The Holy Shroud
Turin
The History of a Relic: The Holy Shroud
In the spring in Europe, the elegant, beautiful city of Turin suddenly witnessed the repetition of a phenomenon: millions of people met in the Duomo in the space of barely over one month to see the Holy Shroud.
After registering on the Internet, the day and time is received when one can have this meeting with “the relic” of Christianity. The meeting point is the Piazzeta Real. A team of collaborators direct the visitors through a specially built passageway which opens onto the Royal Gardens behind the chapel where the Holy Shroud is kept. Appropriately placed posters give the details and important points to contemplate once in front of the object of our visit. Coming from all parts of the world, some pious individuals, others, skeptical or simply curious, walk slowly towards one of the front entrances to the ancient Duomo. Without the need of any greater instruction, the procession is slowly enveloped in respectful silence. Inside the cathedral the long human line advances along the left aisle arriving close to the presbytery. There a large horizontal picture is seen in a dark frame that contains the Shroud in which the lifeless Sacred Body of the Redeemer had been wrapped.
The line divides into three, which lets this marvelous relic be seen at different heights. It leaves all those who approach it speechless. We contemplate it at a distance that varies from 6 to 15 feet.
We can stop a few minutes, and only a few people manage to utter one word. It couldn’t be otherwise. We are looking at Christ! Some fall to their knees, others are heard sobbing. It is difficult to leave without eyes wet with tears. The figure palely stamped on the linen shows what our redemption cost; the sepia-colored human silhouette silently shows us the wounds, the open side, the scourged body, signs of the crowning of thorns and the strangely serene Divine Face, as if the God of Peace had suffered nothing.
The visit ended almost without realizing it. Suddenly we were on the outside staircase of the cathedral. We took photos of the only Renaissance building in the city, begun in the year 1498. Its plain rectangular bell tower contrasts with the adjoining sumptuous baroque buildings. We are all marked by what we have seen. The first comments are stimulated and the question arises, “Tell us the story, Father! How did this holy marvel get here?”
To begin, it is already a miracle that it lasted till our days. We must not forget that, for the Jews, the objects that had been in contact with the dying were impure. Even more so for one who had been crucified as a criminal! But if they had dared to save this Holy Shroud, it must have been because the body it had enfolded was very special—so special that the legal principles against its preservation were put aside and the importance of the Person that had been wrapped in it took precedence.
St. Peter and St. John were the first to see it. At least St. John was the privileged witness of its source, for he saw Joseph of Arimathea provide it and together they wrapped the body of the Master. And they vouched (Jn. 20:8) that not only had it belonged to Christ but also at once guaranteed the resurrection of Christ himself. That is the greatest importance of this relic. The Holy Shroud is the most conclusive, tangible sign of the Savior’s resurrection. But we will talk of that later.
What was the fate of this relic? Carefully hidden by the Lord’s disciples, it would have been taken far from Jerusalem when the Jews’ first persecutions against the Christians became more severe. In the 4th century we find letters by St. Epiphanius of Salamis, an anecdote by St. Cyril of Jerusalem and especially a decision by Pope St. Sylvester I (314-335). The first two texts clearly mentioned the existence of Christ’s shroud. Pope St. Sylvester asked for the fabric of altar cloths to be changed, to stop using silk and to use linen, so to recall the linen fabric of the Holy Shroud.
Several accounts by travelers between the 5th and 7th centuries speak of great relics, among them, the Sancta Sindone. It is especially interesting to see how, starting from the 4th century, the iconographic representations of Christ appear to be made from a single model. This would be because the Holy Shroud was displayed in a support that showed the face only. This came to be called the Mandylion, and the city of Edessa (nowadays Urfa in Turkey) was known in antiquity for protecting this celebrated relic of the Byzantine world.
