CONCERNING SAINT VERONICA, MATRON OF JERUSALEM,
IN THE FIRST CENTURY
A HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Veronica, matron of Jerusalem, at Rome (S.)
By the author G. H.
Section I. The image of Christ given to Saint Veronica.
[1] Sixtus IV, Roman Pontiff, in the bull establishing two beneficiaries, issued on the Kalends of March in the year 1482, affirms that the basilica of Saint Peter at Rome surpasses all other churches of the City and of the world on account of the Sudarium of our Savior and the very many relics of the Saints, piously and religiously preserved therein. Concerning these relics, Nicholas IV, Pontiff, writes in a letter issued at Santa Maria Maggiore, on the Ides of April, in the third year of his Pontificate, the year of Christ 1290, with this opening: "He who alone founded the Roman Church," and then these words are added: "For in that basilica, the Image of His most precious countenance — called the Veronica — which the common voice of the faithful calls the Veronica, He granted to be venerated as a token of singular love; and in it He placed the most glorious body of the heavenly Gate-keeper, and the venerable relics of innumerable Martyrs and other Saints." Indeed, Jacobus Grimaldus, Deputy Prefect of the archive of the Vatican basilica, reports (as cited by Bzovius in his Annals at the year 1216, number 16, from which we have excerpted these testimonies) that many Pontiffs — Clement VI, VII, VIII, Gregory XIII, and others — called the most holy Sudarium by the name Veronica. Now Saint Veronica, called by others Verenice, Beronica, and Berenice, was a certain devout woman of Jerusalem who, as Christian tradition holds, seeing the face of Christ as He bore His cross and hastened toward Mount Calvary, treated shamefully and disfigured, drew near and offered the veil removed from her own head, that He might wipe His face, streaming with sweat and blood. Thereupon our most gracious Savior returned to her, as a pledge and memorial of His love, the Image of His countenance, perfectly impressed upon this veil. The aforementioned authors maintain that this Image of the Lord's countenance is still called the Veronica after that holy matron.
[2] Bernhard von Breydenbach, Dean of Mainz, in his account of his journey overseas, published in the year 1502, relates that on July 14 of the year 1483, together with the Lord of Solms and other companions, he proceeded along that long road by which Christ was led from the house of Pilate to the place of crucifixion, and came to the house of Saint Veronica, which is distant five hundred and fifty paces from the house of Pilate, where Christ impressed the Image of His face upon her veil, which is seen today at Rome. Adrichomius, in his Description of Jerusalem, number 118, carefully distinguishes the stages of that Way of the Cross; and at number 44 he says that the house of Veronica was on a corner. Quaresmius, in Book 4 of his Elucidation of the Holy Land, Pilgrimage 6, chapter 13, reports that in his time the house was seen not on a corner of the road but in the middle, having other houses on either side in a continuous row, and that it was on the left side for those going toward Calvary, constituting the seventh station of the Via Dolorosa, most worthy of contemplation and veneration. Alphonsus Salmeron, in volume 10 of his Commentaries on the Gospel History, treatise 33, holds that Veronica was present among the women to whom Jesus turned and said Luke 23:27: "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children," etc. Here Christ reproved the opinion of those women who thought Him weak and unable to defend Himself, compelled to suffer; and who did not understand either the reason for His death, or the sin of those who were killing Him — as Franciscus Suarez brilliantly teaches in the Third Part of Saint Thomas, volume 2, disputation 36, section 2. From these women we believe Saint Veronica should be distinguished, as a beloved disciple of Christ: from whose house, out of which she came forth and wiped the venerable face of Christ, stained with blood, those who published itineraries of the Passion of Christ separate the place of the weeping women. Not far from her house, as is related in the Jerusalem Pilgrimage of Prince Radziwill, there is a small hill on which the women stood weeping, whom Christ addressed. Breydenbach interposes the house of the rich man buried in hell. But according to Adrichomius, from the place where Veronica met Him, Christ came through 336 paces and 2 feet to the judicial gate, where He again fell with the Cross. Then by a steep, rocky way, gradually ascending toward the north, He proceeded through 348 paces and 2 feet to a certain fork in the road, where He addressed the weeping women.
[3] Quaresmius, at the place indicated, is of the opinion that the veil offered to Christ by Saint Veronica was not linen but silk, because in the regions of the East silk fabrics are more commonly used, and head-veils are usually made from them, being more suitable on account of their fineness and lightness. He adds that the Turks wear turbans — which they commonly call "turbantes" — made of silk. But this controversy must be settled at Rome, by judges who have actually seen the veil preserved there. It is also noteworthy what Daniel Mallonius, in his explanation of the stigmata of Christ impressed on the Holy Shroud, chapter 14, Carolus Stengelius, in his History of the Passion of Christ, chapter 67, Quaresmius, and others report concerning the most holy image of Christ visible on that Sudarium — citing Johannes Lanspergius, Homily 19 on the Passion of the Lord — namely, that the face of Christ impressed on that Sudarium retains and displays to beholders the trace of a blow struck by an armored hand.
