They were generally displayed for veneration in churches, whose prestige they elevated by attracting offerings from the faithful, but even during that time, the most discerning Christians were aware that these were mostly highly unlikely relics (as evidenced by the 12th century indignation-laden treatise, De pignoribus sanctorum [On Saints and Their Relics] by Benedictine Guibert of Nogent and, in the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer’s amusing The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale).

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The Lateran Council of 1215 established:
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Prelates, moreover, should not in future allow those who come to their churches, in order to venerate, to be deceived by lying stories or false documents, as has commonly happened in many places on account of the desire for profit.

[Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 62]

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These prescriptions were soon forgotten. Some of these alleged relics are, in deference to tradition, still today objects of devotion.

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​The list would be endless, but suffice it to say that in the Middle Ages several cradles of the baby Jesus popped up (for example, at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome), as well as the table of the Last Supper (at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran), and the finger bone with which “Doubting Thomas” checked the wound in Jesus' side (at the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem).

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Throughout Europe, the following have all turned up: the hair of Our Lady (in Messina, a presumed lock is still carried in procession on the feast of Corpus Christi), ampoules of her alleged breast milk and at least a dozen specimens of the belt once belonging to her and given to the apostle Thomas as proof of her assumption into heaven (cf. A. Lombatti, Il culto delle reliquie [The Cult of Relics], Sugarco, 2007, p. 161). In Prato, a solemn display of the Sacred Belt still takes place five times a year.


The largest (by extension) presumed relic was the House of Mary, which allegedly was transferred by angels from Nazareth to Loreto (it was not until the 15th century that the legend of the miraculous relocation arose [cf. C. L. Frommel, L' architettura del santuario e del palazzo apostolico di Loreto da Paolo II a Paolo III, Tecnostampa, 2021, p. 13]).


And there were also the alleged acheiropoieta relics (i.e., relics not made by human hand).
 

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The birth of Christian acheiropoieta

A belief in the existence of sacred images not made by human hand already existed in the Greco-Roman world.


It was believed that a wooden statuette of Athena (the Palladium) had fallen from the sky as a sign of supernatural protection for the city of Troy at the time of its founding [Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, III, 12].


In the Acts of the Apostles, a magistrate from Ephesus (a Greek city that was located on the western coast of modern-day Turkey) utters the phrase, ““You Ephesians, what person is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the guardian of the temple* of the great Artemis and of her image that fell from the sky?” [Acts, 19:35].


Christians generally did not produce images with sacred subjects in the first two centuries “partly because of the prohibition of graven images which formed part of the Mosaic Law, and partly because of the very central role which statuary, and images generally, occupied in the religions of Graeco-Roman paganism” [E. Kitzinger, The Cult of Images in the Age Before Iconoclasm, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 1954, p. 89].


Later, they began to produce them, but the proliferation of acheiropoieta images didn’t take place within Christianity until the second half of the sixth century.
This phenomenon originated in the East, in territories of the Byzantine empire, thus in culturally Hellenized regions.

 

They were initially depictions of Jesus but, though the most famous acheiropoieton image still considered miraculous by many believers is a burial cloth (the Shroud of Turin), the oldest accounts (images from Camuliana, Memphis and Edessa) related to images of the living Jesus.

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​The image of Camuliana

 

Regarding Christian acheiropoieta images, Leslie Brubaker, Professor of Byzantine Art History at the University of Birmingham, writes:
 

The earliest known of these, described in a text written in 569, is said to have been found foating in a well – where it miraculously remained dry.
[Leslie Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm, Bristol Classical Press, 2012, p. 11]

 

According to this account based on the Ecclesiastical History of Pseudo-Zechariah of Mytilene and set in Camuliana (modern-day Turkey), the acheiropoieton image was found by an unbelieving woman who, because of this miracle, converted to Christianity.


The Camuliana, depicting the face of Jesus, “connects more directly with the pagan tradition of sacred objects falling from the sky” [E. Brunet, L’immagine dell’Uomo non fatta da mani d’uomo. Statuto dell’immagine e dell’arte nei racconti d’origine delle acheropite [The image of Man not made by human hands. Status of image and art in acheropite origin stories], ”Marcianum", VI, 2010, 2, p. 209].