In the 6th century, Evagrius the Scholastic mentioned the existence, in Edessa, of an “acheiropoieta,” that is, an image not made by the hand of man, by which he referred to the Mandylion. This hidden image was rediscovered in the year 544. Several copies were made of the image, the true face of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them are found in Russia, Serbia, and others even reached the West. This is the case of the Holy Face in the Cathedral of Lyons, the Manoppello in Italy and also the one preserved in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
All the copies were derived from one common iconographic model. Its type is the same as the Christ Pantocrator. There are truly surprising common details that demonstrate that the Mandylion of Edessa (which is the same object as the Holy Shroud) was the model, starting from the 4th century, for the reproduction of the Redeemer’s face. One observes that until that date, Christ was represented with short hair and no beard, as can be seen in the catacombs of St. Callixtus. When the iconoclast crisis broke loose, the Byzantine Empire was furiously shaken, including the city of Edessa. The crisis destroyed the greater part of the icons but the Mandylion was saved.
Therefore, strictly speaking, it was not considered an icon, that is, a figured representation but rather a reality.
In the year 944, the Mandylion or Holy Shroud was transferred to Constantinople in the midst of great celebrations. A miniature by Scilites the monk, preserved in the archives of Madrid, describes the arrival of the relic to the city. The image is painted on a long fabric, carried on the shoulders of a priest who presents it to the Emperor. We know for sure that the Holy Shroud was kept in Constantinople in the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae.
In 1204 Constantinople was taken by the Latin crusaders of the Fourth Crusade. According to medieval mentality, the crusaders strove especially to “secure” relics for themselves. It is unthinkable that the great relics had been destroyed or lost. In fact we know what the evolution of some of them was, such as the crown of thorns that later ended in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, (presently in the Notre Dame Museum).
Beginning in 1205, the Byzantines complained bitterly to the Pope about the disappearance of their treasures, first of all their relics. The Emperor’s nephew, deposed by the crusaders, wrote: “The relics of the Saints, all that was the most sacred, and among them, the Shroud in which Our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before his resurrection...the Sacred Shroud was taken to Athens...let the looters carry off gold and silver, but let them return what is sacred to us...without these relics, Constantinople is nothing!” The imperial city could easily subsist without gold, but not without relics.
The Shroud was probably taken by Otto de la Roche, one of the Crusade leaders, a knight of the Frankish county of Burgundy, made Duke of Athens, who occupied the Palace of Blachernae where the Shroud was kept. Did he then come into possession of one of the most important objects in the Christian world? What did he do? No vestiges of it exist in the East; therefore it was taken to the West like other great relics. When and where are mysteries...
In the year 1357 the Holy Shroud reappeared just as we see it today. Geoffrey de Charny, a nobleman from Champagne, according to the custom of the times, founded a chapel in Lirey for the salvation of his soul and the souls of his family. He is not an unknown personage, but rather, one of the most courageous gentlemen of France, a diplomat, writer, and counsellor to the King. He died in the battle of Poitiers, having saved the royal pennant. The chapel he founded was raised to a collegiate church, thanks to the support of King Philippe VI. Pope Innocent VI endowed it with indulgences.
After the glorious death of Geoffrey de Charny in 1356, his widow, Jeanne de Vergy, proceeded to show a relic deposited in the chapel called the Shroud of Christ. The crowds turned up to venerate it. Lead medals were cast for the pilgrims representing the Shroud. Ruined by the death of her husband, with a child under her care and unable to be supported by the King, Jeanne de Vergy was desperate. Undoubtedly she tried to earn money by showing the Shroud, but these exhibitions created questions in the Church. The bishops intervened. Was the relic authentic? The case was spread abroad. The Pope, King, and Parliament in Paris were alerted. The Bishop of Troyes, Pierre d’Arcis, intervened stating that it was a falsification. Finally in 1390, Pope Clement VII imposed silence on Pierre d’Arcis under pain of excommunication and authorized the showing of the relic under certain conditions. According to him, the Shroud was authentic.