[4] These facts about the Sudarium given by Christ to Saint Veronica are undoubted among orthodox Christians and have been defended by our own Jacobus Gretser in his treatise On Images Not Made by Human Hands, and by others, against the fury of the heretics of this age. But how the same sudarium was brought from Saint Veronica to Rome is less certain. We shall select here what is found to be more probable among the authors. First, we reject a certain manuscript treatise under this title: "Here begins the notification of how Tiberius Caesar dispatched men to Jerusalem on account of Christ." Its opening is: "It happened in the consulship of Tiberius and Vitellius, when at that time Tiberius Caesar governed the Empire, that it was necessary to send a prudent man to the regions of Jerusalem, so that Tiberius might be able to see Christ Jesus," etc. Many things displease in this treatise, perhaps corrupted by someone from the account of Saint Methodius soon to be given, or from a similar history, being of the same kind as the preceding treatise of the same manuscript codex, to which the compiler joined it as an appendix in the title. The treatise that precedes it concerns the Passion of Christ under this title: "Here begin the Acts of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, found by the Emperor Theodosius in Jerusalem in the praetorium of Pontius Pilate, in the public archives." That this treatise was published under the name of Pontius Pilate as a letter to the Emperor is indicated by these words at the end: "Therefore I report to the King, lest anyone who has announced otherwise should think that the lies of the Jews should be believed; and I have sent to your authority everything that took place concerning Jesus in my praetorium." This is perhaps either the same treatise or certainly an expanded version of the one mentioned by Saint Epiphanius, even before the time of Theodosius the Younger, in Heresy 50, which is that of the Quartodecimans, some of whom always observed one and the same day for Easter, boasting that they had learned an accurate basis for this practice from the Acts of Pilate, in which it is written that Christ suffered on the eighth day before the Kalends of April — which is read in this treatise near the beginning in these words: "It happened in the nineteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of the Romans, and of Herod, son of Herod, King of Galilee, in the nineteenth year of his rule, on the eighth day before the Kalends of April," etc. But setting these things aside, we return to Saint Veronica.
Section II. The Image of Christ brought to Rome by Saint Veronica. Whether she was the granddaughter of King Herod.
[5] Cardinal Baronius, in volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year 34, number 138, testifies that in Rome, in the Vatican Library, there is preserved a small manuscript book concerning the translation of this most holy veil to Rome. Johannes Molanus, in Book 4, On Sacred Images, chapter 2, says of this history that Thomas Stapleton — a man known to the whole world through his published books — read the entire work, written in a grave style and in the most ancient characters. Would that we could have obtained that commentary and published it here! We shall endeavor to make up for the loss of it from other sources. First, that Saint Veronica brought this sacred image to Rome is the consensus of all writers. In the chronicle published under the name of Flavius Lucius Dexter, the following is read at the year of Christ 48: "The Jews of Jerusalem, vehemently hostile to Blessed Lazarus, Magdalene, Martha, Marcellus, Maximinus, Joseph of Arimathea the noble decurion, and many others, placed them in a ship without oars, sails, or helmsman, and commanded them to go into exile. Carried by divine power across the vast sea, they arrived safe at the port of Marseilles. Verenice, the holy woman, one of the many companions, then came from Gaul to Rome, and there, having left behind the Divine Countenance, illustrious for miracles, she departed to the Lord in the year 80."
[6] Saint Methodius, Bishop of Olympus and Patara, maritime cities of Lycia, and afterwards of Tyre, crowned with martyrdom at Chalcis in Greece on September 18, composed very many books (recorded by Saint Jerome in his work On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 83) and many other things, as Jerome here adds, which were widely read — as we said above on February 1, at the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Section I. Methodius, in a certain small work, set forth the history of the Image of Christ received on the veil of Saint Veronica and brought to Rome, which is transcribed by Marianus Scotus in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 39 in these words: "Tiberius dies in Campania by poison in the twenty-third year of his reign, and the seventy-eighth year of his age. Methodius writes as follows: Meanwhile Tiberius, having completed about twenty-two years of his principate, came to the end of his life. Concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, he made this proposal before the Senate: 'If He is God,' he said, 'He will be able to help us in matters that are useless to us; if He is a man, to aid the Republic.' He, afflicted with no small leprosy, desired, having heard of the divine powers, to verify His grace through messengers; but he could not attain this, because — since Christ, after His resurrection, was already presiding in heaven — he had learned by report that Christ had been handed over to the Jews by the judgment of Pontius Pilate, and crucified by his soldiers, and buried, and had risen on the third day; but that it had been spread abroad that He had been stolen by His disciples, the guards having been bribed. From a certain matron named Veronica, who had received and preserved, by Christ's own imprinting and delivering, the likeness of our Savior Himself on her cloth (we believe the reading should be 'in schemate' — that is, 'on a cloth,' as will become clear below), as evidence for testifying to the truth and maintaining fidelity. When she had met the messengers and most clearly affirmed that this was so and that it was true in all respects, she was brought by them to Rome and led into the presence of the Emperor. She displayed the token of the Divine testimony and, by the grace of Christ, miraculously wrought the power of a perfect remedy. When Tiberius had ascertained that Pilate had been guilty of the Lord's blood, by decree of the Senate — since, without a hearing, he had presumed such things without consulting Rome — Pilate was ordered to undergo the ultimate punishment of exile. Not long after, Tiberius himself, as has been said, came to the end of his life." Thus far Methodius, and from him, Marianus Scotus. This history of Bishop Methodius is cited by Baronius at the aforesaid year 34, number 138; by Gretser in his work On Images Not Made by Human Hands, chapter 16; by Cornelius a Lapide on chapter 27 of the Gospel of Saint Matthew; by Simon Maiolus in his defense of sacred images, Century I, chapter 3, and in volume 1 of his Canicular Days, Colloquy 20; by Quaresmius, Book 4, chapter 14, Section 4; and by many others.
