The Veronica
First Edition yet

Now that we have explained how the Holy Burial was carried out, we shall narrate what is referring to those who participated in it and the role they performed.

While the other disciples hid, John accompanied Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the foot of the cross during her Son’s agony, from whom they received the instruction to look after each other. Also remaining there, there were Mary Magdalene, Mary Cleophas, mother of Santiago, the younger, and the mother of John and Santiago, the sons of Zebedeus; these were, namely, the relatives.

Both the Gospels and non-canonic texts narrate that Joseph of Arimathea asked Pontius Pilate for the corpse of Jesus and loaned the sepulcher, new, in order for it to be placed there. Joseph was part of the Jewish Council, and during Jesus’ trial he scorned the Orthodox members of the Sanhedrin for their heterodox methods; that is, he who had until then followed Jesus secretly, declared himself as His follower and defended Him first in the Sanhedrin – by defending Him, Joseph was defending the Law, which stipulated how it was supposed to proceed in a trial -, and then, asking for His corpse and burying Him. It is likely that Joseph had given the instructions regarding how to handle the corpse in order to comply diligently with the precept.

Finally, Nicodemus was mentioned, who bought the myrrh, the aloe and perhaps the Shroud, and helped transfer the corpse to the tomb.

There was not one word about Veronica, despite the plain evidence that it was a Shroud owned by her that was used in all phases of the sepulchral process, accredited by tradition, which has maintained her act of mercy depicted in the sixth station of the Via Crucis.

In his non-canonic Gospel, Nicodemus narrates how both he and Veronica interceded for Jesus before Pontius Pilate, but he omits his intervention in the burial; he only mentions Joseph. In this case, what is said and what is left unsaid are both important. Nicodemus prefers to keep quiet about his acting, in order not to have to include Veronica because of this.

The reason is that what is nowadays considered an act of mercy, in that context was seen as a very reproachable act of lack of piety: To get close to lend a helping hand to a person condemned for blasphemy without the fear of becoming impure due to this, thus transgressing the Law. Nicodemus mentions Veronica before that act, but not after the same, because due to her daring she was to be repudiated by the entire Jewish community, including the Evangelists, who did not mention her although the Gospels were written many years after the events.

However, they acted with ambiguity, since they needed her or her later intervention was convenient to them; and she herself assumed that condition and was willing to perform all the operations concerning indirect contact with the corpse during its descent, transfer and deposition, so that nobody else would be rendered impure due to this, but especially, to be close to the Lord.

And as much is said to us by the omissions, as by the warnings regarding what questions it would be logical to suppose would remain unnoticed: The fact that John narrated that when he arrived at the sepulcher he saw the Shroud having been entered, with the bandages, and folded separately, the Shroud that had been on top of Jesus’ head, this indicates that he had not entered the sepulcher to deposit Jesus, since the Shroud would have been folded and placed apart already since that moment, and he would not have considered it important to narrate that he had found it such as he had seen it before.

And if John stayed outside the sepulcher during the deposition of the corpse, that is because he remained with Mary, the mother of Jesus, just like the women who were accompanying them. The only ones who entered the sepulcher to deposit the corpse were Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who carried it in a bier, and Veronica, who performed the operations described with both Shrouds; that is, the three persons who at the last minute did not abandon Jesus, interceding for Him: Joseph of Arimathea before the Sanhedrin, and Nicodemus and Veronica before Pontius Pilate.

And it was Veronica and not the men who performed the operations with the cloaks because, besides the purity reason argued and the logic of the acting, such task “was a woman’s task”; and let us recall that when Easter was over, those who attended the sepulcher to perform the embalming in form were women, who were distressed by not having the help of men to remove the stone from the entrance.

Who preserved the cloaks, picking them up from the sepulcher after the Resurrection? Certainly, it would not have been the disciples and relatives, who, being Jews, saw in the sepulchral cloaks sources of impurity, and for whom picking them up to keep them would have been considered even idolatry; only Veronica, the woman who dared, impure, stretch out her hand to touch Jesus’ cloak, certain that that way she would heal of the hemorrhage that during twelve years had kept her away from the community rites, as stipulated by the Law of Moses. She was the woman who dared cleanse the bloodied face of the condemned man, and to whom it did not matter that she would again be pointed at and segregated.