We see that the appearance of the Holy Shroud did not take place clandestinely, or in completely unknown surroundings. There was even a “question of State” and that shows the importance conferred on the case. The political-military circumstances of the time and the situation of the family explain several vicissitudes of the relic that accompanied its showing, even as far as present-day Belgium. Finally, after many incidents, Margarita de Charny, Geoffrey’s granddaughter, who had no descendents, sold the Shroud to Duke Luis de Saboya in the year 1453.
After this date, the history of the Holy Shroud presents no difficulties. But it is never uninteresting to note how its veneration grew, reaching the ends of the Catholic world.
In the first stage, the relic accompanied the travels of the Duke and Duchess of Savoy, which, like all the royal courts of the time, were constantly moving. Later the relic was deposited in the chapel of the castle of Chambery. Showings increased after the year 1506. Saints and kings came to venerate it and numerous miracles were attributed to it. Pope Julius II authorized an office and feast day for the Holy Shroud on May 4th. The fire of 1532, which left signs on the fabric, did not decrease its veneration.
In 1578 the cloth was transferred to Turin. A chapel was built to keep it. It was venerated, among others, by St. Francis de Sales. Starting in the 18th century, devotion to the relic diminished. The Shroud was rarely shown. The danger of being somewhat forgotten weighed on it, as on so many other relics that in olden times moved the masses, and which were no longer mentioned.
Nevertheless there was a showing in 1898, when photographs were taken by Secondo Pia. Developing the negative of the image provoked much commotion. The Holy Shroud became a real enigma in the scientific world. The work of historians increased parallel to the labor of scientific specialists. Devotion had an important renovation. The rest of the story is well known. It only remains to be said why the Holy Shroud is an irrefutable sign of the resurrection of Christ.
How the Holy Shroud Came to Turin
The House of Savoy was already too famous to remain isolated in the tiny duchy under French influence. Political events at the time moved the center of gravity of Savoy’s purely profane interests to the Italian region of Piedmont. Besides, Piedmont’s capital, Turin, in the very center of the territorial possessions already conquered in Italy, was much better located than Chambery.
A pampered capital but also very easy to defend, the city of Turin irresistibly attracted the Holy Shroud—in spite of fears and opposition from the people of Chambery. Turin, the first city of the State founded by the House of Savoy, did not possess its lords’ most important treasure, while Chambery, relegated to the category of a peripheral city, guarded it zealously. The people of Turin dreamed of being able to house the Shroud.
Move the relic? It was easy to say. A decision in that direction should not take long, but the Duke of Savoy, Emmanuel Philibert, remained indecisive, even though he was quite eager to bring it from Chambery. The decision was forced by a famous pilgrimage that became a new turn in the agitated history of the Holy Shroud.
The then Cardinal of Milan was Charles Borromeo, a true saint, a man whose prayers had prevented a dreadful epidemic from laying waste the lands of his diocese. On that occasion he made the promise to walk to Chambery to thank God in front of the Holy Shroud for having removed the terrible calamity.
So the holy Cardinal started to walk. Informed of the fact, Duke Emmanuel Philibert in turn conceived the plan to fulfill that ancient saying which mentions the mountain and Mohammed. [The Spanish refrain says, “If the mountain doesn’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain.”] In order to reduce the Prelate’s exertion, to relieve his fatigue a little, he ordered the trajectory to be shortened by bringing the Shroud to Turin.
Nevertheless, to do so—as, in any case, he feared a violent reaction from the Savoyans—he sent his own counselor, Louis Milliet, in his place. This ex-Ambassador of the House of Savoy to the Swiss cantons was given the secret mission of taking the Holy Shroud with him.
Milliet’s difficult mission was successfully fulfilled on September 5th, and eleven days later the Holy Shroud arrived in Turin to await the eminent pilgrim from Milan there. And so the encounter took place in Turin in the month of October, 1578. Deposited in the Torinese chapel of San Lorenzo, the Holy Shroud received St. Charles Borromeo’s visit. It was conducted with extraordinary solemnity and celebrated in the immortal verses by Tasso, who witnessed the event. The final stage in the existence of the Shroud of Turin, its modern history, could now begin.