[7] Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis, in his Supplement to the Chronicles at the year of Christ 44, reports the following: "Veronica, a woman of Jerusalem, a disciple of Christ, a matron distinguished for holiness and modesty, was in these times summoned from Jerusalem to Rome by Tiberius Caesar through his kinsman Volusianus, an energetic man, together with the Sudarium of Christ. For the same Caesar was afflicted with a great illness; and as soon as he received the holy woman and touched the Image of Christ, he was cured of all infirmity. On account of this miracle, Veronica herself was thenceforth held in great esteem by the Caesar. For she persevered there until death, together with the Apostles Peter and Paul and Pope Clement, establishing the Church of God. This is the same woman whom the Lord had healed from a flow of blood (as the sacred history of the Gospel relates) by touching the fringe of His garment; and from whom, at the time of His Passion, she was presented with the same Image of His countenance as a token of love. Matthew 9; Luke 8. The Image itself, thus impressed upon the cloth, was bequeathed by her in her testament to Pope Clement and his successors, and is to this day visited with the greatest devotion by the faithful of Christ in the church of Blessed Peter. Many have through the ages celebrated it with exquisite praises, among which that singular one is renowned which begins: 'Hail, holy face,' etc." We shall quote this hymn below. The Ambrosian Prefaces — which the aforementioned Maiolus testifies were customarily said in the celebration of Masses — report that the said Volusianus, kinsman of Tiberius Caesar, who suffered from an enormous hump on his back, recovered the uprightness of his body by the touch of that Sudarium. Eusebius, in his Chronicle at the twenty-third year of Tiberius, records that when Pilate reported to Tiberius concerning the doctrine of the Christians, Tiberius referred the matter to the Senate, that Christianity might be received among the other sacred rites. But when the Senators had decreed that the Christians should be expelled from the City, Tiberius by edict threatened death to the accusers of the Christians — and that Tertullian writes this in his Apologeticum, whose words Eusebius quotes and discusses at greater length in Book 2 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 2, whom the other writers follow.
[8] In the chronicle published under the name of Julianus Petrus, Archpriest of Santa Justa, from the Olivares library, the following is read at the year 90: "At this time, as in the Apostolic days, the most holy Sudarium was held in great esteem at Rome, which the most pious woman Beronice — whom others corruptly call Veronica — had left to Clement the First, Roman Pontiff. She was the granddaughter, through the sister Salome, of Herod the Great, and married a nobleman named Amator. She lived sometimes in the city of Caesarea in Palestine, and sometimes in Jerusalem. She was, moreover, that woman whom Christ once cured of a flow of blood. An image of Christ healing the woman was painted on a wall, from whose hem, wherever the ivy touches it, it cures every kind of disease. Some hold that she suffered martyrdom at Antioch together with fifty others, as Bede relates." So far the chronicle. Josephus, in Book 1 of the Jewish War, chapter 6, records that Antipater, by an Arabian wife named Cypris, begot four sons — Phasael, King Herod, Joseph, and Pheroras — and a daughter Salome, concerning whom the same Josephus writes in the Jewish Antiquities, Book 15, chapters 4 and 11, Book 16, chapters 6 and 11, and Book 17, chapter 1. Eusebius, in his Chronicle at the fortieth year of the Emperor Augustus Caesar, and the thirtieth of the reign of Herod, records that Herod killed the husband of his sister Salome, and when he had given her to another husband, he killed that one too. She was first married to Costobarus the Idumean, Prince of Gaza, and bore him Berenice, mentioned above in the Chronicle of Julianus — but an entirely different person from Saint Veronica. For this Berenice, having married Aristobulus, son of King Herod, bore — as Josephus testifies in Book 1 of the Jewish War, chapter 18 — Herod Agrippa, Aristobulus, Mariamne, and Herodias, mother of that Salome the dancer who demanded that the head of Saint John the Baptist be given to her on a platter. Behold, this Berenice was much older than Saint Veronica; and after her first husband Aristobulus was killed by his father Herod, she married a certain Antipater — so that she is vainly imagined to be the wife of Amator, concerning whose marriage to Saint Veronica we shall treat below; and then we shall inquire whether she was freed from the flow of blood by Christ, after we have first discussed her sacred veneration. Here it suffices to have shown how little the Chronicle of Julianus is to be trusted, which some extol excessively — among them Franciscus de Ruspuerta, in chapter 12 of the final section (Section 1) of his History of Jaen, and Joannes Acuna Adarueus, Prior of the parish church of Andujar, in his book On the Images of Christ Not Made by Human Hands, and especially on the sacred veil of Saint Veronica of the city of Jaen (of which we shall treat below), published in Spanish in the year 1637; where in treatise 33, Section 1, he quotes the words of Julianus, and in Section 2 greatly extols this granddaughter of Herod through his sister, and believes that Saint Veronica, of whom we treat, was descended from that royal stock.