In fact, two types (the first of which is more directly related to pagan tradition) can be identified in stories regarding Christian acheiropoieta:
 

Acheiropoietai are of two kinds: Either they are images believed to have been made by hands other than those of ordinary mortals or else they are claimed to be mechanical, though miraculous, impressions of the original..
[Kitzinger, p. 113]
 

 

The account of Camuliana falls somewhat into both types, as, in turn, the image of celestial provenance, “shrouded in the clothing of woman, leaves its imprint upon it” [E. von Dobschütz, Christubilder, Leipzig, 1899, p. 41].


Nevertheless, the idea that an acheiropoieton image can be formed through direct contact with the body of Jesus comes about through the images of Memphis and Edessa.

 

 

 

​The image of Memphis and the Mandylion of Edessa

 

The next [acheiropoieton], in Memphis (Egypt), was created when Christ pressed the linen cloth to his face, as we are told in a pilgrim’s account of his journey to the Holy Land, written around 570. 
[Brubaker, p. 11]

 

Regarding the image of Memphis, we have no source other than the account of the pilgrim from Piacenza (Italy).
 

The so-called mandylion of Edessa, first attested c. 590, was the most famous of them all during the Byzantine period, and it too was said to have been produced when Christ pressed his face against a linen cloth.
[Ibid.]
 

 

Most interestingly, the Mandylion of Edessa was originally considered a mere human artifact.


The evolution of the legend, already attested by early church historian Ernst von Dobschütz in his still seminal Christusbilder, has since been pointed out by other scholars, including Andrea Nicolotti, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Turin.


According to the account, Abgar, ruler of the kingdom of Edessa (in modern-day eastern Turkey), was ill and reportedly sent his own appointee to Jesus to ask to be healed.


In the oldest version (reported in the early fourth-century Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea), Jesus allegedly sent a reassuring letter to Abgar in response:
 

 

Concerning what you wrote to me, to come to you, I must first complete here all for which I was sent, and after thus completing it be taken up to him who sent me, and when I have been taken up, I will send to you one of my disciples to heal your suffering, and give life to you and those with you.
[Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, Volume I, Harvard University Press, 1926, pp. 89-91]

 

As is evident, “in this legend, however, there is no mention whatsoever of any image of Christ” [A. Nicolotti, From the Mandylion of Edessa to the Shroud of Turin. The Metamorphosis and Manipulation of a Legend, Brill, 2014, p. 8]


In the Doctrine of Addai (a 4th-5th century Syriac text), Abgar's appointee, named Ananias, becomes a painter who “painted a likeness of Jesus with choice pigments” [Doctrina Addai, in Nicolotti, p. 10]


As such, it was a simple painting.


But here, we come to a critical development which took place no earlier than in the middle of the sixth century:
 

The story of the Doctrine of Addai reappears in the sixth century, in the Acts of Mar Mari. Still with a Syriac background, and still a reworking of the legend.
[Nicolotti, p. 12]
 

In fact, at this point in the 6th century, instead of the painter Ananias creating the painting, there are an unspecified series of painters commissioned by Abgar who attempt to portray the face of Jesus, but they don't succeed:
 

When Our Lord realized, through his divine understanding, the love of Abgar for him, having seen that the painters endeavored to depict his image as he was, but they failed, he took a cloth and laid it upon his face — the life-giver of the world —, and it turned out as he was.
[Acta Mar Maris, in Nicolotti, p. 19]
 

Until the 10th century and beyond, however, the original versions of the story continued to be handed down in Syriac and Armenian circles (which only covered Jesus' letter to Abgar or the painting by Ananias), as evidenced by various historical sources duly quoted and reported by Professor Nicolotti [cf. Nicolotti, pp. 22-25, 91-95].


In the 10th century, the Mandylion was transferred from Edessa to Constantinople. It is not known for sure what happened to it after 1204, the year of the Sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders.


Nevertheless, we have several artistic representations of it.


In the Sinai Diptych (a 10th-century panel painting in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai), the right panel depicts Ananias delivering the Mandylion to King Abgar. (The left panel features the apostle Thaddeus — in Syriac, Addai — who, according to tradition, had evangelized the people of Edessa.)

 

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