The Carbon 14 Controversy
In October 1988, we woke up one day to news that at least to us Catholics seemed like a scandal and a treacherous lie. The media was delighted to repeat it: “The Holy Shroud, according to studies made using carbon 14, is not from the first century, but rather from the fourteenth century. Therefore, it would not have wrapped the body of the Redeemer, but would be, at the most, a mere object of piety from the Middle Ages.”
Dr. Michael Tite, a member of the British Museum in London, gave a press conference about it and behind his back, on a blackboard, were written the dates: “1260-1390.” Accompanied by other scientists, he explained the results of the measurement using that method, taking for granted that the Holy Shroud had not been Christ’s burial cloth.
The scientific community didn’t take long in making themselves heard, warning that this method was more than variable and imprecise. We will not delve now into the technical field of analysis carried out by the three laboratories in charge of the examination, but we can affirm that it is impossible for the Holy Shroud of Turin to be from the 14th century. Here are some of the reasons:
1) The Holy Shroud is linen twill. According to the textile specialist, T. H. Walsh, this type of weave didn’t begin to be made in Western Europe until after the 14th century. Therefore, how could the Shroud be from the beginning of that century? Did the artist who made it, perhaps, go buy the cloth in the East?
2) The Shroud contains pollen from plants peculiar to Jerusalem, the Jordan River Valley, Urfa (ancient Edessa), Constantinople and also from Central Europe. Max Frei, a specialist in palynology (the study of pollen), wonders: did the alleged falsifier take his cloth, before or after preparing it, through all those regions, which are very different from one another, to capture the pollen typical in each one, and thus deceive 20th-century scientists? The problem is that in the 14th century, no one even knew what pollen was!
3) Many arterial and venous blood stains are found on the Shroud. How could its alleged creator have put them there, centuries before Cisalpino and Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood? Or must we presume that the falsifier crucified a man in the 14th century in order to transfer these differences, unknown to him, to his linen?
4) The forensic doctor and pathologist Dr. R. Bucklin, a practitioner at hospitals in Los Angeles and Houston, declared that the images on the Shroud are anatomically correct. Their pathological and physiological characteristics are clear and reveal medical knowledge unknown before 150 years ago. So we return to the same question. How could the 14th-century falsifier know that? Did he crucify one or several men?
5) Photography was discovered just in the 19th century. However, the Shroud is a photographic negative made several centuries before photography was invented, and therefore, before anyone knew what a photographic negative was. It is impossible for an artist to consciously fashion a photographic negative without knowing what he was doing, besides its being unintelligible to the on-lookers of the time. Nor were those wanting who tried to copy the Shroud as a negative such as Refo and Cusetti, but who failed.
6) Due to its antiquity, the Holy Shroud is a straw-colored yellow. The pieces of linen sewn to it to cover the burns from the fire of 1532 are much whiter. This is a sign that the Shroud is much older than the patches and, so, quite previous to the 14th century.
7) One of the most amazing findings about the Shroud is that the image presents tridimensional characteristics. This implies that the degree of the image’s luminosity is mathematically related to the distance of the body from the linen. From this it follows that the image reaches the maximum degree of brightness in those areas where the body touched the cloth, and less where it did not touch. This indicates that the image was formed from a three dimensional object, such as an inert body....No normal photograph has these characteristics.
8) Tiny objects are clearly perceptible in the tridimensional photograph of the linen, such as buttons placed over the eyelids. These were Roman coins of little value which the Jews used to close the eyes of the deceased. Their characteristics correspond to two mites or “leptons,” that, according to the Kadnam Numismatic Museum in Tel Aviv, were coined only in Pontius Pilate’s time. So then, their date takes us back to the first, not the fourteenth, century.