Section III. The sacred veneration of Saint Veronica.
[9] She who was imagined above as Berenice, a Jewess and perhaps dead before the birth of Christ, was in fact Saint Veronica, a pious and Christian matron. Now, with a change of sex, in the same Chronicle of Julianus, Saint Veronica the Martyr is fabricated from Saint Beronicus. He is the one who, together with fifty others, suffered at Antioch and is venerated on October 19 in almost all Martyrologies, including the manuscript copies of Bede's Martyrology. Baronius notes in his Annotations at the same place that there is a confusion even in the printed edition.
[10] Octavius Pancirolus, in his work on the hidden treasures of the City, Region 7, Church 17, records that Saint Veronica departed this life at Rome and was committed to the earth. Petrus Galesinius celebrates her feast-day in his Roman Martyrology on February 4 as follows: "At Rome, likewise, Saint Veronica, who brought the Sudarium of the Lord to that city from Jerusalem." In his notes he adds that Gervasius of Tilbury, Blondus, and others write about her. Ferrarius transcribes Galesinius in the same words in his General Catalogue of the Saints; but in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy he composes this eulogy: "Veronica, a devout woman, as ancient tradition holds, at the time when Christ our Savior was being led to the scaffold, offered the linen veil from her own head to Him for wiping His face, streaming with blood from the sacred head crowned with thorns. The image of that Divine countenance remained divinely impressed upon it. The holy woman is said to have brought this to Rome, and by it to have healed the Emperor Tiberius Augustus, who was suffering from a grave illness. Moreover, it passed into the hands of Saint Clement and his successors, by whom it has been preserved in the Vatican church to this day, and is annually displayed — not without the greatest devotion of the Roman people — and is called the Holy Face and the Sudarium of Veronica. Veronica herself is said to have fallen asleep on the day before the Nones of February." On the same day, Nicolaus Reusner, in his Historical Diary, records Veronica as a Virgin Martyr, citing the Roman Martyrology — so calling any Ecclesiastical Martyrology.
[11] Others assign her feast to March 25, believing that Christ suffered for the salvation of mankind on that day and then gave His image to Saint Veronica. So the manuscript Florarium of the Saints: "Likewise, of Saint Veronica the matron. This holy matron of Jerusalem was summoned from Jerusalem to Rome by Tiberius Caesar, who flourished in the year of salvation 48, through Volusianus. Tiberius, detained by a great infirmity, when he had received Saint Veronica and touched the image, was cured. This is the woman whom the Lord healed from a flow of blood by the touch of the fringe of His garment, as is said in Matthew 9 and Luke 8; and by whom also the Lord, at the time of the Passion, was presented with the Image as a token of love. This Image, once impressed upon the cloth, was left by her in her testament to Pope Clement and his successors, and to this day is displayed in the basilica of Saint Peter. In praise of which this prayer is said: 'Hail, holy face of our Redeemer,' etc." — as we said above from Bergomensis, whom we believe to have preceded this author of the manuscript Florarium, or certainly both drew from the same source, as the same matter is presented in the same words. Hermann Greuen, in his supplement to Usuard, and Canisius, in the German Martyrology: "Of the holy matron Veronica, to whom the Lord left the Image of His face impressed upon the Sudarium."
[12] The Missal according to the rite of the most holy Doctor and Pontiff Ambrose, printed in the year 1560, contains a Mass to be read on the feast of Saint Veronica the Matron, whose chants and preface are indicated as to be taken from the Common of one Matron. The lesson is recited from the Epistle of Blessed Paul to the Romans, chapter 7, beginning: "I speak to those who know the law," etc. The Gospel is taken from Mark, chapter 5, verse 20: "When the Lord Jesus had crossed again in a ship to the other side," etc., which treats of the woman healed from a flow of blood by touching His garment. The proper prayers given there are as follows: the first, over the people: "Grant us, we beseech Thee, merciful God, that we who celebrate the feast of Blessed Veronica with devout observance may be aided by her intercessions through Thy clemency, and delivered from the waves of this present age; through our Lord," etc. The second prayer, over the corporal cloth: "Grant, we beseech Thee, Holy Father, that Blessed Veronica, who was pleasing in the sight of Thy Majesty, may by her prayers render us, through perfect faith and the purity of a holy life, both acceptable and devout to Thee; through our Lord," etc. The third prayer, over the offerings, is this: "We humbly beseech Thee, Almighty eternal God, that the gifts of our devotion may be pleasing to Thee, which we offer to Thy Majesty to be consecrated in reverence and honor of Blessed Veronica, and for the protection and salvation of our souls; through our Lord," etc. The fourth and final prayer, after Communion, is recited thus: "May the most holy Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we have received in praise and honor of Saint Veronica, be for us a salutary medicine of mind and body. Through the same our Lord," etc.
