Page 90 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

THE PORTRAIT OF JESUS 77

shows that gradually it increased in sanctity. In the earliest version, it was the
work of the painter Hannan, in later accounts it could be painted only with
the assistance of Jesus, finally it was wholly the work of Jesus himself. It had
become now the impression of the features of Jesus which he had himself
left on a kerchief, and it was divine—'not the work of [mortal] hands', as it
was termed, a phrase that may occur for the first time in 569. The abortive
siege of Edessa by Khusraw I Anosharwan in 544 is described factually by
Procopius, writing some two years later; he ascribes the success of the
defenders to their courage and resourcefulness. But the chronicler Evagrius,
writing fifty years after Procopius, holds that the discomfiture of the Persians
was the work of the sacred portrait of Jesus. When all seemed lost, the bishop
was instructed in a vision, to discover the portrait hidden between some tiles
in the city wall. The Edessans sprinkled water on the portrait and cast the
water towards the enemy; his siege-works were consumed by fire. In certain
circles the portrait had apparently replaced the letter as the palladium of
Edessa.
Both letter and portrait existed side by side. We shall see that from the
reign of Justinian there was a Melkite (Chalcedonian) community at Edessa,
maintained with Byzantine support, as well as the Jacobite (Monophysite)
community; each had its own bishop. The portrait may well have been the
special property of the Melkite community, while the letter of Jesus was
prized by the Jacobite community, who objected to images of Jesus, at any
rate in the fifth and sixth centuries. We have observed that sacred writing
was a Semitic concept;1 writing was highly esteemed by the Edessans, of
whom the majority belonged to the Jacobite congregation. But for western
Syria and Byzantium, portraiture by painting or sculpture was a more
familiar medium. The portrait of Jesus at Camuliana existed already at the
end of the fourth century, and was brought to Constantinople in 574-2
Western influences may underlie the devotion paid to the Edessan portrait
of Jesus. Significantly, there is confusion between the sacred kerchief of
Edessa in the East and the veil of Veronica or Berenice of Paneas in Palestine
in the West. The legends of Paneas and Edessa are curiously interwoven.
The evangelist Addai is said to have been born at Paneas—or at Edessa. The
Doctrine of Addai recounts the finding of the Cross at Jerusalem by the wife of
the Emperor Claudius, called Protonice; this is possibly a variant of the name
Berenice.3 Berenice of Paneas dedicated a statue of Jesus as a thanksgiving
offering on being healed from sickness, and a Greek author of the early
fifth century alleges that she was princess of Edessa. And, finally, when both

1 See p. 43 above. 343 ff. See on the cult of images, E. Kitzinger,
z This portrait, together with a copy from Dumbarton Oaks Papers viii, 1954, 83.
Melitene were both regarded as 'not the work 3 For a different explanation of the name,
of [mortal] hands'; see further von Dobschiitz, see p. 51 above.
Ckristusbilder, and A. Grabar, Martyrium, ii,

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