Delage, Yves

Yves Delage

Sorbonne professor of anatomy, Yves Delage, known for he detailed knowledge of human physiology, thought by his colleagues to be an agnostic, presented a paper on the shroud to the prestigious French Academy of Sciences in Paris.  The shroud’s anatomical and other scientific qualities, he argued, convinced him that the shroud had really wrapped the "body of Christ" and that the image was probably a natural phenomenon caused by chemical vapors. Delage said:

Let us add to this, that, in order for the image to have formed itself without being ultimately destroyed, it was necessary that the corpse remain in the shroud at least twenty-four hours, the amount of time needed for the formation of the image, and at the most several days, after which a putrefaction sets in which destroys the image and finally the shroud . . . this is precisely what happened to Christ; dead on Friday and-disappeared-on Sunday. (39)

Modern Biblical Literalism in Pia’s Day

In 1898, modern biblical literalism, particularly as it is seen in North America, had not yet emerged. That would happen in the next decade, in the years leading up to World War I, as a response to the liberal interpretations emerging from the Quest for the Historical Jesus, Darwinism and modernity in general.

The situation was different in France, particularly in the Académie des Sciences. It was perceived to be, if not the high temple of Atheism and Agnosticism, at least a precinct where the mention of God or Christ was off limits. This is probably not surprising given France’s strong secular attitudes born of the French Revolution.

Delage, amongst his French colleagues, had committed a heresy. Marcelin Berthelot, the secretary of the physics section of the Academy, the renowned discoverer of thermo-chemistry principles, and a militant atheist, ordered Delage to rewrite his paper so that it dealt only on the chemistry and made no mention of Christ. One can’t help but think of Galileo being told to retract his conclusions. His conclusion was omitted from official published proceedings. It was silly. It was akin to an ostrich hiding its head in the sand—which we all know they don’t do as we realize it wouldn’t work well. Newspaper reporters had the story and the Paris edition of New York Herald trumpeted the headline, "Photographs of Christ's Body found by science."

The Real Issue

The issue was not the chemistry. It was not a problem that an image of a man was perhaps formed by vaporous action and chemical reaction. The issue was perhaps not even that the body might be a crucified man. The issue was the notion that for the cloth to have survived at all, it required that the man and the cloth be separated before purification destroyed the image and ultimately the cloth. The implication that it was so was because it was Christ’s burial shroud and because it was Christ’s burial cloth it was as it was.

It lighted a torch that has remained lit since the day that Pia took his picture and Delage pronounced his conclusion.

Because the image on the cloth itself is a negative image, and because we can’t figure out any other way that might have come about short of a miracle, we might be tempted to think that a forger of relics figured out how to make a really big photograph.  If we are still wedded to the idea that it must be medieval—rejecting the possible history and not being informed about the problems in the carbon dating—we need to come up with a new inventor of photographic negatives, someone other than William Fox Talbot to whom historians usually give the credit.