[13] Another prayer exists, printed in the year 1555 in the Augsburg Missal, and the rubric prefixed to the Mass of Saint Veronica, or of the Holy Face, or of the sacred Image of Christ, indicates that forty days of indulgences were granted by Pope Innocent IV to those who read it. The same prayer is found in the Missal of the Church of Mainz, printed in the year 1493 by order of Archbishop Berthold. Innocent IV governed the Church from the year 1243 to the year 1254. But Innocent III held the See from the year 1198 to 1216, and Matthew of Westminster, in his Flowers of English History, attributes a similar prayer to this Innocent III at the year of his death, in these words: "At that time, when Pope Innocent was making a solemn procession at Rome, and that Image of the Lord's countenance which is called the Veronica was being reverently carried for the people to behold, the Pope himself placed it in the accustomed spot; but the next day it was found turned around, standing in an improper manner — that is, with the forehead downward, the beard facing the ground. Upon hearing this, the Lord Pope, fearing greatly that this had appeared as a sad omen, composed and established a Collect to be said in honor of the Veronica, and granted ten days' indulgence to those who said it." Matthew Paris relates nearly the same thing in his English History at the beginning of the deeds of King Henry III, and affirms that a certain Psalm was added to the Prayer together with some versicles, and that ten days' indulgence was granted to those who said them — so that as often as it is repeated, so often is the same measure of indulgence granted to the one saying it. So far these sources. Odoricus Raynaldus, in his Ecclesiastical History at the year 1216, number 7, says that some suspect the overturned image was a fable. But he does not permit the supplication and other works of piety to be called into question. Innocent IV may have increased the indulgences to forty days, according to the aforementioned Augsburg Missal. What Matthew Paris calls a "Psalm" is perhaps the ancient hymn indicated above by Bergomensis and the author of the Florarium. It is that rhythmical doxology, called a "Sequence" in ancient Missals, which, in addition to the Augsburg Missal, Acuna Adarueus records from the records of the Church of Jaen in treatise 42, and which, on account of the celebrated memory of Saint Veronica, we give here together with the versicles and Prayer.
[14] Hail, holy face Of our Redeemer, In which shines the beauty Of the Divine splendor, Impressed upon a cloth Of snowy whiteness, And given to Veronica As a token of love. Hail, glory of the age, Mirror of the Saints, Which the spirits of heaven Desire to behold: Cleanse us from every stain Of our vices, And join us to the company Of the Blessed. Hail, our glory In this hard life, Fleeting and fragile, Soon to pass away; Lead us to our homeland, O happy image, To behold the face Which is the pure face of Christ. Be for us, we beseech, A sure help, A sweet refreshment And consolation, That the enemy's burden May not harm us; But may we enjoy rest With the Blessed. Amen.
Versicle: The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us.
Response: Thou hast given gladness in my heart.
Prayer: O God, who, signed with the light of Thy countenance, didst will to leave us Thy memorial — the Image impressed upon the Sudarium at the request of Blessed Veronica — grant, we beseech Thee, through Thy holy Cross and glorious Passion, that we who here venerate it in a mirror and in mystery upon earth, may deserve to behold, joyful and secure, Thy desirable and true face in heaven: Who livest and reignest, etc.
[15] There exists an illustrious monastery of the Third Order of Saint Francis, of sacred Virgins, at Murcia in Spain — once a royal city — erected under the title of Saint Veronica, toward whom the foundress of this monastery, Lady Isabella de Alarcon, was piously devoted. She prescribed as its insignia the image of Christ extending His face impressed upon the veil to Saint Veronica. Franciscus Cascales treats of this monastery in his History of Murcia, treatise 16, near the end, and Acuna Adarueus in treatise 33, Section 1. Arturus a Monasterio, in the Franciscan Martyrology on May 19, calls Violanta de Cordoba Blessed and foundress of the monastery of Saint Veronica de Murcia, who died there as a member of the Third Order, aged more than ninety, around the year 1576 — perhaps the first to embrace the monastic life there. On account of the singular devotion toward Saint Veronica, a certain portion of her house is preserved among the sacred relics in the church of the monastery of Saint Stephen, commonly called Jerusalem, in the city of Bologna, as Donatus Pullienus Luparius testifies in his historical account of the same monastery, published at Bologna in the year 1600, treatise 8, in the section on the Relics of the altar of the Holy Cross.
Section IV. The marriage of Saint Amator and Saint Veronica: their arrival in Gaul: and their sacred veneration there.
[16] In the Fragments commonly attributed to Liutprand, or Eutrandus, number 209, the following is read: "Saint Amator, husband of Verenice, to whom the Lord gave the imprint of His face, was a servant of the holy Virgin Mary and Joseph, and the Lord's bearer and foster-father. After His ascension to heaven, at her urging he followed Saint Martial together with his wife to Gaul, where, just as he had seen hermits near Nazareth on Mount Carmel, he pursued that manner of life on a very lofty mountain. He lived there many years, leading a life more heavenly than earthly. He is believed to have departed in the year 75; he is celebrated on November 1." So far these Fragments, which would deserve the first place were they not, together with the aforementioned Chronicle of Julianus, considered by many to be spurious. Relying on the authority of these, Alegraeus and Lezana ascribe Saint Amator to the Carmelites — the former in his Paradise of Carmelite Glory, State 2, Age 2, chapter 18; the latter in volume 2 of the Annals of the Carmelites, at the year 75, number 4. The remaining assertions must derive their credibility from other authors.