It is convenient to summarize the passage of the woman afflicted by hemorrhoids. Jesus felt that a virtuous force was coming out of Him, and then He stopped and asked, “Who has touched me?” Peter let Him see that His question was absurd, since the people were rallying around Him and all of them were touching Him, but He insisted. Then Veronica spoke, “I, Lord,” and let Him know her reasons: a hemorrhage she had been suffering for 12 years. She believed that just by touching the edge of His cloak she would heal, and then she dared. Jesus said farewell to her, “Go in peace, woman, your faith has saved you.” These words have two meanings: the evident health, but also the daring: Faith in Him saves her, because she transmits to Him her impurity by touching His cloak –let us remember that those who were impure due to disease were forced to announce themselves, “impure!” so people would be able to avoid them and thus not become polluted with their impurity–. She must have understood it then, and now, by faith, she was acting otherwise: The fact that those cloaks would transmit impurity was nothing as long as she could save them: They had covered her Lord and both of them had His countenance engraved on them!

With the knowledge that so strict was the mandate regarding impurity, we can have a close look of Veronica’s psychology: The flow of blood had caused her total isolation during twelve years; if she had had a husband, he would have repudiated her, the same as her children, parents, brothers and sisters and friends; she was forced to live outside the city, where she never received visitors. Her experience about the Law was that it was, if not unfair, indeed excessively severe. She was avid for human co-habitation and this thirst caused in her neglect of the Law, a somewhat heterodox faith, to the degree that she undertook deeds that placed her in the prospect of being stoned to death; she preferred to die than to continue living as if she were dead for society, and then she preferred to die than to abandon Jesus, first, and later on, because she picked up the cloaks, but she was so annulled by Jewish society that they did not even consider killing her.

Thus, we owe Veronica, to the heterodox temerity of her faith, the preservation of the mortuary cloaks of Jesus of Nazareth, which otherwise, since they were no longer in use in the tomb, would have been incinerated by the family and followers – all Jewish – of Jesus, according to what the Law requested from them.

The deeds that rendered her deserving of despise, perhaps with sarcasm earned her the nickname among the first Christian Jews: the Veronica –let us recall the vetero-testamentary proscription of images, that is, of icons–, and even that was assumed joyfully by her, because thus she became vitally related to the true countenance of Jesus, her Savior. We shall never know her first name, but this does not matter: The Lord named her, just like He named Peter, who was never called Simon again.
 

Confiscation and Recovery of the Shroud

The non-canonic text Vindicatis Salvatoris provides testimony of how Veronica kept the cloaks, and it narrates how during its journey, the ship of Nathan, Jewish ambassador who was carrying to Rome the agreement between his people and the Empire, was driven to the North of Africa, where, in the Libyan city of Burdigalla, he preached to Titus, king of Aquitaine, after the latter sought him out in search of healing; and when he lamented the Savior’s death, who could have healed him, he was cured of a wound on the face, and thus, he asked to be baptized. In gratefulness, he swore to avenge the Redeemer’s death; he gave notice to Rome regarding his reasons and intentions, and he attacked Jerusalem with Vespasian, arrested Pontius Pilate, and being both warned by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus that Veronica had the mortuary cloth with the effigy of Jesus, they sent messengers to Rome asking for Velosianus’ presence, to whom the emperor Tiberius sent to Jerusalem, entrusting him to punish those who had given death to the Messiah, and on the way back, to bring somebody who would cure him of leprosy from among Christ’s followers.

In Jerusalem, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea informed Velosianus that Veronica was safe-keeping the cloak that had enveloped the corpse of Jesus, and although she denied it, she gave in to their violence and showed the Shroud:

“And when he saw it, Velosianus prostrated himself upon the ground, and with sincere faith and a burning heart, took it, wrapped it in a golden fabric, put it inside a box, and sealed it with his ring. And he took an oath: By God alive and by Caesar’s health, that nobody will see His countenance until I see that of my master, Tiberius” (5,29).

