The Face of Jesus

Jesus the Christ
(by Richard Hook, 1962)

          Almost every year, when Christmas approaches, secular magazines publish stories about Jesus with outlandish claims and shocking headlines.  Even though these flimsy attempts to challenge the faith of Christian readers fall apart under examination, they successfully increase magazine-sales.  This year, however, it appears that the writers have gotten lazy.  Instead of introducing a new imaginary scandal about Jesus, they are recycling an old story about what Jesus might have looked like.  Originally the article The Real Face of Jesus by Mike Fillon appeared in Popular Mechanics in 2002.  The gist of that article is currently reappearing online, with plenty of embellishments; a video at the Salon website, for example, states that British scientists “were able to figure out the shape of Jesus’ head and facial muscles.”

Abgar, king of Edessa,
receiving the Mandylion.
(From a panel from Saint
Catherine's Monastery)

          When one takes a close look at the article, the events that led up to it are not hard to discern:  Richard Neave, a specialist at forensic reconstruction, was given some skull-bones that had been obtained from excavations of first-century sites in Israel.  Neave reconstructed the head of an individual whose skull-bones he had been given.
          Many of the details of the reconstruction, including the shape of the eyes, the shape of the ears, the shape of the nose, and the shape of the mouth, the pigmentation, and the hair-style, are based on guesswork – and this was acknowledged in the 2002 article.  What we have here is a reconstruction of the face of Random Dead Guy, and while the basic profile shows what somebody in first-century Judea could have looked like, it is not a scientific reconstruction of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hair of Jesus.  One could label Neave’s  reconstruction “The Real Face of Rabbi Gamaliel” or “The Real Face of Lazarus” or “The Real Face of the Apostle James” with more justification.
         An article called, “The Real Face of a Random First-century Jewish Man” would be more honest, but it would not sell very many magazines.  That is why we got the article-title that appeared back in 2002, and that is why we are seeing it again in 2015.  I suspect that the data from Mike Fillon’s article is being recycled not only to sell magazines but also to provide the basis for a charge of racism and/or hypocrisy against American Christians who are reluctant to open the borders to Middle-Eastern refugees, in light of the probability that Islamic extremists may take advantage of the refugee-crisis as an opportunity to enter the United States intending to do harm to Americans.  But for the moment, let’s set aside that concern, and focus on the question that has been raised:  what did Jesus look like?     

From the Catacombs of
Commodilla, at Rome.

From the Catacombs of
Marcellinus, at Rome.

          We have no scientifically verified evidence of what Jesus looked like; nor do we have early historical accounts that mention his appearance (other than two Old Testament passages:   Isaiah 50:6, which mentions the beard of the Servant of the Lord, and the prophecy in Isaiah 53:2, which indicates that His physical appearance was unremarkable).  The earliest report of an image of the face of Jesus is contained in an expanded form of a story that is found in chapter 13 of Book One of Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius of Caesarea. Eusebius wrote in the early 300’s, but he stated that he had obtained the report from an earlier account, which had been written in the Syriac language and which had been found in the archives in the city of Edessa – including the text of a letter from Abgar to Jesus, and the response from Jesus to Abgar.  This report is known as the Story of Abgar and it was extremely popular in the early Middle Ages.
        

A page from the Rabbula Gospels, depicting
Christ's death on the cross, the visit of the
women to the empty tomb, and His appearance
to the women after He rose from the dead.

          When the story was retold in the early 400’s in a composite-work called the Doctrine of Addai, it included an additional detail, stating that the emissary of Abgar, when he realized that Jesus would not go to Abgar, was allowed to paint a picture of Jesus.  (In other versions of the story, the emissary attempts to paint a picture but is unable to do so, so Jesus Himself pours water on His face and miraculously transfers the image of His face onto a cloth.)  This item, called the Mandylion, is mentioned in accounts from as late as 944, when it is said to have been taken from Edessa to Constantinople – but written details about the image itself are not given.  Several medieval artistic representations of the Mandylion, however, still exist.    