[17] Petrus Subertus, Doctor of Decrees and Bishop of the city of Saint-Papoul, under the Metropolis of Toulouse, who died in the year 1454, in his book On the Cultivation of the Vineyard of the Lord, or On the Episcopal Visitation, revised by Joannes Cappuisius and published in 1503, records in Part 7, chapter 3, that Veronica was first a very intimate and dear friend of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God; secondly, that she was the wife of the man of God, Amator; thirdly, that these two spouses, Amator and Veronica, came to Gaul in the company of Saint Martial, and brought with them some of the milk of Blessed Mary, and some of her hair, and two of the same Blessed Mary's sandals — one of which Saint Martial placed in Rodez, the other on the rock of Anicium, which is now called Le Puy of Blessed Mary. Of her hair, one part he placed at Mimate (more correctly Mende), another in the city of Auvergne which is now called Clermont. Fourthly, Saint Amator chose a solitary life on the rock which is now called the Rock of Amator, where an altar was dedicated by Blessed Martial in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary — a place humble then in appearance and condition, but now honored throughout the whole world — and there Saint Amator ended his present life, and his incorrupt body awaits the holy resurrection. Finally, his wife Veronica, having followed Blessed Martial everywhere as he preached, at last settled, worn out with age, in the territory of Bordeaux above the sea, where a small chapel was dedicated for her by Blessed Martial in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is called Soulac, because only the milk of the Blessed Virgin was placed there — the other relics of Our Lady that Blessed Veronica had being distributed among the aforementioned churches. Thus far Bishop Subertus in his Cultivation of the Vineyard of the Lord, printed together with the Pastoral Staff of Joannes Franciscus Pavinus, who was created Judge of the Sacred Palace by Paul II. Odo Gissey of our Society cites this book on this history, attributing it to the author Jacobus Cappuisius, in his Historical Account of the Blessed Virgin of Rocamadour, or of the Rock of Saint Amator, chapter 8.
[18] At the same time as Subertus there lived Saint Antoninus, Bishop of Florence, who indeed survived him and prolonged his life to the year 1459. In Part 1 of his Chronicle, title 6, chapter 25, Section 2, in his epitome of the Life of Saint Martial, he condensed these same matters: "He came," he says of Saint Martial, "to Rome with Blessed Peter, and was sent by him into Gaul, having in his company Amator and his wife Veronica, who was an intimate and most dear friend of the Virgin Mary. Saint Amator led a solitary life on the rock which is now called the Rock of Amator, and there he died. Veronica, however, followed Saint Martial as he preached in the territory of Bordeaux, and there she grew old at the aforementioned Soulac" — a noble village, otherwise known as Sainte-Marie de Soulac, near the mouth of the river Garonne, around which place Elias Vinetus, Brietius, and especially Dadinus (Book 1 of Aquitanian Affairs, chapter 2) record that Ptolemy located the city of Noviomagus of the Bituriges Vivisci. Buchetus transcribes Antoninus in Part 1 of the Annals of Aquitaine, chapter 3. Earlier than these Bishops, Subertus and Saint Antoninus, by two centuries and more, was Robert, Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, who in his supplement to the Chronicle of Sigebert at the year 1171 touched upon the same history: "Henry, King of the English, went on a pilgrimage to Rocamadour, which place in the district of Cahors is surrounded by mountains and a dreadful solitude. Some say that Blessed Amator was a servant of Blessed Mary, and at one time the bearer and foster-father of the Lord; and that after the most pious Mother of the Lord was taken up to the heavenly dwellings, Amator himself, forewarned by her, crossed over to Gaul, and in the aforesaid place led a hermit's life."
[19] Saint Amator is venerated on August 20. We possess certain manuscript Acts of his, distributed into nine lessons customarily recited at Matins in the Ecclesiastical Office, according to which "Veronica, a companion not unlike Amator in conduct and faith, lived in the ordinances of the Lord without reproach; and when the Lord Jesus Christ was preaching, she received the seed of the divine word in her pious heart, like good earth purged of its age, destined to yield a hundredfold in its due time. And on account of the health graciously granted her from a most grievous infirmity by the touch of the fringe of the Lord's garment, she burned all the more fervently in the ardor of faith and divine love for Jesus Christ. For, regenerated according to faith in Christ, she renounced the world, and leaving all things she strove to fulfill the commands of Christ, especially to collect relics of the Blessed Virgin, and devoutly to complete other works of piety. Whence the glorious milk from the breasts of the glorious Virgin — to whose service she merited to devote herself entirely, as a humble handmaid and servant — humbly and usefully collected, the garments also of the same Virgin and many other such things, as well as the Maphorion with the impression of the likeness of the Lord's face, called the Veronica from the name of the said woman, as it is shown at Rome, she faithfully gathered and profitably guarded... When Saul was persecuting the Church of Christ, by command of the heavenly messenger she boarded a ship found by chance with Saint Amator, and with the Lord leading and mercifully protecting them, she arrived in the western regions. Having constructed a rough shelter, a small hut, she led a hermit's life, and gave herself there to prayer and fasting for so long until Blessed Martial came thither from the Limousins, who loved them with special affection, as compatriots and acquaintances and most devout faithful. And so, leaving his own wife at Soulac in prayer and contemplation, the most blessed Amator, by the precept and counsel of the most blessed Martial, went to Rome and visited the most blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles; and remaining in the city of Rome for nearly two years, he saw how Peter was crucified and Paul also beheaded. And after the aforesaid Veronica had died, he returned to Limoges, sought the wilderness, and prepared a dwelling in the valley of Cahors," etc.