9) Bear in mind that a 14th-century artist would not have put the nail in the wrist, as is shown in the Holy Shroud, but rather in the palm of the hand, as was customary in paintings and statues in those times.
10) One’s attention is drawn to the regularity of the image, which is the same in the front as in the back (neck and back). By natural law, the back should have been flatter, and consequently have obvious deformations proper to a dead body of 176 lbs. But all of it is regular in its lines, without the least deformation. This can only be explained if the body did not touch anything nor was heavy at the moment the image was imprinted. That is, if it was weightless or if it levitated at the instant the flash was produced which fixed the image. But gravity was unknown in the 14th century, and weightlessness is a product of the space era.
11) The 40 North American scientists, some from NASA, who studied the Shroud in depth with the most sophisticated equipment, saw that its image is not a painting or a work of art made by any known technique. Could it be that the ingenious artist took the secret of his technique with him to the grave and it still has not been discovered? Besides, must the use of this technique be reduced to just one work by the artist? Why didn’t that artist apply it to other creations? As a matter of fact, the existence of anything similar is unknown in the whole world.
12) Let us suppose, nevertheless, that it was a painting. J. H. Heller, Ph.D. in physics at Yale University, states:
It is impossible to see the figure on the Shroud except from three to six feet away. At a closer distance the figure dilates and cannot be seen. But an artist cannot paint if he does not distinguish the lines he makes with his brush. The presumed artist would have had to use a brush one or two yards long....Besides, it would have had to be made of a single hair, for it only stained tiny isolated fibers of ten or fifteen microns in diameter. The finest hairs of a brush that I know come from sable. And the hair of a sable has a large diameter compared to a tiny fiber of this fabric.
Besides, the presumed painter had to use paint that did not contain oil or water, because there are no signs of capillarity on the Shroud. Moreover, to distinguish what he was painting, he would have needed a microscope with a large magnification, under which he would have had to move his brush. But the laws of physics that govern optics exclude such a microscope, unless it was attached to a color television, for the straw-colored yellow (of the tiny colored fibers) is too weak to be registered in black and white.
Another obstacle the presumed artist would have had to overcome is the limits of the human nervous system. No one can hold such a long brush with the necessary firmness to paint the end of a tiny fiber. A micro-manipulator from the 20th century would have been needed, which would operate hydraulically at a distance of three to six feet. And this apparatus would have to have been mounted on a special mechanical arm, an invention of the atomic age. Similarly, the artist would have to have known what quantity of microfibers he should paint, and to have done it inversely, like in a negative. All the tiny colored fibers have the same intensity of color. The figure comes from a greater or lesser grouping of colored fibers. Our hypothetical artist would have had to use pre-mortal as well as post-mortal blood and have painted using serum albumin which is only visible under ultraviolet rays. One must also suppose that he would have used a medium that was invisible under white light.
The conclusion was reached that the images were the product of oxidation. Sulfuric acid is an oxidizing agent, but it is evident that no one can paint with sulfuric acid because it would destroy the hair and leave signs of capillarity.
Heat can also cause the same type of oxidation as sulfuric acid, but any source of heat irradiates diffusely and could not explain the tridimensionality of the features of the man in the shroud or the neatness of the straw-colored yellow found only on the ends of the microfibers.
Thus far the biophysicist Dr. J. H. Heller.
13) The scientists did not analyze this radiation. They only said it was “unknown.” They did not want to enter the field of religion: Who is the Man on the Shroud? They desired to remain in the purely scientific realm. But a dead body cannot emit such radiation. Therefore, this must deal with a very singular radiation. Supposing that the deceased person wrapped in the Shroud was Jesus Christ, there is no problem. This special irradiation could have been an emergence of light and heat that left Christ’s body at the moment of his resurrection. In fact, although the scientists did not want to enter this field, they all thought of Jesus Christ, as Dr. Mula, the team coordinator, confessed. That is why he himself said that this radiation produced an enormous impact on them all.