And everything indicates, and it is very logical to assume, that the following were performed also on the Holy Shroud, to inventory the piece, which became thus part of the imperial treasure; to prevent any substitution; and in order for it to bear the imperial emblems allowing its certifying identification, in case of plagiary:

The inscriptions in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, discovered on the front, precisely around the countenance on the Shroud, and from which four words and a phrase have been reconstructed: Tiberius, to die, Nazarene, Adam and a shadow on the countenance, these are the protocol and solemn act of authentication of the countenance of the dead Nazarene, as well as the oath to its addressee: Tiberius, performed by the emperor’s messenger.

And regarding everything that may be inferred, having as undersigned witnesses Titus, king of Aquitaine, the Jewish ambassador Nathan –Adam– and the military chief Vespasian.

After this, with the ring that empowered him as messenger of the emperor, Velosianus sealed it on the region of the right eye lid.

 
Pint of the lepton in the Shroud

This is the trace found by P. Francis Filas, S. J. and from him is the hypothesis of the trace of a lepton coin that was used to support and keep closed the right eye. The object could not have the use considered by P. Filas, because this one would have left as it trace not his inscription, but a shade on the Holy Shroud, when interfering between this one and the radiation that Jesus’ body emanated when was arose from the dead, same as the tack left its mark in the top of the head and in the thorax, furthermore, the Sudarium of Oviedo takes into account the careful way in which they closed Jesus’ eyes, anticipating or defeating the rigor mortis rendering unnecessary such ascertainment.

A ring designed for stamping has the image in bas-relief and conversely, in a way that when stamping on the seal, the image and the inscriptions stay upright and in high-relief; this can be the case of applying the seal in the inverse side of the Holy Shroud where the image shows the corporal image. But this cannot be for two reasons: Firstly, the text Vindicatis Salvatoris narrates how Velosian acted “with great veneration”, then, he would have avoided to profane the image, this is confirmed by the Institute of Optical of Osray, whose experts state that the inscriptions were made on the back of the Holy Shroud, where there is no corporal image. Secondly, the seal should have accompanied the inscriptions and signatures which certify the “image of the face” of the “dead Nazarene”, then this way they would be authenticated; this is why it should have been applied on the same side of the cloth where the inscriptions were made.

Therefore, there was no ring designed to be a seal, but one in which was engraved a lepton coin, in a way that stamping on the other side of the cloth, this would show on the back of it, the image and the numismatic inscriptions, just as they appear on the Holy Shroud. But, why Velosian sent by the Emperor Tiberius, and who came from Rome, centre of the Empire, would have used as a ring of representation one with a lepton coin set, which although was Roman, was a coin of the lowest denomination and only circulated in Judea? We will explore the answer:

After a successful military career of 20 years and a post as tribune with difficulties with the Emperor along with exile, Tiberius Caesar Augustus became the second Roman Emperor at the age of fifty six, and unlike Octavio Augustus, his predecessor, he refused to be godly and to that temples were built in his honor. Tiberius knew very well with what kind of clay they were made those Emperors, then he also suffered capricious deeds: later converting his mother into the third wife of the Emperor, was adopted by him and obliged to divorce Vispania to get married to Julia, the lawless daughter of the Emperor.

The premature deaths of the aspirant heirs made that he ascended involved in suspicions, which continued during his first years as Emperor, because of the suspicious deaths in the imperial family and his difficulties with the senate, so he decided to get out of the Villa Jovis in Capri, after 12 years of his reign, in the year 26 of our era, and from there rule the Empire.

Tiberius rules with notable efficacy, and this, in a environment of intricate conspirations and suspicions, where the voice of the people usually determined the imperial luck, it was only possible because of astute arrangements: the Praetorian Guard increased and is Seianus, the chief of the Pretorio, who is responsible of the Government of Rome, channeled towards all possible citizen inconformity, along with, decreed the Lex Majestatis, which makes punitive even suspicious actions against the maximum Pontific, then carried out summary executions from which nor his wife was saved. Tiberius was then 9 years in Capri, increasing his fame of dissipated in the eyes of his adverse biographers and suffering a dermopathy that made him have a face covered plasters, when Velosian took a journey to Jerusalem.

