's place is guarded by her
relatives, the daughters of Phorcys (the parent of a whole collection
of female monsters: the Graeae, the Gorgons, and Scylla). They had
no sight of their own but shared the eye of their father: "this eye by
craft and stealth, while it was being passed from one sister to the
other, Perseus stole away" [Met. 4. 776-7).
Medusa's death transformed Minerva into an artist. Upon hearing
her mortal scream, Athena invented flute-playing by weaving "into
music the dismal death-dirge of the Gorgons bold, - the dirge, that
Perseus heard, while it was poured forth, amid direful woe, from
beneath those maidens' awful serpent-heads."^^ The surname Pallas
hides monstrosity. Minerva, Athena's Roman name, hints at men¬
struation. The etymology of Minerva (old orthography Menerva] is
traditionally derived from mens (mind). But the goddess's name is
also related to mensis (month, female period), and the verb
menstrua. The words have a common root in the Indo-European me
- "idea of measure."^®
Minerva's shield, a magic mirror and acheiropoietos, is not a
speculum exemplare shining with the face of a victorious god of
culture, but a speculum terribile of a defeated and demonized
goddess of nature. Medusa's "true" image is created not by a male
emission, wholesome and purifying, but by a female secretion,
unclean and poisonous. The aegis confronts us not with a public
front, but with a private back, not with god's face or head, but with a
goddess's "underface" - emblematic of a menstruating vagina,
decapitation, and castration.*'^ The vera icon of Medusa does not
cure. Flashed at the beholder, it petrifies him with terror, offering
Minerva the best protection from male assault. The shield's deadly
potency is derived from the combined mirror and menstruation
mystique. The aegis demonstrates "the mysterious and awful power
of the menstruous discharge itself ... if this female power should
issue when the moon or sun is in eclipse, it will cause irremediable
harm; no less harm if there is no moon; at such seasons sexual
intercourse brings disease and death upon the man" (Pliny, NH 28.

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 Mirrors

23. 77). In ancient Greece and Rome Medusa's severed head was
considered a talisman, and as such it was reproduced on shields,
helmets, armor, cloths, objects of daily use, and in architecture.
Medusa's serpentine hair, of which some was cut by Athena,
guarded the town of Tegea in whose local sanctuary the goddess was
worshipped as Athena Poliatis (Keeper of the City).^°
Greek mythology and philosophy make us realize that in pagan
antiquity, similarly as in Judaism, a menstruating woman is
perceived, and consequently perceives herself, as a terrible threat.
Thus she is condemned to an invisible ghetto and the obscurity of a
social outcast. She is not to be seen and she is prevented from seeing
others and herself. Thus she cannot not proceed from vision to
reflection. Kept away from light and illumination, a menstruating
woman's gaze is clouded, and she experiences herself the way she is
supposed to — as a semi-blind creature separated from the rest of the
world by a layer of blood. The red film is the product of
Hemorrhissa's victimization - of the shame, humiliation, and
confusion that govern her "menstruating" mind. Forbidden to face
the world, she keeps "spinning," "staining," and "poisoning" it
with her blood.
Approaching Ghrist from the back, the biblical Hemorrhissa
observed the restrictions imposed on her. Facing the menstruating
female, Jesus broke a taboo. He saved the Hemorrhissa from a
Medusan fate and brought her out of the closet. But, on the other
hand, the scene of the Hemorrhissa's healing, with her touching
Jesus, the divine mirror, from the back, might have also echoed the
ancient mirror purification magic: "a mirror which has been
tarnished by the glance of a menstruous woman recovers its
brightness if it is turned round for her to look at the back" (Pliny,
NH 28. 23. 82). What did the evangelists want to convey? Was Jesus
a revolutionary acting against Jewish and pagan prejudice? Or was
he a quack doctor using popular magic? The answer may be that a
taboo is broken most effectively by means of a miracle which makes
use of existing superstition. The success of the Christian dissent
was determined, as is the fate of every revolution, by its ability to
convince people that the traditional laws, taboos, and magical
practices were no longer necessary because Jesus could remove
threats and fears through wonders of which each rang a bell.
Therefore the Hemorrhissa episode was narrated in such a way as to
make it appear grounded in the contemporary mythology and magic.
Not accidentally, perhaps, the most detailed account of the healing

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 Symbolism and Structure

is given by Mark, whose evangel, generally believed to be the oldest

of the four, uses a proverbial mode. ''Mark's Jesus," writes John
Drury, "is typically a folktale hero, a wanderer going through ordeals
which commandeer, disrupt, and reorder the established myths. He
is unaccommodated and unofficial. He performs the miracles beloved
of popular piety because they change lonely misery to social happi¬
ness at a touch.The Hemorrhissa's acceptance into Christianity
requires a disruption of ancient tradition. But her "healing" is
performed along the lines of the ancient mirror symbolism and
recreates in reverse the Gorgon legend — with Jesus turning an
incontinent and unclean Medusa into a whole and pure Minerva.
Berenice—Veronica carrying on her front the portrait of Jesus
resembles Mrnerva with the image of Medusa. In Christian art Jesus
and Veronica form a couple; in ancient art Perseus and Athena are a
pair. A Roman silver plate depicts Athena assisting Perseus. As he
raises his sword to cut off the Gorgon's head, the goddess - standing
opposite Medusa curled on the ground - catches with her shield the
sleeping woman's reflection.In order to establish the purity and
solar primacy of Athena, Medusa, the menstruating alter ego of the
goddess of heaven, is slain by Perseus. The affinity between the
Minerva-Medusa mythology (and representation) and the Jesus-
Hemorrhissa story suggest that we deal here perhaps with both a
solar-lunar (=terrestrial) doublet and an archaic belief in two
female suns, the day-sun, responsible for light and vision, and the
night-sun - black and bathed in blood. There is no reason why the
effusion of red light should not be likened to menstruation, and why
a female mirror-face should not serve as a symbol of sun.
Medusa's mythology and imagery survived in the medieval
legends of Melusine, a charming woman who periodically turns into
a siren with a fish- or snaketail instead of feet, and similar
monsters.Often equipped with mirrors, they seduce men away
from the dry land of virtue into a sea grotto of sex. John Mandeville,
whose extremely popular French travelogue was produced between
1357 and 1371, recounts a contemporary Greek legend dealing with
the idea of the female condition as a cyclical sickness and linking
the Medusa to the Hemorrhissa. On the island of Lango (Gos), which
Mandeville passes after Grete, there lives in a cave the daughter of
Ypocras (Hippocrates, who was m fact born on Gos). Once "a fair
damsel," she was changed into a "great dragon" by Diana, the
masculine and virginal goddess of hunting. In order to "turn again to
her own nature," the monster needs a Jesus, a good doctor and lover.

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"who shall be so bold that he dare come to her and kiss her on the
mouth. But the men landing on the island are no heroes; they
panic and are killed by the dragon. But even without the kiss of a
"knight" (a common man won't do), at times the monster becomes
a normal female who, if a man is not afraid of her, does not do any
harm. Once a young sailor "that knew not of the dragon" entered
her cave, saw

a damsel who was combing her head and looking in a mirror . . . and he
believed that she had been a common woman, who dwelled there to
receive men to folly; and he abode till the damsel saw the shadow of
him in the mirror, and she turned . . . and asked him, what he would?
And he said, he would be her paramour. And she asked him if he were
a knight? And he said, nay. And then . . . she bid him go again unto his
fellows and get him knighted, and come again upon the morrow, and
she would come out of the cave before him; and then he should come
and kiss her on the mouth, and have no fear.^^

The fellow got himself knighted but, alas, he returned to the island
at a wrong period, and was scared out of his wits by a dragon "so
hideous and so horrible" that he fled and died leaving his lady to her
impurity. Still, we are in Christian times here, when even a Medusa
can be saved. Mandeville's tale ends with the optimistic conclusion
that ultimately there will appear a "knight" whose touch "shall
turn the damsel into her right form."^*^ A charming fourteenth-
century French statuette makes clear what that form is. It shows the
Holy Virgin who, while being crowned by the infant Jesus, tramples
a pretty siren with her feet [Plate 27).

(ii) Mirrors and Menstruation

The Medusa-Melusine mythology reflects the fear of menstruation

which Pliny tries to rationalize:

But nothing could easily be found that is more remarkable than the
monthly flux of women. Contact with it turns new wine sour, crops
touched by it become barren, grafts die, seeds in gardens are dried up,
the fruit of trees falls off, the bright surface of mirrors in which it is
merely reflected is dimmed, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are
dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by
rust.
{NH 7. 15. 64)

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 Symbolism and Structure

Still today some nomadic tribes in Turkey isolate menstruating

women in special huts from which all shiny surfaces are banned,
and which are furnished with eating utensils made from non-
reflecting materials.The superstition can be traced to Aristotle,
who writes:

If a woman looks into a highly polished mirror during the menstrual

period, the surface of the mirror becomes clouded with a blood-red
colour (and if the mirror is a new one the stain is not easy to remove,
but if it is an old one there is less difficulty). The reason for this is that
. . . the organ of sight not only is acted upon by the air, but also sets up
an active process, just as bright objects do; for the organ of sight is
itself a bright object possessing colour. Now it is reasonable to
suppose that at the menstrual periods the eyes are in the same state as
any other part of the body; and there is the additional fact that they
are naturally full of blood-vessels. Thus when menstruation takes
place, as the result of a feverish disorder of the blood, the difference of
condition in the eyes, though invisible to us, is none the less real (for
the nature of the menses and of the semen is the same); and the eyes
set up a movement in the air. This imparts a certain quality to the
layer of air extending over the mirror, and assimilates it to itself; and
this layer affects the surface of the mirror. Now the cleaner one's
clothes are, the more readily they become stained, because a clean
object exhibits distinctly any mark which it receives; and the cleaner
the object, the better it exhibits even the slightest effects produced
upon it. In the same way the bronze surface of the mirror, being
smooth, is peculiarly sensitive to any impact (and one must regard the
impact of the air as a kind of friction or impression or washing); and
because the surface is clean, any impact upon it is clearly apparent.
The reason why the stain does not readily come off from a new mirror
is that the surface is clean and smooth; in such cases the stain
penetrates deeply all over, deeply because the surface is clean, and all
over because it is smooth. The reason why it does not persist in old
mirrors is that it does not penetrate so deeply, but is comparatively
superficial.^®

Unlike Plato, who seems to have shunned the company of the

opposite sex, Aristotle was married twice and had an opportunity to
get firsthand information about menstruation.^’'^ He very likely
inquired about it and was probably assured by the women that their
periods prevented them from having proper reflections. But why
would women confess such a thing? The explanation might be that
menstrual superstition had resulted in such a self-horror that when

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 Mirrors

women accidentally caught a glimpse of themselves in a mirror,

they were blinded by fear. One has also to realize that both their
anxiety and Aristotle's explanation parallel primitive perceptions of
shadows and reflections as substances emanating from objects or
living beings - i.e. as people's spirits or souls. Projection and
reflection are feared because they empty out the body, transforming
it into mere clothing, and expose the spirit or soul, externalized and
made visible, to outer danger.There are countless examples of
beliefs that human beings and animals can be effectively exterminated
by means of an attack on their shadows and reflections.^^ In ancient
India and Greece, contemplating one's reflection was considered
perilous. Dreaming of one's reflection foreshadowed death to the
Greeks. Because of their ability to "draw out" people's spirits or
souls, all shiny surfaces, including the pupil of the eye, were
approached with caution. The Upanishads believed that from a
person's pupillian "soul" yet another soul could be born, a tiny
independant humunculus which was associated with the index
Anger and the penis, and was expected to wander around in the
body.'^^ Shadows were feared as much as reflections, and occasionally
even more, especially in the South, where their outlines are
particularly sharp. Since one could injure or kill a person by striking
or treading on his/her shadow, endless precautions were taken in
dealing with shadows. In India pregnant women fled from the
shadows of men, afraid that the child would take after them. In
Palestine Jesus was born after Mary had been "overshadowed" by
God.
Studies in children's psychology have shed light on the reflection
and projection paranoia of primitive people. The French psychologist,
Jean Piaget, has shown that children interpret the phenomenon of
shadows in terms of emanation, and he has discerned four distinct
stages of the development. During the first, which usually occurs at
the age of Ave, "shadows are conceived as due to the collaboration or
participation of two sources, the one, internal (the shadow emanates
from the object), the other, external (shadows come from trees, from
night . . . etc.);" during the second stage at age six to seven,
"shadows are believed to be produced by the object alone," and to be
"a substance emanating from the object;" after the third stage has
been reached around the age of eight, "the child is able to predict the
orientation of shadows" and even to say "that shadows will be
formed where there is no light, no sun;" finally, the fourth stage is
achieved around age nine, when "the correct explanation is found".^^

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Asked the question, "Where does the shadow come from?", a

seven-year-old boy replies; "it comes out of the person, we have a
shadow inside us," pressed to explain what he means by that he
says: "it falls on to the ground;" another boy of the same age believes
that the shadow is a "portrait" which keeps us company all the
time: "in the night you can't see it, but it's beside you all the
same."^"^ Very much in the vein of Aristotle talking about the cloud
of blood on the surface of the mirror, a seven-year-old remarks that a
shadow "hides the white," meaning that it covers paper with
black.'^^ Failing to predict on which side the shadow will appear, an
eight-year-old treats it as an autonomous creature and explains that
the shadow "likes best to be on this side."^^
Piaget concludes that children perceive a shadow as a substance
and part of an object or person, a sort of vapor that clings to things,
or a fluid that emanates from them and moves about like a living
conscious being. They cannot properly understand the nature of the
shadow because they lack the capability of relational logic which
they would need in order to interpret the facts they observe. Instead,
they invent "the principle of a shadow in accordance with an
ontology that is foreign to the pure observation of phenomena ... a
substantialist ontology" which can "only lead to an exclusive use of
conceptional imagination."^^ But what causes the substantialist
ontology? Here Aristotle's example may be revealing. His idea of
blood emanating from a menstruating woman's eyes is derived from
an association with excretion. Therefore the philosopher uses cloth
as an example of how the mirror is stained. What makes him fall
into this trap is the seductive simplicity of the analogy and the fact
that it fits into his own system as well as into Platonism -
preoccupied with the duality of essence and existence, the original
and the replica, the real and the illusory. While Plato likes to explain
the relationship between prototype and copies in terms of projection
and reflection, Aristotle, who is highly interested in biology, uses
metaphors derived from the flow of organic life.
Aristotle's theories echoed popular beliefs in the ominous power
of menstruation and in the duplicating character of menstrual
blood; and they were influenced by substantialist mirror and
shadow mythologies. The philosopher certified the fiction of blood
flowing out of women's eyes and staining mirrors with the authority
of his name, thus providing inspiration for new blood-mirror
legends. The idea that menstrual blood is infused into the eyes,
transforming the pupils into a bloody mirror, implies that whatever

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is reflected in them is bathed in blood. According to this theory,

Christ's reflection in the Hemorrhissa's pupils is a blood-image, and
so is every reflection or projection of his image caught by an external
mirror or blank surface. Consequently, the creation of Christ's
bloodmade "true" portrait on the woman's napkin can be interpreted
as the projection of Jesus' mirror-image out of her bloodshot pupils
onto cloth. Since Aristotle mentions explicitly a cloud of blood
forming on the mirror's surface, it requires only a small step of the
imagination to transform a shapeless stain into an exact likeness.
To take such a step is more than logical if Plato's dualism, so
popular with early Christian theologians, is blended with Aristotle's
theory of menstrual emanation.

(iii) Sun and Moon

The Abgar and Veronica legends ascribe a luminous quality to Jesus'

face and image. When the apostle Thaddaeus appeared before the
king with Christ's "portrait on his own forehead like a sign . . .
Abgar saw him coming in from a distance, and thought he saw a
light shining from his face which no eye could stand, which the
portrait Thaddaeus was wearing produced" ("Story of the Image of
Edessa," 12). The scene is modelled after the Old Testament: "When
Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the
testimony in his hand . . . the skin of his face shone because he had
been talking with God" (Ex. 34:29); and it follows earlier legends
which, like the Acts of Thaddaeus (550-600), report about the
painter's incapability to portray Christ - a radiating solar mirror.^^
The impossibility to paint the divine source of light justifies the
achieropoietos - a reflection fixed in a mirror. Since God, the sun,
could not be faced, he needed a medium through which his
otherwise unbearable luminosity could be conveyed. Thus he found
Veronica, a receptive mirror, and reproduced himself in her - very
much in accordance with classical Greek philosophy and ancient
mirror mythology.
Mirror symbolism was shaped by actual mirrors: the materials of
which they were produced, their quality, their forms, the predomin¬
ance of certain mirror types (plane, convex, or concave); and it was
influenced by their use in cult, magic, and divination, for making
fire and toilette. The more mirrors made in a culture and the better
their quality, the richer the mirror symbolism. Mirrors, attractive

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 Symbolism and Structure

pieces of merchandise, travelled around the globe, and so did their

mythology - a dense network of cross-influences and references
which up to our day remind us that the experience of reproduction
and duplication resides at the center of our psychology. In his 1937
book on Afghanistan, Rene Dollot reports about a Muslim wedding
which, echoing Jewish and Christian traditions, is based on the
juxtaposition of God's word - and a woman's "true" image. The
ritual climaxes in the bridegroom's slipping under his bride's veil
where both are made to kiss the Koran; then the man is given a
mirror with which he catches the reflection of his bride — often
seeing her for the first time.^^ As in the Old Testament, vision and
symbolic reproduction are immediately followed by defloration,
impregnation, and the subsequent birth of a replica.
The significance of mirror symbolism was discovered by nine¬
teenth-century anthropologists, ethnologists, and folklorists; the
validity of their studies was reinforced by twentieth-century
structuralists who have made us aware of mirrorlike configurations
m religion and social organization, and by scholars of comparative
philosophy, literature, and poetry who keep signaling the importance
of speculum metaphors.The prehistoric ancestors of humanity
learned about reflection when they gazed into water. Its depth was
transferred to all other mirrors, creating an invisible space, symbolic
and magic, behind the flat surface. Mirrors seem to be the product of
humanity's preoccupation with the sun. The solar culture of Egypt
is the birthplace of the mirror.
The earliest proper mirrors were found in the predynastic Egypt of
before 4500 BC, in El-Badari, close to the Nile and some 250 miles
south of Cairo. One of them consists of a slab of selenite which
shows the rests of a wooden frame, the other is a large disk of slate
(which, when wetted, makes a shiny surface) with a hole for
suspension. In a grave of the Eirst Dynasty (2920—2770 BC) was
discovered the first metal mirror. It was made of copper, had a pear
shape and a stem for a handle. The traditional Egyptian mirror was
like the sun, a disk slightly flattened by the medium of the earth's
atmosphere (the hieroglyph for "sun" was a circle with a central
dot). It became established only during the Fourth Dynasty (2575-
2415 BC), and persisted for many centuries.
Egyptian mirrors symbolized the sun and were dedicated to the
cult of the sun-god Re, the chief deity of the Egyptian pantheon -
a personification of energy and light, the passing of time and the
beginning of language. The name of Re was the god's own creation

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 Mirrors

and was kept secret. Isis, his divine consort, devised therefore a
special trick in order to learn it and thus share in his power."^^ Re
was shown in constant movement. He sailed across the sky in the
"Manzet" (the bark of the dawn) and stepped into the "Mesenktet"
(the bark of the dusk) at sunset. After he had been received by the
goddess of the West, he started his night journey through the
underworld baek to the East."^"^ The drama of Re's daily disappearance
was eelebrated in an important theologieal book eompiled at an
uncertain date between the 18th and 20th Dynasties. It is entitled
The Litanies of the Sun and eontains the acclamations with which
Re was greeted in the evening. Later mythology likened the sun's
journey to the flight of a bird and Re to the falcon-god Horus; or it
pictured him in threefold form foreshadowing the imagery of Jesus:
an infant rising out of a lotus flower in the morning, an adult at
noon, and a weak old man in the evening.The cloudless sky of
Egypt was eompared to a celestial oeean, an immobile and all-
encompassing passive mirror-vernicle, which was personified by the
goddess Nut; her elongated body was shaped into an arch and
supported from below by a small slender man, the god Show, who
held her aloof from her husband Keb, the god of earth. Moving across
the body of Nut, Re was interpreted as her ka (soul). But since she
was also identified with Hathor, the eosmic cow, he was her calf -
born anew every morning - or a shiny scarab hurrying through her
dung."^^
A mirrorlike position of the sun and the moon was expressed in
the amorous relationship of Osiris, the god of the underworld and
the personification of the setting sun, and Isis, his divine consort, an
incarnation of the moon. Isis was often represented with horns,
imitative of the crescent moon, and in dark garments, symbolic of
"the concealments and the obscurations" in which she engaged in
her pursuit of the sun."^^ The Egyptians held Isis for a goddess of love
and the mother of the world. Impregnated with solar "effluxes and
likenesses," she bore Horus and demonstrated that "creation is the
image of being in matter" and that "the thing ereated is a picture of
reality" {Isis and Osiris, 372). Isis's role was not entirely passive.
Upon her insemination by Osiris, she emitted into the air her own
"generative prineiples" {Isis and Osiris, 368), and she could
challenge Osiris's omnipotenee by eclipsing him.
The vision of the sun as the son and husband of Isis and a disk or
head travelling through female matter influenced the shape of
Egyptian hand-mirrors. Before the 18th Dynasty, the upper ends of

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 Symbolism and Structure

mirror handles were often decorated with the cow-head of Hathor.

Later they were made into naked female figurines, Egyptian versions
of our Veronica, carrying the sun-shaped mirror on top of their heads
or in their hands. This symbolism was not confined to Egypt.
Among a dozen copper and bronze mirrors found at Mehi in Western
India and assigned to the Kulli culture (before 3000 BC), one has the
form of a female figurine set in an akimbo position, her breasts
naked, her head a mirror.Vajrananga, the Buddhist god of love, a
deity that brings to mind the Greek Eros, was equipped with a
mirror-weapon used for capturing his beloved's soul.^^ In the cult of
the goddess Kali, to whom in ancient times humans were sacrificed,
mirrors served as catchers of people's reflections with which the
actual victims were replaced.
The most elaborate of the ancient mirror mythologies comes from
China, where the production of bronze mirrors began ca. 1200 BC (by
ca.lOOO BC mirrors were already used to start fire).^° The earliest
Shang mirrors had the shape of a disk held by a silk cord run through
a knoh of the unpolished surface.^ ^ The form corresponded to the
archaic Chinese pictograph of the sun, a circle with a dot in its
middle and a sign identical with the Egyptian hieroglyph for the sun.
The Chinese associated the active aspect of the mirror with the sun
and the fire, the passive part with the moon and the water. Mirrors
symbolized the fusion of the male Yang with the female Yin, and
their production, a high craft, required the ability to imitate nature
and combine the male and female elements of creation. The mirror's
masculinity was believed to draw fire from the sun (a burning mirror
was called yang-sui, "sun igniter"), its femininity to attract water
from the moon. Concave mirrors were exposed to moonlight to
collect in their cups the dew.^^
Magical mediators between elemental opposites, mirrors were
given to newlywed couples whose integrity they were to guard,
reminding them of the cosmic and divine harmony; "the son of
Heaven dwelling with the queen like the sun with the moon."^'^ In
Chinese love poetry the bright and unclouded full moon was
equated with reciprocated affection, the consummation of marriage,
and union. The obscured or partial moon was compared to a broken
mirror separating the partners. Accordingly, the backs of the
marriage mirrors were decorated with mating animals and other
symbols of coupling and fertility. A favorite subject was two
magpies, illustrative of an old legend about a husband and wife who
broke their marriage mirror into two halves before parting, with

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 Mirrors

each taking one half as a promise of faithfulness. As the woman

betrayed the man, her part of the mirror turned into a magpie and
flew to her husband with the bad news.^"^
An unfaithful wife loses her mirror. A faithful spouse, the eighth-
century Chinese poet Li T'ai-Po tells us, never does.^^ Even after her
husband has parted from her, she keeps polishing "again and again"
with her "red sleeve" his "precious mirror coiled with dragons."
Gazing at the mirror's "splendour lighting up everything," the
deserted woman contemplates her own caged "reflection" which,
like "the golden magpie . . . does not fly away;" and she compares
herself to "the green Fire-Bird who, thinking of its mate, died
alone.The woman's "wiping" and "rubbing" of her husband's
"absolutely perfect" mirror with her red dress suggests intercourse
and menstruation. In Chinese sympathetic magic, cloth was
identified with body, mirror with the soul, and ground mirrors were
used as an ingredient in medication against irregular periods.But
the woman's identification with the green (feminine) Fire-Bird also
brings to mind the making of fire, an activity which, according to
Bachelard, has to be regarded as synonymous with love-making. He
believes that the sexual "rubbing" of prehistorical humans inspired
them to rub other things too - leading them to the invention of
fire.^^
Mirrors are wiped with cloth in Buddhist rituals of divine
purification, which correspond to the Buddhist interpretation of the
mind as a two-sided mirror consisting of the manas (realistic mind),
troubled by appearances and reflecting the world in a distorted way,
and buddhi, the pure supreme mind mirroring everything without
error.Similarly, as in the Babylonian-Assyrian tradition, in
Chinese art thunder was pictured as a man. Fightning, his visual
companion, was a woman with one or two mirrors in her hands, or
holding a mirror over her head. China's highly developed optical
industry allowed the production of truly magical mirrors in which
in addition to reflections one could see reproductions of images
hidden on the back of the mirror. Called theon-kouang-kien
(mirrors which let light penetrate them), these mirrors were treated
with a special polishing technique whereby the slightly convex
surface of the mirror was given "imperceptible irregularities that
corresponded exactly to the inscription or design on the back side of
the mirror. As a consequence, the part corresponding to the raised
pattern on the back became relatively concave and concentrated the
light there more strongly on the remainder of the slightly convex

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 Symbolism and Structure

surface. This resulted in a bright delineation of the pattern on the

screen. The intricate mirrors acted as a sort of Chinese camera
obscura. Outlining the drawing in shadow and light, they demateri-
alized it and projected out of matter. This type of mirror was
perfected by the Japanese to the extent that it could project not only
patterns but even likenesses.
There was traffic between China and Japan as early as the second
century BC, when the first Chinese mirrors probably made their
way to the islands.The mirror occupies a central position in
Shintoism, the animistic and shamanistic religion which gave the
Japanese their national identity and was codified in the Japanese
Holy Scriptures, the Kojiki (712) and the Nihongi (720). They begin
with creation, the work of Izanagi, a male deity, and Izanami, a
female. From Izanagi's right eye the sun goddess Amaterasu, from
his left eye the god of the moon are born, and from his nose springs a
phallic and impetuous trickster.
The main attribute of Amaterasu is her mirror. The legend of the
sun-goddess is constructed around the contrast between peaceful
femininity busy with matter-making and male energy and aggression.
As the goddess "was inside the sacred weaving hall seeing to the
weaving of the divine garments," her trickster brother "opened a
hole in the roof . . . and dropped down into it the heavenly dappled
pony which he had skinned with a backwards skinning. The
heavenly weaving maiden [a minor deity or priestess], seeing this,
was alarmed and struck her genitals against her shuttle and died."^'^
But in the Nihongi it is the sun-goddess herself who is injured, and
there is strong indication that this represents the original version,
while in the Kojiki suffering is shifted to a subordinate.^"^ The
wounding brings to mind defloration, beginning of menstruation,
ritual murder related to sexual initiation - and the story of Medusa.
Thus we are not surprised to hear that subsequently Amaterasu
retired into a sky-cave, causing darkness, upsetting the other
divinities, and behaving very much m accordance with a pattern
observed by Eliade: "The girl who at her first menstruation spends
three days in a dark hut without speaking to anyone does so because
the murdered maiden, having become the moon, remains three days
in the darkness.We are used to a menstruating luna, but the
Japanese tell us that one can also imagine a menstruating sun.
In order to lure Amaterasu out of her hiding, the remaining gods
had an old goddess make a sun-shaped mirror which they hung on

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 Minors

the middle branches of a sakaki tree pulled up by the roots, while on

the lower branches they suspended offerings of white and blue cloth.
Then they began to make music, dance, sing, and enjoy themselves
in a way reminiscent of carnival orgies. New Year's or spring
celebrations. One of the goddesses "became divinely possessed,
exposed her breasts, and pushed her skirt-band down to her
genitals.The astonished Amaterasu opened her cave, peeped out
and, attracted by the sight of the mirror, "gradually came out of the
door and approached" it.^^
The myth suggests Amaterasu's dual nature comparable to the
Minerva—Medusa doublet. On the one hand she is a "weaver" of
light, pure and virginal, on the other hand, when hiding (menstruat¬
ing) in her cave, she is the maker of darkness. Thus she is identified
both with the sun's luminosity and with the receptive and
reproductive mirror - a medium of duplication, representation, and
incarnation - which she receives upon her sexual maturity. The
Japanese sun-goddess procreates and sends her heavenly grandson
down to Japan. He becomes the first emperor, starting an unbroken
succession which still continues. Before his descent, Amaterasu
hands him her mirror (remember Minerva's aegis given to Perseus),
admonishes him to worship in it her "August Spirit," and has
mirror-makers join him on his trip. The solar mirror becomes one of
the two most important relics of Shintoism, the other being the
heavenly sword, its male counterpart. Still today the Imperial Palace
in Tokyo has a sanctuary where a reproduction of Amaterasu's
mirror is enshrined and where, until the defeat of Japan in the
Second World War, the emperor made daily obeisance.*'"^
The symbolism of the divine sword and mirror resulted in the
association of the first with a samurai's soul, of the second with a
woman's soul. "When the mirror is dim the soul is unclean. The
femininity of the mirror seems to account for an old kind
of marriage-mirror, which differed from the traditional Chinese type
in that it did not celebrate sexual union, but was explicitly tied to
the female sphere, and was presented by mother to daughter during
her wedding ceremony. In recollection, perhaps, of the music that
accompanied Amaterasu's coming out of the cave, the early
Japanese created a unique type of mirror in which vision (space) was
combined with sound (time). The suzukagami looked like a round
Chinese bronze mirror, but had five or more rigid bells attached to
the rim; they rang when the mirror was shaken.^* This curious

171
 Symbolism and Structure

combination of the visual and acoustic rings a bell in the back of the
European mind, making us recall the audio-visual affair of Echo and
Narcissus.
When the Shinto mirror mythology was fused with Buddhist
symbolism, new mirror-types appeared. The shiny surface, where
Shintoists used to look for the face of the sun-goddess, now was
covered with engravings of Buddha — becoming a fapanese variant of
the vernicle. Buddhism regarded breath as the soul or spirit of a
living being, and in consequence legends and rites were developed
around the scrutiny of the ephemeral image appearing on the mirror
surface when someone breathed onto it. The Buddhist deity Emma-O
(derived from the Hindu god Yama Raja), the ruler of the underworld
who sits in judgement over the dead, was usually depicted with a
"soul-reflecting" crystal mirror: as the faithful breathed on it, his or
her soul was pictured on the surface.
The earliest mirrors found in Greece date hack to the sixth
century BC. They were made of bronze and show an Egyptian
design, although it is unclear if they were imported from Africa
or copied from Egyptian originals. It is important to remember that
when Plato used mirror metaphors in his philosophy and Aristotle
analyzed real and fictitious mirror phenomena, mirrors were widely
used in Greece. In the Mediterranean world the widespread
mythology and magic of an omnipotent solar mirror was reinforced
by the first spectacular use of mirrors as fire-making weapons, an
invention credited to Archimedes (ca.287—212 BC). His contempor¬
aries must have perceived his successful destmction of the Roman
fleet in the harbor of Syracuse as a confirmation of the mythical
power of the sun and its association with fire.
The Greeks took the basic ideas for their mirrors from Egypt, but
they injected the ancient forms with the mimetic and sensual
qualities of their own culture. The handles of sixth-century Greek
mirrors are often shaped into statuettes of young women, naked or
dressed in light chitons and with fruits and flowers in their hands,
who, like a clothed and a nude Maia, present the two sides of ideal
feminine beauty, evoke Aphrodite, and suggest cosmic union and
fertility, especially when animals surround the circle (Plate 28).^'^
Another kind of mirror, particularly popular around 400 BC,
consists of two metallic circular disks which, fitting into each other,
produce a box that is sometimes fastened with a hinge. On the
inside, the lid is polished to reflect the face, on the outside it is

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 Mirrors

ornamented with mythological scenes or portraits in low or high

relief. Thus even before the mirror is opened and the reflection of
one's face appears in it, the mirror's user is faced with a mimetic
representation and provided with a sense of identity of the outside
and the inside. This feeling is particularly strong when the lid
carries a portrait whose features resemble the viewer's. Then it
becomes an ideal illustration of the Butades legend - and the Greek
fascination with trompe I’oeil.
A mirror hidden inside a naturalistically sculpted box can be
considered a model for the coexistence of matter and spirit, the body
and the mind, the phenomenal and the essential. At first glance a
Greek box-mirror looks like a solid piece of sculpture. Nothing
indicates that behind it a "true" image awaits us. Opening the
mirror, we move inwards and discover a secret other side - and our
own likeness. The spirit of Greek culture is conveyed to me as I
imagine holding in my hands a box-mirror topped with the relief of a
woman's face which is so illusionistic that it resembles a cast. She
holds a lock in her right hand (a gesture characteristic of Aphrodite),
as if she was arranging her hair in front of a mirror. Imagine, I hold
the mirror in my right hand, while with my left I explore the
woman's features. As my fingers touch her bronze locks, I lift my
hand and arrange my own curls - experiencing identity. Were I not a
woman but a man, or were the mirror decorated with a man's
likeness, the contrast between vision and tactility would produce an
erotic frisson — and a sense of romance similar to our Veronica—
Jesus story.
On the frames, backs, lids, handles, stands, and boxes of the
Greek, Etruscan, and Roman mirrors, and even on the textiles in
which mirrors were wrapped, erotic themes and the figures of
Aphrodite and Eros prevail.The mirrors' mimetic character and
erotic iconography indicate their role in love-making. Seneca tells
us about a certain Hostius Quadra, a man of lust, who took a special
interest in magnifying mirrors which allowed all his organs,
including his eyes, to participate in the lechery.No doubt ordinary
Greeks and Romans made similar use of the mirrors. While the
Ghinese and Japanese mirror-makers symbolized the erotic aspect
of mirroring, the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman craftsmen treated the
mirror as a voyeuristic pupil. As if to express his gratitude for
a mirror's help in duplicating reality, a mirror-maker provided the
reflecting surface, a face and an eye, with an attractive trompe I’oeil

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 Symbolism and Structure

body. The mirror's appealing exterior served as erotic inspiration

and, when the mirror was opened, the "true" icons of love-making
were added to representation.