14) If it had been 14th-century fabric, an inscription from the 11th century would have no explanation, written with a quill above the right knee: “Santissime Jesu, miserere nostri,” discovered and dated—due to the type of lettering—by Aldo Marastoni, professor at the University of Milan, who had no part in the studies on the Holy Shroud.
15) Presupposing the integrity of the three laboratories that examined the cloth using carbon 14, there are innumerable irregularities that could alter the results. For example, not having cleaned the Shroud of organic impurities, such as fungus and the other superimposed organic matter it contains. The Shroud was exposed an infinite number of times to the sun and the air, which affects the composition of cellulose. It had also been surrounded by lit candles, underwent burns, was handled by people and stained by the sweat of those who held and touched it, as St. Francis de Sales tells. All this necessarily altered such dating notably, to the precise point that the Nobel prizewinner himself who invented the carbon 14 dating method, Dr. W. F. Libby, thought that applying it to the Holy Shroud was not reliable. In fact, he thought that it could not be applied at all because it was too altered. Besides, one lone proof against the authenticity of the relic cannot throw out hundreds of proofs that bear witness to the contrary.
In conclusion, the Holy Shroud fulfills a most important role in our times. In this holy relic unbelievers and skeptics can find reasonable and scientific arguments that bear witness to the event that divided the history of mankind into “before Christ” and “after Christ”—the birth, death and resurrection of the Redeemer. But, just as Cardinal Newman said, the truth is shown only to those who search sincerely...
What Is Carbon 14?
With the techniques available in the 19th century, geologists at that time could only compose a relative time scale. However, shortly after the discovery of radiation, radiometric methods of dating were developed. Using them, the relative geological time scale could begin to be gauged, producing an absolute one. The carbon 14 method was developed at first by the US chemist Willard Frank Libby and his group of collaborators from the University of Chicago in 1947. This work won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. The discovery was that through metabolic activity, the level of carbon 14 in a live organism is kept in balance with that of the atmosphere or with that of other parts of the dynamic terrestrial reserve, such as the ocean.
Starting with the death of an organism, the radioactive isotope begins to disintegrate at a known rate without being replaced by carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its quick disintegration generally limits the dating period to about 50,000 years, although sometimes the method is extended up to 70,000 years. The uncertainty of the measurement increases with the age of the sample. Although the method adapts to a great variety of organic materials, its precision depends on contamination and on the value used for the half life of the variations in carbon 14 atmospheric concentrations. In 1962, the half life of radiocarbon was redefined from 5,570 ± 30 years to 5,730 ± 40 years. Therefore, some previous determinations required adjustment. And due to the radioactivity introduced in the atmosphere in recent years, radiocarbon dating is calculated from 1950.
The carbon 14 time scale includes other sources of uncertainty that can produce errors between 2,000 and 5,000 years. The most serious problem is posterior contamination in the sediment. This can be caused by groundwater infiltration, the incorporation of older or younger carbon and the capture of impurities from the land or in the laboratory. Then, like in all live organisms, radioactive carbon is absorbed, an unstable form of carbon that has a half life of about 5,730 years. While living, an organism continually renews its supply of radiocarbon by breathing and eating. After death, the organism becomes a fossil and carbon 14 decreases without being replaced. To measure the quantity of carbon 14 remaining in a fossil, scientists incinerate a small fragment to change it into carbon dioxide gas. Radiation meters are used to detect the electrons emitted from the decrease of carbon 14 in nitrogen. The quantity of carbon 14 is compared to carbon 12, a stable form of carbon, to determine the quantity of radiocarbon that has disintegrated, and in that way to date the fossil.
Professor Max Frei’s Conclusion
The Popes Speak to Us About the Holy Shroud
Seventeen centuries separate us from Pope St. Sylvester’s (314-335) dispositions requesting the Holy Sacrifice to be celebrated on white linen instead of painted cloth or silk in remembrance of the white linen that wrapped Christ’s body.
