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THE RETURN OF CATHOLIC CULTURE: THE FIRST SELFIE?
THE RETURN OF CATHOLIC CULTURE: THE FIRST SELFIE?
by Roy Wulf '26
The Shroud of Turin is a long, blood-stained linen cloth bearing a faint, lifesize, full-length image of a scourged and crucified man front and back.
The Shroud is documented back to the 1350s, when it was under the care of the French knight Geoffroy de Charny, who put it on public display. A souvenir from its exhibition still exists.
This metal badge shows the Shroud and the Coats of Arms of Geoffrey de Charny and his wife. Geoffroy died in 1356, never revealing how he obtained the Shroud.
A reconstructed image of the “pilgrim badge” souvenir sold at Geoffrey de Charny’s public exhibition of the Holy Shroud in the 1350s. Pictured is the Shroud with front and back body images and Geoffrey’s coat of arms on the bottom left and the coat of arms of his wife on the bottom right.
In 1532, the Shroud was burned in a fire, but the image was largely undamaged. In 1534, Poor Clare nuns patched damaged areas. The Shroud was sent to Turin, Italy in 1578 and remains there still.
Could this cloth somehow be the same Shroud described in all four Gospels (Mark 15, Matthew 27, Luke 23, and John 19)? Joseph of Arimathea bought a fine linen cloth, wrapped Jesus’ body in it, and placed the body in a tomb. On Easter morning, Jesus had risen, but what happened to the Shroud?
Two big questions surround the Shroud of Turin. First, is it from the 14th Century or is it older? Second, how was the image formed? The Shroud has thus become the most investigated artifact ever, undergoing countless scientific tests. The most famous was radiocarbon dating performed in 1988. A single piece was cut from one corner and divided into four smaller pieces with a remnant to be preserved. The results dated the Shroud to the Middle Ages (AD 1260-1390) with 95% certainty, and the Shroud was declared a medieval fake. Case closed? Not quite. Even if the Shroud were medieval, it would still be puzzling. The image is much more realistic than any medieval artwork. The image is like a photograph or, more accurately, a photographic negative, a concept unknown to any medieval artist. The normal image is very faint, so we only see the image clearly when we photograph the Shroud and examine its negative image. This happened for the first time in 1899. Suppose we found a photograph (or negative) of Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales. This would be astounding. The earliest known photograph is a blurry image taken in 1826. Even if the Shroud were not from Biblical times, a medieval photo-like image is still incredible. But if photography was invented to make the Shroud of Turin, why are there no other photos from this time? If made without photography, why fake an image that can only be seen clearly after photography is invented?
Furthermore, the radiocarbon dating was mishandled. In 2000, researchers Joseph Marino and Sue Benford noticed a diagonal repair seam running through the area where the samples were taken. They found the dating results from the four samples were skewed corresponding to that diagonal seam: #1 (AD 1238), #2 (AD 1246), #3 (AD 1326), and #4 (AD 1430). Chemist Raymond Rogers examined the remnant sample and confirmed that cotton had been woven into the linen fibers and dyed to match the linen. The samples contained different amounts of cotton added by the nuns in their 1534 repairs. One of the scientists responsible for the radiocarbon testing, Christopher Ramsey, acknowledged that the dating was compromised because cotton from the 1534 patch and the (apparently) older linen had been dated together.
There are also hints from history that the Turin Shroud existed earlier. For example, in AD 944, a Byzantine general besieged Edessa, Turkey and took back “the cloth with Jesus’ imprint” to Constantinople. Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII described the image as “extremely faint, more like a moist secretion without pigment or the painter’s art.” Archdeacon Gregory of the Hagia Sophia described a full body image produced by “Christ’s sweat,” implying that it was faint. He also mentions blood from the side wound on the cloth. In 1201, the overseer of Constantinople’s relic collection listed “the funerary sheets of Christ” that “wrapped the un-outlined, dead, naked” body of Jesus “after the Passion.”
A view of the blood stains on one half of the Shroud, including blood consistent with scourging on the legs and body, head wounds from a crown of thorns, crucifixion nail wounds on hands and feet, and spear wound to the side.
Close up view of the hands on the Shroud of Turin, showing how the image on the Shroud (when made into a negative) is like a photo.
On August 1, 1205, a Byzantine ruler wrote to Pope Innocent III protesting the looting of Constantinople by knights of the Fourth Crusade. He wrote, “In April last year a crusading army, having falsely set out to liberate the Holy Land, instead laid waste the city of Constantine. During the sack, troops of Venice and France looted even the holy sanctuaries. The Venetians partitioned the treasures of gold, silver, and ivory, while the French did the same with the relics of the saints and, most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before his resurrection. We know that the sacred objects are preserved by their predators in Venice, in France and in other places, the sacred linen in Athens.”
The leader of the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 was Otto de la Roche. He became the Lord of Athens in 1204, but returned to France in 1225. His great-great granddaughter was Jeanne de Vergy, who married … (drumroll please) … Geoffrey de Charny! Geoffrey may have wanted to avoid revealing that his in-laws had looted the Shroud from the Byzantines!
Pollen has been collected from the Shroud. Although some comes from plants found in France and Italy, most comes from plants native to Israel, Turkey, and the western Mediterranean. This makes no sense if the Shroud was created in Europe. Also, keep in mind that the blood on the Shroud indicates that the cloth once wrapped an actual bleeding person whose wounds correspond exactly to the wounds of Christ’s Passion.
How was the image formed? It has been proven that the image is not artwork (a painting, etc.), but we still do not understand how the image got there. An image exists because the top layer of linen fibers has yellowed, similar to how the pages of a book turn yellowish when left out in the sun. However, even today, after numerous attempts, no one has produced an image like this on linen.
The image was somehow made using light. The body within the Shroud perhaps glowed brilliantly (like Jesus glowed in the Transfiguration). Because the hair in the image hangs down, the body was not lying down when the image formed. It was vertical, but not standing since the feet are pointed downward. The body was hanging or levitating above the ground (like Jesus levitated during the Ascension).
Needless to say, we do not have solid answers to the two big questions, but as for me, I am certain that the Shroud of Turin is the world’s first selfie!
The ordinary (faint) image of the face on the Shroud that functions like a photographic negative so that when a negative image is made, as shown on the right, the negative provides us with what looks like a positive image photograph. This property of the Shroud was discovered when the cloth was first photographed in 1899.