(iv) Platonism, Satire, and Theology

Plato's famous shadow—cave simile — a reflection of and a reaction to

his culture's mimetism — defines the visible world as a mere
projection of the ideal. Amounting to a shadow of a shadow,
"mimetic art. . . is an inferior thing cohabiting with an inferior and
engendering inferior offspring" {Republic, 10. 603B), and artists —
fools pursuing phantoms - are excluded from the philosopher's
perfect state. "Images in water and in mirrors" {Sophist, 27D) are
used hy Plato as another example of the merely phenomenal. But, on
the other hand, since he values light and vision highest, he treasures
the mirror as a medium for catching a glimpse of that "true" reality
at which we can only gaze, as at the sun, through its reflection in
water. Plato praises the knowledge gained hy "an eye viewing
another eye" (1 Alcibiades, 133A) and compares both a soul and God
to the mirror of the pupil. "If the soul ... is to know herself, she
must surely look at a soul," and to know God, one has to focus on
that center of the soul which resembles him most (1 Alcibiades,
133B-G). Plato's argument moves from the metaphor of a bronze
mirror to that of the pupil, and from the mirror of the soul to the
divine mirror on which eyes should be fixed, since ignorance is due
to one's looking at "the godless and dark" (1 Alcibiades, 134D-E).
The brightest mirror, the sun, represents supreme deity.
In the Neoplatonic and Ghristian philosophy Plato's mirror and
sun metaphors coalesced with the ancient solar and lunar mytho¬
logies, generating a multitude of syncretic interpretations. Through¬
out centuries, two basic conceptions prevailed among them: the
vision of a divine burning mirror, illuminating and purifying
humanity, and its counterpart, an opaque mirror receiving reflec¬
tions and breeding replicas.^'’ Applying to Egyptian mythology
Plato's idea of the void matter in which everything is reproduced
and the idea of the mirror as an image-maker, the Greek writer
Plutarch (ca.AD 46-120) compared the moon-goddess Isis to a
"receptive" mirror of nature {Isis and Osiris, 372-3). Reasoning in a
similar vein, Plotinus (AD 204-70), the leading exponent of
Neoplatonism, created the concept of a "mirror of matter": his

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 Mirrors

matter "is like a mirror showing things as in itself when they are
really elsewhere, filled in appearance but actually empty, containing
nothing, pretending everything"; it "has no reality" and "no Soul; it
is not intellect, is not Life, is no Ideal-Principle, no Reason-Principle
... it lives on the farther side of all these categories and so has no
title to the name of Being. It will be more plausibly called a non-
being" [Third Ennead, 6. 7)7^
Plotinus's mirror of matter, a female "pauper . . . destitute of The
Good" [Third Ennead, 6. 14), is worse than nothing. She is a zero
minus, since, in addition to being dumb and blank, she goes on to
veil the ideal and true. But "as in the absence of a mirror . . . there
would be no reflection" (ibid.), without matter, a "receptacle" and
"nurse," nothing would exist. Her mirroring makes the world go
around - an idea which centuries later was illustrated by a medieval
statuette group of The Visitation from a Dominican nunnery.It
shows Elizabeth and Mary, whose respective pregnancies are
suggested by rock crystal cabochons - oval-shaped and womb-sized
mirrors which they carry on their bellies. The Platonic contempt for
matter impregnated with "true" likenesses makes one grasp the
paradoxes of misogyny, idealist philosophy, and paternalistic culture
in which those who produce count less that those who don't.
The ancient mirror, sun, and moon mythology was derided by
Lucian (ca.AD 120-80), one of the world's greatest satirist-visionaries,
in his True History. Ridiculing the idea of worlds mirroring
themselves in each other and the projection of the sexual onto the
cosmic, he reversed the traditional pattern and described the sun
and the moon not as an amorous couple but as rivals and enemies.
The two celestial bodies, inhabited respectively by the Sunites and
the Moonites, find themselves at war, and sunrays are not lovingly
collected by the Luna, but they are used as weapons against which
the Moonites have to erect walls. Dew, the mysterious female fluid,
is treated as merchandise, and in the peace treaty the Moonites are
obliged to pay 10,000 gallons of it as yearly tribute to the Sunites.
Finally, the narrator of Lucian's "true story" uses a marvel familiar
to us; he watches the earth from the moon in an audio-visual
mirror:

a large looking-glass . . . fixed above a well, which is not very deep. If a

man goes down into the well, he hears everything that is said among
us on earth, and if he looks into the looking-glass he sees every city
and every country just as if he were standing over it. When I tried it I

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 Symbolism and Structure

saw my family and my whole native land, but I cannot go further and
say for certain whether they also saw me.
{True History, 1. 26)^'"’

Making fun of theology, mythology, and philosophy, Lucian

brings cosmogonies and theogonies back to earth by disclosing the
physical origins of religious sublimity. Describing the struggle
between the sun and the moon armies, he derides the litanies
lamenting the sun's daily disappearance in metaphors derived from
battlefields, executions, and a man's bleeding to death on a bedsheet
or in a woman's lap, and writes: "So much blood flowed on the
clouds that they were dyed and looked red, as they do in our country
when the sun is setting" [True History, 1. 17). Lucian's satire
parodies the solar-lunar cults of late antiquity, including that of
Christ, the new Sol Invictus, hints at the sources of religious blood
martyrdom in war and sexuality, and brings to mind a biblical
blood-sunlight analogy: in an Old Testament passage the King of
Israel calls upon the King of Judah to suppress the rebellion of the
King of Moab. To do so they must join up with the King of Edom
("redness") and make a seven-day "circuit" through his land. But as
they find no water for their horses and army, Elisha, the prophet,
tells them to make the land full of trenches. They dig them, and the
trenches unexpectedly fill with water.

When all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight
against them, all who were able to put on armor . . . were drawn up at
the frontier. And when they rose early in the morning, and the sun
shone upon the water, the Moabites saw the water opposite them as
red as blood. And they said; 'This is blood; the kings have surely
fought together, and slain one another.'
(2 Kgs. 3:21-3)

The false deduction makes the Moabites attack and lose. What they
have taken for male blood is, in fact, earthly water, a female fluid
which has appeared in the trenches as mysteriously as menstrual
blood.
In the New Testament Jesus acquires solarity at transfiguration
when "his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white
as light" (Mt. 17:2), and in the Apocalypse. Christianity fought
Mithraism and other solar cults, but at the same time it provided
Christ with a solar aura by appropriating the ancient sun and moon
festivals.^*’ Coincidence was established between the day of the sun
(Sunday) and the day of the Lord [domenica, dimanche]. Jesus'

176
18 Hcrsfeld altar, German School,
late fifteenth century.

19 Pomeranian (Danzig?) painter

The Massacre of the Innocents,
ca. 1490-7.
 20 Veronica and Three Angels Holding the Holy Face,
French School, 1514.

21 The Entombment, French School, 1496

22 Workshop of two Danzig painters, Mary Breastfeeding
Jesus and Christ as Man of Sorrow, ca.l435.

23 Master of the Strauss Madonna, Vir dolorum between the Virgin and
Mary Magdalen, Florentine School, ca.l405.
 25 Francisco de Zurbaran
(1598-1664), Veronica’s
24 Master of the Holy Sweatcloth.
Veronica, St Veronica with
Sweatcloth, {ca. 1420).

26 Yvon Adolphe (181 7-93), Vision of Judas.

27 Virgin Crowned by Child and
Trampling on a Siren, lie dc France,
second quarter of fourteenth century.

28 Mirror, Greece, fifth century BC.

29 Antonio Corradini (1668-1752),

Veiled Woman (Allegory of Faith?).
30 The Omnipresent and
Omnipotent God, The Rothschild
Canticles, Franco-Flcmish, late
thirteenth or early fourteenth
century.

31 An}i,el Holding a Cloth with the

Heail of fohn the Baptist, German
School, eishteenth century.
32 Silesian Master, Pieta, ca. 1370.

33 Giovanni Capassini (called lean

Capassin, d. 1579), Supper at Emmaus
(detail).
34 Head of God-Phallus, broken from a vase
or lamp, Hellenistic period.

35 Deposition and Entombment of Jesus

Christ, Flanders, third quarter of twelfth
century.
 Mirrors

unknown birthday was set on December 25, a festival of the Sol

Invictus (= winter solstice), and Epiphany on the birthday of the
sun-god Dionysios-Aion (as well as of Osiris and Harpocrates-
Horus). Following Plutarch, who interpreted the appearance of
sunlight as birth {Aetia Romana, 2), Clement of Alexandria glorified
Christ as the sun of resurrection born from the morning star and
identified sunrise with birth [Stromata, 7. 7. 43).^^ Easter was
projected onto the various pagan celebrations of the revived sun: the
Egyptian Re or Osiris ascending from the depth of the ocean or
underworld, or the Greek Helios coming up from Hades. In
consequence, Jesus' entire life was connected to the pagan festivals
of the upcoming spring and related to the position of the planets.
According to the tradition established by the Gospel of John,
Ghrist died on the 14th of Nisan (which in this particular year fell
on a Friday), the day of the Easter festival on which the Jews "kill
their lambs in the evening" and then "take some of the blood, and
put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which
they eat them" (Ex. 12:6-7). In the Jewish calendar, Nisan was the
first month of the year, which began with the new moon, and thus
the 14th coincided with the first full moon of the new year. To this
was added the symbolism of the Roman calendar, which tied death
to femininity, resurrection to solarity. Jesus died on Friday (the day
of Venus), remained in the tomb on Saturday (the day of Saturn), and
was resurrected on Sunday, the day of Helios when Selene (moon),
his female consort, stood in full splendor. The decision to celebrate
Easter on the day of the pagan sun-god was taken hy Constantine the
Great, and the news was disseminated throughout the empire soon
after the Council of Nicaea.^^ Thus the power of tradition won, and
the light emanating from the new "sun of justice" was received and
reflected by the various lunar mirrors of matter: the madonna and
the ecclesia, the biblia and the anima.^^
In the early apocryphal Gospel of Bartholomew the Holy Virgin
says to the apostle Peter:

Look at the sun. It shines like Adam. Look at the moon. It is full of
elay, because Eve transgressed the commandment. For God placed
Adam in the east and Eve in the west, and he commanded the two
lights to shine, so that the sun with its fiery chariot should shine on
Adam in the east, and the moon in the west should shed on Eve its
milkwhite light. But she defiled the commandment of the Lord, and
therefore the moon became soiled, and its light does not gleam . . . But

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 Symbolism and Structure

in me the Lord took up his abode, that I might restore the dignity of
women.
{Gospel of Bartholomew, 4:5)^'^

The ancient sun-moon mythologies, the Platonic and Neoplatonic

ideas of male (solar) energy and female (lunar) matter, and the
adoption of the ancient sun and moon festivals by the Church laid
the foundation for the Christian symbolism of active and passive
mirrors, and their association with celestial bodies. The Platonic
tradition can be traced to St Paul who declares: "For now we see in a
mirror dimly, but then face to face" (I Cor. 13:12). While he regards
the mirror as an imperfect medium of vision, in the Letter of James
the mirror is seen in the even more negative terms of passivity and
pretence and used for distinguishing Christian activists (speakers)
from the passive onlookers. "Be doers of the word," the apostle
admonishes his brothers,

and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if one is a hearer of the
word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in
a mirror ... and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But he
who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres,
being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed
in his doing.
(Jas. 1:22-5)

Both passages echo the Old Testament mirror metaphors. PauPs

saying brings to mind the image of the sky spread out above the
earth like "a molten mirror" (Job 37:18), in which God's "golden
splendor" (37:22) appears but blinds us with its brilliance: "men
cannot look on the light when it is bright in the skies" (37:21). And
James's remarks on the worthless character of passive (female)
mirroring might have been inspired by the remembrance of
women's mirrors which were melted down and used for God's
sanctuary. Upon the order of Moses, the artist Bezalel "made the
laver of bronze and its base of bronze, from the mirrors of the
ministering women" (Ex. 38:8).
Early Ghristianity celebrated Jesus' birth and rebirth m images of
the sun rising from the Virgin's womb. But as Ghristianity aged and
ever more blood was shed in crusade and persecution, attention
shifted to Ghrist's passion, and imagination was captured by the
symbolism of the setting sun.

178
 9

Cloth

Humans are born naked, but as soon as they emerge from their
mothers' bodies they are wrapped in cloth. We need garments in
order to survive. Most cosmogonies, as in the Japanese legend of the
sun-goddess, introduce a divinity which spins, weaves, teaches
humans the art of making cloth or provides them with garments, if
only animal skins. The rich symbolism of thread and fabric
resonates in everyone because of textiles' omnipresence in swaddling
clothes, garments, bedsheets, towels, blankets, (bridal) veils, (burial)
shrouds, bandages, tablecloths, curtains, tents, sails, flags, banners,
canvases, screens, scrolls, sacks, bags, rugs, and other textiles that
provide us with comfort and pleasure. Textiles were woven of
organic materials (wool, hair, cotton, flax, silk) and worn together
with animal skins. This established a sense of unity between
humanity, animality, and vegetation, and prompted metaphors
likening humans to beasts and plants, with men more often
compared to the fauna, women to the flora.
The word "cloth" has a Germanic origin. It appears in Kleid
(dress), Kleidung (clothing), and in the Dutch kleed, and it probably
comes from the root kli- meaning to stick, cling to (as in "clay" or
"cleave"). "Cloth" would thus be "that which clings to the body, or
that which is pressed or 'felted' together.In Latin "text" and
"textile" have a common root in texeie, textum (to weave,
construct, compose). In Judaism "texts" and "textiles" belong to
culture and are made by men. Textiles and the skins of dead animals
(and humans) can be transformed into texts and pictures when an

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 Symbolism and Structure

external medium (juice, blood, paint) is applied to them or when

they are scratched, cut, or tattooed with images and words. Then
skin begins to resemble an iconic dress, canvas, relief, or the page of
a book. Body-icons abound in primitive societies, and tattooing is
still practiced in third-world countries and in American and
European subcultures. The tattoo iconography differs from place to
place, but I suspect that today, as in the past, a popular picture is
still "our Saviour on the cross, in blue; with the crown of thorns,
and three drops of blood in vermilion, falling one by one from each
hand and foot" - a mariner's tattoo in Melville's Mardi.^
In German the noun das Mai (sign, mark, stain, spot) and the verb
malen (to paint) are derived from the Latin macula (mark, stain,
mole); and the Polish malowac (to paint) and malarz (painter) have
the same root. In theology and poetry macula also designates sin.
The untouched Virgin, God's immaculate robe-skin, and the
exemplary mirror of divinity are called sine macula. Gurious and
ambiguous metaphors have been inspired by analogies between
cloth(es), skin, hair, mirrors (including the pupil of the eye), and the
surfaces of sky, earth, and water, which lack permanence and are
prone to transformations. The change of dimensions appears
particularly significant. Draped, folded or inflated, cloth and skin
become three-dimensional, and so does the surface of water when
waves are formed. Images fixed in these mobile media are easily
distorted, turned from flat portraits into semblances of bodies,
reliefs, and statues.
A blank fabric is a texture; a textile with woven, embroidered,
painted or written words a text; a cloth with images an icon. Each is
created by a different procedure and inspires a different symbolism,
but each can be used to visualize the inner dimension of remembrance
and fantasy, thinking and dreaming, imagery and language. Light,
portable, and flexible, cloth is ideal for picturing the flow and
ruptures of inner life. Gloth, as it is folded and unfolded, stored away
and unrolled, seems suitable for representing memory, both as a
texture woven m a laborious process, and as a sequence of images
and words impregnating the fabric with mercurial speed.

(i) Greece

In ancient Greece women made textiles and clothes, and legends

linked the spinning of thread and the weaving of fabric to

180
 Cloth

femininity. The popular image of the three Fates spinning human

destinies goes back to the Greek Moerae. Daughters of Themis, the
goddess of justice and earth, by Zeus, they are lunar deities of time
(Fiesiod, Theogony, 903). Finding the right way in the labyrinth of
life is associated with Ariadne.'^ She gives Theseus a ball of thread
and ties one end to a pillar at the entrance. The thread unwinds, and
after the slaying of the Minotaur leads Theseus out of the maze. In
the grotto of Ithaca the naiads, immortal females, keep laboring
inside the "living stone" on "their webs divine of purple mix'd with
gold" {Odyssey, 13. 126—9).'^ The goddess Athena presides over
female crafts. A master weaver, she makes her own vesture - the
richly decorated peplos which is celebrated not only as a garment
but also as a sail [Iliad, 5. 733—4), executes a magnificent robe for
Juno [Iliad, 14. 178), teaches weaving to earthly women [Odyssey,
7. 108-10), turns Arachne, who dares to compete with her, into a
spider [Met. 6. 5ff.), and envelops Odysseus, the husband of Penelope
(the prototypical "spinner" and "weaver" of marital fabric), in thick
mist [Odyssey, 7. 21—2) — to protect him from the attack of the
Phaeacians.
Mnemosyne, the Greek personification of Memory, was a female
with beautiful hair and covered with piles of cloth.^ She belonged to
the oldest generation of Greek gods. In Flesiod [Theogony, 135) she
was born from the union of Earth and Fieaven and stood originally
for one memory in particular: the remembrance of Zeus's heroic
victory over the Titans (881-5). F4is triumph was followed by an
erotic Blitzkrieg which populated the earth with a harem of female
Kultuitiager. Zeus took Metis, the mother of Athena, as his first
wife; "Next he married bright Themis who bore the Florae (Fiours),
and Eunomia (Order), Dike (Justice), and blooming Eirene (Peace),
who mind the works of mortal men, and the Moerae (Pates) to
whom wise Zeus gave the greatest honour, Glotho, and Lachesis,
and Atropos who give mortal men evil and good to have" (901-5).
Then Zeus lay with Eurynome who bore him the three Graces,
impregnated Demeter with Persephone, and "loved Mnemosyne
with the beautiful hair" (915).
The Greeks regarded memory as the birthplace of inspiration and
thought, and Mnemosyne as the mother of the Muses (Thinkers).
Originally spring nymphs, later the Muses were transformed into
the divinities of song and the goddesses of various arts and sciences.
As if to evoke the character of remembrance and art production, the
girls were engendered not at once but as a work-in-progress. Zeus

181
 Symbolism and Structure

kept entering Memory for nine consecutive nights and "when a year
was passed and the seasons came round . . . she bore nine daughters,
all of one mind, whose hearts are set upon song and their spirit free
from care, a little way from the topmost peak of snowy Olympus.
There are their bright dancing places and beautiful homes, and
beside them the Graces and Himerus (Desire) live in delight"
[Theogony, 58-64).^
Mnemosyne was usually worshipped together with the Muses,
but she also had her own important cult and played a role in the rites
of incubation, in which dreams and prophecies had to be remembered.
At the oracle of Trophonius in Lebadeia, Mnemosyne was contrasted
with Lethe, and both were symbolized by water in two fountains
situated near each other. Before stepping down into the cave where
the future was to be revealed to him, the inquirer had first to "drink
water called the water of Forgetfulness, that he may forget all that
he has been thinking of hitherto/' then he drank "the water of
Memory" (Pausanias, 9. 39. 8) so that he may remember what he
was to see in the cave.^ After his ascent from Trophonius, the
inquirer was seated "upon a chair called the chair of Memory," and
told the priests what he had "seen or learned" (9. 39. 13). Drinking
from two sources was also practiced by the followers of the Orphic
mysteries who equated Mnemosyne with the life, Lethe with the
death of the soul. In their holy groves the fountain of Memory was
located "to the right of the cypressus," the fountain of Forgetfulness
to the left of the tree.®
Overshadowed by her extremely popular daughters, Mnemosyne
was a rare subject in Greek art. Only a few classical statues are
inscribed with her name, and the authenticity of the inscriptions is
doubtful.^ Mnemosyne is shown veiled — like the Muses, but even
more — often to the tips of her fingers. The veil reflected the way
decent Greek women were supposed to dress, suggested chastity,
and differed from the loose garments of Aphrodite and the hetaerae.
But piles of fabric allegorized also shapeless matter that was to be
covered and given form by men.'^’ The veiled muses acted as the
material souhscreens for poets, the actual creators of poetry, who
sought them and were often depicted in their company - sparsely
dressed or altogether naked." Occasionally the opposition between
the blankness and dreamy passivity of the veiled Muses and the raw
energy of naked men was expressed with shocking directness. On a
sarcophagus depicting the story of Apollo and Marsyas, for instance,
a seated Apollo, his penis erect and his only garment a laurel wreath

182
 Cloth

on his forehead, faces a standing Mnemosyne, her body covered with

fabric from the top of her head to the tips of her toesd^
Memory and her daughters can easily be confused, but there is a
slight difference between them. The Mnemosyne statues convey a
sense of maternal gravity which sets them apart from the livelier
figures of her daughters. Even more strictly veiled than the Muses,
Memory appears to consist of nothing but drapery. And yet, the
longer the eye wanders across Mnemosyne's covered body looking
for an opening, the more the seductiveness of her figure becomes
apparent, and she begins to transform from a modest matron into an
obscure object of desire. Statues of Memory and the Muses
epitomize the Greek artists' skill in sculpting cloth and presenting
flesh, in particular female flesh, through the medium of textiles.
Light fabric accentuates the sensuality of Aphrodite. The heavy
veils of Mnemosyne at once spiritualize and sexualize her figure,
making the goddess of memory the prototype of the "veiled lady"
(Plate 29). An important subject of European art and literature, she
oscillates between the vision of idealized femininity, a man's
hidden anima, and Plotinus's notion of a "mirror of matter" - pure
stuff bare of all meaning.
The cult of Mnemosyne was significantly transformed in Rome
where she was worshipped under the name of Moneta, which
designated not only a coin but also a stamp or die for coining money,
funo, in whose temple at Rome money was coined, was referred to
as Moneta, a symbolism in which Theogony (921) might have had
its share, since it provided an association between the two women:
Zeus copulated first with Memory, then impregnated Juno, his legal
wife. The picturesque female figures of Greek mythology inspired
the image of the Holy Virgin, a weaver, embroiderer, knitter, and a
speculum and materia sine macula, which received God's "true"
imprint.

(ii) The Old Testament

In Judaism, the original, embryonic condition of nakedness is

likened to innocence in paradise, a heavenly womb, where Adam
and Eve are united with divinity and thus do not perceive
themselves as individuals. Clothing symbolizes the separation from
God — the birth-exile into the world - and the beginning of
reflection. After Adam and Eve have tasted together of the forbidden

183
 Symbolism and Structure

fruit, "the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were
naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
aprons" (Gen. 3:7). Before expelling Adam and Eve from the garden
of Eden, God clothes them in "garments of skins" (Gen. 3:21). Are
animals killed to provide robes for the parents of humanity? The
rabbinic tradition claims that no one could have died in paradise and
that the garments must have been the shed skins of snakes. In the
Egyptian Books of Adam and Eve, composed at an unknown date,
perhaps as early as the first century AD, the first clothes given by
God to the exiled couple are "skins of sheep, whose flesh was
devoured by lions, and whose skins were left" (1. 50. l]}"^ The
Valentinian Gnostics regard the coats of skins — in contrast to the
"invisible and transcendental matter" out of which Adam and Eve
are formed - as the "gross sensible body of flesh" and a proof of
humanity's "two natures, the animal and the material.
In Hebrew "skin" and "light" are virtual homonyms. This may be
the reason why in the Books of Adam and Eve God explains to
Adam that in paradise he was clothed in "bright light" (1. 12. 10),
but on earth he'll wear a "body of flesh, over which I spread this
skin, in order that it may bear cold and heat" (1. 13. 7); and why
throughout the Old and New Testament light, skin, and garment are
often used as synonyms.
Once dressed, the primordial couple joined in the natural cycle of
conception and corruption, copulated, procreated, and became part
of the skin-for-skin principle of life. Eve gave birth to two sons and
called them "Cain and Abel [Hebei] to imply that man's hold on this
earth (deriving Cain from kinyan 'possession') is but vanity
[hebel]."^^ Preferring Abel, the shepherd and nomad, to Cain, the
agriculturalist and future builder of cities, God caused the jealousy
of the elder brother. Cain killed Abel, whose blood impregnated the
soil: "the ground . . . hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's
blood from thy hand" (Gen. 4:11);^^ "And the Eord put a mark on
Cain" (Gen. 4:15), which has been interpreted as either a "a letter of
His Name" engraved on Cain's "forehead; or an unspecified
"protective mark, perhaps a tattoo, signifying divine mercy.In
any case, the first blood crime produced the first natural icon - a
shapeless stain on (in) the maternal ground - and the first
inscription or letter on (in) male skin.
When God tells Moses to offer him "a male without blemish"
(Lev. 1:10), the command suggests a white sheep or goat. When the
male animal is killed, his spotless skin is stained with blood. The

184
 Cloth

divine order makes sense. Blood marks white skin most effectively,
and since in ritual "truth" is revealed through semblance, red-on-
white represents the optimal color combination in terms of visibility
and psychological resonance. The Hebrew Bible sets the pattern for
the change of Jesus' appearance in the New Testament: he is luminous
until the beginning of the passion, then starts turning red (first he is
dressed in a purple mantle, then his skin is injured); he dies naked,
but his clothes (white) are restored at resurrection.
Clothing is given and taken away by divinity. Job acknowledges
that "Thou didst clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me
together with bones and sinews" (Job 10:11), and complains when
the "knitting" starts to be unraveled: "My flesh is clothed with
worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh. My days
are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and come to their end without
hope" (Job, 7:5-6). In the same vein Isaiah proclaims: "Behold, all of
them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up" (Isa.
50:9). Ezekiel contains a memorable passage on clothing, God's
beautiful present to Jerusalem which, however, corrupts and leads
her away from the cult of the divine word to the worship of male
images. The Lord reminds his unfaithful wife that when she arrived
"at the age of love" (menstruation), he "spread" his "skirt" over her
(Ezek. 16:8). "Then 1 bathed you with water and washed off your
blood from you, and annointed you will oil. I clothed you also with
embroidered cloth and shod you with leather, 1 swathed you in fine
linen and covered you with silk" (Ezek. 16:9-10). But the rich outfit
turned Jerusalem into a prostitute:

You took some of your garments, and made for yourself gaily decked
shrines, and on them played the harlot . . .You also took your fair
jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made
for yourself images of men, and with them played the harlot; and you
took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my
incense before them.
(Ezek. 16:16-18)

In the Old Testament "cloth," "clothing," and their various

synonyms metaphorize attributes and qualities of divinity, humanity,
and the universe.God is "robed in majesty" and "girded with
strength" (Ps. 93:1). Humans either put on "righteousness" and
wear "justice . . . like a robe and a turban" (Job 29:14), or they are
"clothed with shame and dishonor" (Ps. 35:26) and wrapped in
"cursing" (Ps. 109:18-19) and "despair" (Ezek. 7:27). Light, life, and

185
 Symbolism and Structure

health are represented by fresh and white cloth(ing). Darkness and

mental obscurity, sickness and death are synonymous with black
and spoilt garments, sackcloth and filthy rags. The faithful are
warned that "drowsiness will clothe a man with rags" (Prov. 23:21).
God threatens humanity that he will withdraw light and "clothe the
heavens with blackness, and make sackcloth their covering" (Isa.
50:3).
Weaving, spinning, and clothmaking are traditionally regarded as
female occupations. But the Old Testament suggests that this was
not so in Jewish culture. When God commands Moses that there be
woven ceremonial curtains, veils, and garments, the work is
assigned to two men, Bez'alel and Oho'liab, whom God "has filled . . .
with ability to do every sort of work done by a craftsman or by a
designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet stuff
and fine twined linen, or by a weaver" (Ex. 35:35). Most Old
Testament references to weaving have masculine connotations: a
spear is compared to a weaver's beam (1 Sam. 17:7, 2 Sam. 21:19,
1 Ghr. 11:23, 20:5); the sick King Hezekiah complains that "like a
weaver I have rolled up my life" (Isa. 38:12). Only in two instances
are women mentioned in connection with weaving. In one case
their making of fabric is linked to prostitution and idol worship, in
the other to sexuality and seduction. In his struggle against idolatry
King Josiah orders the destruction of "the houses of the male cult
prostitutes which were in the house of the Lord, where the women
wove hangings for the Ashe'rah" (2 Kgs. 23:7). And Delilah tries to
subdue Samson with a web woven from "the seven locks of his
head" (Jgs. 16:14). Women, however, are credited with spinning the
thread for "the tent of meeting" (Ex. 35:25-6) in the temple of the
Lord.

(iii) Christianity

In his parable of the Last Judgement, the separation of the sheep

from the goats, Jesus compares altruistic people, who "clothed"
him, to lambs, the egoists, "who did not clothe me," to goats (Mt.
25:32-43). But the incarnation seriously puts into question God's
role as the provider of material cover. Unlike the first Adam, Jesus
was clothed with skin and flesh not by his divine father, but by his
human mother; and immediately after his birth (exile) from her
womb, he was "wrapped" by her in "swaddling cloths" (Lk. 2:7) -

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 Cloth

the origin of an Egyptian acheiropoietos, a swaddling cloth which

was worshipped in sixth-century Memphis.
A symbol of Christ's humanity, cloth plays a central role in the
passion narratives, and in particular in the Gospel of John which
specifies that Jesus wears a "tunic . . . without seam, woven from
top to bottom" (Jn. 19:23) - a second skin whose removal
foreshadows death. The via crucis begins when the Roman soldiers
take away Jesus' garments, clothe him in a purple cloak, and crown
him with thorns. But they put his clothes back on him before giving
him the cross (Mt. 27:27-31; Mk. 15:20). On top of Golgotha Jesus
is undressed again. While he is dying, his four executioners divide
his garments into four parts, but decide to keep whole his tunic and
cast lots for it (Jn. 19:23-4). The death of a Man-God, whose side is
torn apart by the lance of the centurion, equals cloth destruction.
At Ghrist's expiration "the curtain of the temple was torn in two,
from top to bottom" (Mt. 27:51; Mk. 15:38; Lk. 23:45). Then the
earthly dress - and skin — is replaced with a shroud: Jesus' corpse is
wrapped by Joseph of Arimathea into a linen sheet. The cloth is shed
by the resurrected God. On the morning of the Sunday after the
crucifixion the linen is found in the tomb together with "the
napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths
but rolled up in a place by itself" (Jn. 20:7).^^ The transformation of
Man into God, and of the earthly stuff (skin and cloth) into divine
light is announced by the appearance of two heavenly messengers.
On the spot where Mary Magdalen expects to find Jesus' corpse
wrapped in cloth, she sees "two angels in white, sitting where the
body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet" (Jn.
20:12).
The biblical narratives inspired the Christian metaphysics of
cloth and the complex iconography of white fabric stained with red.
White allegorizes immaculate matter and white light — the overall
divine glory-skin; red represents blood and the red effusion of the
setting sun. Christ's passion, a series of tableaux vivants in white
and red, is followed by pure whiteness. The apocalyptic Christ
shines and blinds with solar splendor: "his head and his hair were
white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of
fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace ... in
his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth issued a sharp
two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full
strength" (Rev. 1:14—16).
The cloth symbolism of the New Testament was elaborated by

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 Symbolism and Structure

the early Church Fathers.But hardly anyone was as obsessed with

cloth(ing), both as a symbol of incarnation and as real dress, as
Ephraim, the founding father of Syriac literature and the forerunner
of medieval mysticism. An extremely prolific defender of orthodoxy,
Ephraim shaped the sensibility and the public worship of the
Eastern Church. Especially influential were his Hymns, which
accompanied the faithful throughout their Christian lives.Ephraim
was born in Nisibis in Mesopotamia, but as his city fell into the
hands of the Persians, he settled in Edessa and made his abode at the
"Mount of Edessa," a rocky hill close to the city that served as a
residence for anchorites. Ephraim's extremely interesting biography,
which was written soon after his death in ca.373, sheds light on his
rejection of real garments and his obsession with symbolic clothing.^^
An absolute ascetic who from the time he became a monk until his
death drank only water and ate nothing but barley, bread, and
sometimes pulse and vegetables, he was dried to the bone and his
only garment consisted of patched, dirty rags. This is the background
against which his clothing metaphors have to be read. Original and
beautiful, immediate and sensual, they were a source of stimulation
for Eastern theologians and poets, and through their writings
influenced the West.
Ephraim saw Jesus as "Thee Who didst clothe Thyself in the body
of mortal Adam," so "that the needy may draw near to Him, that in
touching His manhood they may discern His Godhead" {Homily 1.9
and 1.10). A specific piece of clothing was assigned to every stage of
Christ's sojourn on earth, and appropriate meaning was derived
from it:

He was wrapped meanly in swaddling clothes, and offerings were

offered Him. - He put on garments in youth, and from them there
came forth helps: He put on the waters of baptism, and from them
there shone forth beams: - He put on linen cloths in death, and in
them were shown forth triumphs ... All these are the changes of
raiment, which Mercy put off and put on, - when He strove to put on
Adam, the glory which he had put off. - He was wrapped in swaddling-
clothes as Adam with leaves; and clad in garments instead of skins. -
He was baptized for Adam's sin, and buried for Adam's death: - He
rose and raised Adam into Glory. Blessed be He Who came down and
clothed him and went upl
{Hymn on the Nativity, 16. 12-13).

