ncramer@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer) (06/21/89)
Bill Jefferys writes: > ... >[3] Joe Nickell, _Inquest on the Shroud of Turin_, Prometheus 1983 > (Second Edition 1988). If I may add a further footnote to Bill's footnote... An interesting point made in Nickell's book is that the earliest known reference to the Shroud occurs in a letter from the local bishop to the then current pope in which the bishop declares the shroud a forgery and claimed to have a confession from the forger. [Now, so as to not misrepresent things, let me state that I've not read Nickell's book; instead I am quoting from a letter that appeared in the NYTimes on 13Nov88, by a William J. Bennetta from Timber Cove CA. Mr Bennetta himself in turn cites Nickell.] Specifically: in 1389, the bishop of Troyes, Pierre d'Arcis sent a letter to Clement VII in which he denounced the Shroud (note that this is ~35 years after the Shroud first appeared in France). The bishop's letter begins: "The case, Holy Father, stands thus. Some time since in this diocese of Troyes the dean of a certain collegiate church... falsely and deceitfully being consumed with the passion of avarice and not from any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say, the back and the front, he falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb." After describing how the Shroud had been exhibited as authentic and how "pretended miracles" were staged, d'Arcis writes: "Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination [an earlier bishop of Troyes] discovered the fraud and how said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested BY THE ARTIST WHO HAD PAINTED IT [emphasis added]." Now, of course, such evidence is not in itself conclusive --indeed, there are those to whom no evidence will ever be so. But as I said it is indeed interesting that the first reference to the Shroud was of this nature. NICHAEL