          Similarly, there is a persistent tradition that Saint Veronica – the woman afflicted with an issue of blood, who was healed when she touched the hem of Jesus’ robe, as recorded in the Gospels – saw Jesus bearing the cross, and when she tried to wipe His face with a towel, the image of His face was transferred to the towel.  This tradition is the basis for the “Sixth Station of the Cross” in Easter-processions observed by some denominations.

          The earliest artistic depictions of Jesus are in wall-paintings in the Syrian city of Dura-Europos, (which was destroyed in a war in A.D. 256).  An artist used the motif of the Good Shepherd (which is not uniquely Christian – although easily adapted to interlock with Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John) in a picture above the baptistry in the earliest known Christian house-church.  Another depiction of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome.

Christ Pantocrator - the image itself (at left),
and the mirror-images of each half.
A similar image is at Constantinople.

          The pictures at Dura-Europos leave something to be desired as far as the details of Christ’s face are concerned.  Early pictures in the catacombs at Rome provide more detail.  In a Syriac manuscript of the four Gospels, known as the Rabbula Gospels, a series of pictures preceding the text includes several images of Jesus and His disciples.  This manuscript is from the year 586.

          Perhaps the most definitive early image of Jesus is the Pantocrator of Saint Catherine’s Monastery.  This icon, produced in the 500’s or 600’s (possibly in Constantinople during the reign of Justinian), employs a motif that is very widespread in Eastern Christendom.  The picture may have been designed to convey the dual nature of Christ – human, and divine.  Or, the two halves may represent the opposite roles of Christ on Judgment Day – either as a welcoming friend, or a weeping judge.

by Rembrandt (1648)

by Van Dyck (c. 1625)

          This kind of image – with dark, shoulder-length hair and dark eyes – was the standard depiction of Christ in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance.  Not all European artists adhered to it, but many of them did.  Sometimes when an artist resorted to a semi-abstract style (as in the Book of Kells) or blended mythological motifs with Christian ones, anything could happen.  Occasionally artists painted Christ without a beard – for instance, in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, and in The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio – but in general, the iconic features of the Pantocrator were maintained with consistency until the 1800’s. 

       An objection has been repeatedly raised about the shoulder-length hair in these depictions, on the grounds that Saint Paul, in First Corinthians 11:14, wrote, “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a shame unto him?” – the idea being that Paul would not have said this if Jesus’ hair had been long.  However, it seems likely to me that Paul was thinking of hair much longer than shoulder-length.  It was not unusual in the first century for Jewish men to take temporary Nazarite vows, which (according to Numbers 6:1-8) involved, among other things, letting one’s hair grow.  Paul himself took such a vow and let his hair grow so long that when he got a haircut, his fellow-traveler Luke made a note of it, in Acts 18:18.  Thus there is no Biblical or historical objection against the idea that the length of Jesus’ hair varied from time to time.

Sallman's
Head of Christ

          In the 1800’s, some European and American artists, either guided by the imperialistic spirit of the times, or by racism, or by simple ignorance of the historical probabilities involved, portrayed Jesus with distinctly European features.   (Sometimes, artists made pictures of Jesus based on visions, too; some of these have been unfairly misinterpreted as if they were meant as representations of what Jesus looked like during His ministry.)

          This trend continued into the 1900’s, and influenced Warner Sallman, whose picture Head of Christ was so thoroughly distributed that in the United States it has almost become the definitive portrait of Christ, even though in the original painting (Sallman made several versions of this picture), Jesus has blue eyes, a feature extremely unlikely to be historically accurate.
          Sallman claimed that his picture was based on a vision, or dream, that he had experienced, and for some folks, such testimony is enough to add plausibility to the accuracy of the picture.

The face on the Shroud of Turin,
and a portrait of Jesus based on it.

          However, there are at least two good reasons not to rely on dreams as the basis of a theory of what Jesus looked like during His ministry.  First, because in Revelation, when Jesus appears in a vision, He has a glorified, heavenly form that is far different from the everyday earthly form He had during His ministry.  Second, because it is possible for a human being to subconsciously picture Jesus in a dream, using whatever preconception he has, just as it is possible for a person to dream about Jesus speaking English, or Spanish, or Arabic.  The genuineness of any particular such dream or vision is not the question at hand; I only mean to point out that they are not secure guides to what Jesus looked like during His ministry, any more than they are secure guides to what language or languages Jesus spoke during His ministry.  Dreams are very personal things.