Ephraim's vision of the Virgin's light-vestment, which she had

received from God to cover the nudity of all mortals, foreshadowed the

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 Cloth

medieval figure of the Mater Misericordiae or Schutzmantelmadonna

developed in the West at the end of the thirteenth century.The
Syrian monk also transformed Origen's metaphor of Jesus, who
"rose up as a 'sun of righteousness' to send forth from Judaea his
rays which reach the souls of those who are willing to accept him"
{Contra Celsum, 6. 79), into the more palpable image of a solar
Qmbryo-acheiropoietos who "from the womb has shone on us as the
Sun" {Hymn on the Nativity, 19. 7). In a similar vein, he had Satan
remark that the fallen woman who once attracted clients with her
beautiful hair now "has cut off her hair" and uses it as a clout - "to
wipe the dust, off the feet of Jesus" {Nisibene Hymn, 60. 4).
Ephraim's fascination with cloth was reflected in his Testament.
This memorable document, composed in metric form, alluded to
the unmaking of his life's fabric and obliged his pupils to bury him
with no garment save his tunic. After a lifelong celebration of
metaphorical clothing, the anchorite's last will made a point about
the nothingness of a man's mortal cover. He wanted his flesh to rot
away in the same rags he wore during his lifetime. His last verses
speak of the "spinning" that "is shortened" and the "thread" which
is "nigh unto cutting," and they curse those who would dare to dress
his corpse;

Whoso lays with me a pall; may he go forth into outer darkness!

And whoso has laid with me a shroud: may he he cast into Gehenna of
fire!
In my coat and cowl shall ye hury me: for ornament beseems not the
hateful.
{Testament, p. 135)

Ephraim's violent condemnation of burial garments sheds light on

the psychological importance of cloth(ing) for those theologians
who, like him, lived a monastic life, possessed no fine dress,
repressed all desires of the flesh, and saw themselves clothed not in
matter but in God's glory. Their rejection of garments was
compensated by fantasies of dressing and undressing, of feminine
fabric and the male spirit impregnating it. The negation of actual
cloth fused with the adoration of cloth as the medium of incarnation
illuminates an early variation on the theme of Christ as the ruler of
the universe. On two fourth-century Roman sarcophagi Christ
triumphs over the material world by sitting not on a sphere but on a
textile arch (the allegory of Cosmos) which a man holds above his
head.^^ Grabar remarks that the figure "represents the universe

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 Symbolism and Structure

exactly as the emperors are represented on the triumphal Arch of

Galerius at Salonika.But Jaroslav Pelikan sees the image more in
terms of Christ's victory over death, in accordance with the biblical
motto: "For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his
feet. The last enemy to he destroyed is death" (1 Cor. 15:25-6).^^
His explanation takes into account the perishable nature of fabric
and the attitudes of early ascetics. But the Cloth-Cosmos figure,
differing only in sex from the representations of the night in early
Byzantine art, also signifies concealment and darkness.
Cloth plays a role in the ritual of the Eucharist. The sacramental
meal was usually prepared on a tablecloth which could be imagined
as a shroud (or a swaddling cloth) onto which Christ has been laid. In
the Acts of Thomas the apostle "commanded his servant... to set a
table . . . and spreading a linen cloth upon it set on the bread of
blessing . . . and said: 'Jesus, who hast made us worthy to partake of
the Eucharist of thy holy body and blood'" (5:49).'^° A Western
Eucharist ritual shared the fantasy of Christ's "true" body on cloth
with the Byzantine acheiropoietoi. Around 558 in Caul

the bread was arranged on the altar in the form of a man, so that one
believer ate his eye, another his ear, a third his hand, and so on,
according to their respective merits! This was forbidden by Pope
Pelagius I; but in the Greek church the custom survives, the priest
even stabbing with "the holy spear" in its right side the human figure
planned out of the bread, by way of rehearsing in pantomime the
narrative of John xix. 34.
[Britannica, 9:872)'^^

The dichotomy of cloth, a mere cover as well as the stuff of

transcendence, defined the use of fabric in Christian art and
climaxed in late medieval art in which cloth ties together birth,
death, and rebirth. In the Last Judgement scenes the faithful rise
from their graves together with their shrouds, but abandon them
before ascending to heaven; naked souls are lifted up to Cod in
textile containers reminiscent of swaddling clothes; and the god¬
head is wrapped in fabric like a baby. Curious visions of divinity
nestled in textiles, clouds, and skin-veils are contained in the so-
called Rothschild Canticles, a unique florilegium of meditations,
prayers, and citations from the Bible and the patristic literature.'^^ In
its original state the manuscript included probably as many as 50
full-page miniatures, of which 46 survive, 160 smaller miniatures,
and 41 initials, and was the work of at least three illuminators. But

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 Cloth

the most original full-page miniatures come from one hand. This
artist's fairly flat and linear style is associated with late thirteenth-
or early fourteenth-century Franco-Flemish illumination. The icono¬
graphy of a large portion of his (her) pictures draws on the Song of
Solomon or, more specifically, on the extremely popular 86 sermons
of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090—1153) included in his mystical
exposition of the Song of Songs which, following in the footsteps of
Cyril of Jerusalem, fashions the soul after the bride. But the
Canticles illustrations, a product of monastic erudition, provide also
visual equivalents for many other mystical metaphors prevailing at
the time, as Hamburger rightly observes.There are allusions to
Mechthild of Magdeburg's "flowing godhead" and Mechthild of
Hackebom's "cross-couch of love."^'^ St Tierry's comparison between
a woman's wound and Jesus' side-wound is evoked;'^^ and so is the
side-wound—door image of Bonaventura who in his De perfectione
vitae ad sorores advised nuns, eager to penetrate into the heart of
the Lord, to slip inside through the lance-cut. The illustrations
suggest the artist's knowledge of the various reinterpretations of the
biblical Hemorrhissa who, according to Pseudo-Hugh of St Victor's
{De nuptiis, 2. 3), represents a soul streaming with carnal appetite
whose desire is stopped when she touches the hem of Jesus' dress -
in his bedroom.New cloth and dried blood are combined into a
symbol of spiritual regeneration in an early thirteenth-century
church song, probably written with the intention of converting the
Jews, which presents Jesus as the weaver of the new fabric of life:
"The Lord has woven for himself a new loincloth, wishing in this to
restore what putrefied. Rejoice, barren one, for through Christ you
will bring forth so many that your house will be able to supplant the
Jewish one. Sooner than health is restored to Jairus' daughter is the
menstruous woman healed by the touch of (Christ's) hem."^^
The Rothschild Canticles illustrate the mystery of God's dual
nature, depict Christ's love for the soul, and dwell on the
spirituality of the anima and her role as a guardian against the evil
(the soul of a male saint blames him for having accepted a cloak
from an usurer). The soul appears alone or, more often, in the
company of other souls, a whole crowd of brides or wise virgins
gathered around Jesus like a class of female pupils around their
mentor. His is a course in martyrdom and masochism: in The
Ascent of the Wise Virgins (fo. 15v), one soul climbs the cross, while
another is pulled up by Christ. Turning into an Amor-Longinus, the
anima-bride injures the side of her beloved with a lance - and fulfills

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 Symbolism and Structure

Mechthild of Magdeburg's ideal of love: "As I wounded you, you

were united with me" {The Flowing Light of the Godhead, 1. 3).
While the soul may act cruelly, Jesus is always pictured as gentle
and affectionate. A dream lover and husband, he wipes tears from
the virgins' eyes (fo. 36v). A fons vitae (fo. 34v), he erupts with a
cascade of tiny heads - turning into a water vernicle. The ecstatic
vision of male fertility brings to mind Edvard Munch's Madonna
(1895) surrounded by spermatozoa, motile male gametes with
elongated heads and long flagella.
A characteristic iconographic feature of the Canticles miniatures
is the contrast between the phallic solar godhead - a face with rays
resembling spikes or an octopus-like creature consisting of a head
with flames-feelers and arms - and the enclosing and obscuring
femininity of cloth, a metaphor for the Virgin and the soul. In the
Mulier amicta sole (Plate 15), Mary, a virgo ornans modelled after
the Blachernae Theotokos, is made of flowing cloth and serves as
the background for both the sun and the moon. And in the Arrival of
the fust in Heaven (fo. 36v) the ascending soul, a dress with a sun-
face, is met halfway by God, a delightful solar monster swooping
down from the sky. But the most intriguing parts of this singular
pictorial program are the concentric and geometric compositions,
semi-abstract and with a touch of the surreal, which Hamburger
calls "Christian mandalas" and interprets as the formulations of the
mystical deus absconditus idea.'^^ They consist of cloth, which is
shaped into cloudy nests and God(=head) who, transfixing the fabric
with his beams, is at once hidden by and revealed through it (Plate 30).
The singular literary selection and the unique illumination of the
Rothschild Canticles convey a distinctly feminine point of view.
Thus one is tempted to suspect that the small but exquisitely
illustrated booklet was either created by or in collaboration with a
woman writer and/or artist; or, more likely, that it was commissioned
by a rich female patron, an abbess, or a nunnery. There may be a hint
of this in the text that accompanies the miniature of a nun kneeling
at the foot of a Mary with Child, admonishing "the sinner" to pray
to the Holy Virgin, since a female form - peccatrix - is used for
"sinner".
Cloth, the most obvious link to Christ's humanity, played an
important role m the imagery of female mystics. St Bridget of
Sweden (ca. 1302-73), an aristocratic lady, a famous mystic, and a
mother of eight, one of whom was St Catherine of Sweden,
remembered God Father (who had dressed Jerusalem in beautiful

192
 Cloth

garments) and received the vision of a loving God Son. He visited

her in order to tell her what sort of clothes she should keep in her
home: "fyrst, lynen cloth that growyth of the erth; seconde, cloth of
woll, or of lether that is made of bestes; and pe iij, cloth of sylke that
is made of wormes.""^* The materials, that the invisible Logos gives
to Jerusalem, corrupt her. But a Christian woman is spiritualized by
cloth - the stuff of incarnation. St Bridget equates linen, which
covers the naked body, with peace, animal skins with mercy, and
silk, drawn from worms which consume everything, with abstinence
- a revelation which might have inspired pictures of delicate silk
vernicles.
An important contribution to the medieval metaphysics of cloth
was made by the seamless tunic of Christ. The garment must have
been discovered at approximately the same time as the clothing of
Mary and was mentioned by Gregory of Tours (538-94), according to
whom the immaculati Agni tunica was kept in the basilica of the St
Archangels in Galatha, some 150 miles away from Constantinople."^^
John Mandeville, who visited Constantinople in the first half of the
fourteenth century, tells us that the seamless tunic was exhibited to
pilgrims together with the cross, the sponge, "the reed with which
the Jews gave our Lord vinegar and gall on the cross; and . . . one of
the nails with which Christ was nailed. Jesus wears his tunic
while hanging on the cross in some early crucifixion scenes.In
Giotto's famous fresco cycle (ca.l305) in Padua, Mary Magdalen,
kneeling at the foot of the cross, her hand caressing Jesus' wounded
foot, faces the seamless tunic which two soldiers hold between
themselves like two angels carrying the mandylion. In Gerard
David's Crucifixion (1480-90), Jesus is being nailed to the cross
which lies on the ground next to his tunic - an empty shell and
double.
Taking into account the Book of fames and other early legends
and representations of a spinning, weaving, and embroidering Virgin,
it is surprising that the seamless tunic came to be interpreted as her
work only in the late Middle Ages. The main inspiration for the rare
depictions of Mary knitting the dress of the passion was provided by
the extremely popular Revelations of St Bridget. She tells us about
the premonition of Jesus' martyrdom received by Mary when he is
still a child and, more importantly, she models her vision of Mary
giving birth to Jesus — a sequence of undressings and dressings -
after the Gospel of John the Apostle. Bridget has Mary wear a robe
as light as a membrane, a pendant to Jesus' seamless tunic,- she

193
 Symbolism and Structure

changes Christ's undressing for crucifixion to the Virgin's undressing

for delivery; and she replaces the shrouding of Christ's corpse with
the swathing of the newborn:

I saw an exceeding fair maiden who was with ehild. She was clad in a
white cloak and robe that was so thin that her virginal body could
clearly be seen. Her body was very swollen for the womb was full and
she was about to be delivered . . . Then the maid took off her shoes,
laid aside the white cloak that she wore, likewise the veil that she had
on her head and laid them by her side. She was now clad only in the
robe, and her hair, that was bright like gold, fell down over her
shoulders. She took out two small pieces of linen and two very fine
woolen cloths that she had with her to wrap the child in and two other
small pieces of woolen stuff to bind about its head, and she laid it all
by her side until the time should come when she would use them . . .
But so sudden and instant was the movement of the Infant that I could
not see or distinguish how birth came to pass. I saw at once the child
lying on the ground, naked but very clean . . . And immediately the
maiden's body, which had newly been very swollen, contracted and
her whole body was wonderfully beautiful and delicate . . . But then
the boy wept and trembled with cold on the hard floor, and stretched
His little hands to His Mother, and she took Him up . . . and sat down
on the floor and laid Him on her knees and began to swathe Him -
first with the linen clothes and then with the woolen pieces and last
wound the whole about His little body, legs, and arms in one
swaddling cloth, and swathed His head in the two woolen pieces that
she had brought with her.
{Rev. 7:24)^^

Around 1400, various allusions to the crucifixion begin to appear

in the scenes of nativity and infancy. On the right wing of the
Buxtehude altarpiece (ca.l410) Mary is knitting the seamless tunic
with four needles on the porch of her house, while her four- or five-
year-old, who must have just put aside his whip and top and begun
reading a book in the grass at her feet, is being interrupted by the
arrival of two angels, one holding a lance and a crown of thorns, the
other a cross and three nails.A Silesian wood carving (ca.1500)
illustrates a similar theme, but it is permeated with the homely feel
of a family-business idyll and stresses incarnation and reproduction
more than the passion. Mary, a handsome young woman with long
curly hair, completes her child's garment which she has put on a
tailor's dummy; St Luke paints her portrait; Jesus plays at their feet
with his whip and top; and a baby bull hides under the evangelist's

194
 Cloth

chair (Plate 13). Reproduction, reflection and death are linked in an

enchanting fifteenth-century drawing, probably a copy after a lost
painting by Konrad Witz (ca. 1400-45 or 1446). The Virgin, her slight
body covered with an oversized heavy dress, contemplates the
seamless coat (or a fresh towel, a potential vernicle?) in her hands,
while a naked infant Jesus, a mini-Narcissus and Amor, gazes at his
mirror image in a round washbasin.In the late fifteenth-century
Nativity by the Master from the Lower Rhineland, a pale and
serious newborn, a golden glory around his head and with his left
arm across his breast, lies on the ground at his mother's feet.'^'^ His
white swaddling cloth, on which the Virgin's melancholy gaze is
fixed, is held, like a mandylion or a tiny shroud, by two butterflylike
angels. In the back Joseph, wearing a purple passion coat and purple
headgear, works on a cross.
Albrecht Diirer plays with the idea of a shroud-swaddling cloth in
his drawing of the sudahum held by two putti in The Book of Hours
of the Emperor Maximilian.The two embryonic creatures and
Christ's head on the cloth are executed in green and have a vegetal
quality, as if the artist had imagined Jesus metamorphosing from the
resurrected "gardener" into an embryo-plant returning to life every
spring. Zurbaran's painting of Virgin and Christ in the House of
Nazareth (ca.l640) combines the prophecy of crucifixion, received
simultaneously by mother and son, with a hint at the son's sexual
initiation. A sad middle-aged Mary embroiders white cloth with red
thread, while Jesus, looking about 12 years old, pricks his finger
with the crown of thorns.
In late medieval art textiles and garments hide and highlight the
body, serve as backgrounds for figures and objects, convey movement
and calm, stress monumental drama and private romance, hint at
mystery and theater. In the painting of the Italian trecento the
interplay of cloth expresses a wide range of subtle emotions and the
almost imperceptible transitions from real to false affection, from
courage to cowardice, from hope to despair, from torture to death.
While faces may act as masks covering up sentiments, the language
of body and cloth reveals truth. New intimacy was added to the
eleventh-century Byzantine Theotokos type by Duccio (ca.l255-
1319) and his followers. In their pictures the child, seated on the left
arm of the enthroned Virgin, clutches a fold of his mother's veil or
mantle to his breast or plays with it.^^ Mary may also draw her veil
around the child, let Jesus put it around his shoulders or, a later
variant, have him recline on her right arm in a fold of her mantle

195
 Symbolism and Structure

which she lifts up under his body. Jesus' reaching for and grasping
his mother's garments are often accompanied by their touching each
other. She may rest her cheek against his head, he may caress her
face or breast with his hand. These gestures of reciprocated feeling
are equally common in Sienese painting and the Florentine school of
Bernardo Daddi (b. ca.l295). During her pilgrimages to Italy, where
she went for the first time in 1341, St Bridget must have seen the
Italian madonnas - and recalled them in her revelations.
We must see Giotto's famous Kiss of Judas mindful of the sharing
of cloth as the expression of an amorous union between divinity and
humanity. The scene is dominated by the yellow coat which the
traitor draws over his teacher's body, covering him with the
symbolic color of deceit.In the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
Italian paintings of the Mocking, cloth is used to blindfold Jesus as
he sits amidst his tormentors (or their emblems, faces spitting at
him and hands hitting him) and signals the approaching blankness
of death. The sense of passing away is further accentuated by the
way his seamless tunic or coat falls down his body. Some of these
pictures, for instance Fra Angelico's Mocking (ca. 1437—45) in
Florence, evoke in Christ's motionless figure the veiled statues of
Mnemosyne or Lethe, and the ancient blindfolded Amor - allegories
of forgetfulness and memory.
In the paintings and sculptures of the Italian trecento and
quattrocento cloth is treated as a subtle envelope following the
contours of the body. In the contemporary art of Northern Europe
the flamboyant late Gothic style makes textiles cascade and fly
away, providing drapery with an expressive dynamic of its own. In
his Crucifixion (Plate 5), Rogier van der Weyden contrasts the
exuberant drapery of his angels, evocative of the ancient victories
and furies, with the many-layered draperies of Magadalen and
Veronica, the new Christian muses, and exploits the symbolic and
formal opposition between falling garments and the fabric that rises
and floats through the air. The dresses of the angels and Christ's
loincloth fly up, disregarding gravity and indicating the lightness of
divinity. Loss and sadness are suggested by the heavy piles of cloth
which, falling on and covering the ground, join the moldings of the
landscape. Only the red mantle of John the Evangelist is partly
exempt from descent. It goes up in the wind like a flame, signaling
the youthful energy of Jesus' beloved pupil who, standing on his
toes, seems to be wanting to take off and join his Lord's ascent.
Shaped into two wings, Jesus' loincloth allegorizes the victory of the

196
 Cloth

spirit preparing to leave the corpse - a sack which, as it is emptied of

hlood, gravitates towards the soil.
In the passion and crucifixion depictions nothing is more
important than the treatment of skin and cloth and the paradoxical
relation of one to the other. As skin dies, cloth may come alive and
replace the body. When the body falls, garments fly up. The concept
of resurrection inspires variations on the theme of cloth's corruption
and reanimation. Art derives also ever-new images from the use of
fabric in Christian festivals, processions, and especially the celebra¬
tions of the Easter Sepulchre when symbolic tombs were erected in
churches and furnished with a variety of sheets, pillows, painted
cloths, curtains, silk and damask veils, linen napkins (for wrapping
the host and the cross), a pall, and a canopy.^^
In the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance the study of drapery
was an essential part of art training, and an artist's ability to render
clothing a measure of his skill and talent. Giorgio Vasari tells us
about an angel with a drapery over its right arm kneeling on the left
of Christ’s Baptism. It was painted by the young Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519) during his apprenticeship in the studio of Andrea del
Verrocchio, but was so superior to the figures by his teacher that it
supposedly made Verrocchio forswear painting for ever after.^^’ How
seriously Leonardo took the rendition of cloth is exemplified by his
juvenile drapery studies, small monochromatic temperas, executed
in grey, greyish brown, and brownish red tones on prepared canvas
or paper. Scattered and for a long time attributed to other artists,
even to Diirer, Leonardo's drawings were recently reassembled at
the Louvre for the first time since the sixteenth century.
Once you have seen the draperies of Leonardo, you'll never forget
them. Masterpieces of precision and clarity, they reflect his
scientific treatment of every artistic issue. Leonardo's Treatise on
Painting includes observations on the nature and the expressive
value of folded cloth and an analysis of the specific ways in which
different materials drape and fall. He discusses rules for correlating
the features of a particular fabric with the character of the draped
figure - its sex, social position, age, place in the composition,
movement; he draws attention to the draping of each subsequent
layer, from the silk creased on the skin to the coat resting on piles of
underclothing, and recommends the study of drapery from living
models. But in his Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari reports
Leonardo's use of other methods too. "Sometimes he made clay
models, draping the figures with rags dipped in plaster, and then

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 Symbolism and Structure

drawing them painstakingly on fine Rheims cloth or prepared linen.

These drawings were done in black and white with the point of the
brush, and the results were marvellous.
The technique brings to mind the beginning of the Judeo-
Christian metaphysics of cloth, with God first making Adam from
dust, then clothing him - and reveals a paradox. A Renaissance
artist-scientist, Leonardo is interested in the exact rendition of the
cloth-body unit, not in religious meaning. But his matter-of-fact
approach combined with the ease of a great master make him
succeed better than any artist before or after him in conveying the
metaphysical sense of the draped body - the nothing and the
everything there is to meet the eye. Leonardo's draperies are imbued
with a crystalline quality. Their sight turns the eye tactile, and
induces the beholder to dream the essence behind the substance.

198
 10

Skin

Skin for Skinl

Job 2:4

Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed at the price of a

hundred foreskins of the Philistines.
2 Sam. 3

It would be somewhat difficult to fix a date when what we

know as “photographic action” was first recorded. No doubt
the tanning of the skin by the sun’s rays was first noticed, and
this is as truly the effect of solar radiation as is the darkening
of the sensitive paper which is now in use.
Britannica

Skin is everything. It contains our physical substance as well as the

"spirit" or "soul." The ultimate test to which Job should be
submitted, Satan suggests to God, is the destruction of his skin:
"Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But put
forth thy hand now, and touch his bone and flesh, and he will curse
thee to thy face" (Job 2:4—5). Afflicted "with loathsome sores from
the sole of his foot to the crown of his head" (2:7), Job was totally
transformed, so that friends who came to visit him "did not

199
 Symbolism and Structure

recognize him" (2:12). "After this Job opened his mouth and cursed
the day of his birth" (3:1).
Human sacrifice is a sacrifice of skin. In the Golden Legend
Jacques de Voragine points out that in order to redeem humanity,
Christ suffers his skin to be hurt fives times: first, at his
circumcision; second, during his prayer in the Garden when he
sweats blood; third, at his flagellation; fourth, at his crucifixion;
fifth, when the centurion pierces his side.^ The dual nature of Jesus'
sacrifice is defined in the Eucharist: he offers his body and blood.
Since blood is the content, the body then is equated with the skin,
the eontainer, and the Eucharistic bread transforms into the host, a
wafer as thin as a membrane. Skin, the blank, visible, and tangible
surface, can be imagined as an overall eanvas or book, or as cut to
pages and shreds. Catherine of Siena (1347—80) described the ring
with which she was mystically married to Christ as his foreskin, the
first bit of skin Jesus offered to humanity.^
The leakiness of skin represents a central obsession of the early
Jews. Their culture seems to have been stigmatized by the
experience of leprosy which eats away the skin. Susan Sontag is
right: illness is a metaphor. Skin diseases, in particular leprosy and
skin cancer, are metaphors of the absence of skin and vision - the
lack of surface, perceptible, iconic (=inscribed with individual
features), and sensitive to stimuli — and the presence of undifferenti¬
ated raw flesh, dumb and blind. Skin absence is so horrible to sight
and touch that lepers become outcasts. They are supposed to neglect
themselves and signal their condition from far away. "The leper . . .
shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he
shall cover his upper lip and cry, 'Unclean, unclean.' ... he shall
dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp" (Lev. 13:45-6). But
skin does not disappear all at once. It is a gradual process of turning
the inside out, which begins with marks and discharge: "But if there
is on the bald head or the bald forehead a reddish-white diseased
spot, it is leprosy breaking out" (Lev. 13:42). This may explain why
laws for lepers are immediately followed by rules regarding other
forms of epidermal leakiness.
The sudden appearance of physiological blood is feared most of
all. Sacrificial blood, on the other hand, is believed to have a healing
quality and in consequence is viewed as the most potent antidote
against natural bleeding. This pattern of tabooing and sanctifying
blood can be found in most religions, but in Judaism it is formulated
with exceptional clarity. What is polluted by blood can be purified

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by blood alone, to the extent that circumcision appears to be, among

other things, a cleansing of the male child from the unclean blood
his mother has shed at delivery:

If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be

unclean seven days; as at tbe time of ber menstruation, she shall be
unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be
circumcised. Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the
blood of her purifying; she shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor
come into the sanctuary . . . And when the days of her purifying are
completed . . . she shall bring to tbe priest at the door of the tent of
meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a
turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the Lord, and
make atonement for her; then she shall be clean from the flow of her
blood.
(Lev. 12:1-7)

Similarly, a leper healed from leprosy is purified in a complicated

procedure which involves the blood of a "bird that was killed over
the running water" (Lev. 14:6), scarlet stuff, hyssop, and cedarwood.
The purifying of leprosy with blood and red cloth points to yet
another reason for choosing blood as the most appropriate pigment
for painting Christ's "true" portrait - a healing icon.

(i) Sharing and Transplantation

The flesh of Jesus is the flesh of Mary.

The Golden Legend^

Sudarium Christi quod vocatur Veronica.

Benedictus, Liber pollicitus'^

King Abgar is cured from leprosy hy Christ's portrait, the vernicle

cures lepers and skin cancer sufferers, and in some medieval
versions of the legend, Veronica herself is a leper, healed by contact
with Jesus' skin. In a French variant of the Savior’s Vengeance
Beronique is so "full with leprosy" (the expression "pleine de lepre"
suggests the opposite of "pleine de grace," i.e. pregnant) that she
does not dare to go near people.^ She has hoped to be cured by Jesus
and therefore laments his crucifixion, but she stays away from the
cross, where the Virgin stands. Catching a glimpse of the weeping

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woman, Jesus' mother walks over to Beronique, takes the kerchief

from her head and wipes her son's face with it. When she returns the
cloth impressed with his likeness, the woman's skin is restored. The
biblical Hemorrhissa is an outcast because of her leaky skin, the
medieval Beronique because of her lack of skin. The leak of the first
is repaired, the second is given a new skin. The idea of skin
transplantation is even more obvious in a mid-twelfth-century
German text.^’ In De ueromlla et de imagine domini in sindone
depicta, Veronilla possesses a shroud with Christ's full figure
impression; when it covers Tiberius's entire body, he recovers from
leprosy.
The healing by means of Jesus' cloth-epidermis which envelops
raw flesh with new skin is modelled after the New Testament. The
miracles of Jesus' curing of lepers usually follow the same pattern.
As lepers beseech him, he is moved by pity, stretches out his hand,
and as he touches them, leprosy falls off their bodies like an unclean
dress. This looks like the factual replacement of hideous masks
with proper faces — and is recalled in the medieval legend of the
"mask of the leper." This famous relic, kept in St-Denis, was
believed to represent skin removed by Christ from the face of a leper
who had shut himself in the royal basilica in the night preceding its
dedication, and whom the Lord cleansed for the celebration.^ Masks
were worn during the Mardi Gras festivals of St Veronica in
medieval France, a habit which an eighteenth-century scholar of
folklore explains in terms of the discrepancy between the blind and
sick folly of the carnival (=masks) and the "true" vision of salvation
(=Holy Face).® In analogy to Christ's vernicles also the head of John
the Baptist was occasionally represented in forms evocative of
flayed skin — and of the contrast between the rising (=baby) and the
setting sun (Plate 31).
The absence of a surface creates a negative tension between the
non-face of a leper (skin cancer sufferer) and a mirror. How the two
are related to each other is demonstrated by Marcel Schwob, a fin de
siecle French writer. His Le Roi au masque d’or, a story based on the
Narcissus-Echo fable as well as on ancient and Christian leper and
mirror legends, tells us about a king who from childhood wore a
mask and lived in a palace where everyone was masked too.'^ This
status was interrupted by a blind beggar who sowed doubt in the
king's mind and made him leave the palace. On his way out, the
monarch encountered a young girl and removed his mask. Then,
having heard her cry out in horror, he looked for the first time at his

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face reflected in the river, and "just as the sun was vanishing behind
the brown and blue hills of the horizon, he had glimpsed a pallid,
swollen face, its flaking skin distended by hideous protuberances,
and he knew at once, remembering what he had read in books, that
he was a leper. Instantly the king understood why he had always
been masked: where others had faces and where he expected to find
his own face, he had just rotten flesh that had to be covered. He also
realized that his lack of skin made him blind to the surface of the
world from which his face was hidden.
Without a surface, there is no face; without a face, there is no
sight. The mirroring membranes of the eyes are part of the face, the
face is part of the sensory skin envelope. Restoring (sur)face and
sight, God's touch resembles a magical transplantation of skin.
Covering the dumb and opaque flesh with purity and shine, he cures
both leprosy and blindness. Accordingly, legends are dominated by
pairs of opposites, skin-raw flesh, face-mask, blindness (darkness,
blackness)—sight (white, light, mirror). Each leper imitates King
Abgar who

receiving the likeness from the apostle and placing it reverently on his
head, and applying it to his lips, and not depriving the rest of the parts
of his body of such a touch, immediately . . . felt all the parts being
marvelously strengthened and taking a turn for the better; his leprosy
cleansed and gone, but a trace of it still remained on his forehead.
("Story of the Image of Edessa," 13)

As Christ's luminous skin, a surface-effusion, covers a leper's

mortal flesh, divinity and humanity coalesce in a physical-spiritual
union - an amorous sun- and bloodbath. But acting as the donor -
Jesus loses his own skin. The late medieval art revels not only in
vernicles. It is equally fascinated by Christ's damaged skin -
revealing raw flesh and bones (Plate 32).
Medieval vernicles - human skins impregnated with divinity -
function as intermediaries between humanity and divinity, by
acting at once both as receptive and enveloping pure veils and as
solar mirrors - with Jesus' facies praeclara shining from Veronica's
snow-white (head)kerchief [kerchy], veil, napkin, apron, towel,
blanket, or (burial)sheet.* ‘ Each garment corresponds to a skin part:
a headkerchief or veil points to her face and hymen; an apron alludes
to her vagina and womb; a sheet or blanket designates her entire
body. The character of each vernicle is defined by the material.

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 Symbolism and Structure

A light, small and transparent piece of silk or fine muslin is

associated with other types of skin — and relationships — than large
pieces of thick linen. The fabric's nature, the part of Veronica's body
that is covered by the cloth, and the position of Jesus' face (head) vis-
a-vis the female figure determine the degree of eroticism that is
conveyed to the beholder.
The vernicle itself is created in a procedure strongly reminiscent
of the removal and replacement of skin. The wiping of the Lord's
face is seen as a dual transplantation, with the woman giving the
Lord her skin and receiving his from him. Covered with Veronica's
napkin, Jesus is Veronica, Veronica Jesus, and everyone to whom the
Veronica-Jesus cloth is applied becomes transformed into a Veronica-
Jesus too. These fusions and confusions, typical products of magic
and mythology which never stop associating one thing with
another, are reflected in popular customs and in the language of the
medieval texts referring to the woman, her cloth, and Christ's face
as the Veronica and calling both the fabric and the likeness a vera
icon and vernicle}^ Small vernicles were sewn onto clothes and
attached to hats and caps. In the Prologue to Canterbury Tales
Chaucer tells us about the Pardoner who "a vernicle hadde he sewed
upon his cappe," and in Giovanni Capassini's Supper at Emmaus
(1555) the man seated to Christ's right wears a tiny vernicle on his
hat (Plate 33).^^
Capassini's picture, the left wing of a Resurrection triptych,
which on the reverse (in grisaille] shows the women at the tomb,
represents a subtle and illuminating study of the intricate relations
between cloth, skin, vernicle, the Eucharistic bread, blood, and the
resurrected Christ.Seated at the table covered with white cloth,
Christ lifts his right hand, while the left, marked with a wound,
reposes on a loaf of bread inscribed with a red cross. A decisive role
in the painting's composition is played by the breadknife, which is
placed diagonally on the table in such a way that it creates a visual
connection between the crossed loaf, the injured hand, and the tiny
vernicle, a brilliant reflection of Christ's face shimmering at the top.
The knife, ready to cut the symbolic body, suggests the injury of
skin and the release of blood - responsible for marking Jesus' body
and the bread, and for "painting" the vernicle, a miniature mirror-
mask prolonging God's presence on earth.

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 Skin

(ii) Masks, Heads, and Shrouds

Thy head shall not be carried away from thee after [the
slaughter], thy head shall never be carried away from thee.
Book of the Dead

In many cultures dead bodies were covered with masks and shrouds.
Preventing the corpses from disintegrating, they provided the
deceased with new dresses and skins. Masks, tightly fitted over the
faces of the dead and executed in gold, silver, bronze, terracotta,
wax, cloth, and other materials, have been found in burial sites all
over the world. In Egypt masks of thin gold foil were pressed onto
the faces of the mummies and reproduced on the covers of the
human-shaped sarcophagi. Gold masks were found in the tombs of
Nineveh, along the coast of ancient Phoenicia, in the graves of
Mycenae (where the famous “mask of Agamemnon" was excavated
by Schliemann), and in the burial tumuli of Kertch in the Crimea.
Masks made of gold, a metal associated with sun, light, divinity,
permanence, manhood, and royalty, likened dead heads to solar
disks and mirrors, and assimilated them to the godhead. Besides
masks accompanying the dead, casts, destined as memorahilia and
relics for the living, were taken of the faces of the deceased by
members of their clan or family.
Anthropological studies point to the origins of the cult of masks,
heads, and facial depictions in head-hunting and such cannibalistic
customs as those of the Issedones who, according to the History (4.
26) of Herodotus (ca.484-425 BC), consumed the bodies of their
dead fathers, preserving only the heads, which they stripped bare,
cleansed, and gilded, and to which they offered yearly sacrifice.
Claude Levi-Strauss observed a link between decapitation and
menstruation, between the woman "stained with blood below" and
the beheaded or scalped man "stained with hlood above," and
concluded that "throughout the world, the philosophy of head¬
hunting, either ritually or by direct representation, suggests the
same tacit affinity between trophy-heads and the female sex."*^’
From the legends of North American Indians about women going to
bed with a man's scalp, and from his other studies in mythology and
primitive customs, he derived the idea of a connection between
head-hunting and hunting for women and of a relationship between
war and marriage.