[20] Thus far those Acts, according to which Veronica, wife of Saint Amator, is the same woman who received the image of Christ on her veil. Saussay records her sacred cult on February 15 in these words: "In Aquitaine, the commemoration of Saint Verona, otherwise Veronica, a matron, who wiped the face of the Lord bearing His cross with her Sudarium, the wondrous image of which remained impressed upon the very linen, as is seen today at Rome, where it is preserved with great devotion." The same Saussay writes on August 20, in the Supplement, concerning Saint Amator: "In the territory of Cahors, Saint Amator, Confessor, who from being a disciple of Saint Martial became an Evangelical Doctor, more abundantly instructed the people of Cahors in the faith, and, renowned for holiness, fell asleep in the Lord." So writes Saussay, believing that Saint Martial, as he writes on June 30, was a disciple of Saint Peter, and did not come to Gaul in the year of Christ 250, as Saint Gregory, Bishop of Tours, reported in the sixth century of Christ from the Acts of the passion of Saint Saturninus the Martyr, in Book 1 of the History of the Franks, chapter 30. Concerning his arrival there exists a learned dissertation by Joannes Cordesius, Canon of Limoges, published in Latin by Franciscus Bosquetus in Part 2 of his Histories of the Gallican Church; in the first part of which, Bosquetus, Book 1, chapter 23, embraces the opinion of Gregory of Tours, rejecting the Acts circulated under the name of Aurelianus, his successor in the See of Limoges. We shall discuss these matters more fully on June 30, in the Life of Saint Martial. As regards the matter at hand, we acknowledge that much in the account cited thus far concerning Saint Veronica, wife of Saint Amator, appears problematic; and that this Verona or Veronica may perhaps be a different person from that illustrious matron of Jerusalem upon whose veil Christ impressed His image — especially if she set out for Gaul in the third century of Christ in the company of Saint Martial and there departed this life in holiness.
Section V. Whether Saint Veronica was freed from a flow of blood by Christ; and whether she is venerated under the name of Venica or Venisa.
[21] Nicodemus, in his Gospel, as our Salmeron testifies in volume 10 of his Commentaries on the Gospel History, treatise 33, records that the woman cured of a flow of blood, mentioned by Matthew chapter 9, Mark chapter 5, and Luke chapter 8, was called Veronica. Salmeron adds that he has not yet ascertained whether this was the same woman who performed this service of offering her veil to Christ. In the Chronicle of Dexter at the year 48, it is recorded that Verenice, having left behind the Divine countenance, departed to the Lord at Rome — she whom they say was healed by Christ of a flow of blood. The same identification is also asserted in the manuscript Life of Saint Amator, in the manuscript Florarium, and in the chronicles of Julianus Petrus and Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis, whose words we have cited above. For the same reason she is believed to be the same woman who is invoked especially by women in the diseases proper to their sex, although by the syncope of one syllable she is called Saint Venica or Venisa. Thus in French Normandy, one league from the city of Rouen, on the road toward Dieppe or Amiens, along the royal highway, a chapel sacred to Saint Venisa is seen near the village commonly called Le Bois-Guillaume, that is, the Forest of William. The parish priest of this village, who is the collator of the said chapel, when recently asked, replied that this Venisa or Venica is held to be the same as the one venerated elsewhere as Veronica; and that this is further proved by the argument that on the right side of the altar of Saint Venica there is displayed a popular image of the suffering Christ bearing His face on a cloth, named after Saint Veronica; while on the left side is placed an image of Saint Fiacre, who elsewhere is the inseparable companion of Saint Venisa, venerated on August 30. Moreover, Saint Venisa is invoked there for every kind of flow of blood, and her feast is celebrated with a great concourse of people on the day before Ash Wednesday, during the Carnival. We have seen a twofold Office of the Virgin Mother of God according to the use of the Roman Church, printed at Rouen some years ago, and we read in the prefixed Calendar the name of Saint Venica on the 26th, and in another copy on the 27th of February.