Brian Deacon, actor -
The Jesus Film

          In the past 50 years, many artists have consciously attempted to return to a more historically plausible portrayal of what Jesus looked like.  As a result, the portrayals of Christ by more recent artists, such as Richard and Francis Hook, tend to resemble the ancient depictions found in icons, though often from different angles, and with different expressions.  

          Some artists have made portraits of Christ based on the face on the Shroud of Turin – the features of which resemble the depiction in many medieval icons.  Movies, however, have been inconsistent; some movies about Jesus have featured rather European-looking actors; others, however, such as The Jesus Film, have featured actors whose natural features resemble the iconic depiction of Jesus. 
           While we should be concerned not to misrepresent the historical aspects of Jesus’ appearance (to whatever extent they can be surmised), a higher priority should be to affirm that Christ is the fellow-heir of every member of His church, regardless of nation or language or any physical trait.  He is, as Colossians 1:15 says, the image (in Greek, εικων, eikon) of the invisible God.  If we want to see what Jesus looks like, then let us pursue His presence in our lives, seeing Christ in those in need, so that Christ may be seen in the church.  Let us consider the true meaning of Psalm 27:7-8:
        “Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice!  Be gracious to me, and answer me.  When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.””

A Medieval Scroll with Text from the Gospels

          Almost all manuscripts that contain text from the New Testament in Greek are codices, that is, hand-made books.  Even the earliest catalogued fragment, Papyrus 52, is from a codex.  However, a few scrolls containing Greek text from the New Testament exist.  One of them is the D’Hendecourt Scroll in the Goodspeed Manuscript Collection at the University of Chicago (known as Manuscript #125 in the collection, and as Talisman 7 in the old Gregory-Dobschutz identification-system) . 

          This interesting item (which is not cited in the apparatus of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, and the existence of which is not acknowledged in the current Gregory-Aland identification-system) is an “apotropaic” scroll, that is, a scroll which, it was thought, endued its possessor with divine protection.  It contains text from Mark 1:1-8, Luke 1:1-7, John 1:1-14, and Matthew 6:9-13 (the Lord’s Prayer, complete with the doxology in verse 13 – not Matthew 4:9-13 as is sometimes claimed).  It also contains the Nicene Creed and Psalm 68, in Greek.  When it was in pristine condition it probably included the opening verses of the Gospel of Matthew.

Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1077, a small
manuscript made to be worn as a charm,
contains text from Matthew 4:23-24.

          The use of small scrolls containing excerpts from the beginnings, or near the beginnings, of the Gospels, as protective amulets or charms, was mentioned by the patristic writer John Chrysostom, who served in Antioch, and then Constantinople, in the late 300’s/early 400’s.  The church generally discouraged the use of such charms, but their production continued nevertheless.  Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1077 is also a talisman (probably made in the 500’s), albeit much smaller that the D’Hendecourt Scroll.  

          The scroll in the Goodspeed Manuscript Collection is one of two known portions of the same manuscript.  A longer portion is at the Pierpont Morgan Library (in New York), and it contains additional material, including Psalms 35 and 91, and invocations to Saints George (the dragon-slayer), Demetrius, Daniel, Eugenius, Artilektos, and Theodore, plus the story of King Abgar, interpolated with an unusual form of the Epistula Salvatoris – instructions (exemplified in the scroll) about how to write an inscription for divine protection.  The portion at the Morgan Library also features a colophon which informs the reader that the scroll was made in the 1,694^th year after Alexander, which yields a date of A.D. 1383.  Both portions also contain illustrations.
          Casual observers might be forgiven if they assume that the Gospels-text in a scroll made less than a century before the invention of printing must be the ordinary Byzantine Text.  Upon examination, its text agrees more closely with the Byzantine Text than with any other text-type, but it has some interesting variants.  In Matthew 6:12, the D’Hendecourt Scroll reads “αφιομεν” (agreeing with Codices D, E, L, W, Θ, and 565), which is a little different from the Byzantine reading αφιεμεν and also distinct from the Alexandrian reading αφηκαμεν.  (The early patristic writing called the Didache, as well as Clement of Alexandria (in Stromata, Book 7, ch. 13), support αφιεμεν.  The parallel in Luke 11:4 reads αφιομεν.  Usually.)   In Mark 1:1-8, the text of the d’Hendecourt Scroll runs as follows, with its most notable feature in verse 2.  (Red bold text indicates a disagreement with the Nestle-Aland text; green bold text indicates a disagreement with the Byzantine Text; purple bold text indicates a disagreement with them both.  Transpositions are not indicated.)       