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 Symbolism and Structure

The Jewish legend of Holofernes and the Christian story of John

the Baptist, the two enemy-lovers either directly or indirectly
decapitated by women, confirm Levi-Strauss's theory, as does my
own work on the origin, symbolism, and artistic representation of
the Salome myth.'^ But since male heads are universally associated
with penises, decapitation is also linked to castration, which in turn
is related to menstruation and defloration. Statuettes of male
demons in the form of phalluses ending in heads were executed in
fifth-century BC Greece, and terracotta figurines of the god-phallus
(Plate 34) were part of Hellenistic iconography, still common in
Christian days.^^ These art and cult objects resembled the artificial
penises which in antiquity were used by women for masturbation
and were occasionally depicted in the hands of Aphrodite. Hence the
popular symbolism of a male head (face, mask) on top of and/or
penetrating female fabric.
The magic power of masks and heads resulted in their omnipresence
in ancient arts, crafts, and architecture. In addition to the masks of
Medusa, armor, utensils, and the walls of Greek cities were
decorated with various other heads. Portraying nobody in particular,
they served at once as ornaments and talismans. Some of the
bearded masks (with hair falling in curls on both sides of the face) on
buildings of Edessa of the second and third centuries AD, according
to Grabar, bear a striking resemblance to the Ghrist keramidiad^
Their existence makes us realize that Edessa, like every other city of
the Hellenistic world, was filled with realistic, masklike, and
amuletic portraiture and was thus well prepared to accept and
worship the head of Ghrist.
Deathmasks as memento mori for the living played an important
role in Rome and might have contributed to the extreme naturalism
of Roman portrait sculpture. "The true homeland of the portrait,"
writes Hilde Zaloscer, "is Rome; the Roman art."^^ She regards the
sculpted Roman portraits - indebted to deathmasks and belonging
to the same "real space" [Realraum] as the face from which the
mask was cast - as "true" replicas rather than works of art.^^ In
order to preserve the faces of the dead from corruption, which
progressed rapidly in the hot climate, the Romans covered them
with wax masks. The masks were later used as models for wax
figures, the imagines, which, like the dolls of the contemporary wax
cabinets, were painted by a pollinctor in natural colors, equipped
with hair, and dressed.Pliny {NH 35. 2. 6) tells us that wax models
of faces were set out on separate sideboards and carried in procession

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at funerals. To make the illlusion complete, actors played the

deceased. After the funeral the likenesses were exhibited in
sarcophaguslike boxes in the atrium, alea, or vestibulum of their
family houses. Portrait-busts and statues as well as portrait-shields
of military leaders and heroes were derived from the imagines and
shown in temples, public places, and private homes. Particular
prestige belonged to portrait-shields, which were associated with
the fighters at Troy. The Roman gladiators wore facial helmets
similar to those found in ancient Greek tombs.
In the first four Christian centuries the faces of the Egyptian dead
were covered with painted masks and their bodies wrapped in
painted shrouds. Hundreds of funeral portraits, painted on wood and
originally attached to the faces of mummies, were found at the
end of the last century at the oasis at Fayum. This tradition was
terminated by the edict against pagan rites issued by the Emperor
Theodosius in AD 392. The Egyptian masks were painted in a highly
spiritual, luminous and impressionistic style at first, later darker
and more linear, by professional, at some time probably foreign
artists who worked for the Greek or Roman colonizers.The
pictorial Egyptian masks shared verisimilitude and frontality with
the Roman deathmasks and imagines but, on the other hand, they
lacked the solidity of sculpture. Was their spirituality due to
Christian influence? Most art historians doubt it. But Zaloscer
believes that Judeo-Christianity played a role in shaping this
particular genre of funeral representation. She may overestimate
this role, but on the other hand, she is right to point out that the
translation of the Bible into Coptic and the founding of monasticism
in the Egyptian desert were the outward signs of a far-reaching
Christian influence. "It was only natural that this national growth
produced an art of its own, very different from that of the Hellenistic
centres of civilization ... It is a kind of 'vulgare,' a koine, but its
stylistic principles, deeply akin to the spirit of Christianity, were
accepted by Christian art and gradually assumed monumental form
in Byzantine art."^*^^
In her interpretation of Egyptian funeral art Zaloscer applies the
same criteria to the wooden masks of Fayum and to the painted
shrouds with the entire figures of the deceased. She sees both forms
as expressions of an illusionist and yet spiritualized mode of
portraying the dead, and ignores a basic difference between the
masks and the shrouds. While they may look similar in our
museums, one has to remember that when the dead were wrapped

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in shrouds depicting them, their bodies provided the third dimension,

transforming painting into sculpture. In the case of the painted
shrouds the spiritual was then turned back into the material.
However, enveloping a corpse in a lifelike skin strikes me as
perfectly symbolic of the Christian idea of resurrection. Of course
the argument could and should run the other way too. The funeral
art of ancient Egypt, which provided the dead with the simulacra of
their original covering, reflected their faith in an afterlife and
contributed to the Christian concept of resurrection. But, on the
other hand, the representations of Lazarus emerging from his
bandages, so popular in early Christian art, demonstrate the
senselessness of mummification in the face of a God whose word
and touch make the dead rise. Oscillating between flat and full,
portrait and mask, skin and body, the painted Egyptian shrouds are
imaginary relatives of the Byzantine acheiropoietoi as well as the
Latin sudaria and vernicles of Christ. All of these iconic textiles
mediate between painting and sculpture, magic and art, spirituality
and materiality, divinity and humanity, life and death, and can be
interpreted as either second skins, relics, and talismans or as
illusionist portraits and works of art.

(iii) The Flayed Skin

. . . when he saw that Amaterasu no Oho-kami was in her

sacred weaving hall. . . he flayed a piebald colt of Heaven, and
breaking a hole in the roof-tiles of the hall, flung it in. Then
Ama-terasu no Oho-kami started with alarm, and wounded
herself with the shuttle.
NihongT^

The vernicle, an almost plain piece of cloth, is ideally suited for

projection - for seeing what we want to see in it. Suspended between
the Hemorrhissa's outstretched hands or on a cross, it can provoke
sublime visions of beauty and union. Hanging on a wall or cross, it
can appear as an abominable piece of dead skin, a dirty rag, or a
canvas from which the colors have faded.To Julian of Norwich
"the holy vernicle of Rome, upon which he imprinted his own
blessed face, when he was in his hard passion and going willingly to
his death," seems disgusting.^"'* Wondering why it shows an image
"so discoloured and so far from fairness," and not "that blessed face
which is the fairest in heaven" - Julian concludes that Christ

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wished to resemble humanity and therefore presented us with "the

image and likeness of our unclean mortal flesh, wherein our fair
bright blessed Lord hid his Godhead.
The vision of Christ's dried-up skin reflects the nature of mystical
experience which, oscillating between the extremes of fullness and
nothingness, ecstasy and mortification, empties out and annihilates
the object of its desire. But, on the other hand, Julian's revelation
can also be taken as a response to the increasing popularity of the
Roman sudahum with Jesus' dead likeness and the growing cult of
his shroud at Lirey. At the beginning of the sixteenth century yet
another empty skin gained renown - that of St Bartholomew, one of
the twelve apostles, whose original name, according to a Syrian
tradition, was Jesus (he dropped it in order to avoid confusion with
the Lord). Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India and was
flayed alive and crucified in Armenia with his head downwards.
St Bartholomew's skin, the main item in the Wittenberg collection
of relics assembled by Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony and
protector of Luther, was depicted by Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung,
and other artists associated with Lutheran circles.^ ^
The interest in flayed skin was stimulated by the growing
preoccupation with anatomy in medical, scholarly, and artistic
circles and the increasing number of anatomical theaters, frequented
by Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Rabelais, and anatomical books
filled with illustrations of flaying and dismemberment.^^ The
preoccupation with anatomy influenced mystical and artistic
visions and contributed to the late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
obsession with flayed skins and to the iconography of the Anna
Christi, the Five Wounds, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus -
assemblages of dismembered body parts. In consequence of the
anatomy lessons a womb-shaped Heart with a baby Jesus came to
resemble a pregnant female uterus and resulted in the creation of
the most naturalistic of all acheiropoietoi: the vision of Mary's full
womb — cut out and suspended on the cross.
A flayed skin may be pressed flat and look like a drawing,
engraving, or painting. It may be folded or draped, taking on the
appearance of a relief. It may fly in the wind like a flag or banner or
be filled with air and imitate full sculpture. Flexible and portable,
the flayed skin moves between dimensions and genres, at once
representing and negating them all, and, as such, indicates one way
of reading Michelangelo's famous self-portrait as flayed skin in his
Last Judgement fresco, completed on the altar wall of the Sistine

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 Symbolism and Structure

Chapel in 1541.'^'^ Leo Steinberg notices that the artist's skin is

positioned on the low end of the painting's diagonal axis, and con¬
cludes that the strange self-representation alludes to Michelangelo's
own trial: "the Last Judgement - as I believe Michelangelo pondered
it — is not staged for generic mankind but for each self within
mankind. And how shall this eachness be tested but on this only-
known body in its own dear corruptible hide?"'"*^
According to Steinberg, in the Last Judgement St Bartholomew
acts as the artist's intercessor, asking God not to cast away the
artist's earthly cover but to preserve it until the last judgement, so
that he can rise, like Christ himself, clothed in his own skin. But I
would like to suggest a different interpretation. The aged skin of
Michelangelo may be meant not as gesture of piety, but of defiance
and mockery of the "skinning" to which divinity submits humanity.
Contemporary tradition saw in Bartholomew a portrait of Pietro
Aretino, the vehement critic of Michelangelo. I agree with Steinberg,
who finds this explanation too flat for the drama of the Last
Judgement, but I see the artist's hide as a combined metaphor
created from the remembrances of Marsyas, skinned by Apollo,
Jesus, the Son "skinned" by the Father, Bartholomew, a close
associate of Christ, skinned in the name of God, and as a possible
allegory of the mystical skin-soul.
Marsyas was a Phrygian silenus or satyr who could play the flute
better than anyone else. Jealous of his fame, Apollo forced Marsyas
to enter a musical contest whose winner would be rewarded with
his opponent's skin. The judges, gods or muses, were equally taken
with both players. This angered Apollo, who suggested that each
competitor turn the instrument upside down and then try again.
This could be done with the lyre, but not with the flute. Marsyas
lost, was bound by Apollo to a tree and flayed alive. Flis skinning
suggested the making of his instrument, the shepherd's pipe,
produced from an aldershoot from which the entire bark has been
removed.Marsyas's fate might have been commemorated in his
name which comes, perhaps, from the Greek word of Semitic
origins meaning "sack" or from the Avestic marsu (belly).'^^
Marsyas's sacrifice was not futile. Fiis hide proved incorruptible
and out of his blood a river originated or, alternatively, a stream was
created from the tears of his mourners:

the skin was torn off the whole surface of his body; it was all one raw
wound. Blood flowed everywhere, his nerves were exposed, unprotected.

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 Skin

his veins pulsed with no skin to cover them. It was possible to count
his throbbing organs, and the chambers of the lungs, clearly visible
within his breast. Then the woodland gods, the fauns who haunt the
countryside, mourned for him; his brother satyrs too, and Olympus
. . . and the nymphs, and all who pasture woolly sheep or horned cattle
in these mountains. The fertile earth grew wet with tears, and when it
was sodden, received the falling drops into itself, and drank them into
its deepest veins. Then from these tears, it created a spring which it
sent gushing forth into the open air ... It is the clearest river in
Phrygia, and bears the name of Marsyas.
[Met. 6. 388-401

The contest and punishment of Marsyas were favorite subjects of

Greek painting and sculpture, but classical art mostly refrained
from portraying the skinning and usually represented Marsyas, as in
the famous Roman copy at the Louvre, as an old, bearded man
bound to a tree or as the flayed skin hanging over the shoulder of a
youthful Apollo.The contrast between the two figures suggests a
father defeated by his son."^° Indeed, the myth seems to reflect the
Greek conquest of Phrygia, with the Olympic gods, luminous
messengers of civilization, triumphing over the old forest demons.
Their resistance was commemorated by the statues of Marsyas,
symbols of liberty, which stood in the Roman forum and were set up
in the colonies.In Hellenistic art Marsyas transformed from "the
impertinent satyr . . . into the outstanding image of tragic suffering.
The face of a man hanging from a tree has now lost any traces of the
satyr. Though furrowed and convulsed by pain, it is deeply human
and pensive. Marsyas has become an image of the silently suffering
creature, clearly the prototype of the crucified.
The legend of Marsyas was remembered through the Middle Ages,
and his skinning was allegorized as the purification preparing the
soul for its union with God in the first canto of Dante's Paradiso. At
the close of the fifteenth century, with the vogue of great solo
performers, more popular, however, became the interpretation of
the Apollo-Marsyas conflict as the antagonism between stringed
and wind instruments. In the period preceding Michelangelo's Last
Judgement the flaying of Marsyas was depicted in the Ovidio volgare
(Venice, 1497 and 1501). Later, we find the subject in an engraving by
Benedetto Montagna, in a drawing by Andrea Schiavone, and in the
Contest between Apollo and Marsyas, a magnificent, narrative
panel by Michelangelo Anselmi (ca. 1492—1554/6)."^'^ It shows the
whole sequence of the dramatic competition: an angelic Apollo, a

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 Symbolism and Structure

domineering figure dressed in a short white tunic, playing the

violin; a rustic, bearded Marsyas, seated and attentively listening to
him; and the flaying of the older satyr by the juvenile god.
In his Last Judgement Michelangelo paints God as a victorious
youthful Apollo, and he portrays himself as the flayed skin of an old,
bearded satyr. Like Marsyas, he is a great artist, and like God he is a
creator. But he is mortal and therefore to be "skinned" and to lose
the competition against divinity. Steinberg's analysis of the Last
Judgement implies that the composition is a dialogue with God.
Possibly, but I hear the artist speaking a different text. Look at this
poor skin of mine, says Michelangelo to God. It is just an empty
shell, like the skin of Jesus which is being traded in Rome:

He should not come again into this province;

Up to the very stars the hlood would spread.
Now that in Rome his skin is being sold,
And they have closed the way to every goodness.

If you want my skin, like Apollo, I'll give it to you, like Marsyas.
My mortal sack is nothing, a mere relic. But, on the other hand, it's a
painting and a relief - a token of my profession and my artistic
credo. On the last day I want to be remembered as one who could
both paint and sculpt as well as Marsyas could play; as a master of
the skin — the "true" likeness of us all; and as the one who
immortalized beauty; "So that a thousand years after our death /
They'll see how you were beautiful, I faint, / And that I was no fool
in loving you."'’^^^
Michelangelo offers his skin to God; he shows it to his contem¬
poraries, whose worship of scraps of skin he derides, and to the
critics who keep "skinning" the artists. Finally, he presents his hide
to the fair judges of the future who will proclaim him a "Marsyas" -
a recreator of youth and beauty that come through the eyes;

You came in through the eyes, through which I shower.

Like a bunch of green grapes into a flask,
Spreading beyond the neck, where it is wider;
Your image thus outwardly makes me moist
And grows inside the eyes, then I grow broader,
As skin will do when fatness makes it vast.
Entering me by such a narrow path,
I can't believe you'll ever dare go forth.

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Michelangelo's poetry contradicts Steinberg's idea of the artist

wanting to be reborn in his own old skin — "loaded down with my
years, and filled with sin.""^^ There is a satirical tongue-in-cheek
quality to Michelangelo's grotesque self-presentation at the Last
Judgement that seems to fit the injured pride of a great artist better
than Christian piety. The iconography of his painting transcends
conventional devotion and represents a half-profane and half-sacred,
half-Platonic and half-Christian dialogue, full of disdain for orthodoxy.
In Marsyas's legend an old god is vanquished and killed by a new
one, a father's skin is removed by a son. The Christian myth has it
the other way around. God Son is sacrificed on the altar of God
Father, the young one is skinned by the old. Michelangelo's vision
seems to echo the ancient tradition of flayed animals and humans
offered to solar divinities, a mythology we can trace in Japan and
Greece, in Judaism and Christianity. The victims' bleeding was seen
in analogy to solar effusion, defloration, and menstruation, and
those in turn were related to fertility, duplication, and representation.
The experience of skin made red ("painted") by the sun could have
inspired the notion of a skin-soul - popular with the Gnostics and
Christian mystics — an idea based on the realization that there is no
soul without a skin. Michelangelo's self-portrait - an epidermal
acheiropoietos - possesses a mystical quality and one of his poems
mentions the soul's "stripping" from the body and hints, perhaps, at
the artist's wish to be resurrected in a new envelope;

It's not enough, my Lord, that you dispose me

To go again there where the soul can be
Created, not from nothing as before;

Before you strip and draw it from the body

Reduce by half, I beg, your high steep way.
And make my coming back more bright and sure.”*'^

(iv) The Skin-Soul

Wise men of old gave the soul a feminine name. Indeed she is
female in her nature as well. She even has her womb . . . but
the womb of the soul is around the outside like the male
genitalia, which are external.
Exegesis on the SouT^

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 Symbolism and Structure

Both the Eastern Christ acheiropoietoi and the Western vernicles

were perceived and described in terms of God's soul-image conveying
divine essence through a "true" (sur)face. Abgar wished to possess
"a portrait accurately drawn of Jesus' appearance so that he might be
informed as it were by a shadow . . . what he was like" ("Story of the
Image of Edessa," 5). In the Hortulus animae, a medieval collection
of sacred verse, Jesus' likeness impressed on Veronica's cloth is
called, as in many other writings, the "figure of the divine glory"
and "the mirror of the holy" - common metaphors for the soul.^^ In
an Anglo-Saxon variant of the Veronica legend, the napkin is a piece
of Christ's garment and appears as animate as skin and as elusive as
a soul.^^ hike an exposed film, the cloth contains Jesus' image
which, however, can be "developed" only when the proper light is
"switched on," i.e. under the gaze of a few true believers who, like
Veronica, Volusianus, and the Emperor Tiberius, see in it the Eord's
soul. In Comenius's Orbis pictus (1658), a popular illustrated
encyclopedia, the entry "The Soul of Man" [Anima hominis] is
illustrated by a large hanging cloth on which a figure is outlined in
dots.^"^ The anima hominis resembles a shroud and an outstretched
skin - no doubt the source of inspiration for the encyclopedia's
illustrator.
Most mythologies have a notion of the soul as some sort of double
(Frazer calls it a "mannikin") that imitates a person's body but
possesses little solidity, and seems like a reflection (in water, a
pupil, or in a mirror), a shadow, a miniature copy - a veil of
a likeness.The Hurons imagined the soul as a complete little
model of a man, the Eskimos as an ethereal replica of the body.'"’^ A
relief of the birth of Amenophis III in the temple at Euxor shows the
arrival of two goddesses bringing two babies identified by the
inscriptions above their heads: one is the newborn pharaoh, the
other his soul.""’^^ In Egypt everything, including gods, animals,
plants, inanimate and manmade objects, was equipped with a soul
which, however, consisted of such subtle stuff that it "made no
impression on ordinary eyes" and could be seen only by priests or
seers.Normally, the soul remained hidden, but occasionally it
flew out of the body, leaving it in a state of trance. In Greek art the
soul is depicted either as a tiny human being, sometimes naked,
sometimes clothed and armed, usually furnished with butterfly
wings, or as a butterfly (a night butterfly was called psyche].^^ But
she was also pictured as a charming woman, a mistress of Amor -
and thus predestined to be each man's beloved. The dying Emperor

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 Skin

Hadrian (AD 117-38) addressed his soul as animula and asked

where she, his little "guest/' "pale" and "naked," is now:

Animula vagula, blandula,

Hospes comesque corporis.
Quae nunc abibis in loca
Pallidula, rigida, nudula;
Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos?^'’"''

The Christian idea of the soul was influenced by Platonism and

Neoplatonism, in particular by Plotinus's "mirror of matter," a
concept perfectly suitable for developing the notion of a passive,
non-intellectual and feminine soul in which a man can see himself
mirrored and which conveniently keeps enlarging his reflection.
This type of anima was attributed to Mary, who says about herself:
"My soul magnifies the Lord" (Lk. 1:46). In the Graeco-Rom.an as
well as the Christian tradition the soul [anima] is related to spirit
[spiritus, intellectus), but she is also seen in opposition to he.
Alternatively, a physical (female) soul is contrasted with an
intellectual (male) soul. "The transmission of the semen," writes
St Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1227-74), "is directed to the generation of
the body. Therefore the nutritive and sensitive souls begin to exist
through the transmission of the semen; but not the intellective
soul" [Summa contra gentiles, 2. 86).^'°
The soul lacks the energy of spirit, and she is interpreted in spatial
rather than temporal, and natural rather than cultural terms. Spirit
is identified with (sun)light, movement, and language, soul with
lunar opaqueness, continuity, and the image. Spiritus erupts with
energy, the anima flows with an imperceptible and yet material
film. An idealized female, she is conceived as superior to earthly
femininity but inferior to the masculine Spiritus Sanctus - the First
Cause and the organizing principle of the universe. The cosmic soul,
an emanation, effusion, reflection, shadow, and likeness of divinity,
mediates between God (creator, original) and his creation (reproduc¬
tion). An anima hominis mediates between a man's human
condition (material = female) and his metaphysical aspiration
(spiritual = male = divine).
Given the traditional notion of the soul as a delicate double and
the role of feminine cloth(ing) in fesus' incarnation, death, and
resurrection, it is not surprising that garment and skin came to be
regarded as the symbols of the soul. In The Exegesis of the Soul, a

215
 Symbolism and Structure

Gnostic treatise originally written in Greek perhaps as early as

AD 200, the soul, a virgin, originally lives in heaven in the company
of her father. Upon entering a body, she becomes a prostitute abused
by her lovers. But she repents, prays to her father, is baptized, and
returns to paradise where she marries her brother. The souks most
astonishing feature is her womb. It is not hidden inside, but
envelops her like the skin and can be therefore easily "cleansed of
the external pollution which was pressed upon it, just as [garments,
when] dirty, are put into the [water and[ turned about until their dirt
is removed and they beeome clean.In the Apocryphon of John
(2. 1:15) Adam is furnished with seven material souls; a bone-soul, a
sinew-soul, a flesh-soul, a marrow-soul, a blood-soul, a skin-soul,
and an eyelid-soul.
An enchanting fantasy of a Jesus-like skin-robe-soul is evoked in
The Hymn of the Soul (or The Hymn of the Pearl). The famous
poem, written in Syriae in the region of Edessa in the early third
century, is contained in the apoeryphal Acts of Thomas, the apostle
of the East. A tradition going back to Origen portrayed Thomas as
the evangelist of Parthia, the Acts placed him in India, the Abgar
legend made him responsible for sending the apostle Addai to
Edessa, and from the fourth century Edessa was known for
possessing the bones of Thomas.Jesus gives Thomas the cloth
impressed with his blood in the Garden, instructing him to send it
to Edessa. "After our Lord Jesus Christ had ascended into heaven,
Thomas gave the divine portrait of Christ's face to Thaddaeus and
sent him to Abgar" ("Story of the Image of Edessa," 11).
The Acts of Thomas was composed in a Gnostic milieu and used
by Gnostic sects. The Hymn itself originated in "the pre-Manichean
Gnosis of East Syria and Mesopotamia.But the poem's metaphors
seem to have been shaped by traditions coming from further East.
The central image of the heavenly skin-robe and its symbol, a flying
textile letter, point to China, with its long tradition of verses,
letters, and portraits painted on silk, although Syria also was known
for its silk industry, and in the Doctrine Aggai was deseribed as a
maker of silks. The Hymn relates the story of the Soul which is born
in heaven, sent to the earth, and after fulfilling its mission — the
finding and bringing of the pearl - returns home.^^"^ The Soul, the
story's narrator, is personified by the king's son, who is modelled
after Christ.
The son, who first dwelt in his father's house, was sent by his
parents "down to Egypt" where "in the midst of the sea, / In the

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 Skin

abode of the loud-breathing serpent" the pearl had been hidden/’^

Before descending to earth, the young prince was obliged to take off
his heavenly garments - reminiscent of Christ's seamless tunic and
his scarlet coat of passion - and evocative of the Eucharist. The
Soul's clothing consisted of: "the splendid robe / Which in their love
they had wrought for me, / And the purple toga, / Which was woven
to the measure of my stature" {Hymn, 9-10).
The son is promised that upon his return with the pearl he will be
able to put on his splendid clothing, and he departs. During his
sojourn on earth. Soul consorts with impurity, wears an ordinary
Egyptian outfit (so that no suspicion arises about his divinity), and
forgets about the pearl. But he is reminded of it by his family; his
father, "the king of kings," his mother, "the mistress of the East,"
and his brother, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. This trinity sends him a
letter which is written with red sulphur on Chinese silk, thus
combining the medium with the message and acting as a token of
the Soul's Eucharistic garment. Like the legendary Chinese magpie
(which transformed itself from a mirror engraving into a real bird in
order to inform the husband about his wife's infidelity), the letter
"flew in the form of an eagle . . . and alighted beside me / And
became all speech" (Hymn, 51-2). The linguistic bird makes Soul
fulfill his duty. He snatches the pearl and ascends to heaven, where
his clothes await him. The meeting between the son and his dress
has an oriental touch and belongs among the unforgettable scenes of
love poetry. It captures the instant when two people, who have
known and loved each other forever, find themselves face to face
after a long separation, and before falling into each other's arms,
stand still - mirrored in each other's eyes.

The [splendid robe] became like me, as my reflection in a mirror;

I saw it (wholly] in me.
And in it I saw myself [quite] apart [from myself],
So that we were two in distinction
And again one in a single form. (Hymn, 76-8)

And again I saw that all over it

The motions of [knowledge] were stirring.
And I saw too
That it was preparing as for speech.
I heard the sound of its songs
Which It whispered [at its descent]:
"I belong to the most valiant servant.

217
 Symbolism and Structure

For whom they reared me before my father,

And I (perceived! also in myself
That my stature grew according to his labours."
And with its royal movements
It poured itself entirely toward me,
And in the hands of its brmgcrs
It hastened, that 1 might take it;
And my love also spurred me
To run to meet it and receive it.
And I stretched out and took it.
With the beauty of its colours 1 adorned myself.
And my toga of brilliant colours
I drew [completely! over myself.
I clothed myself with it and mounted up
To the gate of greeting and homage.
I bowed my head and worshipped
The splendour of the father (who! had sent it (the robe! to me.
{Hymn, 88-99)

Soul's dress is double-layered, white next to the skin, purple

outside, and a reflection of his father, since it is "embroidered all
over" with "the likeness of the king of kings" {Hymn, 86). Only
when the son puts it on is he ready to be received by the father.
Burkitt suggests that the idea of the heavenly robe (as different from
an earthly garment) might have been inspired by Paul's concept of
the "earthly tent" as opposed to the house in heaven "not made
with hands" (2 Cor. 5:1).^^'’ This makes sense, but the poetic dream
of the Soul-Savior dressed on earth in ordinary Egyptian garments
and in heaven in a Eucharistic robe-skin strikes me as more than
that. The Hymn of the Pearl assimilates into an ancient tradition
the new theology of Jesus' incarnation, resurrection, and transfig¬
uration by transforming Christ into a Soul. His dual nature is
rendered by his splitting into a humanlike anima — a son clothed in
skin — and into a divine soul, an iconic dress of paradise. In the
Syrian poem the essence of divinity resides in God's clothing — a
heavenly double of the mortal human skin.
Incarnation turns God into a sack of skin — and tactility into a
central issue. Jesus can be touched, touches others, and is presented
as quite a toucher and kisser, such a good kisser that his passion
begins with the kiss (of death) he receives from his pupil Judas
(whom he has taught the kiss of peace).Most of Jesus' miracles are
based on tactility, and thus he is constantly followed by people eager

218
 Skin

to touch him. He also uses tactility as a form of teaching, for

instance when he washes his pupils' feet, and in general behaves as
if he knew what we certainly know today; that certain memories are
retained best by the skin. This is manifested in his contacts with
women, in particular with the unelean or disreputable ones. The
closer the passion, the greater the care taken of his skin by women.
"Two days before the Passover," when "the chief priests . . . were
seeking how to . . . kill him" (Mk. 14:1), Jesus' skin is smoothed out
and his head is anointed at the house of a skinless man, Simon the
leper. The anointment, protested by Judas who sees it as a waste,
presents a prelude to the subsequent skin injury. Jesus' way to
Golgotha starts with the touch of Judas' treacherous lips, which is
immediately followed hy another bad tactility. The soldiers, led in
by the traitor, "laid hands on Jesus and seized him . . . And . . . one of
those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his
sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear"
(Mt. 26:51). The Lord intervenes and undoes the skin damage, using,
for the last time, the power of his salvatory tactility: "he touched
his ear and healed him" (Lk. 22:51).
The contrast between skin care and skin injury continues
throughout the crucifixion and after Jesus' death: while wicked
pagans pierce his skin and tear his clothes, Jesus' followers prepare
to preserve his bodily envelope: Joseph of Arimathea wraps Christ's
corpse in linen, women come to the tomb to anoint it. The biblical
contrast between skin soothing and skin damage represents the
division line between goodness and evil. Skin destruction is
considered a predominantly male business. Skin preservation is
pursued by both men and women of compassion, hut mostly it is
entrusted to femininity. After a brief disappearance inside the
shroud and the tomb, Christ returns from his trip into matter in his
own skin. A twelfth-century miniature of the entombment shows
Jesus shrouded in a veil which gives him the appearance of an
embryo (Plate 35) and thus hints at his coming back from the dead.
The passion narratives juxtapose feminine caress, which involves
surfaces and fluids (hair and cloth, ointment and tears), to the
phallic instruments of skin annihilation. Out of this juxtaposition
symbolic pairs develop: the lance, spear, rod, which cause Jesus'
hleedmg, and the shroud, vernicle, or the Holy Grail which catch his
blood.
One of the New Testament's most sublime episodes, the meeting
between the resurrected Christ and Mary Magdalen, who rushes to

219
 Symbolism and Structure

embrace him but is stopped by his noli me tangere (Jn. 20:17),

indicates the transition from human tactility to untouchable
divinity. In his book The Skin Ego, Didier Anzieu misunderstands
the meaning of Jesus' words, and then argues that Christ introduces
the tahoo against touching — central to Christian culture.The
French psychoanalyst disregards the fact that up to now Christianity
has remained extremely tactile — with priests embracing each other,
the faithful kissing the rings and hands of priests, and the Pope
kissing the cement of international airports, naked black children,
and kangaroos. His misreading of the noli me tangere scene is
astonishing in view of his Skin Ego theory, which suggests that
because of the epidermal unity of the mother and her embryo and
the intensity of skin contacts in motherhood and love-making, our
center is "situated at the periphery" - and our Ego has "the
structure of an envelope.
Anzieu's concept of the Skin Ego is more than problematic. But 1
appreciate his effort to draw attention to skin and tactility, which
play an essential role in religion and mythology, and in language and
art, but have been neglected by scholarship. The Christian centrality of
touch, a consequence of the incarnation, was established by the
New Testament. Without Jesus' extensive tactility, Christianity
would be a different religion. It would hardly have developed the
cult of saints, relics, and icons, or invented a textile acheiropoietos -
a skin-cloth-icon created through the touching of Christ and with
the purpose of touching others. The sharing of Mary's and Jesus'
skin conveys the essence of tactility, as does his skin's destruction.
Skin contacts link faith and ritual to affection and aggression, and
relate the sexual to the cosmic. Tactility provides the sensual bridge
to elemental desires, primitive instincts, and archaic beliefs - to the
primordial abyss hidden under our thin civilized skins.

220
 Epilogue

Helen {to Faust):

An ancient word, alas, is now fulfilled in me.
That happiness and beauty are not mated long.
The link of life is wrenched apart, like that of love;
Mourning them both, with aching heart I say farewell.
And cast myself this last sad time upon your breast.
Persephone, I come, take now the child and me.
{She embraces Faust-, her bodily form vanishes,
her robe and veil are left in his arms.)
Phorkyas {to Faust):
What things remain from all you had, hold fast.
The robe, release it not! . . .
{The garments of Helen dissolve into clouds;
enveloping Faust they lift him on high and
bear him from the scene.)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust. Part Two^

Our journey through space and time - from Palestine to Babylonia,

from Christian Byzantium to ancient Greece and Egypt, from Rome
to China, from obscure French villages to the sacred pantheon of
Japan — in pursuit of the origins and meanings of a non-existent
piece of cloth with a "true'' likeness of Christ has yielded results.
We have discovered patterns, seen images emerge under the threat
of absence, and realized that the most threatening of all absences is

221
 Epilogue

in the disappearance of the sun. The rhythm of our life is still set by
the sun, but we can only speculate about its significance before the
invention of fire, when, with sunset, warmth and vision were
withdrawn. The daily spectacle of the rising and setting sun inspired
complex systems of analogies, metaphors, symbols, of magical
formulas and religious ideas in which the sun was associated with
every individual's central parts — the head or, more specifically, the
face and the eyes, as well as with the reproductive organs, insofar as
procreation was attributed to them. Community leaders have, no
doubt, been identified with the sun since time immemorial, and the
sun was perceived as masculine because of the further support in the
emitting character of male sexuality as opposed to the receptive
faculty of females. But the example of the fapanese sun goddess
shows that the sun could also be metaphorized as a mirroring
surface or membrane and thus connected to the skin, the hymen,
the vagina, the womb — and menstruation.
Bright sunlight blinds. Hence the notion of concealment, which
goes hand in hand with that of vision and reinforces the idea of a
divine leader's unbearable brilliance. The sight of him has to be
mediated, and whenever the sun is regarded as masculine, the
medium is considered feminine. Rays acquire phallic features, while
the receptive substance resembles a feminine blank. In the imaginary
process of marking or reproducing, sunlight is often treated as a fluid
and likened to blood, the juice and agent of life. Although both sexes
bleed, male and female bleeding is regarded differently: "A man
produces blood when he dies; a woman produces blood when she
creates."^ Part of nature, female bleeding has little transcendental
value. Male blood, on the other hand, is extolled as a main carrier of
culture and men's link to light's eternity.
Early humans were terrified of the prospect of the sun's permanent
disappearance. Their fear was reinforced by the recurring eclipses of
the sun, moments of horror that were bridged by worship and
prayer, sacrifice and magic. In Japan mirrors were probably used to
attract the sun out of its cave; m Greece the head of Medusa, the
solar monster hiding in the west, was caught by the shiny shield of
Minerva. The pursuit of the sun was a hunt, the hunt implied
killing, and thus the bringing back of the sun involved bloodletting,
beheading, and flaying alive. The mythology of light required the
sacrifice of life. In order to assure the sun's presence, humans
presented the divinized celestial head with their own heads and
skins.

