Shroud of Turin - is the mystery solved?
A massive safe behind a thick wall next to the altar of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (Turin), for 250 years, it has kept the greatest relic of Christianity - the Shroud of Christ: a piece of linen cloth 14 feet long and 3 feet wide, on which the double imprint of the crucified person's body is clearly visible.
It is believed that in this way Jesus Christ left his true face to the descendants of Jesus Christ after his tortured body in sweat and blood "was wrapped in linen blankets soaked in incense, as is customary among the Jews" and was temporarily left by Joseph of Arimateus and Nicodemus in the crypt of Gethsemane garden.
Believers say that the Shroud of Turin is the very veil that was found on the floor of the empty crypt. “Peter kept the shroud, but now we do not know its location,” wrote St. Nin in the 4th century.
After 300 years, the shroud appeared in Jerusalem (Bishop Arkuf wrote about this), and stayed there for about 400 years. At the end of the 11th century, the shroud was suddenly discovered in Constantinople. After the city was plundered by the crusaders, it disappeared, then, in an unknown way, appeared in France, after which it is already more or less in full view of modern historians.
The first owners of the shroud were the Dukes of Savoy, the ancestors of King Victor Emmanuel of Italy. It is a well-known fact that in the XIV century over the authenticity of the Shroud of Christ furious disputes erupted among the clerics: the church did not officially recognize the authenticity of the relic.
1532 - the chapel, in which the shroud was kept, burned down, but the sight was almost not damaged, only its ends were slightly charred.
No one doubted the great historical value of the Shroud of Christ, but the scientific world, perhaps, would never have paid attention to it, if not for the curious discovery that was made in 1898 by a wealthy amateur photographer Chevalier Pio, who permission was obtained from King Victor Emmanuel to photograph the shroud.
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After the plates were developed, Pio noticed an amazing thing: the image on the relic turned out to be "purl"; both parts of it, speaking in another way, carried a negative image. As a result, instead of the expected negativity, Pio's plates showed a perfect photo of an unusually noble male face, from every feature of which the greatest sorrow emanated. The image was incredibly realistic and natural.
So, as a result of some mysterious processes, the cloth of the shroud acted as a photographic plate, bringing to us the true portrait of Jesus Christ. From two "photographs" of the relic it is possible to establish not only the height of Jesus (5 feet and 8 inches), but also some details, surprisingly complementing the facts that are known about the drama on Calvary and the events that followed.
These messages were like a bolt from the blue and caused a real sensation around the world. Fierce controversy erupted over the authenticity of the Turin Shroud and the conclusions made by those who studied the photograph.
Dr. Paul Vignon, professor of biology at the Paris Catholic Institute, together with assistant professor of physics, Colonel Colson, made a number of experiments and presented a report on them to the scientific council of the French Academy of Sciences. In the early 1930s, after the relic was put on public display, two commissions were created for further research - one in Turin, the other in Paris. Soon, both of them declared that they had convincing evidence of the fact that the Shroud of Christ is in fact the last garment of Jesus Christ.
Dr. Vignon, who served as secretary to the joint commission, confidently stated that the image could not be artificially applied to the fabric. The very concept of the negative appeared only after the invention of photography. In order to recreate a negative photograph of a person with amazing accuracy with pictorial means, a master in antiquity had to know such scientific and artistic principles, which until recently humanity had not the slightest idea.
“These principles,” said Vignon, “are rather difficult to translate even in a simple, positive drawing. The relic offers us the negative of a perfectly executed photograph. Even today, no painting genius is able to recreate such an accurate photographic negative using artistic means. As a matter of fact, no one has managed to present any convincing copy of the photograph on the shroud, although such attempts were made by very authoritative masters of their craft."
It should also be noted that before applying an oil or watercolor drawing to the fabric, the artist needs to prepare (polish) the canvas, making it rigid and rigid. But the linen of the shroud is soft, delicate and thin.
But how could a negative photograph of a crucified person appear on the relic? Summing up his observations, Dr. Vignon drew more than an intriguing conclusion. The fact is that the sweat of a person who has been physically tortured or suffers from severe fever contains a significant percentage of urea. As a result of fermentation, the latter releases ammonia vapor. The shroud with which the body of Christ was clothed was impregnated, as indicated in the Gospel, with aloe juice and myrrh. Ammonia vapors entered into a chemical reaction with aloe juice, which sensitized linen fabric, turning it into a kind of analogue of a photographic plate.