In such circumstances, to represent the Emperor was, more than being an honor, a more secure way of ending up on a scaffold with minimal suspicion of the represented, such as what happened to Seianus, who was condemned by Tiberius for high treason. His body was given to the common people to pull it in the streets of Rome and, his family exterminated. So, Velosian proceeded with the finest and perspicacious prudence to conspire whatever suspicion and prove before the doubtful look of Tiberius, who in fact suffered delirious persecution, the accurate representation and an exact compliment of the assignment.

So, in Judea he acquires a ring with which a representation could be shown, with the name of Tiberius, but which at the same time when need arises for whoever the place which has been sent, and what could be better than one has linked a coin made in the Banias, in the foot of Mount Hermon, in and for the Roman Province of Caesarea Philippa, and which for being of low quality and denomination does not interest anyone to take it out of the territory where it is used and therefore, it would be almost impossible to acquire it beyond this area? In this way so original and truly wisely, Velosian does the least obvious representation brought forth by the claimants of his presence and before the residents of Caesarea Philippa, and ensuring maximum security from the Emperor Tiberius, that is, for himself.

It can be appreciated that, the lepton coins do not always coincide in the picture and in the disposition of their inscription in the way that they are very logical the 211 points coinciding and the 86 discordant points which the experts have found between a lepton coin and the traces on the Holy Shroud. P. Francis Filas wanted to see the first part of the inscription badly written KAICAI, in a way on the Holy Shroud would be registered the “K” like the “C”. What in fact happened is that on the Holy Shroud the second part of the inscription was marked: “ICAI”, from the second half of the first A, which can be distinguished. It is possible that the initial “KA” was not printed because of the rim with which the lepton coin was set in the ring.

So, the Holy Shroud, more than being the evidence of the death and resurrection of Jesus, contains the certificate about the authenticity found by the emissary of the Roman Empire –the fact of had been asked to go to Rome, his presence in Jerusalem, and had received the order from the Emperor to punish those culpable, shows that he formed part of the Cabinet of Tiberius, similar to the Imperial Prosecutor-, with three witnesses signatories of high rank and of different continents and nationalities – European, Asian and African-, and this was done at the same time that it was confiscated from the woman who had rescued it from the tomb and kept it with great veneration for no more than three years after the events or over 9 years maximum, if we consider that the conjectures show the nativity of Jesus Christ in the sixth year before his Era.

Continuing with the narration, “Veronica decided to abandon all her possessions for the love of Christ,” and she followed Velosianus, who interrogated her about what she sought or wanted:

“And she replied, ‘I seek the countenance of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has illuminated me not because of my merits, but because of His pious mercy. Return to me the image of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because the pain of not having it is killing me. If you do not return it to me, I shall not abandon you until I see where you have deposited it, since I wish, miserable me, to serve it all the days of my life. Because I believe that He is my Redeemer, and that He lives in Eternity” (5,32).

Velosianus received her in his retinue, which was leaving that same day and was to deliver Pontius Pilate in Rome together with several Jewish chiefs, shipped before en route to Damascus, while Vespasian and Titus stayed in Jerusalem.

In Rome, Tiberius recovered his health when he prostrated himself before the Shroud and asked to be baptized and instructed by Nathan; Pontius Pilate was drowned in the Tiber and the Jewish chiefs were sold as slaves at thirty per coin. This is where the story finishes.

It is worth clarifying that it is likely that this text would not be taken into consideration by historians of the relic, although the original dates back to the time of emperor Claudius, who governed from the year 41 to 54, and it refers events that go no further than the year 37, because legends were added to it, and of these there are manuscripts from the 8th or 9th Centuries, and only later narrations are kept, as Edmundo González Blanco tells us in his translation of the Apocryphal Gospels. To add the legends, the times were forged, and from this it turns out that the narration encompasses nine years, when they could not have been more than three. The legends can be detected and discriminated against when comparing the manuscripts from which they proceed. And, despite the legends that falsify it, it is in this text that we find the tacit and logical explanations of the inscriptions on the Holy Shroud and of the fingerprint on the eye lid; and explicit, regarding the exit of the relic from Palestine.