222
 Epilogue

Since sacrifice was believed to make the world go around, ritual

death was tied to sexuality and procreation. The Minerva-Medusa
legends and the Amaterasu cult suggest a connection between
solarity, human sacrifice, and sexual initiation; and so does the
sequence of events in the Gospel of Mark, as it begins with the
revival of a twelve-year-old girl, continues with the arrest of
menstruation, and ends with the decapitation of John the Baptist. In
religion eras and thanatos come in pairs, and sexual potency
coincides with the ability to kill. Both the dead and the newborn
represent "true" portraits and, when reduced to heads, appear as
images of the rising and sinking sun. The Christian story of Jesus'
vera icon has its counterparts in other religions dedicated to
incarnation and solarity — to divine duplicates obtained through
sight and tactility.
At the center of the Christian vera icon mythology lies the dual
idea of the sun and its light. The sun, the first cause, burns with fire
and spirit, streams with semen and blood, drips with ink and paint.
But the sun's pure white light is also compared to cloth and skin and
possesses the secondary, passive, feminine character of a "mirror of
matter." In order to accomplish his incarnation, God creates his
own matrix, a light-sensitive film which he then activates. In the
process of representing the sun as humanity's male head and Christ
as the son of the sun, the utopia of photographic portraiture is born.
The cloth ( = sky, space) shows God's solar face, but the vernicle -
a mirror-membrane and a mask - also stands for the skin-soul of
Jesus, the divine-human scapegoat sacrificed to solarity.
In early Christianity the sun rises, in late Christianity it sets.
What the Theotokos is to Byzantium, Veronica, the Iconotokos,
becomes to the West. Like the Virgin, the healed Hemorrhissa is a
sun-bearer, only she documents not the beginning but the end. Hers
is the last snapshot of God's sojourn on earth, hers is the final "true"
image of his mortal humanity. The career of St Veronica implies
Jesus' destruction through tactility - his transformation into a
faceless, skinless, eyeless non-icon of degradation and darkness -
and his resurrection as an intact and luminous anima-veil.
The impact of mimetic representation cannot be overestimated.
Still today individuals and masses can be manipulated into belief,
obedience, and revolt by means of a "true" image, an assumed token
of presence which fuels desire and fear, a simulacrum which at once
stimulates and combats a sense of absence by evoking death and
rebirth. Our language and art, our psychology and politics, our

223
 Epilogue

eroticism and reverie reflect this fantasy, and the vera icon
flourishes in the contemporary world — saturated with "true"
images to a degree no other culture has ever known. Magic persists
in our relations to modern acheiiopoietoi, and electronic reproduc¬
tion and simulation pose in an ever more drastic way the old
question of "truth".
Seeing Chinese students confront foreign reporters with a con¬
temporary vernicle — the snapshots of their friends massacred on
Tiananmen Square - we welcome the historical truth it conveys.
Yet we cannot hut remember that every veia icon may he a
fabrication, and that a picture sanctified into an acheiropoietos fogs
the mind's clarity. Still, the dream of a "true" duplicate, be it a
photo or a piece of clothing that survives the beloved and helps us
overcome grief, is essential. We derive from it encouragement and
inspiration: the dress of Helena, Faust's departing wife, metamor¬
phoses in his hands into clouds which clothe and carry this steel
"fist" of a superman to the top of the world — and to his career as
humanity's head.
Cultural patterns charm and trap us. We often deplore our
personal and collective inability to change them, hoping that one
day thinking and imagination will be free of the mythical male-
female duality. But before stereotypes can be altered they must be
understood. We cannot transform tradition by obliterating the past.
What is swept out the front door returns through the back. It is only
one step from an ignorant to a captive mind. Enlightening us about
the origin and symbolism of mimetic representation, the Veronica
legend renders us sensitive to our own perpetuation of the archaic:
to the pictures of the brides accompanied by the names of their
bridegrooms in the wedding section of the New York Times, and to
the many vernicles which keep displaying - even while the progress
of technology turns them thinner and "truer" - the same old stuff:
the body of a woman and the face of a man.

224
 Notes

Introduction

1 The impressions were reported by Bishop Arculf, (ca.670). "The Travels

of Bishop Arculf in the Holy Land/' Early Travels in Palestine, ed.
Thomas Wright (London; Henry G. Bohn, 1848), pp. 4-5. The plural for
masculine and feminine gender is achelropoletoi, for neutral gender
achelrupoieta. In reference to images it is achelropoletoi, the form
I use.
2 The shroud was first heard of in France in 1353. Initially it was kept in
the collegiate church of Lirey. It then went to the house of Savoy, and
in 1578 came to Turin. Ian Wilson, The Shroud of Turin. The Burial
Cloth of Jesus Christl (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1979), p. 192-220.
3 The most popular of them was Wilson's Shroud of Turin, a well-
written and decently researched book. Its main value comes from the
fact that It contains (pp. 272-90) the first complete English translation
of the "Story of the Image of Edessa" (AD 945), Migne, PG 113:423-54,
a crucial document in the history of the Byzantine acheiropoietos.
Unfortunately Wilson wants so badly to prove that the Turin shroud is
the burial cloth of Christ that he jumps to many unjustified conclusions.
4 The new results were published by all major newspapers around the
world. I rely on the report by Yvonne Rebeyrol, Le Monde, October 14
1988.
5 Wilson, Shroud of Turin, pp. 26-7.
6 La Sindone e la Scienza, Atti del II Congresso Internazionale di
Sindonologia (Turin: Centro Internazionale di Sindonologia, Edizioni
Paoline, 1978).
7 Rebeyrol, Le Monde.

225
 Notes

8 We possess a description of the imperial collection of relics from the

years 1203-4 where a cloth impressed with Jesus' face and the
reproduction of this impression on a tile are mentioned. Robert de
Clari, The Conquest of Constantinople, trans. Edgar Holmes McNeal
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), pp. 104-5.
9 It is likely that the Edessene mandylion was identical with the toella
listed among the relics from the Pharos chapel m Constantinople
which Baldwin II sold to St Louis of France after 1239. The toella was
kept at the Samte Chapelle in Paris until the Revolution, when the
Chapel was sacked. Averil Cameron, "The Sceptic and the Shroud,"
Continuity and Change in Sixth-Century Byzantium (London: Variorum
Reprints, 1981), pp. v, 14.
10 The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Containing the Old and New
Testaments, ed. Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1971); further references are to this edition,
unless otherwise stated.
11 The acheropsita (a Latinized form of acheiropoietos] was mentioned in
the Life of the Pope Stephen II. [Anastasius bibliothecarius]. Vita
Stephani II, Dobschiitz, pp. 64-5 and 136*.
12 Edmund Leach, Genesis as Myth, and other Essays (London: Jonathan
Cape, 1969), p. 8.
13 On duality and symmetry in Christian mythology see E. Kuryluk, "The
World of Adam and Eve," Formations, 1 (1987):68-78.
14 Verses 43-4 were probably not part of the original Gospel of Luke,
since they are lacking in important early manuscripts. But they were
known to Christian writers of the second century and reflect a first-
century tradition.
15 "Head and Maidenhead," in Salome and fudas, pp. 227-8.
16 Ernest Will, "Le Culte de Mithra en Asie Mineure," in Le Relief cultuel
greco-romain (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1955), pp. 154-234.
17 Hans Peter L'Orange, "Kleine Beitriige zur Ikonographie Konstantins
des Grossen" and "Sol Invictus Imperator. Ein Beitrag zur Apotheose,"
in Likeness and Icon (Odense: Odense University Press, 1973), pp. 27-
31 and 333-44.

1 Image and Word — Greeks and Jews

1 St Gregory the Great, Epistle 47, to Bishop Ouiricus, in Nicene and

Post-Nicene Fathers, 13:83.
2 Plato in Twelve Volumes, Loch Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1969-70). Further references are to this
edition.
3 A Vision of the Last fudgement is a title given by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti to William Blake's personal notebook, which in 1847 Rossetti

226
 Notes

bought for ten shillings from the brother of an artist who as a young
man befriended the old Blake. The notebook is now m the British
Museum. The Note-Book of William Blake Called the Rossetti
Manuscript, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London: Nonesuch Press, 1935). See
also Albert S. Roe, "A Drawing of the Last Judgement," in The
Visionary Hand. Essays for the Study of William Blake’s Art and
Aesthetics, ed. Robert N. Essick (Los Angeles: Hennessey 6t Ingalls
1973), pp. 201-32.
4 Marina Warner, Monuments &) Maidens. The Allegory of the Female
Form (New York: Atheneum, 1985).
5 Aristotle, Generation of Animals, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979). Further references are to this
edition.
6 "On the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles," 16. 159, in The Greek
Anthology, trans. W. R. Paton, Loeb Classical Library, 5 vols (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969). Further references are to this
edition.
7 Artemidorus, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. Robert J. White
(Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Press, 1975), 2. 45, p. 125.
8 Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting, trans. A. Philip McMahon, 2
vols (Princeton. Princeton University Press, 1956). Further references
are to this edition.
9 See W. J. T. Mitchell's excellent book, Iconology. Image, Text, Ideology
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
10 Joseph Gutmann, "The 'Second Commandment' and the Image in
Judaism," No Graven Images. Studies in Art and the Hebrew Bible, ed.
Joseph Gutmann (New York: KTAV PubJishmg House, 1971), p. 5.
11 Saint foseph Edition of the Holy Bible (New York: Catholic Book
Publishing Company, 1963).
12 Phny, Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library, 10
vols (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952). Further
references are to this edition = Pliny, NH. Aristotle regarded menstrual
blood as the substance responsible for generation. Out of it not only
were embryos "concocted," but also uterine moles (tumors) which
come into being when women "produce an excess of menstrual
evacuations and cannot concoct them; and so, when the fetation has
been 'set,' formed out of a liquid which is difficult to concoct, then
what IS called the mola is produced" [Generation of Animals, 4. 7.10).
An embryo consists of blood that has been completely concocted into a
well-done piece of meat. The mola, on the other hand, represents
"meat, when it is undercooked," a defect which is due to a woman's
insufficient heat. Her innate coldness makes the mola hard, and "the
cause of its hardness is the lack of concoction, just as underdone meat
is another instance of lack of concoction" (ibid.).

227
 Notes

13 Encyclopaedia Judaica (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 5:567-75.

14 Ibid.
15 Ephraim Syrus, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 13, Part II.
Further references arc to this edition.
16 Pierre Guiraud, Seiniologie de la sexualite (Paris: Payot, 1978), p. 50.
17 Morris Jastrow, The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott, 1915), p. 440.
18 Ibid., p. 195.
19 Hymn no. 7, in Sumerisch-Babylonische Hymnen, after Jastrow (see
n. 17, above).
20 Arthur Darby Nock, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 91.
21 Scholars of this controversial topic have been able to show to what
extent the acceptance and rejection of imagery might have resulted
from political struggles and economic pressures, or served the goals of a
national and religious renewal. See Joseph Gutmann, "Deuteronomy:
Religious Reformation or Iconoclastic Revolution?" The Image and the
Word. Confrontations in Judaism; Christianity and Islam (Missoula,
Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977), pp. 5-14. The Dura Europos fresco is
reproduced by Alfred Werner in "Chagall's Jerusalem Windows,"
Gutmann, No Graven Images, p. 535.

2 Depictions of Christ — Early Christianity

1 Apocryphal New Testament, p. 516.

2 Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, trans. G. W.
Butterworth, Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heinemann, 1919),
ch. 4, p. 139.
3 Lampridius, Alexander Severus, 29; Frederic W. Farrar, The Fife of
Christ as Represented in Art (New York: Macmillan, 1895), pp. 71-2.
4 Farrar believes that it was such a votive statue erected to the Emperor
Hadrian, Life of Christ, p. 82.
5 Macarius Magnes, The Apocriticus, trans. T. W. Crafer (London: SPCK,
1919), p. 31.
6 A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early
Christian Literature, a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer's
Griechisch-Deutsches Worterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testa¬
ments und der iibrigen urchristlichen Literatur by William F. Arndt
and F. Wilbur Gingrich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957)
p. 127.
7 Dobschiitz, pp. 37-9.
8 Homer, The Iliad, trans. Samuel Butler (Chicago: Encyclopaedia
Britanniea, 1952), p. 24. Further references are to this edition.

228
 Notes

9 "Athena," Pauly-Wissowa, 1:1945.

10 "Numa Pompilius," Britannica, 19:847.
11 Dobschutz suggests that the older version of the Camuliana icon story
was written after 560 and gives the German translation of the Syrian
text on pp. 4* *-7* *.
12 Ibid., pp. 42-3.
13 On the cross from Apameia see Evagrius, Church History, chapter 26
14 Dobschutz, pp. 47-9.
15 Ibid., p. 49.
16 Ibid., pp. 72ff.
17 faroslav Pelikan, fesus through the Centuries (New Haven- Yale
University Press, 1985), p. 95.
18 London, British Museum. Reproduced in Age of Spirituality, figure 452,
pp. 502-3, and Volbach, Christian Art, figure 98.
19 Salome and Judas, pp. 267-8.
20 The plaque has suffered damage and the lance is missing.
21 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana. Schiller, Iconography 2
Plate 327. & n r, ,
22 Carlo Cecchelli, "Christ" in Encyclopedia of World Art (New York'
McGraw-Hill, 1972), 3:601.
23 The Utrecht Psalter comes from Reims and its illustrations are
executed m pen and ink. Utrecht, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit.
Schiller, Iconography, 2, Plates 357-9.
24 Vittorio Lanternari, "Symbols of Christ," Encyclopedia of World Art
3:602.

3 Icon Addicts - Icon Foes

1 In the Bible the only Thaddaeus was one of the 12 apostles. Luke calls
him "Judas son of James," while Matthew and Mark refer to him as
"Thaddaeus."
2 Ancient Syriac Documents Relative to the Earliest Establishment of
Christianity in Edessa and the Neighbouring Countries, from the Year
after Our Lord’s Ascension to the Beginning of the Fourth Century,
discovered, edited, translated, and annotated by the late W. Curcton,
with a preface by W. Wright (1864; reprinted, Amsterdam: Oriental
Press, 1967), pp. 6-23.
3 W. Cureton, "Preface" to Ancient Syriac Documents, p. i.
4 George Phillips, "Preface" to Doctrine of Addai, p. vii.
5 Richard Adelbert Lipsius, Die Edessenische Abgar-Sage (Brunswick:
C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn, 1880), p. 61 and passim.
6 Phillips, "Preface" to Doctrine of Addai, p. ix; Lipsius, Die Edessenische
Abgar-Sage, p. 71.
7 L.-J. Tixeront, Les Origines de I’eglise d’Edesse et la legende d’Abgar

229
 Notes

(Paris: Maisonncuvc and Ch. Leclerc, 1888), p. 94, author's trans.

8 Ibid., p, 121.
9 Steven Runciman, "Some Remarks on the Image of Edessa," The
Cambridge Historical Journal, 3 (1931);241.
10 "Lerubna" is the name of the king's scribe m the History of Armenia
(ca.700) by Moses of Chorenc, who repeats the account given by the
Doctrine of Addai. For Moses's text see Collection des historiens
anciens et modernes de TArmenie, ed. Victor Langlois (Paris: Librairie
de Firmin-Didot, 1880), 1:317-31.
11 Alfred von Gutschmid, "Untcrsuchungen iiber die Geschichte des
Komgreichs Osroene," Memoires de TAcademie Imperiale des Sciences
de Saint-Petersbourg, 35 (1887): 1-49.
12 Rubens Duval, Histoire politique, religieuse et litteraire d’Edesse
jusqu’a la premiere croisade (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1892),
pp. 74-80.
13 F. Grawford Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (Fondon: John Murray,
1904), pp. 47-8.
14 Fudwig Hallier, Untersuchungen iiber die Edessenische Chronik
(Feipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1892), p. 76.
15 Most historians disbelieve Edessa's early Christianization. But Runciman
dismisses their scepticism and writes: "there is no reason why King
Abgar V should not have suffered from the religious curiosity
fashionable at that time, and should not have heard of the Messiah in
Palestine and sent to learn more." "Some Remarks," p. 239.
16 Egeria’s Travels, trans. John Wilkinson (Fondon: SPCK, 1971), p. 117.
17 Ibid., p. 226.
18 Procopius, History of the Wars (2. 26), trans. H. B. Dewing, Foeb
Classical Fibrary, 7 vols (Fondon: W. Heinemann, 1914), 1:489.
19 Dobschiitz, pp. 116-20.
20 Hallier, Untersuchungen, p. 81.
21 Hefele, 2:233-47, 410-578.
22 Dobschiitz, p. 145.
23 Gibbon, 4:252-3.
24 Dobschiitz, pp. 142-3.
25 Ibid., pp. 147-8.
26 In Nicene and Post-Nicene Eathers, vol. 1. Further references are to this
edition.
27 Andre Grabar, L’Iconoclasme byzantin (Paris: Flammarion, 1984),
p. 29.
28 Ibid., p. 30.
29 Hypatius of Ephesus, "Mixed Enquiries" in the Codex Parismus 1115
(ann. 1276), fos 254v-255v. A fragment of Hypatius's text was
published in Orientalia Christiana Analecta, cd. Franz Diekamp
(Rome: Pont. Inst. Orientalium Studiorum, 1938), 117:127-9. Trans.

230
 Notes

after Norman H. Baynes, "The Icons before Iconoclasm," The Harvard

Theological Review, 2 (1951):95.
30 For the Rufinus translation see Dobschtitz, pp. 172 *-173*.
31 Theodosius, "Dc Terra Sancta" and Antoninus Martyr, "Perambulatio
locorum sanctorum," both m Itinera hierosolymitana et descriptiones
terrae sanctae bellis sacris anteriora, reprint of the 1879 edition
(Osnabriick: Otto Zeller, 1966), pp. 89ff. and 61ff.
32 Dobschtitz, p. 139*.
33 Ernst Kitzmger, "The Cult of Images m the Age before Iconoclasm,"
Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 8 (1954): 105.
34 A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, m Zapiski of the Hist. -Phil. Faculty of the
Imperial University of St Petersburg, 95 (1909);16.
35 Kitzmger, "The Cult of Images," p. 108.
36 Baynes, "Icons before Iconoclasm," p. 96.
37 Leontius, after Baynes, ibid., p. 98.
38 Ibid., p. 100.
39 Ibid., p. 101.
40 faroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Develop¬
ment of Doctrine, 2 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1974)
2:37-145.
41 Bazon Brock, "Zur Geschichte des Bilderkrieges um das Realismus-
Problem," Aesthetik als Vermittlung. Arbeitsbiographie eines General-
isten (Cologne: DuMont, 1977), p. 318.
42 Grabar, LTconoclasme byzantin, p. 125.
43 The Greek texts of John of Damascus dealing with the defense of
images are contained m De fide orthodoxa (Abgar is mentioned m Book
4. 281) and m De imaginibus orationes (Abgar is mentioned m Oratio
1. 320), Migne, PG 94. English translation after St John of Damascus,
On the Divine Images, trans. David Anderson (Crestwood, NY: St
Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980). All quotes from this edition.
44 Eusebius, Epistola ad Constantiam Augustam, PG 20:1545; and
Epiphanius of Salamis, Letter to John of Jerusalem contained only in
the Latin translation of Hieronymus, Opera, ed. Petavius (1682),
Dobschtitz, pp. 102*-103*.
45 St John of Damascus, A Commentary following Oratio 1, On the
Divine Images, p. 35.
46 Dobschtitz, pp. 57-8.
47 "Canticle of Mar Jacob [= Jacob of Sarug, d. 521] the Doctor, upon
Edessa, when she sent to our Lord to come to her," Ancient Syriac
Documents, p. 106.
48 Gibbon, chapter 49, 4:254.
49 Dot^schiitz, pp. 160ff.
50 For the original text of Constantine's homily see Migne, PG 113:423-
54. For the edited version of the feast homily and the menaeon and, m

231
 Notes

addition, a liturgical treatise, a hymn to the image, and a chronicle of

the translation see Dobschiitz, pp. 29"-129**.
51 Kurt Weitzmann, "The Mandylion and Constantine Porphyrogennetos,"
Cahiers archeologiques, 11 (1960): 184. Previously the icon was dated
to the late ninth century and a localization in Edessa by G. and
M. Sotiriou, leones du Mont Sinai, 2 vols (Athens, 1958), Tfigures 34-6;
2:49-51.
52 Dobschiitz, pp. 138-9.
53 There is a similar hint in another text. In a Syriac hymn from around
the mid-sixth century, the marble of the Edessene cathedral resembles
an "image not made by hand." A. Dupont-Sommer, "Une hymne
syriaque sur la cathedrale d'Edessc," Cahiers archeologiques, 2
(1947):31.
54 Weitzmann, "The Mandylion," p. 167.
55 Ibid.
56 Dobschiitz, p. 169.
57 Today in Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, cod. gr. 1528.
58 Today in the Historical Museum, Moscow, cod. 382. See also
Weitzmann, "The Mandylion," pp. 171-2.
59 The abbreviated version of the legend was written about 1032, the year
when the original letter of fesus to Abgar was transferred to the
imperial collection of relics in Constantinople. The miniatures were
first published and discussed by Sirarpie Der Nersessian, "La Legende
d'Abgar d'apres un rouleau illustre de la bibliotheque Pierpont Morgan
a New York," Actes du IV Congres International des Etudes Byzan¬
tines, in Bulletin de I’lnstitut Archeologique Bulgare, 9 (1935; re¬
printed, Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1978),
pp. 98-106.
60 After Nersessian, "La Legende d'Abgar," p. 106, author's translation.
61 Sainte Face, pp. 16-17.
62 Ibid., pp. 24-5.

4 Women and Icons

1 Eusebius, "Letter to Constantia," after Mango, p. 18.

2 ludith Herrin, "Women and the Faith in Icons in Early Christianity,"
Culture, Ideology and Politics, ed. Raphael Samuel and Gareth
Stedman fones (London: Routledge tk Kegan Paul, 1982), pp. 68-9.
3 ludith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom (Princeton, Np Princeton
University Press, 1987), p. 309.
4 Caroline Walker Bynum, "'. . . And Woman His Humanity': Pemale
Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages," Gender
and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, ed. Caroline Walker

232
 Notes

Bynum, Stevan Harrell and Paula Richman (Boston: Beacon Press,

1986), p. 280.
5 Jose Grosdidier de Matons, "La Femme dans I'empire byzantm,"
Histoire mondiale de la femme, 4 vols. (Paris; Nouvelle Librairie de
France, 1967), 3:28-30.
6 Hefele, 2:186-90.
7 Theodore Lector, Hist, eccles. 1. 1 (ca.530) as excerpted by Nicephorus
Callistus Xanthopoulos, PG 86:165A, after Mango, p. 40. For the feasts
of Mary introduced in the sixth and seventh centuries see Martin Jugie,
La Mon et I’assomption de la Sainte Vierge (Rome: Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, 1944), passim.
9 Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks (2. 12 and 19), trans.
G. W. Butterworth, Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heinemann,
1919), pp. 33 and 45.
10 Eustratius Presbyter, Vita S. Eutychii, 53, Migne, PG 86: 2333ff., after
Mango, p. 133.
11 Grosdidier de Matons, "La Femme," p. 40. See also J. Herrin, "Women
and the Church m Byzantium," Bulletin of the British Association of
Orientalists, 11 (1980):8-14.
12 Grosdidier de Matons, "La Femme," p. 13. The Roman vestals were
punished by burial alive for their breach of the vow of chastity.
13 In the fourth century several aristocratic women devoted their fortunes
to the founding and directing of monasteries; Olympias, confidante of
John Chrysostom; Melania the Elder, monastic companion of Rufinus
of Aquileia; and Paula, the friend of Jerome. Olympias, for instance,
who was ordained a deaconess in the early 390s, contributed to the
Church of Constantinople "ten thousand pounds of gold, twenty
thousand of silver, all her real estate in Thrace, Galatia, Cappadocia
Prima, and Bithynia" {Vita Olimpiadis, 5) and several houses in the
capital and its suburbs. After Elizabeth A. Clark, "Authority and
Humility: A Conflict of Values in Fourth-Century Female Monasticism,"
Byzantinische Eorschungen, 9 (1985):20 and passim.
14 Herrin, "Women and the Faith in Icons," p. 72.
15 Eustratius, Vita S. Eutychii in Migne, PG 86:2325-8.
16 Turtura is shown on a fresco panel (528) in the Catacomb of St
Comodilla in Rome. See also Herrin, Eormation of Christendom,
p. 308.
17 Greek Anthology, 16. 62, see Mango, pp. 117-18.
18 On an ivory diptych (AD 480) of the consul Basile, for instance. Victory
displays the oval buckler of the consul. See Andre Grabar, L’lcon-
oclasme byzantin (Paris; Flammarion, 1984), p. 41.
19 Weitzmann, Icon, pp. 9-10.
20 A. Cameron, Continuity and Change in Sixth-Century Byzantium
(London: Variorum Reprints, 1981), pp. xvi, 97.

233
 Notes

21 The encaustic icon from St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai is

reproduced by Weitzmann, Icon, Color Plate 2.
22 Grabar, L’lconoclasine byzantin, p. 104, and Cameron, Continuity and
Change, pp. xvi, 97-101.
23 Nikodim P. Kondakov, The Russian Icon (Oxford: Clarendon Press;
1927), pp. 66-7 and 176. The Virgin with Christ as clipeus is known as
the Platytera (an allusion to her womb). In Italy the type was
reinvented m the eleventh century. A well-known example is a marble
relief in the church of Santa Maria Mater Domini m Venice.
Weitzmann, Icon, p. 24.
24 Antoine Wenger, L’Assomption de la T. S. Vierge dans la tradition
byzantine du VT au V siecle (Paris: Institut Franqais d'Etudes
Byzantines, 1955), pp. 111-39.
25 The text was published by Cameron, Continuity and Change, pp. xvii,
53-4.
26 Ibid., pp. xvii, 43-8.
27 There were two painters who went by the name Aristides, a
grandfather (ca.400-350 BC) and his grandson (ca.340-290 BC). But it is
unlikely that they invented the encaustic.
28 Gervase Mathew, Byzantine Aesthetics (London: fohn Murray, 1963),
p. 117.
29 Asterius of Amaseia, "Description of a Painting of the Martyrdom of St
Euphemia" (3-4), after Mango, pp. 38-9.
30 Vita S. Mariae iunioris, 18, after Mango, pp. 211-12.
31 The dates of Eulalios are not certain. Some believe that he lived in the
sixth, others that he flourished in the twelfth century. However, the
latter seems to be much more likely. "Nikephoros Kallistos Xanth-
opoulos," ed. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, BZ, 11 (1902):46f., no. 16,
after Mango, pp. 231-2.
32 Boccace du due Jean de Berry, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, MS fr. 598.
33 The manuscript illuminated by Herrade was kept in Strasbourg and
destroyed there in 1870, but it is known through copies.
34 The Theotokos image was mentioned in the Life of St Basil the
Younger (d. ca.952) written by his pupil Gregory. Dobschtitz, pp. 83 and
147*-148*.
35 Weitzmann, Icon. p. 97; Annemarie Wcyl Carr, "Women and Monast-
icism in Byzantium: Introduction from an Art Historian," Byzan¬
tin ische Forschungen, 9 (1985):2.
36 Epiphanius of Salamis, "Letter to the Emperor Theodosius," ed.
G. Ostrogorsky, Studien zur Geschichte des byzantinischen Bilderstreites
(Breslau: M. and H. Marcus, 1929), pp. 23-7, after Mango, p. 42.
37 Paulus Silcntiarius, Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae. This poem was recited
in 563, after the second consecration of the church on December 24,
562. After Mango, p. 89.

234
 Notes

38 In the collection of Museo Nazionale, Florence. Reproduced: Ostrogorsky,

Byzantine State, figure 17.
39 Asterius of Amaseia, Homilia I, Migne, PG 40:165-8, after Mango,
pp. 50-1. See also Pauline Johnstone, The Byzantine Tradition in
Church Embroidery (Chicago: Argonaut, 1967), p. 8.
40 Charles Diehl, Figures Byzantines (Paris: Librairie Armand Cohn,
1925) 1:115; E. A. Wallis Budge, Amulets and Superstitions (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1930), passim. The Metropolitan Museum in
New York possesses a sixth- or seventh-century hematite amulet with
Christ curing the Flemorrhissa, whose origin points to the Eastern
Roman Empire. See Age of Spirituality, Plate 398.
41 Klaus Parlasca, Mumienportrdts und verwandte Denkmaler (Wies¬
baden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1966), Plate D: 1, 2 and passim. See also
Josef Strzygowski, Orient oder Rom. Beitrage zur Geschichte der
spdtantiken und friihchristlichen Kunst (Leipzig: J. C. Fimrichs'sche
Buchhandlung, 1901).
42 Cleveland, Museum of Art. Weitzmann, Icon, Color Plate 4, p. 46.
43 For the original text of Arculf's description of the cloth which “sancta
Maria contexuit" see "Relatio de locis sanctis ah Adamnano scripta,"
in Itinera hierosolymitana et descriptiones terrae sanctae bellis sacris
anteriora, reprint of the 1879 edition (Osnabriick: Otto Zeller, 1966)
p. 156.
44 Diehl, Figures byzantines, 1:128.
45 Angeliki E. Laiou, "The Role of Women in Byzantine Society,"
Internationaler Byzantinistenkongress Akten, I/l (1981):243.
46 Ibid., p. 244.
47 Ibid.
48 Jean Darrouzes, Georges et Demetrios Tornikes. Fettres et Discours
(Paris: CNRS, 1970), p. 229, trans. by the author.
49 Diehl, Figures byzantines, 1:81.
50 Ibid., 1:136.Translation from French by the author.
51 Ibid., 1:137.
52 Ostrogorsky, Byzantine State, pp. 156-65.
53 Alfred Rambaud, F'Empire grec au dixieme siecle (Paris, 1870;
reprinted: Burt Franklin Research and Source Works Series, 42, New
York: Burt Franklin, n.d.), p. 58.
54 Byzantine typica for nunneries, the equivalent of the Latin ordinarii,
liturgic books regulating the order of every day, tell us about nuns
working and praying, but not writing or painting. Hippolyte Delehaye,
"Deux typica byzantins de I'epoque des Paleologues," Memoires de
I’Academie Royale de Belgique, ser. 2, vol. 13 (1921).
55 Use Rochow, Studien zu der Person, den Werken und dem Nachleben
der Dichterin Kassia (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1967), p. 31 and
passim.
56 J. Fierrin, "In Search of Byzantine Women: Three Avenues of

235
 Notes

Approach," Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. A. Cameron and

A. Kuhrt (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983), p. 180.
57 Herrin, The Formation of Christendom, p. 310.
58 Hefele, 3:397.
59 The Chronicle of Theophanes (September 1, 718-August 31, 719),
trans. Harry Turtledove (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1982). Further references are to this edition.
60 Vita Stephani, in Analecta graeca of the Maurists (1686), l:507ff.;
Hefele, 3:422.
61 Stephen Gero, "Byzantine Iconoclasm and the Failure of a Medieval
Reformation," The Image and the Word. Confrontations in Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, ed. Joseph Gutmann (Missoula, Mont.:
Scholars Press, 1977), p. 55.
62 Mango, p. 167. See also M. V. Anastos, "The Argument for Iconoclasm
as Presented by the Iconoclastic Gouncil of 754," Late Classical and
Mediaeval Studies in Honor of A. M. Friend, Jr., ed. K. Weitzmann
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955), pp. 177-88.
63 Hefele, 3:441-87.
64 Diehl, Figures byzantines, 1:81.
65 Herrin, Formation of Christendom, p. 411.
66 "Irene," Britannica, 14:792.
67 Hefele, 3:489.
68 Horos of the Iconoclastic Council of 815 preserved in fragments in a
treatise by the Patriarch Nicephoros known as Refutatio et eversio, ed.
P. J. Alexander, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 1 (1953):58ff., after Mango,
pp. 168-9.
69 Rambaud, Empire, p. 57; Diehl, Figures byzantines, 1:44-5.
70 Ostrogorsky, Byzantine State, p. 219.
71 Diehl, Figures byzantines, 1:143.
72 For the exact history of the Chalke image see Grabar, LTconoclasme
byzantin, pp. 150-63.
73 Diehl, Figures byzantines, 1:140-1.
74 Photius, "Homily XVll. Image of the Virgin," The Homilies of Photius,
Patriarch of Constantinople, English Translation, Introduction and
Gommentary by Cyril Mango (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1958), p. 291.
75 Cyril Mango, "Note on Homily XVII," ibid., p. 285.
76 Ibid., p. 290.
77 Adversus Constantinum Caballinum, Migne, PG 95:333D-336A, here
attributed to John of Damascus, after John R. Martin, "The Dead Christ
on the Cross in Byzantine Art," in Weitzmann, ed.. Late Classical and
Mediaeval Studies, p. 192. The Khludov Psalter is in the Historical
Museum, Moscow. See Weitzmann, Icon, Plate I, p. 9.

