DOCUMENT XIII.
NICHOLAS MESARITES 1207
In 1207
the same Nicholas Mesarites, former overseer of relics,
was in the capital pronouncing his eulogy (Epitaphios)
for his deceased brother, John. We must understand
that for the last three years he had been totally
excluded from any official function in the capital, and
certainly from the Pharos relic treasury. Indeed, Latin
clerics had replaced Greeks in every important capacity
including that of Patriarch.4 0 In the midst
of this speech, Nicholas conjured up for the Greeks then
present in Hagia Sophia a reminiscence of the greatness
of their city which his brother had served so loyally,
and of the atrocities of the looting by the crusaders,
which he himself had witnessed. In this eulogy
Mesarites again refers to Constantinople as possessing
the burial wrappings of Jesus, and this reference has
been used as evidence that the Shroud was still present
in the city in 1207.4 1 The latter position
breaks down when it is noticed that in fact, Mesarites’
words in the Epitaphios are largely a direct
quote from his 1201 report (Doc. XI) and are used by
him here only for rhetorical effect.4 2
1. In both
places Mesarites lists the relics of Jesus’ Passion,
including the burial wrappings.
2. Both texts
employ the symetrical contrast of Constantinople and
Judaea: the Passion occurred there, but the relics are
here.
3. Both texts
add, identically, “Why should I go on and on? . . . (The
Lord himself) is here, as if in the original, his
impression stamped in the towel and impressed into the
easily broken clay (tile) as if in some graphic art not
wrought by hand.”
4. He
completes both texts by stating in each, but in a
different order, that this place (Constantinople) is
another Bethlehem, another Jerusalem, Tiberias,
Nazareth, Bethany, Mount Tabor, and another Golgotha.
Since,
additionally, every existing document dealing with the
Latins’ disposition of the relics and with the
diminished role of the Greek clergy after the sack is
evidence that Mesarites no longer had any knowledge of
the whereabouts of the relics of which he had been the
solicitous guardian in 1201, the Epitaphios of
1207 clearly is not a proof that the shroud of Jesus was
still in Constantinople at that time, but only that
Mesarites and his audience of Greek prelates thought it
was.