Researcher Glenn Peers offers
some additional analysis of the scroll
in two papers accessible
online at Academia.

¹Αρχη του ευαγγελιου Ιυ Χυ υιου του Θυ ²ως

γεγραπται εν τω Ησαια τω προφητη ιδου

εγω αποστελλω τον αγγελον μου προ προσω
που σου ος κατασκευασει την οδον σου εμ
προσθεν σου  ³Φωνη βοωντος εν τη ερημω ε
τοιμασατε την οδον Κυ ευθειας ποιειτε τας
τριβους αυτου · ⁴Εγενετο Ϊωαννης ^● βαπτιζων
εν τη ερημω και κηρυσσων βαπτισμα μετα
νοιας εις αφεσιν αμαρτιων. ⁵Και εξεπο
ρευοντο προς αυτον πασα η Ιουδαια χωρα
και οι Ιεροσολυμιται και εβαπτιζοντο παν
τες εν τω Ιορδανη ποταμω υπ αυτου εξομο
λογουμενοι τας αμαρτιας αυτων . ⁶Ην δε ο
Ϊωαννης ενδεδυμενος τριχας καμηλου.  και
ζωννην δερματινην περι την οσφυν αυτου.
και εσθιων ακριδας και μελι αγριον·  ⁷Και ε
κηρυσσε λεγων ερχεται ο ισχυροτερος μου οπι
σω μου ου ουκ ειμι ικανος κυψας λυσαι τον
ιμαντα των υποδηματων αυτου. ⁸Εγω μεν ε
βαπτισα υμας εν υδατι · αυτος δε βαπτι
σει υμας εν πνι αγιω : ~    

An icon at Saint Catherine's
depicts king Abgar of Edessa
being shown the cloth that bore
the image of the face of Christ.
So does an illustration on the
scroll-portion at the Morgan Library.

          The presence of an Alexandrian reading followed by so many Byzantine readings suggests that the D’Hendecourt Scroll was produced at an intersection of competing transmission-streams – a place where the Byzantine Text was prevalent but the influence of other text-streams remained significant, even in the 1300’s.  Georgian and Arabic text on the scroll also provide a clue regarding its provenance.  While it is not impossible that the scroll was made in Trebizond (where Eugenius was especially revered), its earliest known provenance is Egypt.  In addition, a small Coptic amulet-text – British Library Or. 4919(2) – also combines, albeit in an extremely concise way, the beginning of the Epistula Salvatoris and the opening verses of each Gospel.

          The most likely point of origin is Saint Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula – the same place where Constantine Tischendorf found Codex Sinaiticus in the safe custody of monks (who were, contrary to Tischendorf’s story, certainly not burning its pages).  The motifs in one of the pictures on the D’Hendecourt Scroll (in the portion at the Morgan Library) are similar to a scene in an icon at Saint Catherine’s, in which Abgar is presented with the cloth that bore the image of Christ’s face. 

          The story about King Abgar, the letter he wrote to Jesus, and the letter that Jesus wrote (or dictated) back to him accompanying a cloth upon which Jesus had transferred the image of His face, was very well-circulated.  It was mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea in his 

Ecclesiastical History;  in Eastern Christendom it formed part of the fifth-century composite-work known as the Doctrine of Addai, and in the West an excerpt from it is preserved in a British book made in the early 800’s.)

          The D’Hendecourt Scroll thus combined two motifs that were considered to induce divine protection upon the person carrying them:  the opening verses of the Gospels, and the story of the correspondence between Jesus and Abgar, augmented by the protective inscription of symbolic letters displayed on the scroll.  Although produced as the equivalent of a lucky charm, it has some textual value, and its text should not be ignored in discussions of Mark 1:2 and Matthew 6:13.