236
 Notes

5 From the Hemorrhissa to Berenice

1 W. B. Yeats, The Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1946)

p. 276.
2 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie, trans. Daniel Russell
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), p. 113.
3 On Jesus' attitude towards women see Ronald W. Graham, Women in
the Ministry of fesus and in the Early Church (Lexington, Ky.:
Lexington Theological Seminary, 1983); Ben Withermgton 111, Women
in the Ministry of Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
1984).
4 This was reported in the Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 118a. After
Raphael Loewe, The Position of Women in Judaism (London: SPCK,
1966), pp. 22-3.
5 Salome and Judas, pp. 189ff.
6 Dobschiitz, pp. 199-200.
7 On severed male heads see Salome and Judas, pp. 127-35 and passim.
8 Dobschiitz, p. 200.
9 Ibid., see also N. Kondakov, Geschichte und Denkmaler des byzantin-
ischen Emails (Frankfurt, 1892), p. Ill.
10 Dobschiitz quotes his Homily on p. 254*.
11 Dobschiitz, p. 199.
12 Such an interpretation is given by Andre Grabar, Christian Icono¬
graphy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), Plate 325.
The casket is in Brescia, Museo dell'Eta Cristiana.
13 Book of James, or Protevangelium, Apocryphal New Testament,
pp. 38-49. Further references are to this edition.
14 For the symbolism of blood as red thread and cloth see Eva Wunderlich,
Die Bedeutung der roten Farbe im Kultus der Griechen und Romer
(Giessen: A. Topelmann, 1925), passim.
15 Marina Warner, Monuments Maidens. The Allegory of the Female
Form (New York: Atheneum, 1985), p. 242.
16 "Salome" is a symbolic name, since it is associated with Herodias's
daughter who made John the Baptist "flow," as he was decapitated.
Salome and Judas, p. 223.
17 dementis Flomiliae 111, 73, Dobschiitz, pp. 251 *-252*.
18 Claude Gaignebet, "Veronique ou I'image vraie," Anagrom, 7 & 8
(1976):57.
19 Ps.-Ambrosius, Sermo XLVI de Salomone, Migne. PL 17:721.
20 The Gospel of Mary, in Nag Hammadi Library, p. 472.
21 St Cyril of Jerusalem, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1:97.
22 Gregory the Great, Horn. 33.1, Migne, PL 76:1238.
23 Marjorie M. Malvern, Venus in Sackcloth. The Magdalen’s Origins

237
 Notes

and Metamorphoses (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois

University Press, 1975), p. 27.
24 On Adonis as god of vegetation see Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vols 5 and 6 of
Golden Bough, and Salome and Judas, pp. 202-3.
25 Warner, Monuments &) Maidens, p. 257.
26 Apocryphal New Testament, p. 183.
27 Malvern, Venus in Sackcloth, pp. 55 and 69.
28 Gaignebet, "Veronique," pp. 63-4.
29 Worcester, Museum of Art. Reproduced in La Maddalena tra Sacro e
Profano, Exhibition Catalogue, Florence, Palazzo Pitti, May 24 through
7 September 1986 (Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1986), p. 32, Plate 3.
30 Eondon, British Museum.
31 Callimachus, Aetia, 110. 67-75, Aetia-lambi-Lyric Poems . . ., trans.
C. A. Trypanis, Eoeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1978), p. 85.
32 Catullus, “The Lock of Berenice," The Poems of Catullus, trans. F. W.
Cornish, m Catullus, Tibullus and Pervigilium Veneris, Loeh Classical
Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 131.
Further references are to this edition.
33 "Berenice," Britannica, 3:769.
34 Flavius Josephus, The Great Roman-fewish War: A.D. 66-70, trans.
William Whiston, revised D. S. Margoliouth (New York: Harper St
Brothers, 1960), p. 91.
35 "Queen Berenice showed equal spirit in helping Vespasian's party: she
had great youthful beauty, and commended herself to Vespasian for all
his years by the splendid gifts she made him." Tacitus, The Histories,
trans. Clifford H. Moore, Eoeb Classical Library, 5 vols (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 2:291. Tacitus also mentions
that Titus returned from Greece to Rome "because of his passionate
longing to see again Queen Berenice" (2.2, p. 163). Berenice is
mentioned by Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars, "Titus," 7, trans.
J. C. Rolfe, Eoeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1979), p. 329. Juvenal's Satire 6 mentions "a diamond
of great renown, made precious by the finger of Berenice. It was given as
a present long ago by the barbarian Agrippa to his incestuous sister".
Juvenal and Persius, trans. G. G. Ramsay, Eoeb Classical Library
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 95.
36 John Malalas, Chronograph!a, cd. Ludwig Dindorf (Bonn: Weher, 1831),
pp. 236-9.
37 See Dohschiitz, pp. 200 and 265*.
38 "Preface" to Doctrine of Addai, pp. vi and ix.
39 Andre Grabar observed that a Roman or Byzantine emperor was "like a
relic" functioning at once like a man and a god. Martyrium. Recherches
sur le cuke des reliques et Tart chretien antique, 2 vols (London:
Variorum Reprints, 1972) 1:13.

238
 Notes

40 Since the ninth century the principal center of Helena's cult has been
the abbey of Hautvilliers, near Reims. Therefore the invention legend
is often depicted in French art.
41 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1981), p. 91.
42 Alfred Maury, Cioyances et legendes de I’antiquite (Paris: Didier,
1863), pp. 341-2; Gaignebet, "Veronique," pp. 55-8.
43 Henry Longueville Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies of the First and
Second Centuries (London: John Murray, 1875), p. 188; see also C. W.
King, The Gnostics and their Remains (London: Bell and Daldy, 1864),
pp. 27-31.
44 Martin P. Nilsson, "Sophia-Prunikos," Eranos. Acta Philologica
Suecana, 45, 1-2 (1947): 169-72; Maury, Croyances, pp. 338-9;
Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies, p. 189.
45 Origenes, Contra Celsum, trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cam¬
bridge University Press, 1953), p. 350. Further references are to this
edition.
46 On Judas see Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, 2. 20. 2; on the Gnostic
Hemorrhissa ibid., 1. 3. 3 and 1.4. 1. On the general problems of Gnosis
see Wilhelm Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (Gottingen: Vanden-
hoeck and Ruprecht, 1907).
47 The Apocryphon of John (2.1.4-5), in Nag Hammadi Library, p. 101.
48 Trimorphic Protennoia, ibid., p. 470.
49 Eugnostos the Blessed and Sophia of Jesus Christ, ibid., pp. 218 and
222-4.
50 Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, 2. 10. 3.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid., 1. 30. 3-13.
53 Ibid., 1. 3. 3.
54 Bundahishn, ch. 4, after R. G. Zaehner, The Teachings of the Magi
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 45-6.
55 Ibid., pp. 47-8.
56 Female leakiness as a sign of badness has been studied by Marina
Warner, who points out that in Aeschylus's drama The Suppliant
Women (ca.470-460 BC) evil female unsoundness is personified by the
Danaids who kill their husbands on their wedding night and are
condemned to pour water into leaky vessels until the end of time.
Monuments &)Maidens, p. 245.

6 St Veronica

1 Matthaeus Paris, Historia Angliae, ed. W. Wats (1640), pp. 37-47: ad a.

1216, De veronica et eiusdem autenticatione. Dobschiitz, p. 297*.
2 Pearson, p. 2.

239
 Notes

3 "February," Biitannica, 10:231.

4 For instance in the St Gilles church in Valenciennes, in Bois-
Guillaumc near Rouen, or in Tournai. Claude Gaignebet, "Veronique
ou I'image vraie,” Anagrom, 7 & 8 (1976):63-5. Officially, the Catholic
Church celebrates St Fiacre on August 30. August 29 is the day of St
John the Baptist, whose decapitation is associated with the harvest. See
also "Candlemas," Britannica, 5:179. On the solarity of the Baptist see
Salome and Judas, pp. 199-212.
5 Giraldus Cambrensis, Speculum ecclesiae, chapter VI, in Opera, ed.
J. S. Brewer, 8 vols (London: Longman, 1861-91), 4:278.
6 Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, 3. 25, in Scriptores rerum
Brunsvicensium, vols 1 and 2, ed. G. Leibnitz (Hanover, 1707),
1:968.
7 Pearson, p. 15.
8 "Schweisstuch der Veronika," in Lexikon der Kunst, 5 vols (Leipzig:
Veb. E. A. Seemann Verlag, 1968-78), 4:422.
9 La Sainte Face, p. 15.
10 Volbach, Christian Art, p. 22.
11 The Acts are mentioned twice in Justin's First Apology, but there is a
strong suspicion that he just assumed the existence of such documents.
Fifty years later a letter from Pilate to Tiberius is mentioned in the
Apologeticus of Tcrtullian, who on the basis of its sympathetic tone
considers Pilate a Christian by conviction. Thus it is assumed that
Tcrtullian must have known an apocryphal Christian document which
went under Pilate's name. But this document was probably related not
to the Acts of the trial, but to the so-called Letter of Pilate.
F. Scheidweiler, NT Apocrypha, 1:444. Letter of Pilate, ibid., l:476ff.
12 NT Apocrypha, 1:444-5.
13 Ibid., 1:447. All further references are to Acts of Pilate in NT
Apocrypha.
14 The oldest extant version, a Vatican MS entitled Cura sanitatis Tiberii
Caesaris August! et Damnatio Pilati, dates probably from the eighth
century. It was published by J. D. Manso, Miscellanea Stephani Baluzii
(Lucca: 1764), 4:56. See Pearson, pp. 4-5; Apocryphal New Testament,
p. 158; and Dobschiitz, pp. 209ff.
15 For medieval versions of the Vindicta see La Vengeance de Nostre-
Seigneur, The Old and Middle French Prose Versions: The Version of
lapheth, ed. Alvin E. Ford (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 1984); and Kaiserchronik, Gedicht des zwolften Jahrhunderts,
ed. Hans F. Massman (Quedlmgburg: G. Basse, 1848), vol. 4, Part 1,
pp. 64ff., and Part 111, pp. 572ff.
16 Rcinhold von Rohricht, Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges (Innsbruck:
Wagner, 1901).
17 A summary of The Vengeance or Avenging of the Saviour, is given m

240
 Notes

Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 159-61

18 Ibid., p. 159.
19 La Vengeance de Nostre-Seigneur, pp. 29-35 and passim.
20 "Et quant ele fu garie, de la grant amor qu'ele out vers lui, si fist paindre
un ymage del semblant Jesu" (MS Bib. Nat. fr. 19525, thirteenth
century); or; "Et quant elle se vit guerie, pour I'amour de lui, elle print
s ymage a sa semblance et la maieste de Nostre Seigneurs endementiers
qu'il vivoit en une touaille" (MS Bib. Nat. fr. 413, end of fourteenth
century) after La Vengeance de Nostre-Seigneur, pp. 5-6.
21 La Passion du Seigneur," Golden Legend, 1:404.
22 Wilhelm Grimm, "Die Sage vom Ursprung der Christusbilder,"
Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philos.-histor. Klasse
(1842): 127-8, and Dobschiitz, p. 268*.
23 MS Bib. Nat. fr. 181 (fifteenth century); in Vengeance de Nostre-
Seigneur, p. 7.
24 It is the Cura published by Manso, Miscellanea. See also Charles
Wycliffe Goodwin, Introduction to The Anglo-Saxon Legends of St.
Andrew and St. Veronica, ed. for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society
by C. W. Goodwin (Cambridge: Deighton,- Macmillan, 1851), p. viii.
25 The ME Prose Translation of Roger d’Argenteuil’s Bible en Frangois,
ed. Phyllis Moe, from Cleveland Public Library MS Wq 091.92-C 468
(Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitiitsverlag, 1977). Further references
are to this edition.
26 The blood and sweat / across his face ran / Feronica pressed through
all the men / and swept his precious face," author's trans. MS cgm. 841,
Bayrische Staatsbibliothek, late medieval. After Karl-Ernst Geith, "Zu
emigen Fassungen der Veronika-Legende m der mittelhochdeutschen
Literatur," m Festgabe fur Friedrich Mauer (Diisseldorf: Padagogischer
Verlag Schwann, 1968), p. 284.
'll A typical example is the verses spoken by Veronica in a Donaueschingen
Passionsspiel (1450-1500); "O Jhesus liebster herre min, / muss ich
von dir gescheiden sm, / so bit ich dich doch umb ein gab, / da mit ich
din gedechtniss hab, / die bildung von diner angesicht, / das ich din
herre vergesse nicht" in Schauspiele des Mittelalters, ed. Franz Joseph
Mone, 2 vols (Karlsruhe: C. Macklot, 1846), 2:311.
28 In an English mystery play Jesus says to Veronica: "Remembyr me."
Ludus Coventriae. A Collection of Mysteries, Formerly Represented at
Coventry on the Feast of Corpus Christi, ed. James Orchard Halliwell,
printed for the Shakespeare Society (London, 1841), p. 318.
29 Mistere de la Passion, in Louis Paris, Toiles peintes et tapisseries de la
ville de Reims (Paris, 1848), No. 20, pp. 530-1.
30 Quoting St Bernard, Jacques de Voragine writes in "La Passion du
Seigneur" that the "lovely faee" of Jesus, which "angels liked to look
at," was dirtied with spit. Golden Legend, 1:393.

241
 Notes

31 Elisabeth Roth, Der volkieiche Kalvaiienbeig in Literatur und Kunst

des Spdtmittelalters (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1958), pp. 61ff.
32 Lugano, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.
33 Ghent, Musee des Beaux-Arts.
34 For the Baptist triptych see Salome and fudas, pp. 197-8.
35 Master of Flemalle, Holy Veronica, Frankfurt/Main, Stadelsches Kunst-
institut.
36 The altar comes from the Jerusalem Brotherhood Chapel, St Mary's
Church, Gdansk (Danzig).
37 Cariani, The Way to Calvary, Milan, Gallery of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.
38 One of the oldest and most important of the Italian "holy hills" is the
Sacro Monte (1486) at Varallo in Piedmont. There is also a beautiful
1530 fresco of Jesus (in red) climbing the Golgotha, and Veronica
(blond, in a yellow dress and a light-blue mantle), by Bartolomeo
Neroni in the Abbazia di Monte Ohveto Maggiore (Siena).
39 "The Travels of Bishop Arculf in the Holy Land," Early Travels in
Palestine, p. 2.
40 Pamela Sheingom, The Easter Sepulchre in England, Medieval Institute
Publications (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1987),
p. 9.
41 The same book also contains the first depiction of the dead Jesus on the
cross, which has been mentioned before. See Schiller, Iconography, 1,
Plate 643.
42 Schiller, Iconography, 2: 184-97.
43 The Flowing Light of the Godhead [Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit]
is the title of Mechthild of Magdeburg's revelations, loose notes
written in the mittelniederdeutsch dialect, which were edited and
made into a volume by the Dominican monk Heinrich von Halle.
Mechthild survived him, received the edited manuscript (six books),
and added a seventh book. The original was lost, but an Alemannic
translation by Heinrich von Nordhngen survived. The only German
version of Mechthild's "Revelations" is preserved m Switzerland, in
the Cod. 277 at the library of the Einsiedeln monastery. In 1869 the
mittelhochdeutsch text was published by its librarian: Offenbarungen
der Schwester Mechthild von Magdeburg oder Das Fliessende Licht
der Gottheit, ed. P. Gall Morel (Regensburg, 1869; reprinted, Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgcscllschaft, 1963). My translation of Mechthild's
verses is based on this edition as well as on a modern German
translation: Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das Fliessende Licht der
Gottheit, introduced by Margot Schmidt, with a study by Hans Urs von
Balthasar (Einsiedeln: Benzinger Verlag, 1956). My translations are
numbered after the 1956 edition.
44 "Blood," in Clinton Morrison, An Analytical Concordance to the
Revised Standard Version of the New Testament (Philadelphia: The

242
 Notes

Westminster Press, 1979), pp. 66-7.

45 William Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites
(New York: Macmillan, 1927), p. 230.
46 Jaroslav Pelikan, fesus through the Centuries (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1985), p. 83 and passim.
47 Theodoret, "Proof that the Divinity of the Saviour is Impassible" (15),
Demonstrations by Syllogisms, trans. Blomfield Jackson, in Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers, 3:249.
48 The beak of the white pelican is equipped with a sack where fish with
which he feeds his young are kept. As the bird feeds them, it presses the
sack against its neck in such a way that it looks as if it were opening its
breast with its bill. The pelican's breast plumage is tinted with red, and
so is his beak. This fostered the folkloric idea that the bird drew blood
from its body. Under the influence of the Physiologus, the pelican as
the symbol of the Savior was already familiar to St Augustine, and has
been widely used in literature (for instance, Dante, Paradiso, 25. 113)
and visual arts from the late Middle Ages to the baroque period. From
the Middle Ages the pelican was also used as a symbol of the Eucharist
and placed on altars, pyxes, chalices, tabernacle doors, and humeral
veils. See M. R. P. McGuire, "Pelican," New Catholic Encyclopedia
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 11:60.
49 "On the Pelican," Physiologus, trans. Michael J. Gurley (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1979), pp. 9-10. The date of the Physiologus
is much disputed. But it was probably compiled around AD 200. See
"Introduction," ibid., pp. xvii-xxi.
50 Garohne Walker Bynum, "'. . . And Woman His Humanity': Female
Imagery m the Religious Writings of the Later Middle Ages," Gender
and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, ed. C. W. Bynum et al.
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), p. 268 and passim.
51 Hildegard von Bingen, Heilkunde (Salzburg: Otto Muller Verlag, 1957),
pp. 176-82.
52 The same text. English trans. after Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the
Middle Ages (Gambridge: Gambridge University Press, 1984), p. 180.
53 Ibid., p. 181.
54 The manuscripts m which Marie's poems are preserved date from the
late thirteenth century. They were first published in 1819 by B. de
Roquefort.
55 She is possibly the woman referred to as Matelda m Dante's Purgatorio.
On Mechthild's symbolism of fluids see James G. Franklin, Mystical
Transformations. The Imagery of Liquids in the Work of Mechthild
von Magdeburg (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
1978).
56 Translation after Franklin, ibid., p. 131.
57 On medieval mysticism see Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western

243
 Notes

World, trans. Montgomery Belgion (New York: Pantheon, 1956); Mary

Anita Ewer, A Survey of Mystical Symbolism (London: SPCK,
1933); Life in the Middle Ages, seleeted, trans., and annotated by
G. G. Coulton, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967);
Emil Spiess, Ein Zeuge mittelalterlicher Mystik in der Schweiz (St
Gallen: C. Weder Rorschach, 1935); Conrad Bergendorff, "A Critic of
the Fourteenth Century. St. Brigitta of Sweden," Medieval and
Historiographical Essays in Honor of fames Westfall Thompson,
ed. fames Lea Cate and Eugene N. Anderson (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1938); Angela of Folignano, The Book of Divine
Consolation, trans. Mary G. Teegmann (London: Chatto and Windus,
1909); The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena.
Dictated by her while in a State of Ecstasy to her Secretaries, and
Completed in the Year of our Lord 1370, trans. Algar Thorold (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, 1896).
58 Mechthild's "soul is the stuff out of which God forms images which he
impresses into her." Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Mechthilds kirchlicher
Auftrag," in Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das Eliessende Licht der
Gottheit, p. 28, author's trans.
59 Mrs Jameson is the pen name of Anna Brownell Jameson (1794-1860).
60 Mrs Jameson, Legends of the Madonna as Represented in the Eine Arts
(London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), p. xlvii.
61 Julian of Norwich, The Revelations of Divine Love, trans. J. Walsh (St
Meinrad, Ind.: Abbey Press, 1975), pp. 166-7. Further references are to
this edition cited as Revelations.
62 Examples of solarity: Brescian Master, Veronica with Sweatcloth
(1408), fresco, Pinacoteca Cosio Martinengo, Brescia; Horae (Paris,
1514), Princeton University Library,- engraving by Claude Mellan,
1642, executed with one line starting at the tip of the Lord's nose,
Chicago Art Institute; anonymous German metalcut (ca. 1450-60),
Chicago Art Institute (solar Trinity). On the solar symbolism of John
the Baptist see Salome and fudas, pp. 189-207.
63 In the Horae (MS. lat. 1595), Chantilly, Musee Conde. For a solar icon
of the Baptist, see for instance Jan Mostaert (ca.1475-1555/6), Angels
Deplore the Death of Saint fohn the Baptist, National Gallery, London.
Reproduced in Salome and Judas, p. 249.
64 The most famous example of this theme is to be found on a series of
tapestries with the Lady and the Unicorn, made around 1500, in the
Musee de Cluny, Paris. Salome and fudas, pp. 142-6.
65 The tapestry was executed after a cartoon by Henncquin de Bruges and
is today m the Chateau d'Angers (Maine-et-Loire).
66 Strasbourg, Musee des Beaux-Arts. On the motif of the Vanity-Venus
with mirror and animals sec Salome and Judas, pp. 111-59.
67 The other Holy Races by Zurbaran are in Coll. Juan Pereira Gonzales,

244
 Notes

Madrid, cat. 554; Trafalgar Galleries, London, cat. 556; Coll. Angel
Aviles, Madrid, cat. 557; San Miguel Church, Jerez de la Frontera, cat.
559. They are all reprodueed in Julian Gallego and Jose Gudiol,
Zurbardn (Paris: Editions Cercle d'Art, 1987), figures 495-9, from
where the catalogue numbers are taken.
68 "Veroniques et les heros de I'arene" (no author named). Liberation
August 1, 1986, p. 13.
69 Salome and Judas, pp. 97-238.
70 In twentieth-century art the St Veronica and Holy Face themes were
taken up by Georges Rouault, Oscar Kokoschka, Paul Klee, and Otto
Dix. But their pictures do not enrich the veia icon iconography, nor do
they deal with its magic.

8 Mirrors

1 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask
(New York: Harcourt, Brace &. World, 1959), p. 193.
2 Sainte Face, p. 34.
3 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller, third edn, revised by
G. P. Goold, Loeb Classical Library 2 vols, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1977). Further references are to this edition.
4 Ludwig Preller, Griechische Mythologie, 2 vols (Leipzig: Weidmannsche
Buchhandlung, 1854), 1:131.
5 The Gorgons (plural of Gorgo or Gorgon] were three sisters of whom
one was called Medusa ("ruleress"). On the etymology of "Gorgo" see
Pauly-Wissowa. In contrast to her sisters, immortal and age¬
less, Medusa was considered mortal. See also "Athena," "Minerva,"
"Poseidon," and "Perseus" in Pauly-Wissowa.
6 For Hesiod's Theogony and To Athena, see Hesiod,' Homerica. Further
references are to this edition.
7 Preller, Griechische Mythologie, 1:55, 125, 131.
8 "Athena," Pauly-Wissowa, 1.T997.
9 On snakes and great goddesses see Mireea Eliade, Patterns in Com¬
parative Religion, trans. R. Sheed (New York: Meridian Books, 1974),
pp. 167-9; Gertrude Jobes, Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore and
Symbols (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1961), under "Snake;" Marija
Gimbutas, The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe. 7000 to 3500 BC.
Myths, Legends and Cult Images (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1974).
10 "Poseidon," Pauly-Wissowa. On the mythical identity of penis=fish=
god see Edmund Leach, "Fishing for Men on the Edge of the
Wilderness," Literary Guide to the Bible (see n. 21, below), pp. 579-99.

245
 Notes

11 Preller, Griechische Mythologie, 1; 126-33.

12 "Athena," Pauly-Wissowa, 1:1976.
13 Edwyn Bevan, Holy Images. An Inquiry into Idolatry and Image-
Worship in Ancient Paganism and in Christianity (London: George
Allen St Unwin, 1946), p. 25.
14 VxeUer, Griechische Mythologie, 1:131.
15 British Museum. It is reproduced in Carl Kerenyi, The Gods of the
Greeks (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1958), Plate Ib, opposite
p. 112.
16 Edwin Sidney Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, 3 vols (London: David
Nutt, 1894), 1:1-10.
17 Pindar, Pythian Ode 12, 7-8, The Odes, trans. John Sandys, Loeb
Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978),
p. 309.
18 Pierre Guiraud, Semiologie de la sexualite (Pans, Payot, 1978), p. 69.
19 Sigmund Freud, "Medusa's Head" (1922), The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works, ed. and trans. J. Strachey and A. Freud
(London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1966),
18:273; Salome and Judas, pp. 227-35. E. Kuryluk, "Mirrors and
Menstruation," Formations, 2 (1984):64-77.
20 Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8. 47. 5, trans. W. H. S. Jones, Loeb
Classical Library, 4 vols (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1979), 4:135.
21 John Drury, "Mark," The Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. R. Alter and
F. Kermode (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 1987), p. 402.
22 The plate comes from Lameira Larga, Portugal, and is reproduced by
G. F. Hartlaub, Zauber des Spiegels. Geschichte und Bedeutung des
Spiegels in der Kunst (Munich: R. Piper, 1951), Plate 190, p. 189.
23 A connection between Melusine and the Hemorrhissa has been pointed
out by Claude Gaignebet, "Veronique ou I'image vraie," Anagrom, 7
& 8 (1976):55-60. A Melusmc with a mirror has been attributed to
Hieronymus Bosch (Douai, Museum); a bronze relief of a Melusine
with a mirror (in which a ghost appears) by Peter Vischer the Younger
can be seen in the Sebaldtis church, Nuremberg. Both are reproduced by
Hartlaub, Zauber des Spiegels, Plates 164, 165.
24 "The Book of Sir lohn Maundeville," Early Travels in Palestine, ed.
Thomas Wright (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1848), pp. 138-9.
25 Ibid., p. 139.
26 Ibid.
27 1 am indebted for this information to Deniz Scnegcl.
28 Aristotle, "On Dreams," 2. 459-60, m On the Soul, Parva Naturalia,
On Breath, trans. W. S. Hett, Loch Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 357-9.
29 Aristotle was first married to Pythias, the nieee of his friend Hermias,

246
 Notes

the tyrant of Atarnea, and after her death to Herpylhs.

30 Golden Bough, vol. 3, Part II, pp. 26-100.
31 For the Aztecs the stabbing of a man's reflection equalled his destruc¬
tion; so in order to keep sorcerers out of their homes, they would set up
an imapnary trap for them by leaving behind the door a vessel of water
with a knife m it. When a sorcerer entered he would see the device, fear
that his reflection would be wounded, and flee. Frazer, Golden Boush
vol. 3, Part II, p. 93. '
32 Edgar Morin, L’Homme et la mon (Paris: Seuil, 1970), p. 135.
33 Jean Piaget, The Child’s Conception of Physical Causality, trans
M. Gabain (London: Kegan Paul, 1930), pp. 180-1.
34 Ibid., p. 187.
35 Ibid., p. 189.
36 Ibid., p. 187.
37 Ibid., p. 194.
38 Acta Thaddaei in Acta apostolorum apocrypha, ed. R. A. Lipsius, 3
vols (1891; reprinted, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung,
1959), liZ/S—8.
39 Rene Dollot, L’Afghanistan (Pans: Payot, 1937), p. 232.
40 FFerbert Grabes, Speculum, Mirror und Looking-Glass. Kontinuitat
und Originalitat der Spiegelmetapher in den Buchtiteln des Mittelalters
und der englischen Literatur des 13. bis 17. fahrhunderts (Tiibmgen:
Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1973).
41 Flinders Petrie, Objects of Daily Use (London: British School of
Archaeology in Egypt, 1927); William C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt,
2 vols (New York: Harper, 1953); Benjamin Goldberg, The Mirror and
Man (Gharlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985), pp. 26-31.
42 Adolf Erman, Die agyptische Religion (Berlin: Georg Reimer 1905)
pp. 154-5.
43 Ibid., p. 11.
44 H. O. Lange, "Die Aegypter," in Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte,
founded by P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, 4th edn, 2 vols (Tiibmgen-
J. G. B. Mohr, 1925), 1:480-1.
45 The Egyptian sun-theology was developed out of Heliopolis, and as it
came to dominate the whole country many local gods were either
coalesced with Re or transformed into sun divinities. The most
common fusion resulted in the creation of the doublet Re-Horus. As a
god of sky Horus was pictured as an enormous face m which the sun
was his right, the moon his left eye; as a sun-god he was regarded as the
son or soul of Re and symbolized by a falcon or a winged solar disk. The
sun was also worshipped under the name of Aton (sun disk) and
depicted as a circle with rays ending m hands. Erman, Die agyptische
Religion, pp. 6-7, 29-31, 65-7.
46 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 372, Moralia, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, Loeb
Classical Library, 15 vols (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

247
 Notes

1962), 5:129. Further references are to this edition.

47 P. Singh, Burial Practices in Ancient India (Varanasi, India: Prithivi
Prakashan, 1970), p. 36.
48 Benoytosh Bhattacharyya, The Indian Buddhist Iconography (Calcutta:
K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1958), p. 115.
49 Goldherg, Mirror and Man, p. 35.
50 At the close of the fourth century BC the features of plane, concave,
and convex mirrors were described in the Mo Ching, the canon book of
the Mohist philosophy. For excerpts from it see foseph Needham,
Science and Civilization in China, 4 vols m 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1954-71), 4:81-6.
51 Friedrich Fdirth, “Chinese Metallic Mirrors," Boas Anniversary Volume,
Anthropological Papers (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1906), pp. 208-56;
FFartlaub, Zauber des Spiegels, Plates 17 and 18.
52 Goldberg, Mirror and Man, pp. 40ff.
53 Michel Soymie, "La lune dans les religions chinoises," La Lune.
Mythes et rites. Sources orientales (Paris: Seuil, 1962), pp. 298-9.
54 Goldberg, Mirror and Man, p. 47.
55 Li T'ai-Po (AD 701-62), “Written in the Gharacter of a Beautiful
Woman Grieving before her Mirror," in Fir-Flower Tablets, trans.
Llorence Ayscough, English versions by Amy Lowell (Boston: FFoughton
Mifflin, 1926), pp. 14—15.
56 Ibid.
57 Fiirth, "Ghinese Metallic Mirrors," p. 232.
58 Gaston Bachelard, La psychoanalyse du feu (Paris: Gallimard, 1989),
pp. 50-1.
59 The observation of the lunar cycle, water, mirror, cloth, and mirror
cleaning were involved m ancient Chinese rituals commemorating the
first bath of Buddha, which supposedly took place on the fifteenth day
of the ninth month. On this day the fourth-century Chinese Buddhists
performed a ceremonial bathing of Buddha's images, a custom which
seems to survive until today m the rituals of the Tibetan Buddhists,
which involve images of a Buddhist deity, mirrors, flasks filled with
water, small basins and pieces of cloth. The image faces the mirror, the
basin and flask are placed between them, and at certain intervals a
priest pours water from the flask into the basin, “holding the flask so
that the emanations imagined as flowing from the image pass through
the water to the mirror, from which they are reflected back to the flask.
Then the lama dabs the mirror in four places with the piece of cloth."
Goldberg, Mirror and Man, p. 63.
60 Ibid., pp. 54-5.
61 Doris M. Roger, "The Divine Mirror of fapan," Asia, 36 (1936):651.
62 The Kojiki and the Nihongi complement and elucidate each other and
thus should be read together. Occasionally a Nihongi version may be

248
 Notes

the older one. Donald L. Philippi, "Translator's Introduction," to

Kojiki (Princeton, Np Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 15-18.
63 Kojiki, 1. 16. 7-8, p. 80.
64 See translator's note 9 on p. 80 of Kojiki and compare to Nihongi, trans.
W. G. Aston (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1972), p. 41.
65 Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, pp. 101-2.
66 Kojiki, 1. 17. 17-18, p. 84.
67 Ibrd., 1. 17. 22, p. 85.
68 When the court was in Kyoto a new shrine for the mirror and sword
was huilt there. But the tenth emperor worried about the safety of the
relics and erected for them a special new sanctuary at Kasanui in
Yamato. The 11th emperor moved the treasures to Ise, and the 12th
emperor finally separated the two relics, building a shrine for the sword
at Atsuta in Owari, and leaving the mirror in Ise, where it remains to
this day - enclosed m the shrine and hidden away from view. The Ise
mirror is supposedly wrapped m a brocade bag, or rather in the
remnants of many bags, since when one begins to disintegrate, another
is put over it, so that the package does not have to be opened; and it is
further protected by a wooden cage ornamented with pure gold and
covered with a large silk cloth falling all the way to the floor. The
invisible relic is represented by a visible double: a round mirror
standing in front of the altar in a wooden frame carved with images of
clouds and water, symbols of flux and purity. David Murray, fapan
(New York: Putnam's, 1894), p. 308.
69 Roger, "Divine Mirror," p. 657.
70 Goldberg, Mirror and Man, p. 76.
71 Ibid.
72 Roger, "Divine Mirror," p. 652.
73 Gisela M. A. Richter, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes (New York:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1915), pp. 252-90.
74 Eduard Gerhard, ed., Etruskische Spiegel, 5 vols. (Berlin: G. Reimer,
1843-97).
75 Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones, 1. 16. 1-5, trans. Thomas H. Corcoran,
Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heinemann, 1971-2), 7:87.
76 Norbert Hugede, La MNaphore du iniroir dans les Epitres de saint Paul
aux Corinthiens (Neuchatel and Paris: Delachaux and Niestle, 1957),
passim. Grabes, Speculum, Mirror und Looking-Glass, passim.
77 Plotinus, The Six Enneads, trans. Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page
(Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952). Further references are to
this edition.
78 The Visitation, attributed to Master Heinrich of Constance, ca.l310,
wood, polychromed and gilt, set with cabochons, from the Dominican
nunnery, Katharinental, near Diessenhofen, Switzerland. New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.

249
 Notes

79 Lucian, trans. A. M. Harmon, Locb Classical Library, 8 vols (Cambridge,

Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1979), 1:281. Further references are to
this edition.
80 The nimhus, for instance, corresponded to the solar crowns of the
Roman emperors, the radiis corona, in which Nero is often shown on
coins. Theodor Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht, reprint of the third
edition (Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1952), 1:426-7.
81 Hugo Rahner, Griechische Mythen in Christlicher Deutung (Zurich:
Rhein-Verlag, 1945), pp. 174-5. See also Franz Cumont, Textes et
monuments figures relatifs aux mysteres de Mithra, 2 vols (Brussels:
H. Lamertm, 1896), 1:355-6.
82 Rahner, Griechische Mythen, pp. 150-1.
83 Ibid., p. 126.
84 NT Apocrypha, 1:495.