Veronica did not need to wait very long to recover the Holy Shroud, since Tiberius died in the year 37 and his successor, pagan and with a severe psychiatric pathology, had no interest whatsoever in the cloth. Her habitual closeness to the urn permitted her to withdraw it and return to Palestine; however, in Edessa, feeling that her death was near, she entrusted the Holy Shroud to the evangelizing Apostle of the region, possibly Jude Thaddeus, who when seeing that the cloak was mortuary, did not pay attention to Veronica’s recommendation and preferred to leave it there when noticing the impact it caused, thus increasing the number of adepts. And due to the influence of the Holy Shroud Armenia became the first nation converted to Christianity.

We can conclued, when the Holy Shroud was on Velosiano´s hands, he tooked form Jerusalem to Rome on the year 35th, until the 37-38th year. When Tiberio die, Veronica recuperate it  and tried to taked back to Jerusalem, but she died in the city of Edessa so the Holly Shroud was in this city until the 900th year.
 

The Shroud, Well Kept

The non-canonic books of the Gospel of Nicodemus or Acts of Pontius Pilate and the Savior’s Revenge, form a corpus regarding the events surrounding Jesus’ death. Their reading allows us to notice the extremely special link that was created among Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and Veronica, because they buried Jesus together. The two of them were the ones who knew that Veronica had the mortuary cloths and gave credit to their veneration. And although Nicodemus omits Veronica’s participation in the burial, it is entirely deferential to her that he avoids narrating his own acting in the sepulchral process.

It is likely that with Veronica’s acting, Nicodemus understood what Jesus had told him about the need to be born again, and to be like a child to be able to enter the Kingdom of God. Veronica was one of the first to transcend the Law of Moses by falling in love with a blind faith.

Thus, once Veronica had left with Velosianus to Rome, feeling responsible for what happened to Veronica when they spoke of the Shroud with Nathan and the Romans, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus must have picked up the box still containing the Shroud of Oviedo, and they must have kept it awaiting her return, which did not occur anymore. And anticipating her death, the survivor, possibly Nicodemus, sought for it to remain in the custody of the Christian community of Jerusalem, strongly sealed because it contained things that, after having been considered impure, became holy. A thousand years afterwards, the coffer was opened in Oviedo.
 

Epilogue

I never intended to perform this study. The findings were fortuitous, providential. Then I decided to systematize their presentation, and this led me to new discoveries, which like the first ones, are opposed to some scientific conclusions. I determined not to emphasize those oppositions, since the cloths speak for themselves. When I finished the study and was preparing its publication, I was meditating about how these sacred cloths suggest to me the two witnesses of the Apocalypse, “But I shall have my two witnesses prophesize during one thousand two hundred and sixty days, covered with gross woolen clothing” (11,3); then, God placed this prophecy before my eyes, “Because every boot that clicks its heels with noise, and the cloak, trampled in blood, will be for the burning, fuel for the fire” (Is.9,4).

Thus, I understood that the size of some scientific mistakes may be proportionate to the interests that destroyed the studies with carbon 14 on the Holy Shroud, and the risk represented for these two witnesses by the fact of testifying, but even the destiny of these holy relics enters within God’s providential designs. It is written. And just like when descending from the Sinai, Moses, wrathful, destroyed the Tables of the Law engraved by God, when seeing that the Israelites had made for themselves a gold sheep that they idolized, these two cloths, on which the new commandment, “Love ye one another as I have loved you”, is engraved in blood and fire, might succumb to the Divine wrath in the face of the idolatrous hedonism of humankind, in other times Christian, which nowadays disdains them with boastful and blasphemous haughtiness. It is still time to implore His Mercy.

Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico, June 16, 2007
Feast of the Holy Heart of Jesus

To Veronica, my late sister, and to her Patron Saint,
Who are already cherishing the light of the Countenance of the Lord,

Francisco Javier Hernández Rodríguez
Contact and comments: herotata@hotmail.com