SEARCH FOR A PERFECT FACE OF JESUS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12609, 20 November 1926, Page 11

SEARCH FOR A PERFECT FACE OF JESUS

Reconstruction From Portraits Left by the Earliest Christians

A remarkable picture is shortly \to be painted which will attempt to portray Christ as he really looked. AT the instigation of a number of Biblical scholars and religious organisations several prominent artists are now at work studying and comparing the ancient paintings of the Saviour in the catacombs at Rome, and mosaics and portraits on cloth, glass, and other material in the Vatican, and a number of old churches abroad. When they have completed their task they will embody the main characteristics in one portrait, which it is claimed will probably be as accurate a likeness it would have been if painted in His 'lifetime. Experts on Old Testament history and a number of documents relating to the early Christian story are also being consulted in order that the artists shall have every possible help to construct a reliable rpicturo. Some, of the portraits that are being studied were painted, in the first century, and one or two were done by unknown artists within a few years of the crucifixion. -When all the available material has been collected the work of painting the picture, it is exnected, will take a year to complete. Further aid. it is hoped, will be gained from the description of Jesus which Dr. Eisler. a Viennese historian, has discovered in a hitherto unknown version of the writings of Josephus, the Jewish historian.

BEAUTIFUL, OR NOT? The neyf Josephus description coincides very largely with that given bv the eerlv fathers of the Church, though Dr. Wohleb, of Freiberg, regards this description as an interpolation 'n the works of Josephus. But on the other hand it is , considered highly probable that Jewish annotators of tWfe historian’s work would have suppressed, as far ns possible, reference to the Reformer who threatened to destroy their religion, and that the recently discovered version is that in which the suppression .was omitted. In his description, Josephus is said to remark on the growing together of the eyebrows as a mark of ugliness, whereas the whole antique world regarded this peciiliarity as a mark of beauty. Josephus’s word-picture, though it refers to the ‘‘more than human expression” of Jesus, denies him all beauty of feature. Unfortunately there is not a word in the Gospels descriptive of the bodily appearance of. Jesus. Dr. J. Rendel Harris, of London, cm© of the greatest living authorities upon Old Testament history, an expert upon the many books written round the Christian story not received into the canonical Bible, has, however, been studving a document written in Svria dating from the eighth ctntury, which is expected to be of considerable assistance. Dealing with the appearance of the Baviour, the document states: — Thy stature, O Christ, was smaller than that of children of Jacob, who sinned against Thy Father, who rejected Thee, and who kindled the wrath of the Eternal Son who dwelt in Thee, and who angered the Holy Spirit who sanctified Thee. This passage is supposed to have been written bjr Theodore, a Greek, as part of an rncient hymn. A SMALL MAN As comment on this description of

the stature of Jesus, Dr. Harris adds a quotation of the Apostle John in an apocryphal Book of Acts:

“Oftentimes He would appear to me as a small man and uncomely, and then again l as one reaching unto Heaven. His head touched Heaven so that I was afraid and cried out, and He, turning about, appeared as a man of small stature.”

As to precisely what was meant by this small stature, Dr. Harris goes to the writings’of St. Ephrem, a Syrian, who died 373 A.D., and who wrote.from the traditions prevailing in his day.

“God,” wrote St. Ephi'em, “took human form and appeared with a stature of three human cubits, while at the same time assuming all things. He rose upon us little of stature,”

Dr. Harris estimates that three human cubits amount to five feet two inches, taking the cubit at twenty and two-thirds inches. . In another ancient document, known as the ‘‘Letter of Lentulus,” this paragraph occurs:

“He was seven spans high, His hair was yellow and curled at tbe ends, His eyes were hazel, the colour of His face was yel-low-brown, His neck was somewhat bent, and He did not walk

perfectly upright. No razor had ever touched HU hair.”

There is also a tradition that, as Jesus was passing through Jerusalem on his way to Calvary, bearing the cross, St. Veronica came out or one of the houses and, taking her handkerchief, wiped the bloody sweat from His face. ' . To her astonishment, when she took the linen home, she found imprinted upon it His portrait. Several of these pieces of linen aro shown in different churches, all claimed to be the originol. Bat the real problem behind all of these traditions is: Does an actual portrait of Jesus exist?

It is an indisputable fact that there is a “Face of Christ” which is universally recognised, even through the variations of time and art. Some of the paintttr* seem to have .caught the “likeness” more perfectly than others, but it is behind all of them.

It existed in the mosaics of the great basilicas a thousand years before the painters of the Renaissance took it over and elaborated upon it. The same likeness looks out from the walls of the churches of the time of Constantine, before were divided into East and West. Greek and Latin followed models deemed authentic, and they all agreed in certain lineaments.