9 Cloth

1 "Cloth," Britannica, 6:557.

2 Herman Melville, Mardi (Boston: St Botolph Society, 1923), p. 130.
3 Charles F. Herberger, The Thread of Ariadne: The Labyrinth of the
Calendar of Minos (New York: Philosophical Library, 1972).
4 Alexander Pope, The Odyssey of Homer, ed. M. Mack (London:
Methuen; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967). In early Christian
times the passage attracted the attention of Porphyrins (AD 233-
ca.304) who popularized the weaving nymphs by writing an extensive
commentary on their Cave. Porphyrins, De antro nympharum, trans.
Seminar Classics, No. 609 (Buffalo: State University of New York at
Buffalo, 1969).
5 "Mnemosyne," Pauly-Wissowa, 15:2265-9; Ludwig Preller, Griechische
Mythologie, 2 vols (Leipzig: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1854),
1:40, 278-89.
6 In Hesiod, Homerica.
7 Pausanias, Description of Greece, trans. W. H. S. lones, Loeb Classical
Library, 4 vols (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 4.
351. All references are to this edn. See also Pliny, NH 31. 11.
8 Pauly-Wissowa, 15:2268.
9 Oscar Bie, Die Musen in der antiken Kunst (Berlin; Weidmannsche
Buchhandlung, 1887), p. 102. See also H. L^iitschke, "Das Musenrehef
Chigi der Villa Cetmale bei Siena," fahrbuch des Kaiserlich Deutschen
Archaologischen Instituts, 27 (1912); 129-45.
10 Bie, Musen, p. 84.
11 This contrast is heautifully displayed m a relief based, perhaps, on a

250
 Notes

work by Praxiteles. It presents poets, loosely dressed or half-naked,

in the company of veiled women - Mnemosyne and the Muses. Chigi
Collection, Villa Cetinale, Siena. The drawing of the relief is repro¬
duced in Salomon Reinach, Repertoire de reliefs grecs et romains,
3 vols (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1912), 3:419.
12 Paris, Louvre, reproduced by Reinach, ihid., 2:249.
13 Drawings of statues showing Mnemosyne and the Muses can be
studied in Salomon Reinach, Repertoire de la statuaire grecque et
romaine, 3 vols (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1897-8), 1:167, 256-68.
14 The Book of Adam and Eve, trans. S. C. Malan (1882), in The Forgotten
Books of Eden, ed. R. H. Platt (Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co.,
1927; reprinted. New York: Bell Publishing Co., 1981). Further
references are to this edition. See also Kuryluk, "The World of Adam
and Eve," Formations, 1 (1987):70.
15 H. L. Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Centuries
(London: John Murray, 1875), p. 191.
16 Commentary on Gen. 4:2 in The Soncino Chumash, ed. A. Cohen
(London: Soncino Press, 1985), p. 17.
17 Ibid., p. 18. Quoted after the Hebrew Bible in order to stress the
femininity of the ground.
18 Commentary on Gen. 4:15, ibid., p. 19.
19 Gommentary on Gen. 4:15, Revised Standard Version of the Bible, p. 6.
20 See "cloth," "clothing," "garment," "dress," "robe," etc. in Robert
Young, Analytical Concordance to the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Wm. B. Eerdmanns, 1970).
21 Antoninus Martyr (ca.570), "Perambulatio locorum sanctorum," 44, in
Itinera Hierosolymitana et descriptiones terrae sanctae bellis sacris
anteriora (Osnabrtick: Otto Zeller, 1966), p. 116. In the Egyptian
evangels of Jesus' childhood, swaddling cloths play an important role
and work various miracles. Dobschiitz (pp. 61-2) suggests that the
appearance of the Memphis acheiropoietos might have been additionally
inspired by these apocryphal gospels. Swaddling cloths become
important relics and turn up in Byzantine collections.
22 The gospels specify three kinds: the "linen cloth" [othonion, Lk. 24:12,
Jn. 20:5); the "fine cloth," "linen" [sindon, Mk. 14:51-2); and the
"napkin" or "towel" [soudarion, Jn. 11:44) in which the face was
wrapped.
23 Adolf Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, 3 vols (Tubingen: J. G. B. Mohr,
1905), 3:219-22.
24 John Gwynn, "Ephraim the Syrian," Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
13:120-52.
25 For Ephraim's Fife see ibid., pp. 121-37.
26 Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex (New York: Vintage Books, 1983),
pp. 326-7.

251
 Notes

27 Both sarcophagi are at the Vatican Grottoes of St Peter's; one of them is

the Junius Bassus sarcophagus.
28 Andre Grabar, Christian Iconography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni¬
versity Press, 1968), p. 43, Plate 111.
29 Jaroslav Pelikan, fesus through the Centuries (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1985), p. 59.
30 NT Apocrypha, 2:470.
31 The tradition was influenced by a literal interpretation of Paul's words
proclaiming the unity of Ghrist and Ghurch: "Because there is one
bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one
bread" (1 Cor. 10:17).
32 Detailed information is provided by Jeffrey Francis Hamburger, "The
Rothschild Canticles (Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, MS 404): Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the
Rhineland ca.l300," unpublished dissertation, Yale, 1987.1 am obliged
to Elizabeth H. Dailinger whose kindness made it possible for me to
read this excellent piece of scholarship.
33 Ibid., pp. 509-10 and passim.
34 Select Visions of S. Mechthild Taken from the Five Books of her
Spiritual Grace (London, 1875), Part V, section 12.
35 St Tierry, Migne, PL 184:156A.
36 Migne, PL 176:1217A.
37 I am most grateful to Janet Knapp who brought this text to my
attention and translated it for me. The song originated in clerical
circles, possibly in Notre Dame in Paris, and was sung in church. Here
are the first 15 lines of the original poem: "Novum sibi texuit /
dominus lumbare, / volens quod computruit / in hoc compensare, /
sterilis letare, / nam tot Christo paries / ut ludeum supplantare / tuus
possit paries. / Prius tactu fimbrie / menstrua curatur, / Yairi quam filie
/ sanitas reddatur. / Per acum intratur camels gentilium, / nec Helyas
aspernatur / vidue tugurium." The manuscript sources for the song are:
Biblioteca Laurenziana, Plauteus 29.1, fo. 306; Wolfenbuttel, Herzog-
August-Bibliothek, 628, fo.l63; St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 383, p. 165.
38 There exist several versions of the Madonna. The most macabre, with
an aborted embryo and sperm, is an 1895 lithograph.
39 Hamburger, "Rothschild Canticles", p. 481.
40 Ibid., p. 133.
41 The Revelations of Saint Birgitta, ed. William Patterson Gumming
from the fifteenth-century MS in the Garret Collection, Princeton
University Library (London: Humphrey Milford, 1929), p. 17.
42 Gregory of Tours, De gloria martyrum, chapter 8, in Les livres
des miracles et autres opuscules (Latin and French), ed. and trans.
H. L. Bordier (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1857), p. 26.
43 "The Book of Sir John Maundeville," Early Travels in Palestine,
ed. Thomas Wright (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1848), p. 131.

252
 Notes
44 In the crucifixion miniature in the Rabbula Gospels, 586, Zagba,
Mesopotamia, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence; Crucifixion wall
painting, mid-eighth century, remains of the fresco decoration in the
chapel of Theodotus, Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome. Eleventh-, twelfth-
and thirteenth-century Italian, Spanish, French, and German wooden
crucifixes also show him dressed, for instance the Volto Santo from
Lucca, an early thirteenth-century copy of the late eleventh-century
wood carving. Schiller, Iconography, 2, Plates 327, 328 and 471.
45 Probably the central panel of a small altar of which the wings are in
Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum. The central panel is in the National
Gallery, London. See Schiller, Iconography, 2, Plate 316.
46 After Anthony Butkovitch, Iconography. St. Brigitta of Sweden (Los
Angeles: Ecumenical Foundation of America, 1969), pp. 49-50.
47 Buxtehude Altar, style of Master Bertram, right side wing, bottom,
Hamburg, Kunsthalle. Schiller, Iconography, 2, p. 196 and Plate
680.
48 The Virgin and Child in the Chamber, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
49 Eger, (Hungary). Dobo Istvan Museum.
50 The Emperor Maximilian's Book of Hours containing psalms, prayers,
hymns, and excerpts from the Bible, was illustrated by the greatest
German artists of the period: Albrecht Diirer, Hans Baldung Grien,
Hans Burgmair the Elder, }6rg Breu, and others. Complete facsimile
edition: The Book of Hours of the Emperor Maximilian, ed. Walter L.
Strauss (Pleasantville, NY: Abaris Books, 1974). Diirer's sudarium is on
p. 111.
51 Cleveland Museum of Art.
52 Dorothy C. Shorr, The Christ Child in Devotional Images in Italy
during the XIV Century (New York: George Wittenborn, 1954),
pp. 153-60.
53 Part of the fresco cycle in Padua.
54 Fra Angelico, wall painting in Cell 7, Convent of San Marco, Florence.
55 Pamela Sheingorn, The Easter Sepulchre in England (Kalamazoo,
Mich.: Western Michigan University, 1987), p. 56.
56 The painting is today in the Accademia in Florence.
57 Leonardo da Vinci, "Studies of Drapery," at the Louvre, December 8,
1989 through February 26, 1990.
58 Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, trans. George Bull, 2 vols
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), 2:256.

10 Skin

1 "La circoncision du Seigneur," in Golden Legend, 1:138-9.

2 Caroline Walker Bynum, "'. . . And Woman His Humanity': Female

253
 Notes

Imagery in the Religious Writings of the Later Middle Ages," Gender

and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, ed. C. W. Bynum et al,
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), p. 275.
3 "L'Assomption de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie," m Golden Legend,
2:455, trans. by the author.
4 Bencdictus, basilicac Petri canonicus. Liber pollicitus ad Guidonem de
Gastello (Celestine II, 1143-4), after Dobschiitz, p. 283*.
5 La Vengeance de Nostre-Seigneur, ed. Alvin E. Ford (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), p. 8. "Plame" is the old spelling.
6 In Kaiserchronik, ed. H. F. Massman (Quedlingburg: G. Basse, 1854),
vol. 3, pp. 579-80.
7 C. Gaignebct, "Veronique ou I'image vrait,'' Anagrom 7 & 8 (1976): 63.
8 fean-Baptiste Thiers, Trade des superstitions qui regardent les sacre-
ments (Amsterdam: J. F. Bernard, 1733), p. 91.
9 Marcel Schwob, Le Roi au masque d’or (Paris: Gres, 1917), p. 13.
10 English translation after Jean Pierrot, The Decadent Imagination
(Ghicago: University of Ghicago Press, 1981), p. 210.
11 In Latin: pannum, panniculum, linteum, lint{h)eolum, sudarium-, in
German tu[e]ch, duch, diichlein, sleier, blencket-, in French: quevrechief,
cuvrechief, crevichie, linge, drap. For medieval texts see Pearson,
pp. 17-39 and passim, Grabes, Speculum, Mirror und Looking-Glass.
Kontinuitat und Originalitat der Spiegelmetapher in den Buchtiteln
des Mittelalters und der englischen Literatur des 13. bis 17. Jahr-
hunderts (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1973), passim.
12 She is also called Vironice, Vironica, Fronica, Verona, Verrone, Verone,
Verrine, Veroine, Veronilla, Venisse, Marie la venissiene, etc., while
her cloth is referred to as verronnicle, vernacle, vernakyll, warnacoll,
vernacul, vernacule, etc. Pearson, p. 50 and passim.
13 Still in the eighteenth century a Maltese chevalier wore on the left
sleeve of his cloak two embroidered passion scenes: above, the kiss of
fudas; below, the vernicle. Portrait d'un Chevalier de Make de
la famille de Fay-la-Tour Maubourg, eighteenth century, Musee
Gadagne, Lyon. For other examples of vernicles worn on clothes see
Pearson, p. 43.
14 Giovanni Gapassim was born in Italy but worked m France, where he
was known as Jean Gapassin (d. 1579). The triptych was commissioned
by Cardinal Franqois le Tournon for the chapel of a college founded by
him in 1537. The central part, signed and dated 1555, is still in
Tournon, in the chapel of the Lycee Gabriel Faure.
15 Book of the Dead, trans. E. A. Wallis Budge, 2nd edn, 3 vols (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trtibner, 1909), vol. 3, chapter 166, p. 545.
16 Claude Levi-Strauss, The Origin of Table Manners, trans. J. and
D. Weightman (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), pp. 349 and 399.
17 Salome and fudas, pp. 227-38.

254
 Notes

18 For examples of phallus-heads see Eros grec. Amour des dieux et des
hommes, catalogue of the exhibition organized by the Greek Ministry
of Culture at the Grand Palais, Paris, November 6, 1989 through
February 5, 1990 (Athens; Ministry of Culture, 1989), pp. 146-53.
19 Sainte Face, p. 34.
20 Ibid.
21 Hilde Zaloscer, Portraits aus dem Wiistensand (Vienna: Anton Schroll,
1961), p. 33, trans. by the author.
22 Ibid., pp. 33-4.
23 Otto Benndorf, "Antike Gesichtshelme and Sepulcralmasken," Denk-
schriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philo-
sophisch-Fiistorische Classe, Vienna, 28 (1878):371.
24 Ibid., pp. 310-13.
25 FF. Zaloscer, "The Mummy-Portrait; An Interpretation," Apollo, 79
(1964): 102.
26 Ibid.
17 Nihongi, trans. W. G. Aston (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Company,
1982), p. 41.
28 Typically: "Wie is dein clar antlit verblichen, / verspiben, sem farb
entwichen!" in Augsburger Passionspiel, fifteenth century, after
Pearson, p. 19.
29 Julian of Norwich, Revelations, p. 63.
30 Ibid., pp. 63-4.
31 For details on representations of Saint Bartholomew's skin see Leo
Steinberg, "The Line of Fate in Michelangelo's Painting," in The
Language of Images, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1980), p. 121, n. 14.
32 On anatomical theaters see Salome and fudas, pp. 28-9.
33 For examples of the Arma Christ! and Heart iconography see Schiller,
Iconography, 2, Plates 668-76.
34 The face was not identified as Michelangelo's self-portrait until 1925,
although It seems to have been a well-known secret in his day.
Steinberg suggests that it had become a taboo subject because of the
association with Protestantism. "The Line of Fate," p. 109 and passim.
35 Ibid., p. 109.
36 Ludwig Preller, Griechische Mythologie, 1 vols (Leipzig; Weidmannsche
Buchhandlung, 1854), 1:147, 175, 406, 408, 456, 462. Robert Graves,
The Greek Myths (FFarmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1960), 1:81.
37 "Marsyas," Pauly-Wissowa, 14:1994.
38 Exceptionally not after the Loeb edition but after Ovid, The Meta¬
morphoses, trans. Mary M. Innes (Fiarmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1955), p. 145.
39 Marsyas Bound to the Tree is a Roman replica of a Greek original in the
style of the Pergamon School at the end of the third or the beginning of

255
 Notes

the second century BC. Louvre, MQ 542. 9880218 AGR.

40 See, for instance, the young and titanic Apollo Tortor in Galleria
Giustiniana, Rome, drawing in Reinach, Repertoire de la statuaire
grecque et romaine, 3 vols (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1897), 1:285. Other
Marsyas representations m ibid. pp. 22, 249, 418, 423.
41 Pauly-Wissowa, 14:1987-91.
42 "Marsyas," and "Greek Art," Britannica, 17:784 and 12:480ff., figure 54.
43 Emanuel Winternitz, "The Gurse of Pallas Athena. Notes on a 'Gontest
between Apollo and Marsyas' in the Kress Collection," Studies in the
History of Art. Dedicated to William E. Suida on his Eightieth
Birthday (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1959), p. 186.
44 Washington, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection,
1939, No. 443. This is a new attribution, different from the one given
by Winternitz.
45 Michelangelo, Sonnet 10, in Complete Poems and Selected Letters,
trans. Creighton Gilbert (New York: The Modern Library, 1965), p. 8.
Further references are to this edition.
46 Sonnet 237, ibid., p. 133.
47 Octave Stanzas 10, (1531-2), ibid., p. 35.
48 Sonnet 291, ibid., p. 163.
49 Ibid.
50 The Exegesis on the Soul, trans. W. C. Robinson, fr., in Nag Hammadi
Library, pp. 180 and 183.
51 See the first translation of the Hortulus animae into German, entitled
Hortulus anime (Strassburg: Griininger, 1501), 11. 1-2 and passim.
52 The MS in the Cambridge University Library appears under the title
Nathanis fudei Legatio. It was published in The Anglo-Saxon Legends
of St. Andrew and St. Veronica, ed. for the Cambridge Antiquarian
Society by C. W. Goodwin (Cambridge: Deighton,- Macmillan, 1851).
53 John Amos Comenius, The Orbis Pictus (Syracuse, NY: C. W. Bardeen,
1887), p. 54.
54 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, vol. 3, Part 11 of Golden Bough,
pp. 26ff.
55 Ibid., p. 27.
56 Ibid., p. 28.
57 Ibid., pp. 28-9. Frazer refers to G. Maspcro, Etudes de mythologie et
d’archeologie egyptiennes (Paris, 1893), l:388ff. and to A. Wiedemann,
The Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul
(London, 1895), pp. lOff.
58 Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. 3, Part 11, p. 29, n. 1. See also "Iconography
of the Soul," in Adolphe Napoleon Didron, Christian Iconography,
trans. Margaret Stokes, 2 vols (London: George Bell, 1886), 2:173ff.
59 "Hadrian," Britannica, 12:802.
60 St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. by the

256
 Notes
English Dominican Fathers from the latest Leonine edition (London:
Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1923), p. 255.
61 Nag Hammadi Library, p. 183. In the Golden Legend Mary's soul is
assumed into heaven not naked, but wearing a girdle. "L'Assomption
de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie," 2:424.
62 G. Bornkamm, "The Acts of Thomas," NT Apocrypha, 2:425-42;
F. Crawford Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (London: fohn
Murray, 1904), pp. 193-228.
63 Bornkamm, "Acts of Thomas," NT Apocrypha, 2:435.
64 One finds, perhaps, a distant echo of the Gnostic pearl metaphor in the
account of John of Ephesus, a sixth-century leader of the Monophysite
Syriac-speaking Church. He reports that the Empress Sophia called
"pearls" the pieces of bread consumed during the communion. John
Bishop of Ephesus, The Third Part of the Ecclesiastical History, 11. 10,
trans. R. Payne Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1860), p. 105.
65 NT Apocrypha, 2:499. Further references are to this edition.
66 Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, p. 215.
67 Salome and fudas, pp. 260-5.
68 The romances of the Holy Grail go back to the late twelfth century and
form part of the Round Table cycle. The story often takes off from the
Last Supper and focuses on Simon the leper, the anointment (attributed
to Mary Magdalen), Christ's washing of his pupils' feet, the kiss, etc.
See Le Saint-Graal ou le Joseph dArimathie, ed. E. Hucher, 3 vols
(LeMans, 1875; reprinted, Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1967), pp. 167-8.
For general information consult the preface. Around 1250 the monk
Alberich reports that at the siege of Antioch m 1098 the holy spear was
found together with a tin vessel which contained Jesus' shroud (he does
not specify if it was blank or impressed with the Lord's likeness). See
Pearson, pp. 72-3.
69 Didier Anzieu, Le Moi-peau (Paris: Bordas, 1985); in English: trans.
Chris Turner, The Skin Ego (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989),
pp. 141-4.
70 Anzieu, The Skin Ego, p. 9.

Epilogue

1 J. W. von Goethe, Faust. Part Two, Act III, trans. Philip Wayne
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975), pp. 209-10.
2 Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical
Beasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 40.

257
 Index

Aaron, 18, 20, 22, 54 Abraham, 19, 27

Abdus, son of Abdus (in Eusebius's Abraham, Bishop of Samosata, 57
Church History), 39 Achamoth, Mother (Gnostic
Abel, 184 deity), 107, 110-11
Abelard, Pierre, 134 acheiropoietos (i), 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9,
Abgar, the Black see Abgar, the 10, 28-33, 42, 46, 47, 55, 56, 57,
legendary king of Edessa 58, 61, 62, 63, 64, 70, 71, 75, 77,
Abgar, the legendary king of 82, 115, 118, 143, 144, 145, 148,
Edessa (in Eusebius's Church 149, 150, 187, 189, 190, 208, 209,
History and Doctrine of Addai] 213, 214, 218, 219, 224; see also
X, 4, 38—9, 40—4, 56, 58, 60, 61, vera icon
62-4, 90, 94, 116, 121, 144, 165, Acts of Pilate, 5, 116-19, see also
201, 203, 214, 216 Pilate
Abgar, the name of several Acts of Thomas, 190, 216; see also
Edessene kings, 43 Thomas
Abgar V, the Black, 44 Adam (first man), 19, 22, 110, 177,
Abgar Vll, King of Edessa, 43 183-4, 186, 188, 198, 216
Abgar IX, bar Ma'nu, King of Addacus see Addai
Edessa, 44 Addai (in Doctrine of Addai], xvi,
Abgar Ukkama see Abgar, the 4, 39-44, 216; see also
legendary king of Edessa Thaddaeus
Abgar's Image (of Christ), x, 4, 39, Adolphe, Yvon, xii, 142
42, 44-7, 56-64, 115, 144, 201, Adonis, 101
214; see cdso Mandylion, of aegis see shields
Edessa Aeneas, 30
Abgarus see Abgar, the legendary Aggai (m Doctrine of Addai], 42,
king of Edessa 216
Abyarus see Abgar's Image (of Agrippa, Herod 11, son of Agrippa 1,
Christ) 104-5

258
 Index

Agrippa I (Agrippa, Herod I), King Aristaretc, Greek painter, 74

of Judaea, 104 Aristides, 72
Ahriman, 110 Aristotle, 15, 16, 19,27, 162-5,
Albigenses, 114, 146 172
Alcibiades 1 (Plato), 174 Arma Christi (Arms of Ghrist),
Alcisthenes, the Dancer, 74 130, 137-8, 142, 209
Alexander Severus, Emperor, 27 Artemidorus, 15
Amatcrasu (Ama-tcrasu no Oho- Artemis, 17, 74, 157, 160
kami, Japanese sun-goddess), Asclepius, 28, 74
149, 170-1, 179, 208, 222, 223 Ashe'rah see Astarte
Amenophis 111, Pharaoh, 214 Astarte, 67, 99, 101, 186
Amor, 15, 26, 64, 138, 143, 168, Astarte-Venus, 44; see also
173, 191, 195, 196, 214; see also Aphrodite; Venus
Cupid Asterius of Amaseia, 73, 76, 78, 94
Anaitis, 67, 101; see also Artemis Atargatis see Astarte-Venus
Ananias see Hannan Athena, xi, 17, 30, 70, 149, 154-60,
anatomical theater(s), 209 181; see also Minerva
Angelico (Beato Angelico), Fra Athena Parthenos, statue of, 157
Giovanni da Fiesole, 196 Athena Poliatis, in Tegca, 159
anima, 64, 98-9, 125, 133, 145, Atropos (one of three Fates), 181;
177, 183, 191,214-15,218, 223; see also Clotho; Lachesis;
see also psyche; soul Moerae
anima hominis (in Orbis pictus], Azis (Edessene deity), 43
214
animula (of Emperor Hadrian), 215 Baal, 101
Anne of Savoy, 79 Bachelard, Gaston, 91
Anselmi, Michelangelo, 211 Baegert, Derick, 124
Antoninus Martyr, 50 Baldung, Hans, 209
Anzieu, Didier, 220 Ballestrero, Anastasio, 2
Aphrodite, 17, 67, 68, 78, 105, 139, bandages see cloth(s)
157, 173, 172, 173, 182, 183, 206; Baradaeus see Jacob, bar Addai
see also Venus Bartholomew {Gospel of], 177-8
Apocalypse see Revelation Bataille, Nicolas, 140
Apocryphon of John (Gnostic Bath Nical (Edessene deity), 43
tractate), 109, 216 Bathsheba, 18, 19
Apollo, 143, 182, 210-12 Beardsley, Aubrey, 141
Apollo Nomios, 26 beheading, xi, 8, 9, 126, 148, 156,
Apollonius of Tyana, 27 205-6, 222; of John the Baptist,
aqua(tic) see water xi, 8, 126, 223; of Medusa, 154,
Aquinas, St Thomas, 215 156, 222
Arachne (spider), 181 Beinhardt, Jacobus, xi
Archelaus, King of Gomana, 104 Bel (Jupiter), 43
Archianax (in Greek Anthology), Belisarios, General, 81
15 Benedictus, Canonicus of St
Archimedes, 172 Peter's, 201
Arculf, Galilean Bishop, 78, 128 Berenice, daughter of Agrippa 1,
Aretino, Pietro, 210 104
Ariadne (Greek goddess), 103, 181 Berenice, the Hemorrhissa, 5, 28,
Ariadne, daughter of Leo 1, 75 90, 101, 119, 120, 144, 201-2

259
 Index

Berenice, sister of Herod I, 104 Bosch, Hieronymus, 124-5

Berenice, wife of Archelaus, Brown, Peter, 106
104 Buddha, 172
Berenice II, wife of Ptolomy III, Buddhism, 168, 172
102-4 Busi, Giovanni, x, 127
Berenice Cleopatra, 104 Butades, a legendary Greek potter,
Bernard of Clairvaux, 191 61, 143, 173
Beronique see Berenice, the Bynum, Caroline Walker, 66
Hemorrhissa
Bez'alel (in Old Testament), 23, Caesarea see Caesarea Philippi
178, 186 Caesarea-Mazaca, in Cappadocia,
Blachernae (suburb of 30,31
Constantinople), 57, 71, 86 Caesarea Philippi, 5, 'll, 50, 93, 94,
Blachernae type (of the Holy 95, 104, 105, 144
Virgin), 70, 192; see also Cain, 184; see also tattooe(s)
Theotokos Callimachus, 103
Blake, William, 14 Calvary(ies), 123, 127
blood; of Christ, 1, 3, 7, 22, 33, 53, Calypso, 74
60, 63, 64, 82, 101, 102, 107, 111, Camulia(na), in Cappadocia, 30,
123, 125, 130-5, 136, 144-6, 31,32, 56, 60, 71
190, 200, 204, 212, 219; of the Candidus, a legendary Byzantine
Hemorrhissa, 6, 7, 92-3, 107- patrician, 71
11, 119, 145, 159, 191; of Capassin, Jean see Capassini,
Marsyas, 210-11; of Minerva- Giovanni
Medusa, 154, 155, 156, 158, 159; Capassini, Giovanni, xiii, 204
see also circumcision; Massacre Capernaum, 71, 91, 93, 94, 101
of the Innocents Cariani see Busi, Giovanni
blood image(s), 1, 7, 18-20, 50, 51- Carpocratian Gnostics, 27; see
2, 63, 90,97, 101-2, 103, 111, also Gnostics
116, 125, 127, 130, 131, 132, Gatullus, Gains Valerius, 103-4
141, 145-6, 162, 165, 184, 204; Gelsus, 107-8, 189
see also acheiropoietos-, Chagall, Marc, 33
Eucharist) veraicon-, verniclc; Chalcedon, Council of, 49
veronica Chalke Gate see Ghrist's picture
blood money, 142 (from the Chalke Gate)
blood symbolism, 7, 8, 9, 17-22, Chaucer, Geoffrey, 204
52, 60, 73, 103, 108, 111, 115, Chosores 1, King of Persia, 45, 47,
117, 122, 126, 130-4, 137-8, 59
145-6, 148-50, 161-5, 175-6, Christ see blood; cross;
178, 184, 187, 191, 195, 200-1, crucifixion; entombment;
205-6, 212, 213, 222; see also flagellation; head; heart; Holy
Eucharist Face; incarnation; letter;
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 74 passion; resurrection; shroud(s);
Book of Hours, xii, 114 tomb; transfiguration (of Christ)
Book of Hours of the Emperor and Hemorrhissus
Maximilian, 195 Christ's picture (from the Chalke
Book of James see Protevangelium Gate), 81, 83, 84, 85
Jacobi circumcision, 8, 20-2, 29, 108,
Books of Adam and Eve, 184 200, 201; see also blood

260
 Index

Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Constantinus (in Vita

Drusus Nero Germanicus), Constantini] see Constantine 1
Emperor, 105 Corradini, Antonio, xiii
Clement of Alexandria, 25, 67, 177 cosmos, allegory of, 189-90
Cleopatra, Egyptian Queen Cranach, Lucas, 209
(mistress of Caesar), 104 Crassus, Marcus Licinius, 43
Cleopatra Berenice see Berenice Cratinus, Greek painter, 74
Cleopatra Cratylus (Plato), 13, 14, 20
cloth(s), 1, 2, 4, 5, 18, 30, 31, 48, 50, cross (of Christ), xi, 7, 34, 48-9, 53,
51, 55, 56, 61, 63, 64, 68, 70, 71, 55, 63, 69,87, 101, 105-7, 108,
75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 86, 90, 96- 116, 123, 125, 128, 129, 130, 132,
8, 100, 101, 102, 103, 118, 119, 137, 180, 187, 191, 193, 201, 204,
121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 129, 130, 208
136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 144, 145, crown of thorns, 3, 127, 130, 139,
147, 148, 157, 159, 166, 169, 141, 187, 195
170-1, 176, 179-99, 200-3, 204, crucifix see cross (of Christ)
208, 214, 215, 216-18, 219, 221, crucifixion (of Chrrst), x, 7, 35, 41,
223, 224; see also vernicle 108, 116-17, 125-6, 132, 145,
cloth making, 78-9, 96-7, 102, 146, 187, 193, 194, 195, 197, 200,
144, 156, 158, 170, 180-1, 183, 201
186, 193, 208 Crucifixion (Derick Baegert), 124;
cloth symbolism, 4, 5, 6, 7, 109, (Rogier van der Weyden), x, 125-
124, 125, 129, 130, 137, 144-5, 6, 196; (in Utrecht Psalter), 35,
150, 156, 157, 167, 169, 170-1, 130
185-6, 203-4, 221 crusade(s), 114, 120-1, 148, 178
cloth of Veronica, see vera icon-, Cupid, xi, 139; see also Amor
vernicle; veronica Curcuas, John, 57
clothing (symbol of Christ's Cureton, W., 39, 40
incarnation), 4, 24, 30, 42, 55, 70, curtain(s) see cloth
71,96-8, 102, 109, 111, 144-5, Cyrene (in De Claris mulieribus],
186, 215; see also incarnation 74
Clotho (one of three Bates), 181; Cyril of Jerusalem, 99, 191
see also Atropos; Lachesis;
Moerae Daddi, Bernardo, 196
Comenius (Komensky), Johann Dali, Salvadore, 33
Amos, 214 Danae, 158
Comnena, Anna, 79 Daniel, 27
Constantine 1, the Great, Emperor, Dante, Aligheri, 134, 211
8, 28, 34, 40, 47-9, 50, 65, 72, David, King, 18, 19, 20
105, 128, 177 David, Gerard, 193
Gonstantine V, Copronymus, Deborah, 20
Emperor, 81, 82, 84, 146 decapitation see beheading
Constantine VI, son of Leo IV and Delaroche, Paul, 142
Irene, 83-4 Delilah (Old Testament), 186
Constantine Vll, Porphyrogenitus, Demeter, 15, 17, 67, 181
Emperor, xiv, 57-60, 62 dew see water
Constantinople, x, 4, 31, 46, 49, 52, Diana see Artemis
53, 56, 57, 67, 70, 71, 72, 75, 83, Diatessaron see Tatian
85, 193 Diehl, Charles, 84

261
 Index

Dike (Justice), 181 Eudocia, Augusta, wife of

Diobulion (in Pontus), 31, 60 Theodosius 11, 67
Diocletian, Emperor, 31 Eulalios, Byzantine painter, 74
Diomedcs, 30 Eulalius, a legendary bishop of
Dionysios-Aion, 177 Edessa, 59
Dioscuri, 43 Eunomia (Order), 181
Dobschiitz, Ernst von, xv, 10, 40, Euphrosyne, Empress, 80
46, 57, 62, 120 Eurynomc, 181
Docetic heresy, 132 Eusebius, of Caesarea (Eusebius
Doctrine ofAddai, xvi, 4, 39-44, Pamphili), xv, 5, 6, 27, 28, 38, 39,
56, 105, 106, 116-17, 145, 216 41, 48, 50, 55, 56, 65, 72, 93, 105,
Dollot, Rene, 166 117
doubling, 38, 43, 55, 60, 67, 69, 94, Evagrius, Bishop of Edessa, xvi,
96, 100, 130, 135, 143-4, 154, 45-6, 58, 61, 133
166, 171, 173, 202-3, 204, 205- Eve (first woman), 9, 19, 68, 110,
8, 214-20, 222-3 125, 133, 136, 139, 177, 183-4
Doukas, 79 Evelyn-White, Hugh G., xv
Doutreleau, Louis, xv Exegesis on the Soul (Gnostic
dress see cloth tractate), 213, 215
Drury, John, 160 Ezekiel, 51
Duccio, di Buoninsegna, 195
Dura Europos, 23
Dtirer, Albrecht, 195, 197 face (of Christ) see holy face
Farrar, Frederic W., 27
Echo (nymph), 171, 202 Faust (in Eaust II], 221, 224
Edessa, x, xiv, xv, 4, 7, 38-47, 56, Faust II (Goethe), 221
57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 94, 144, Fayum, oasis of, 207
149, 165, 188, 203, 206, 214, 216 February, 114-15
Egeria, a pilgrim, 44 flag(s) see cloth
Eirene (Peace), 181 flagellation (of Christ), x, 1, 2, 50,
Elasippus of Aegina, 72 200
Eliade, Mircea, 153, 170 Flagellation (Huguet), x, 64
Elizabeth, mother of John the flayed skm(s), 150, 156, 170, 202,
Baptist, 126, 175 208-13, 222; of Christ, 212-13;
Emma-O (Buddhist deity), 172 of Marsyas, 210-13; of
Encounter of Christ and Veronica Michelangelo (in Last
(Hieronymus Bosch), 124 ludgement], 209-13; of St
Enhl (Assyrian god), 22 Bartholomew, 209-10; see also
entombment (of Jesus Christ), xii, foreskin(s); skm(s)
xih, 128-9,219 Florus, Roman procurator, 104
Entombment: in the abbey of Eons pietatis (Fountain of Blood),
Solesmes-sur Sarthe, xii, 128, xi, 130, 137; (Provencal Master),
219; in a Lectionary, xiii, 219 XI, 137
Ephesus, Council of, 67 forehead see head
Epiphanius of Salamis, 55, 75, 107 foreskin(s), 199, 200, 201
Erichthonios ( = Erechthcus), 156 Frazer, J. G., xv, 214
Eros see Amor Frederick, the Wise, 209
Eucharist, 120, 125, 130-2, 144, Freud, Sigmund, 15
190, 200, 204, 217 Fronica see St Veronica

