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himation

meaning oblong cloth or grave cloth . . . In 730 CE, St. John Damascene in his anti iconoclastic movement thesis, On Holy Images, describes the cloth as an himation, which is translated as an oblong cloth or grave cloth. This may be the first mention, among extant manuscripts, of it being a grave cloth.

Nearly two centuries earlier, nn the late 6th century, Evagrius Scholasticus’ Ecclesiastical History mentions that Edessa was protected by a “divinely wrought portrait,” an acheiropoietos sent by Jesus to Abgar.

The cloth had been hidden. Existing known manuscripts don't suggest why the cloth was hidden away above one of the gates in the city's wall. Perhaps it was hidden to protect it from Persian invaders. If it was in Edessa very early, then perhaps it was hidden to protect it during times of Christian persecutions. There is evidence of local persecutions in this early Christian community in the latter part of the 1st century and of Roman persecutions that persisted until the time of Emperor Constantine. If, in fact, the cloth was taken to Edessa in the 1st century, it might have been hidden for protection as early as the reign of Ma’nu VI, Abgar’s son, who is thought to have reverted to paganism.

On the occasion of the transfer of the cloth, in the Byzantine capital, Gregory Referendarius, the archdeacon of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, preached a sermon that provides a vital clue. The sermon, which was recently rediscovered in the Vatican Archives and translated from the ancient Greek by Mark Guscin, explicitly reveals that the Edessa Cloth contained a full length image, one that was believed to be of Jesus. It had obvious bloodstains from a side wound.

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Shroud of Turin Story

© 2005 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York