The circumstances of the tragedy, apparently, contributed to the emergence of favorable conditions for this. We know that the body of Christ was not washed: it was completely smeared with sweat and caked blood from wounds - from a crown of thorns, nails, lashes and a blow of a spear. On the eve of Saturday, the body was left in a closed cave, where nothing interfered with the evaporation of ammonia from the urea released with sweat. Considering all these factors, the fact that a body wrapped in linen left a photographic print on it, the contrast of which increases in places of contact with the fabric, seems not only not surprising, but even natural.
What Dr. Vignon was able to prove very convincingly: by wrapping a plastic mannequin covered with ammonia with a linen cloth soaked in aloe juice, he received an imprint on the latter, which in many ways resembled an image that bears a relic.
So, the riddle of the Shroud of Christ has been solved? No, there is a lot here that still needs to be explained.
The image, which is imprinted on the linen sheets, is a perfect contrast. The harmony of light and shadow here is such that the face looking at us is completely alive. It seems incredible that such a stunning photographic effect could be achieved as a result of the most ordinary chemical reaction between the fumes emitted by the body and the juice of aloe.
Another mystery: all caked blood has gone from the body to the shroud. In itself, this fact is not very surprising, because ammonia dissolves the fibers of coagulated blood. However, the fact is that the “smears” of blood were transferred to tissue to such an extent that a portrait came out, partly written in blood!
Dr. Vignon was unable to replicate the process by which flax could so perfectly absorb dried blood. It is all the more unclear how over the centuries the blood particles did not fall off the tissue, and why they remain dark carmine, and did not turn into brown spots, as is usually the case.
But there is an even more surprising circumstance here. Drops of sulfur were found on the relic. The outflow of sulfur from the wounds indicates the beginning of the first stage of cadaveric decomposition. But the decaying body emits ammonia very intensively, and in hot weather the processes of decay are accelerated. In such conditions, photographs on the shroud should not have taken place: the prints left on the fabric by a relatively weak outflow of ammonia would have been blurred, and then erased already in the first hours of the body being in the crypt, the entrance to which was blocked by a stone.
What happened? The answer to this question is, although the mind refuses to accept it. The body of Jesus, we recall, was brought into the cave on Friday evening. On Sunday morning, the body was revealed to have disappeared. Where, why? The Bible does not answer these questions.
If Dr. Vignon's conclusions are correct, then … the body should have disappeared immediately after the entrance to the crypt was knocked over by a stone! In any other case, the processes of decomposition would almost immediately destroy the "photograph" on the shroud. Thus, the Shroud of Christ in the most unexpected way confirmed what was said in the Bible about the crucifixion of Christ and his subsequent disappearance.
The photograph of the rarity clearly shows a wound on the arm. But it is not located in the center of the palm, as the painters of our era believed. Nails pierced the wrists: this is exactly how they crucified before - the thin bones of the palm simply could not hold the human body on the cross. This terrifying fact alone is enough to dismiss all assumptions that the image of the Shroud of Christ was created by means of painting. Not a single master of the Middle Ages or of a later period would dare to violate the church canons by which they were guided. And even more so he would not dare to portray Jesus without a loincloth: such a heretic would immediately be sentenced to death.
The photograph shows traces of wounds inflicted by the crown of thorns and lashes. Are visible to such an extent that one can easily recognize the type of flagellum with two or three belts, at the end of each of which a metal ball is attached. A wound is visible in the right side of the body, clearly from a blow from a spear. According to the Bible, Jesus expired before the soldier pierced his side. Medical analysis of the Turin Shroud confirmed this fact. From a wound in the side, sulfur was released (there is a trace of it on the tissue) - and this is proof that when the blow was struck, the body was already dead. Meanwhile, it was not accepted then to pierce the body of a crucified with a spear - as a rule, in order to make sure that the condemned had expired, the executioner would cut his shin. An unexpected departure from the usual procedure confirmed the prophecy of the "Old Testament": "Not a single bone in his body will be broken."
Dr. Vignon has undertaken a tremendous amount of work in the hope of shedding light on the mystery of the Shroud of Christ. His conclusion is as follows: “Guided by the data of the research carried out and the texts of the Gospel as a guide, it should be admitted that Christ actually captured the finale of his life drama for posterity. He left his exact image on the fabric, which remained hidden from the eyes of mankind until the advent of photography."
Fodor Nandor