262
 Index

Gabriel, Archangel, 61, 77 Guiraud, Pierre, 22

Gams, Gams Gaesar (Caligula), Gutmann, Joseph, 17
Emperor, 117
Galbius, a legendary Byzantine Hadrian (Publius Aelms
patrician, 71 Hadrianus), Emperor, 43, 215
Galerius, Valerius Maximianus, hair: female 102, 103, 104, 135,
Emperor, 190 137, 153, 159, 173, 181, 189, 194,
Galla Placidia, Mausoleum of, 34 200, 219; male 141, 187, 200; see
garment see cloth also veiled women
Generation of Animals (Aristotle), Hair of Berenice (Catullus), 103-4
15, 16 Hamburger, Erancis, 191, 192
Gervasc of Tilbury, 115 Hannan (in Doctrine of Addai], 40,
Ge Themis, 67, 68, 181 41, 59
Gethsemane, Garden of, 7, 200, Harpocrates-Horus see Horus
216 Hathor (Egyptian deity), 167-8
Gibbon, Edward, xv, 24 head(s): of Christ, 8, 94, 137, 139,
Giotto, di Bondone, 193, 196 147, 153, 187, 195,203-4; of
Giraldus Cambrcnsis, 115 god-phallus, xiii, 206; of John
Gnostic(s), 27, 99, 107-11, 119, the Baptist, xiii, 8, 93, 126, 139,
132, 213, 215-16 141, 153, 202; of Medusa
God (in Old Testament), 4, 8, 17, (Gorgon), 70, 81, 149, 153, 154,
20, 22-3, 39, 42, 51, 53, 85, 90, 158, 160, 206, 222; of Zeus, 156
96, 105, 107, 109, 110, 144, 165, head-hunting, 205-6
178, 184-6, 192, 198, 199, 201, head symbolism, 8, 9, 39, 42, 127,
213 137, 140, 147, 149-50, 154-6,
god-phallus, xiii, 206 168, 184, 192, 200, 202, 203-4,
God the Eathcr see God (in Old 205-8, 214, 222, 224
Testament) healing, xi, 4, 6, 27, 28, 39, 41, 54,
God the Son see Christ 63, 76, 77, 91-2, 95, 98, 105, 119,
God's Bride see Holy Virgin 120, 121, 146, 147, 159, 160-1,
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 221 191, 203, 223
Golgotha, 1, 55, 67, 106, 123, 127, Healing of Tiberius [Cura sanitatis
148, 187,219 Tiberii), 120, 122
Gorgon see Medusa heart (of Christ), 209
Gospel of Bartholomew, 177-8 Hector, 30
Gospel of Mary, 99 Hefele, Carl Joseph von, xv
Gospel of Nicodemus see Acts of Helen, of Troy (in Faust II], 221,
Pilate 224
Grabar, Andre, xv, 10, 52, 63, 116, Helena see Helen and St Helena
189, 206 Helios, 8, 9, 26, 176, 177; see also
Graces (three), 181 sun-god(s)
Graeae, 158 Heloise, 134
Gray, Dorian (in The Portrait of Hemorrhissa, xi, 5, 6, 7, 8, 19,17,
Dorian Gray], 155 28, 50, 76, 90-8, 98, 101, 107,
Great Whore (in Zoroastrianism), 110, 114, 119, 122, 136, 138, 141,
110, 111 144, 146, 147, 148, 159, 160, 191,
Greco, El (Domenikos 202, 208, 223; see also Berenice;
Theotokopoulos), 141 St Veronica
Gregory II, Pope, 81 Hemorrhissus, 130-8

263
 Index

hemorrhoids, 115 Hostius Quadra, 173

Hennecke, Edgar, xv Huguet, Jaime, x, 64
Hephaestus, 155, 156 Hussey, Joan, xvi
Heracles, 25, 26 Hymn of the Pearl see Soul, Hymn
Heraclius, Emperor, 32, 70 of the
Hercules see Heracles Hymn of the Soul see Soul, Hymn
Hermes, 155 of the
Hermes Kriophoros, 26 Hypatia, a legendary Byzantine
Herod 1 see Agrippa 1 woman, 30, 31
Herod Agrippa 11 see Agrippa, Hypatius of Ephesus, 49-50
Herod 11 Hyperion (sun-god, father of Helios
Herod Antipas, Tetrarch, 93 or Helios himself), 155
Herodias, wife of Herod Antipas,
93
laia of Cyzicus, Greek painter, 74
Herodotus, 205
icon cult, 9, 16, 25, 39, 42, 46, 47—
Herrade of Landsperg, 75
56, 58, 65, 79-80, 82, 85, 94,
Herrin, Judith, 65, 84
114-16, 118-19, 122, 185 and
Hesiod, XV, 154, 155, 181
passim
Hesperus (evening star), 43
iconoclasts, 16, 24-5, 46, 51-3, 58,
Hezekiah, King, 186
80-7, 104, 118, 148 and passim
Hildegard of Bingen, 133
iconodules see icon cult
Himerus (Desire), 182
iconophobes see iconoclasts
Holofernes, 94, 206
idolatry see icon cult
Holy Cross see "True" Cross
Iliad, 30, 154, 181
Holy Face (of Christ), xii, 32, 36,
imagines (Roman wax masks) see
64, 114, 115, 116, 122, 123, 124,
masks
125, 128, 139, 140, 149, 153,
Immaculate Virgin see Holy
203-4, 223; see also
Virgin; Madonna; Mary,-
achehopoietos) vera icon-,
Theotokos
vernicle
incarnation (of Christ), 4, 6, 22, 30,
Holy Face (El Greco), 141
42, 60, 67, 96-8, 119, 140, 143,
Holy Face of Laon, Slavic icon, xii,
144-6, 194, 215, 218, 219, 223;
XV, 115-16
see also clothing
Holy Sepulchre see tomb (of
Innocent 111, Pope, 114
Christ)
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, xv, 27,
Holy Veronica, xii; see also St
107, 108, 132
Veronica
Irene, Empress, 79, 83-5, 149
Holy Virgin, xi, xii, 6, 9, 22, 42, 49,
Irene, Greek painter, 74
50, 53, 57, 60, 67-71, 72, 74, 76,
Isaiah, 39, 132, 185
78, 81, 83, 86, 97, 99, 101, 102,
Ishtar see Astarte
106, 111, 124, 125, 126, 131, 133,
Isis, 67, 69, 101, 167, 174
135, 146, 147, 148, 161, 177, 180,
Isis and Osiris (Plutarch), 167, 174
183, 192, 193, 194, 195, 201; see
fli.so Madonna; Mary; Theotokos
Homeric Hynm(s), 154-5; see also Jackson, Rcvd John, xiv-xv
Hesiod Jacob (in Old Testament), 51
Horae (Greek deities), 181 Jacob, bar Addai, 46
Horae see Book of Hours Jacob, of Sarug, 56, 60, 61
Horus, 69, 167, 177 Jacques, dc Voragme, xv, 200, 201

264
 Index

Jairus (in New Testament), 91, 92, Justin II, Emperor

107, 191 Justinian I, Emperor, 49, 50, 68, 69,
James, Montague Rhodes, xvi 76, 81
James, son of Zebedee, 93, 101 Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, 71
Jameson, Mrs (Anna Brownell
Jameson), 136 Kali (Hindu goddess), 168
Japanese sun goddess see Amaterasu Kassia, 80
Jastrow, Morris, 22 Keb (Egyptian deity), 167
Jerusalem, 4, 41, 42, 50, 59, 60, 61, Keramidion [Keramidia], 59-61,
69, 71, 78, 104, 106, 120, 121, 64, 72, 128, 143, 206; see also
122, 123, 128, 185, 192 mask(s)
Jesus see Christ Keramion see Keramidion
Jewish non-iconism see Judaism Khavad I, King of Persia, 47
Joanna (in Book of the King Herod see Herod Antipas
Resurrection of Christ], 101 Klimt, Gustav, 77
Job (in Old Testament), 185, 199 Kojiki (Japanese Scriptures), 170-1
John, Abbot, 81 KondaJcov, Nikodim Pavlovich, x
John, the Apostle, 35, 93, 125, 196 Koryphe, daughter of Okeanos, 156
John, the Baptist, xi, xiii, 8, 93, 94, Kuryiuk, Ewa, xv
126, 141, 202, 206, 223
John, of Damascus, 53-6, 143 Laban,18
John, the Evangelist see John the Lachesis (one of three Fates), 181;
Apostle see also Atropos; Clotho;
John, the Grammarian, 85 Moerae
John VI, Emperor, 79 Lady with the Unicorn, 140
John VII, Pope, 114 Lampridius, Aelius, 27
Jonah, 27 Last Judgement, 186, 190, 210-13
Jordan, 53, 94, 126 Last Judgement (Michelangelo),
Joseph (in Old Testament), 51 209-13
Joseph, of Arimathea, 33, 101, 187, Lazarus, 27, 76, 100, 101, 208
219 Lazarus (monk), 85
Joseph, husband of the Holy Leach, Edmund, 6
Virgin, 96-8, 119, 195 Leda, 25
Josephus, Flavius, 104, 118 Leo I, Emperor, 49, 71
Judaism, 4, 8, 9, 10, 17-23, 24, Leo III, Emperor, 52, 53, 80, 81
52, 53-4, 130, 159, 176, 177, Leo IV, Emperor, 79, 83
178, 179, 183-6, 199-201 Leo V, Emperor, 84, 85
Judas, the Apostle (traitor of Leonardo, da Vinci, 3, 16, 197-8,
Christ), xii, xv, 35, 109, 117, 130, 209
138, 142, 196,218,219 Leontius, Bishop of Neapolis, 51
Judas Thomas see Thomas leprosy (lepers), 18, 39, 105, 121,
Judith, 8 125, 148, 200-2; see also skin
Julian, the Apostate, Emperor, 94, Lespaignol, Jacques, 129
105 Lethe, 182, 196
Julian, Bishop of Atramution, 50 letter (of Christ), x, 38-9, 41-2,
Julian, of Norwich, 137, 138, 44-7, 94
208-9 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 205-6
Juno, 181, 183 LiT'ai-Po, 159
Jupiter see Zeus Ligota, Christopher, xvi

265
 Index

Lipsius, Richard Adelbcrt, 40 Mary, mother of James see Mary

lock(s) see hair Jacobi
Lock of Berenice (Callimachus), Mary, sister of Martha, 99-100,
103 101
loincloth see blood; cloth; images Mary Jacobi, 101
Longinus, 35, 191 Mary Magdalen, xi, xii, 8, 69, 95,
Lotto, Lorenzo, xi, 15, 138 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 125-6,
Lucas, a legendary painter, 60 128, 135, 136, 137, 138, 187, 193,
Lucian, 35, 175-6 196, 219
Lucifer, 82, 101, 122, 142, 189, 199 Mary Salome, 101
Lucullus, Lucius Licinius, 43 mask(s), 70, 128, 145, 153, 202-8,
luna(r) see moon; Selene 223; of Agamemnon, 205; of
Luther, Martin, 209 Fayum, 207; of gold, 205; of
Kertch (Crimea), 205; of the
leper(s), 202-3; of the Muses, 70;
Macarius Magnes, 28, 105 of wax (Roman imagines), 206-7
Madonna, xii, 7, 9, 101, 126, 135, Massacre of the Innocents, The,
177, 192; see also Holy Virgin; xii, 126
Mary Master of Flcmclle, 126
Magas, King of Cyrene, 102 Master of Guillcbert de Mets, xii
Maia (Greek goddess), 67, 172 Master of the Holy Veronica, xii
Malalas, John, 105 Master of the Lee Hours, xii
Man of Sorrow see Vir dolorum Master of the Strauss Madonna,
Mandaeans, 23 xii, 137
Mandeville, John, 160-1, 193 Master of Wauquelin's Alexander,
Mandylion, of Edessa, x, xiv, 4, 53, xii
56,57, 60-4, 71, 143, 145, 149; Maurice, Emperor, 32, 69
see also Abgar's Image (of Maxentius, Marcus Aurelius
Christ) Valerius, Emperor, 34
Mango, Cyril, xv Maximilian I, Emperor, 195
Marcia (in De claris mulieiibus], Maximin (Maximmus), Galerius
74 Valerius, Emperor, 94, 115
Marcus Aurelius (Marcus Aurelius Mechthild, of Hackeborn, 191
Antoninus), Emperor, 43 Mechthild, of Magdeburg, 130,
Marcus Varro, 74 134-7, 191, 192
Marduk (Assyrian god), 22 Medusa, 70, 81, 128, 141, 149,
Mane dc France, 134 153-61, 170, 206, 222-3
Marmion, Simon, xi meeting of Christ and Veronica, x,
Marsyas, 182,210-13 xii, 122-4, 117-, see also
Martha, 99-100, 101, 141 encounter of Christ and
Mary, the Egyptian, 69, 101, 137 Veronica
Mary, a legendary Byzantine Meeting of Christ and Veronica
woman, 32 (Hcrsfcld polyptych), xii, 126
Mary, mother of Christ, 8, 35, 49, Meeting of fesus with Veronica
50, 60, 67-71, 75, 82, 83, 96-8, (Giovanni Btisi), x, 126
105, 115, 125, 132, 139, 144, 146, Mclitenc, in Cappadocia, 32, 60
163, 175, 192, 193, 194, 201, 209, Mclusinc, 160-1
215, 220; see also Holy Virgin; Melpomene, 70; see also
Madonna; Theotokos Mnemosyne; Muse(s); Thalia

266
 Index

Memlmg, Hans, x, 139, 141 Montagna, Benedetto, 211

menstruation, 6, 7, 8, 18-22, 28, moon, 9, 43, 84, 110, 148-9, 158,
92, 96-8, 99, 107, 110-11, 133, 165-78, 181, 192; see also
135, 136, 145, 146, 147, 148, 153, Selene
156, 158, 159, 160-2, 169, 170- Moses, 18, 20, 23, 51, 136, 165,
1, 176, 185, 191, 201, 205-6, 178, 184, 186
213, 222, 223; see also blood Mother Achamoth see Achamoth
Metamorphoses {Ovid), 154-5, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
157, 158, 211 (Buenos Aires), xi, 7
Methodius, of Olympus, 29 Mount of the Skull see Golgotha
Methodius, Patriarch, 85 Muller amicta sole (in the
Metis (Thought), 155, 181 Revelation), xi. 111; see also
Michael, Archangel, 68, 77 Blachernae type (of the Holy
Michael 1, Emperor, 84 Virgin); Holy Virgin; Madonna;
Michael 11, Emperor, 85 Mary; Theotokos
Michal (in Old Testament), 199 Munch, Edvard, 192
Michelangelo, Buonarroti, 209-13 Muse(s), 15, 70, 181-3, 210; see
Micon, father of Timarete, 74 also Melpomene; Mnemosyne;
Migne, f. P., xvi Thalia
Minerva, 30, 153-61, 171, 222-3; Muslim(s), 51-2, 57, 80, 85, 103,
see also Athena 166
mirror(s): Chinese, 149, 168-70, Mysticism, 130-7, 147-8, 208-9
173, 217; Christian, 140, 141,
142, 149, 160-1, 178, 183, 195, Nabu (Edessene deity), 22
203, 204, 223; Egyptian, 149, Narcissus, 15, 74, 172, 194, 202
166-8, 205; Greek, xii, xiii, Nathan (in Venjance], 121
154-60, 172-3; Indian, 149, Nearchus, father of Aristarete, 74
168; Japanese, 149, 170-2, 173, Ncbo (Mercury), 43
222; of Minerva, 154, 158 Neptune (Neptunus), 154, 155,
mirroring, 5, 9, 109, 111, 140, 141, 156, 158
142, 154, 162-3, 165, 167, 168, Nergal (Edessene deity), 43
169, 195, 202-3, 204, 205, 217, Nero, Emperor, 8
222 Nicaea, First Gouncil of, 177;
mirror mythology, 9, 15, 16, 111, Second Gouncil of, 56, 83, 85
130, 140, 141, 148-9, 153-78, Nicanor, 72
205, 223 Nicephorus 1, Emperor, 84
"Mirror of Matter" (of Plotinus), Nicephorus Callistus, 73
174-5, 183,215,223 Nicodemus (in Acts of Pilate], 119'
mirror-writing, 3 Nihongi (Japanese Scriptures), 170,
Mithraism, 8-9 208
Mithras, 9 Nike, 5, 69, 70
Mnasilaus of Paros, 72 Noah, 131
Mnemosyne, 70, 181-3, 196; see "Not made with hands" see
also Musc(s) acheiropoietos
Moerae (Fates), 181; see also Numa, King, 30
Atropos; Clotho; Lachesis Nut (Egyptian deity), 167
Moneta, 183
Monim (Edessene deity), 43 ocean see water
Monophysitism, 35, 44-6, 49, 52 Odysseus, 30, 157, 181

267
 Index

Odyssey, 153, 157, 181 Phorkyas (in Faust II], 221

Oholiab (in Old Testament), 23, Phosphorus (morning star), 43
186 Photius, Patriarch, 86
Okeanos (Greek deity), 155, 156 photography, 2, 141, 143-4, 199,
Old Testament see Judaism 214, 223, 224
Ophites (Gnostic sect), 110; see Physiologus, 132-3
also Gnostic(s) Pia, Secondo, 2
Origen, 29, 107-8, 189,216 Piaget, Jean, 163-4
Orpheus, 26, 94 Pieta, xiii, 7, 126, 130, 141; see
Osiris, 101, 167, 174, 177 also Holy Virgin; Madonna;
Osroene, state of, 43, 44 Mary; Theotokos
Ostrogorsky, George, xvi Pieta (from Lubi^z), xiii
Our Lady of the Sign (Znamenie), Pilate, Pontius, 'll, 50, 116-22,
Russian icon, x, 70; see also 123, 130, 138
Blachernae type (of the Holy Pindar, 154
Virgin) Plato, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20,27,55,
overshadowing see shadow(s) 162, 164, 165, 172, 174, 215
Ovid (Publish Ovidius Naso), 154, Platonism see Plato
155 Pliny, the Elder, 19, 61, 72, 74, 105,
Ovidio volgaie [Venice, 1497, 144, 158, 159, 161,206
1501), 211 Plotinus, 174-5, 183,215
Plutarch, 174
Pallas Athena see Athena Polygnotus, 72
Pandora, 157 Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius), 43, 104
Paneas see Caesarea Philippi portrait-shield(s) see shields
Pardoner (in Prologue to Poseidon see Neptune
Canterbury Tales), 204 Praxiteles, 15, 72
passion (of Christ), 1, 7, 33-6, 42, Precursor see John the Baptist
53, 63, 82, 86-7, 116-17, 121, Procopius, 45, 46
123-5, 129, 130-1, 137-8, 145, Prometheus, 155
178, 185, 187, 194, 197, 208,219 Pronoia (Providence), 109
passion play(s), 123-4 Protennoia (First Thought), 109
Pauly, August Friedrich von, xvi Protevangeliuin Jacobi, 78, 96-8,
Pausanias, 182 193
Pearson, Karl, xvi, 10 Protonice (in Doctrine of Addai),
Pelagiusl, Pope, 190 40, 105-7
pelican (symbolic bird), 132-3 Prunice, 107-8, 110-11
Pelikan, Jaroslav, 190 Prunicus see Prunice
Penelope, 181 Pseudo-Hugh of St Victor, 191
Persephone, 181, 221 psyche, 26, 214; see also anima;
Perseus, 154-5, 157, 158, 160, 171 soul
Pcshitta (Syriac Bible), 44 Ptolomy III, Euergetes, 102
Petronice see Protonicc Pulcheria, Aclia Augusta,
Phacthon, 155 Empress, 71
Phcrcnice, 5, 119 Pygmalion(s), 14, 74
Philip, Tetrach, 94 Pythagoras, 27
Phihpicus, Field Marshal, 32
Phillips, George, xvi, 40, 105 Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa, 44
Phorcys (Greek deity), 158 Rabelais, Francois, 209

268
 Index

Rachel, 18 St Euphemia, 73, 82, 83, 133

ram see water St Fiacre, 115
Re (Egyptian sun-god), 166-7, 177 St George, 70
rebirth (of Christ) see resurrection St Giles, 125
(of Christ) St Gregory, the Great, 13, 99, 100
reflecting see mirroring St Gregory, of Tours, 193
relic(s), 52, 56, 71, 93, 105-6, 116, St Guenole, church of, xii, 128
126, 143, 148, 202, 208, 209, 212, St Helena, mother of Constantine
220 the Great, xi, 40, 105, 107
Republic [Plato], 174 St Irenaeus see Irenaeus
resurrection (of Christ), 2, 30, 42, St Luke, the Apostle, xi, 5, 60, 67,
53, 55, 101, 129, 138, 145, 150, 115, 122, 194
177, 178, 185, 187, 204, 208, 215, St Mary see Mary, mother of
218 Christ
Resurrection (Capassini), xiii, 204 St Mary, the Younger, a Byzantine
Revelation (New Testament), xi, saint, 73
111, 130-1, 140-1, 176, 187 St Mary Magdalen, see Mary
Revelations (Julian of Norwich), Magdalen
137, 208-9; (St Bridget of St Paul, the Apostle, 29, 55, 64, 65,
Sweden), 193, 194 92, 104, 178,218
river(s) see water St Peter, the Apostle, 25, 55, 64,
Roger d'Argenteuil, 123 92, 99, 177
Romanus Lecapenus, Emperor, St Peter's, in Rome, xi, 4, 95, 114,
56-7 115
Rome, 4, 5, 9, 30, 43, 74, 84, 95, St Sophia, in Constantinople, 49,
106, 114-16, 117, 120, 121, 159, 57, 75, 83, 86
183, 206, 208, 209, 211, 212, 221 St Sophia, in Edessa, 46
Rothschild Canticles, xi, 190-2 St Sophia, in Nicaea, 83; see also
Rousseau, Adelin, xv Nicaea, Council of
Roze,}. B. M., XV St Tierry, 191
Rufinus, ,Tyrannius, 50 St Thomas Aquinas see Aquinas,
Runciman, Steven, 40 St Thomas
St Veronica, x, xii, 1,6, 7, 10, 23,
Sabinus, Roman procurator, 41 36, 63, 64, 90,91,92, 93, 101,
Sacred Heart see heart of Christ 102, 104, 114-16, 120, 121, 122,
St Anthony, 125 123, 124-9, 139-42, 144, 146,
St Anthousa, 81 147, 160, 165, 168, 173, 196, 202,
St Apollinaris, 35 203, 204, 214, 223, 224; see also
St Artemius, 50 Berenice, Hemorrhissa
St Asterius see Asterius of St Veronica (Memling), x, 139-40
Amaseia St Veronica with Sweatcloth
St Bartholomew, the Apostle, 101, (Master of the Holy Veronica),
177, 209-10 xii, 139
St Bonaventura, 191 Salome (in Book of the
St Bridget, of Sweden, 192-3, 196 Resurrection of Christ), see
St Catherine, of Siena, 200 Mary Salome; (in
St Catherine, of Sweden, 192 Protevangelium Jacobi], 98
St Ephraim, the Syrian, 21, 34, 68, Salome, daughter of Herodias, xv,
70, 131-2, 188-9 8, 93, 126, 141, 206

269
 Index

Salome, mother of Berenice and Sin (Edessene deity), 43

sister of Herod I, 104 sindon[es] see shrouds
Samson, 186 Siren(s), xii, 160-1
Sancta Facies see Holy Face skm(s), 7, 9, 18, 39, 104, 105, 125,
Sant' Apollmarc in Classc, m 130, 131, 136, 144-5, 148, 150,
Ravenna, 34 156, 165, 179, 184, 185, 186, 187,
Sant' Apollinarc Nuovo, in 190, 193, 197, 199-220, 222-3;
Ravenna, 95 see also flayed skin(s);
Sarah, 20 foreskin(s); leprosy
Satan see Lucifer Skin Ego (Anzieu), 220
Saturn, 177 skin-soul, 213-20
Savior see Christ Slater, Bernard, xiv
Savior’s Vengeance see Vin diet a Slaughter of the Infants see
Salvatoris Massacre of the Innocents, The
Schaff, Philip, xiv Socrates, 13
Schiavone, Andrea, 211 Sol Invictus see Helios
Schiller, Gertrud, xvi solar(ity) see sun, symbolism
Schliemann, Heinrich, 205 Solomon, King, 51
Schneemelcher, W., xv son of Hyperion see Phaethon
Schwoh, Marcel, 202 Song of Songs, 99, 135, 191; see
Scylla, 158 also Rothschild Canticles
seamless tunic, xi, 55, 97, 130, 187, Sontag, Susan, 200
193, 194, 195,217 Sophia (Wisdom), 107, 108-11
Selene, 177; see also moon Sophia-Achamoth see Achamoth,
Seleucus I, Nicator, 43 Mother
Seligman, Janet, xvi Sophia oflesus Christ (Gnostic
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 173 tractate), 109
Sepulchre, Saint see tomb (of Sophist (Plato), 174
Christ) soul, 15, 70, 98-9, 108, 134-6,
Sergius, Patriarch, 32 145, 148, 149, 153, 154, 155, 167,
shadow(s), 54, 55, 59, 61, 73, 105, 174, 190, 191,211,213-20, 223;
123, 124, 131, 143-4, 148, 149, see also anima; psyche
163-4, 214; see also doubling; Soul, Hymn of the, 216-18
mirroring Speculum see mirror(s)
shadow-cave (Plato's simile), 174 station(s) of the cross, 1, 123, 127,
Shamash, 8, 43; see also sun-god(s) 129, 144; see also way of the
shield(s), 70, 149, 154-6, 158, 159, cross
160, 171, 207, 222 Steinberg, Leo, 210-12
Shintoism, UO-l, see also sudarium (sudaria), 5, 195, 201,
Amaterasu 208, 209
Show (Egyptian deity), 167 Suetonius (Gains Suetonius
shroud(s), 77, 100, 124, 189, 190, Tranquillus), 117
204-8, 214; of Christ, 3, 33, 100, sun, 8, 9, 34, 48, 54, 72, 84, 115, 128,
124, 127-9, 145, 187, 194, 202, 130, 135, 148-50, 153, 157, 158,
209, 219 163, 165-78, 199, 202-3, 222-3;
shroud of Turin, xv, 1, 2, 3, 145 cclipsc(s) of, 84, 149, 158, 222;
Simeon the Stylite, 35 god(s) of, 8, 9, 43, 129, 166-7,
Simon (in Doctrine of Addai], 106 177, 187, 189, 213; hieroglyphs
Simon, (in New Testament), 99-100 and pictographs of, 168;

270
 Index

sun (cont): Tiananmen Square, 224

symbolism of, 8, 9, 84, 115, 124, Tiberius (Tiberius Claudius Nero),
128, 129, 139, 148-50, 157, 165- Emperor, 41, 116, 117, 118, 120,
78, 176-7, 187, 192, 202, 205, 121, 202, 214
222-3 Tiberius II, Emperor, 32, 69
sun-moon marriage, 167, 168, 174 Tiepolo, Domenico, 129
Susanna see Joanna Timaeus (Plato), 15
swaddling cloths see cloth(s) Timarctc, Greek painter, 74
Titus (Flavius Sabinus
Tammuz, 101 Vespasianus), Emperor, 105, 120
Tarasius, Patriarch, 83 Titus, Kmg(m Venjance), 121
Tatian, 44 Tixeront, L.-J., 40
tattooe(s), 157, 180, 184; see also tomb (of Christ), 53, 54, 100-1,
Cain; circumcision; skin 128, 137, 197, 204,219
textiles see cloth(s) Tornikos, George, 79
Thaddaeus, the Apostle, 38, 39, 62, Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Trajanus),
165; see also Addai Emperor, 43
Thalia, 70; see also Melpomene; transfiguration (of Ghrist), 34, 53,
Mnemosyne; Muses 94, 138, 218
Thamar (in De clans muliehbus], Troy, 30
74 “True" Cross, xi, 31, 40, 105-7
Themis see Ge Themis “true" image(s), likencss(es), etc.,
Theoctista, 79 see acheiropoietos) vera icon-,
Theodora, wife of Justinian 1,49, 76 vernicle(s); veronica
Theodora, wife of Theophilus, 80, 85 True History (Lucian), 175-6
Theodore, Graptus (priest), 85 tunic without seam see seamless
Theodore, Stratelates, 70 tunic
Theodore, of Studion, 79 Turtura, a sixth-century widow, 69
Theodore, Syncellus, 71 twin(s) see doubling
Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus (or Tyrus see Titus, King (m
Cyrrhus), xvi, 132 Venjance)
Theodorus, the Juggler (in Natural
History), 74
Ueronilla see St Veronica
Theodosius, a pilgrim, 50
Umberto I, King of Italy, 2
Theodosius I, Emperor, 31, 75, 77,
Urfa see Edessa
207
Theodosius II, Emperor, 67
Theogony (Hesiod), 155,181-2, 183 Valentinians ( = Valentmian
Theophanes, 81-3 Gnostics), 107, 108, 132, 184;
Theophilus, Emperor, 80, 85 see also Gnostic(s)
Theotokos, 54, 67, 75, 77, 79, 82, Vajrananga (Buddhist god of love),
85, 102, 106, 146, 192, 195, 223; 168
see also Blachernae type; Holy Vanity (attributed to Hans
Virgin; Madonna; Mary, mother Memling), 141
of God; Mulier aniicta sole Vasari, Giorgio, 197
Theseus, 181 veil (of Veronica) see verniclc
Thomas (in Healing of Tiberius), 120 veiled women, xiii, 66, 73, 78, 102,
Thomas, the Apostle, 38, 98, 100, 127, 128, 166, 182-3, 221; see
190, 216 also cloth

271
 Index

Veiled Woman (Antonio Trampling on a Siren (French

Corradini), xiii, 183 statuette), xii, 161
Velosian(us) (in Healing of Vision of fudas (Yvon Adolphe),
Tiberius), 120-1, 214 xii, 142
Veneziano, Paolo, 102 Volbach, Wolfgang Fritz, xvi
Vengeance see Vindicta Salvatoris Volusianus see Velosian(us)
Venice see St Veronica Voragine, Jacques see Jacques, de
Venjance see Vindicta Salvatoris Voragine
Venus, xi, 25, 78, 101, 102, 103,
Wace, Henry, xiv
138, 139, 177; see fliso Aphrodite
Warner, Marina, 14, 101
vera icon, 1, 5, 9, 10, 28, 47, 60, 73,
water, 15, 30, 45, 54, 95, 96, 97, 98,
97, 101, 102, 103, 105, 114-16,
101, no, 122, 126, 130, 131, 135,
122, 124, 125, 128, 131, 142, 143,
137, 139, 149, 157, 167, 168, 174,
144, 145, 146, 148, 150, 154, 158,
175, 182, 192, 201,202,211
166, 173, 175, 204, 206, 221, 223,
water nymphs, 16, 181
224; see also acheiropoietos-,
way of the cross, 1, 116, 123, 127,
vernicle
187; see also station(s) of the cross
Verina, wife of Leo 1, 71
weaving see cloth making
vernicle(s), 1,3, 7, 10, 36, 116, 124,
Weitzmann, Kurt, xiv, xvi, 58, 62
128, 137, 145, 148, 190, 195, 201,
West, symbolism of the, 157, 167,
202, 203, 204, 208, 214, 219, 223,
177, 222
224; see also acheiropoietos-,
Western ocean see West; water
cloth; Mandylion of Edessa; vera
Wey, William, 123
icon; veronica
Weyden, Rogier van der, x, 125-6,
Vernisse see St Veronica
196
Veronica see St Veronica
Wilde, Oscar, 141
veronica(e), 1, 3, 141, 201, 204; see
Williamson, G. A., xv
also cloth; vera icon-, vernicle
Wilson, Ian, xv
Veronica, wife of Leo 1 see Verina
Wilson, R. McL., xv
Veronica’s Sweatcloth (Zurbaran),
Wisdom see Sophia
xi, 141
Wissowa, Georg
Veronilla see St Veronica
Witz, Konrad, 195
Verrocchio, Andrea del, 197
woman with the issue of blood see
Vespasian (Titus Flavius
Hemorrhissa
Vespasianus), Emperor, 104-5
Vesta, 30 Yahweh, 17; see also God (in Old
vestment see cloth Testament)
via crucis see station(s) of the Yama Raja (Hindu deity), 172
cross; way of the cross Yang and Yin, 168
Via sacra [dolorosa] see stations of Ymig-sui (“sun Igniter"), 168
the cross; way of the cross Yazid II, Caliph, 52
Victory see Nike Yeats, W. B., 90
Vindicta Salvatoris, 120-1, 201-2 Ypocras (== Hippocrates), 160
Vir dolorum, xii, 130, 137-8
Vir dolorum between the Virgin Zaloscer, Hilde, 206-7
and Mary Magdalen (Master of Zeus, 25, 30, 43, 78, 105, 149, 154,
the Strauss Madonna), xii, 137-8 155, 156, 158, 181
Virgin see Holy Virgin Zoroastrianism, 108, 110-11
Virgin Crowned by Child and Zurbaran, Francisco de, xii, 141, 195

272
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FFB 0 8 199/
NOV 2 9 I9M

■ ' ! ■■ •

MAR 2 2 t999

CARR MCLEAN 38-297

 TRENT UN YERSI

0 164 0326373 8