Image of Edessa
When Abgar picture, Christ Mandylion or Image of Edessa is called a connected with King Abgar V of Edessa representation of Jesus Christ; the original was after Abgarlegende no icon, but a cloth from which the facial features were mechanically transmitted.
Jesus Christ is depicted on the cloth with shoulder-length hair and divine glory. The fine long nose accentuates the narrow face. The pointed beard usually falls into three parts.
The " Acheiropoieton " (ie not man-made image ) has often been copied to icons and crosses. We find the cloth even in a different presentation: Two standing on clouds angels hold up the cloth on which the face of a bearded Jesus Christ is pulled.
The correspondence between Abgar and Jesus according to Eusebius
In Edessa (now Urfa - Aramaic: Urhoy - in Turkey to the east of the Upper Euphrates ) in the Mesopotamian kingdom Osrhoene, the story was narrated that the Aramean king Abgar of Urhoy ( Edessa ) by the famous name of Jesus and of his general certified heard wonders. Then he sent a messenger to Jesus asking him to heal from a serious illness, brought a letter. Jesus answered him, after his resurrection, he would send one of his seventy disciples.
Eusebius of Caesarea wrote that St. Thomas his disciple Thaddeus sent to King Abgar to heal him. He, Eusebius had discovered these two letters in the archives of Edessa and translated from the Aramaic:
" For this fact there is a written testimony, taken from the archives of the then royal city of Edessa. In the local official documents which report on the earlier events and also about the history of Abgar, is also mentioned story up to the present day kept it to hear the letters themselves, which we have taken from the archive and literally translated from the Aramaic is best to be as follows. .:
" Copy of the letter which the Prince Abgar wrote to Jesus and sent by the sprinter Ananias to him to Jerusalem ". Abgar Ukkama "the lord, sharer Jesus the good Saviour, who has appeared in Jerusalem, his greeting I receive and learn that they are wrought without medicine and herbs from you. namely you do, it is said, the blind see, the lame to walk, the lepers, cast out demons and unclean spirits play, heal that which already a customer of you and your healing be long tormented by diseases, and awaken the dead. ' All of these messages back I said to myself: either you are God and workest these miracles, because you're descended from heaven, or are you because you cast this, the Son of God, so I am writing this letter to you with the request. want to try yourself to me and to heal me from my suffering. namely I have also heard that the Jews murmur against thee, and do thee evil. I have a very small, dignified city, which is sufficient for both of us. "
" The reply of Jesus, mediated by Ananias, the courier of Prince Abgar: " Blessed are you because you believe in me without having seen me. For it is written about me, that they who have seen me, do not believe in me, and that those who have not seen me believe and live to. Regarding your written invitation to come to you, you must know that it is necessary that I should first of all that which I have been sent on earth, fill, and then, if it is satisfied, again return unto Him who sent me. After the ascension I will send you one of my disciples, that he heal you of your suffering and bring you and yours the life. "
The legend says that Thaddeus came to the king. The king was cured of his illness and he gave then to Eusebius statements "command, the citizens were to assemble the next morning and listen to the preaching of Thaddeus. " In this most ancient tradition of the Abgarlegende, the legendary correspondence between Jesus and Abgar of Edessa, recorded by Eusebius in 325, there is no mention of an image.
Expansion of Legend
Towards the end of the 4th century first appeared in the "doctrine of Addai " the history of the courier Ananias ( Aramaic; Hannan ), which should have brought the letter to Jesus. This Ananias should simultaneously have been a portrait painter and have made Jesus, which he brought King Abgar. A later version tells of a direct face contact, at which the image of Jesus would have imprinted on a cloth.
According to the historian Niaphoris the cloth disappeared in 359, it is claimed that the cloth was hidden in the walled city to protect it from flooding. Then it was forgotten and was only rediscovered in the 6th century. According Prokopios of Caesarea (c. 550) the image in 525 was found in cleanups in one of the city gates after the Daisan, a tributary of the Euphrates, the city of Edessa had flooded. The historian Evagrius Scholasticus (before 594 ) writes that the inhabitants of the city of Edessa, discovered a cavity in the wall during the siege by the Persians under Chosroes I in the year 544, probably by fixing work to the highest goal. It contained a cloth with the image of Jesus. When Khosrau after a fire in his camp withdrew with his army, came the inhabitants of Edessa in the highest enthusiasm. Evagrius refers to the image in his church history than of God, but not made by human hands. A silver vase from Emesa from these years (now in the Louvre, Paris ) shows the probable head image on the cloth.
It is striking that the image representations of Christ so experienced since the 6th century, the beginning of the worship of the image Abgar in Edessa, a drastic change. Meadows representations by then a great variety on - so Jesus was also beardless and youthful, represented Apollo in a type of the Greek god - that are similar since the portraits that on the Turin grave cloth.
Whereabouts of the cloth
The miraculous image was also during the Islamic conquests in Christian Edessa. Only through the expansion policy in wiedererstarktem Byzantium Byzantium had to cede to the so-called Edessa Abgar picture in 944. In Constantinople, Opel, it was exhibited in the Pharos church of the imperial palace.
During the siege in the 4th crusade the image was brought to the Blachernae Church in Constantinople Opel, from which it disappeared after the conquest and looting of the city in 1204. Then the trace of the image loses. But there may be multiple copies, namely the Vatican and - occupied documentary since the 14th century - in Genoa.
According to some historians and Kunsthostoriker like Ian Wilson, Werner Heinrich Pfeiffer Bulst and the image with the Turin grave cloth is identical. The oldest mention of the grave cloth dates from the year 1357, as it appears in Lirey at Troyes in France in the hands of Geoffroy de Charny. The Turin grave cloth shows not only the face but the complete front and back view of a man. Maybe the cloth in Edessa, however, was kept folded so that only the face was visible at that time. If the Abgar picture is actually identical with the Turin grave cloth, so the question arises as to the whereabouts of the 150 "missing years ". Maybe it was in the possession of the Knights Templar. This assumption is based primarily on the assumption that the first detectable owner Geoffroy de Charny was the nephew of Templar Geoffroy de Charnay, which in turn was burned on March 18, 1314 together with the last Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay at the stake.
The Mandylion very rarely leaves the Vatican. An exception was the Expo 2000 in Hanover. A text next to the picture explained why the Vatican is regarded as the oldest known representation of Jesus. In 2011, it was shown in an exhibition of relics in the British Museum in London.