In the year 769, Pope St. Stephen spoke in one of his sermons of the “Lord who extended his entire person on a cloth as white as snow, on which his glorious image, face and body in its whole length, was divinely printed so that just seeing the reproduction on the cloth would suffice to all who could not see him in flesh and blood...”
Pope Boniface VIII also alluded to the Holy Shroud, although in his case veneration was consciously directed to a “duplicate” preserved in St. Paul’s Church in Rome.
Paul II granted a plenary indulgence on February 24, 1466, to all the faithful who visited the chapel in the castle of Chambery where the Shroud was then kept.
His successor, Sixtus IV, honored it likewise, while Leo X extended its celebration to all of Savoy. Pope Gregory XIII went even farther, granting the benefit of that celebration to all the Duke of Savoy’s States “on this side and the other side of the mountains” (referring to the Alps).
In 1506, Pope Julius II approved the office and the Mass that related the Shroud directly to the Cross and that justified its unique veneration. He simultaneously conceded the Holy Chapel of Chambery the right to honor the Shroud in an annual celebration.
In our times, Pope Leo XIII conceded it particular attention. In his pontificate, contact was established between the Shroud and science due to Secondo Pia’s photographs in 1898.
Pope Pius XI, who dealt personally with Enrie, the photographer of 1931, declared on September 5, 1939, referring to the photographs that this professional had taken, that they were of “that still mysterious object, but certainly not of human making, which is the Holy Shroud of Turin....We say mysterious because great is the mystery that still surrounds this sacred object, although it is surely more sacred than any other. And certainly it can now be most categorically affirmed...that it is not the work of a human being....”
The same Pope would also confess on December 5, 1937, to Fr. Righini of the Society of Jesus: “We did not believe in the authenticity of the Holy Shroud...but now, the revelations of the photos and critical research have convinced Us. We believe in it!”
Although when the year 1931 had passed and the 1933 showing at Turin was being prepared, when the Holy Year would be celebrated, Cardinal Fossati manifested some doubts. The Pope himself explained his thinking like this: “Be at ease! Now We speak as a researcher, not as the Pope. We have personally followed the development of the studies made on the Holy Shroud and we are persuaded of its authenticity. There was opposition, but it lacked consistency....”
Pope Pius XII, in turn, in 1950, on the occasion of the celebration of the 14th Italian National Eucharistic Congress, praised the city of Turin as the place “that preserved the esteemed treasure of the Holy Shroud, which offers, for our emotion and consolation, the image of the lifeless body and the divine face...of Jesus” (See Speeches and Radio Messages [Rome: Ed. Poliglotta Vaticana, 1954], p. 295).
Van Dyck Was Right
All crucifixes, and especially paintings and statues that represent Jesus on the Cross, show him fastened by nails that perforate his hands and feet according to the descriptions given in the Gospels. Certainly, according to Sacred Scripture, the nails would have pierced the Savior’s hands and feet. And all Christian iconography places them in the very palm of his open hands while, quite often, a single nail penetrates both feet.
One great artist alone, the Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) painted the nails in Jesus’ wrists. By doing so, he left aside the tradition of an erroneous interpretation of the incomplete details in Scripture. He was inspired directly by the man of the Shroud. In fact, during a trip to Italy, the painter attended a showing of the Holy Shroud in Genoa.
This other vision was motivated, then, by the fact that, in contrast to the way Christ is most frequently shown, the man of the Shroud is a crucified person whose hands are pierced in the main fold of the wrists by the fastening nails.
The “imprint” of the Shroud shows with complete clarity not only a man who was crucified, but also precise details of the way that crucifixion was performed. The nails that fastened him to the horizontal bar of the Cross went through his hands at the exact place that corresponds to its union with the forearm.
Why there? Because those condemned to that terrible, supreme torture were crucified that way. It is the only way that human anatomy can justify, and not the more elegant manner or perhaps the most shocking way from the psychological viewpoint imagined by artists or simply by Christian exegesis, which was not the real way. Actually, a body crucified through the center of the palm of the hands would never have remained on a cross.
According to Roman custom in crucifixions, the condemned person was fastened first to the horizontal crossbeam of the cross. He was nailed to the patibulum and then, after “raising” the latter and embedding it at the point especially prepared in the vertical post, his feet were nailed. That means that the body remained suspended only by the nails that pierced the hands for a long, and by no means tranquil, while.
Imagine a body of medium weight of some 155 to 175 pounds—a detail calculated from the estimated height of the man of the Shroud—suspended from two nails sunk into the extremity of the hands, manipulated, and raised with the crossbeam and then, once put into place, suddenly falling along the vertical post before they fastened the feet.
All this allows us to suppose a certain resistance to tearing in the tissues of the hands affected by the “points” of fixation. Implantation of the nails in the palms of both hands could not have assured the necessary support. Simply due to its weight, the body would have become detached from the cross.
Anatomic details revealed by the Shroud attribute a reciprocal position of the arms and body corresponding to an angle of approximately 65 degrees between the arm and the vertical post of the cross. This proves in short that the body falling in a fast slide down the post was restrained by the arms and stopped when they reached that angle to the vertical post.
In such circumstances it is easy to calculate the force of traction exercised by the weight of the body on each arm. Assigning 85 pounds to each arm, a force of traction is developed of a value of some 198 to 209 pounds.1 Both hands fastened at the palms would not have resisted such traction, given the nature of the tissues, which is not the case in the wrists.
On the other hand, the executioners knew that detail perfectly. The wrist itself offers the necessary point of great resistance and also a very easy, less destructive penetration by the fixation nail.
This is in reality the famous Destot’s space, known to all anatomists. Dr. P. Barbet, who conducted a large number of experiments, definitively verified this aspect. More than a dozen times, he repeated crucifixions from the wrists of hands recently amputated from corpses. A nail implanted in the palm of the hand would not have allowed both distended hands to support the weight of a 175 pound body without the flesh tearing rapidly and the crucified person falling to the ground. But putting the nail in the fold of the wrist meant, on the contrary, fastening it in a highly resistant place. It meant nailing it in the very center of a group of bones maintained by a very powerful annular ligament that offered a solid point of suspension in a small bony gap, easy to pierce. The point or space is called Destot’s space. It is enough to put a 0.4 inch thick square nail, resting the point on the inside of the wrist, to pierce it right through. The nail sinks without encountering greater resistance, although it undergoes a slight deviation making the point slide upward toward the forearm and the head incline toward the fingers. But, as Dr. Barbet showed so well, the nail’s normal spontaneous deviation automatically prevents the small semilunate carpal bone from fracturing.
Without the slightest doubt they proceeded that way to crucify the man of the Shroud.
In fact, thumbprints cannot be seen by examining the marks on the Shroud. It would seem as if the thumbs were turned toward the interior of the hands and hidden by “the shadow” of the other fingers.
Why? Simply because as soon as the nail passed through the soft space, the first flaccid wrist tissues, the thumb was sharply projected toward the inside, in pronounced opposition to the other fingers of the hand, due to the nail reaching the median nerve. This fully justifies the absence of thumbprints on the Shroud. It is easy to calculate the atrocious suffering caused by that brutal aggression to the tissues of the hand, all the more since that median nerve is not only a motor, but also a sensory, nerve. Any lesion that affects that nerve generates pain whose intensity is impossible to imagine.
No, Jesus Christ could not have been crucified the way they invented with all the details, who wanted to describe with their imagination the rather scarce data the Evangelists give about the particular circumstances of the Passion.
The Man of the Shroud was crucified instead by the wrists, which expresses all the savagery of his executioners and the atrocity of his horrible suffering.
1 This value is obtained by applying the relationship: 85/cos. 65 = 85/0.422 = 209 pounds.
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