[22] At Valenciennes, a celebrated city of Hainaut among the Belgians, the same Saint Venisa is also venerated — called by others Venisia, Venesia, or Venecia. Sick women imploring her patronage for the regulation of their menstrual courses bind themselves for nine continuous days with ribbons, either purple or white, varying according to the particular species of the ailment. After obtaining the desired health, they hang these ribbons near the statue of Saint Venisa as an act of thanksgiving. The heap of these, on account of the multitude of inhabitants and pilgrims who flock there, grows so large that they must frequently be removed. However, the cures obtained through this intercession are not customarily recorded in writing, both because they are frequent and well enough known in the surrounding area, and especially because of the uncleanness of the ailment and the innate modesty of the more respectable matrons, whose testimonies would be required. Others here seek and find relief when afflicted with headaches. In the center of the city of Valenciennes, not far from the great marketplace, opposite the celebrated Abbey of Saint John of the Canons Regular, there is a certain hospital, part of which is a most ancient church sacred to Saint Giles, patron of the city. On an altar outside the choir dedicated to Saint Fiacre, in addition to his statue erected above the altar table, there is seen on the right a wooden statue, a foot and a half tall, of Saint Venisa, supporting her inclined head with her right hand and holding a book in her left. Whether any relics of Saint Venisa were ever preserved there is uncertain. The people have great devotion toward an ancient reliquary in which relics of various Saints are displayed. These details were communicated to us by the Reverend Lord Antonius Dutremannus, Prior of the aforementioned monastery of the Canons Regular of Saint John, and by the most noble Lord Franciscus Dixmudanus, Lord of La Balgue, who has held various honors there and, out of his piety, serves as Prefect of the said hospital. He also sent an ancient manuscript containing Masses customarily recited for Saints Venisa and Fiacre, with three Prayers added for Saint Giles the Patron and as many for Saint Mary, Mother of God. For Saint Venisa, this title is prefixed: "Mass of Saint Venisa, Martyr, or of another Virgin and Martyr." The Introit: "Sinners have waited for me." For the Epistle is recited the Lesson from the Book of Wisdom: "I will give thanks to thee, O Lord, O King." The Gospel is of the ten Virgins. The prayers are from the Common, the first of which does not express the name, which has been added by a more recent hand: "of Blessed Venesia, Virgin and Martyr." But in the Secret Prayer and after Communion, Venecia the Martyr is mentioned. So above we said from Reusner that Veronica is called a Virgin and Martyr; and Ferrarius in his Notes to the Catalogue of Saints of Italy reports that she is called a Virgin by Galesinius — though this was perhaps read elsewhere and wrongly attributed to him, since it is not found in the aforementioned Martyrology printed at Venice in 1578. Finally, since in the same manuscript Mass, after the Epistle and Gradual, it is prescribed to read either the Alleluia with its verse, or in its place from Septuagesima the Tract "They that sow in tears" — the feast must necessarily have been celebrated before February 21, perhaps on this February 4, the birthday of Saint Veronica, or on February 15 with Veronica the wife of Saint Amator. From these days the celebration could have been transferred to the Tuesday after Quinquagesima Sunday — that is, the day before Ash Wednesday (when people customarily cease from servile work for the sake of recreation and feasting) — where it had anciently been celebrated; and thence perhaps the veneration was transferred by some to February 27. Henricus Dutremannus treats of the hospital and the church of Saint Giles in Part 3 of the History of Valenciennes, chapter 14.
[23] At Tournai, a celebrated city on the Scheldt, it is recorded that Saint Venisa has been honored with sacred worship for three hundred years in the parish church of Saint Margaret, where in the year 1624 an altar was erected and consecrated by Maximilian de Rasseghem, Bishop of Tournai, of the most illustrious family of the Villains of Ghent. There is seen her ancient image, with one hand supporting the head and the other pressed to the abdomen. Her patronage is invoked for the women's ailments mentioned above, and on account of the symptoms arising from such ailments she is said, in more decorous language, to be venerated for the expulsion of a pallid complexion. When a remedy has been obtained, in thanksgiving it is customary there also to offer secretly ribbons, linens, and candles, especially on her feast, which is celebrated on the Tuesday after Quinquagesima Sunday, the day before Ash Wednesday, there as well. These details were transmitted to us upon inquiry by Tossanus Bridoul of our Society, well known for his published books. So much for Saint Venisa or Venisia, whom some consider to be different from Saint Veronica; against whom we determine nothing in so doubtful a matter.
[24] It is certainly possible that Saint Veronica was healed from a flow of blood, or a similar disease, by divine assistance, whence others were given occasion to confuse her with the Evangelical Hemorrhoissa — the woman who suffered a flow of blood for twelve years. Saint Ambrose, in volume 2 of his works, in the book On Solomon, chapter 5, records that Christ dried up a copious flow of blood in Martha, drove out demons from Mary, and restored the body with the warmth of a revived spirit in Lazarus. But the Evangelical Hemorrhoissa was a different person from Saint Martha — she was a Syro-Phoenician by origin, from the city of Caesarea Philippi. There that most noble and wealthy woman, to use the words of Baronius at the year 31, number 74, "not unmindful of so great a benefit, and wishing that it should never fall from human memory, desiring to attest it to all posterity by a remarkable monument, with bronze statues representing the likeness of both Jesus and herself, she wished the memory of the event to be commended to future ages in perpetuity. Wherefore, since it was in no way permitted to Jews to form a likeness of anyone on any pretext, it cannot be said that she was a Jewish woman — Martha, sister of Mary and Lazarus." I add: nor was she Saint Veronica of Jerusalem. Eusebius relates the history of the erected statue in Book 7 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 14, in these words: "At Caesarea Philippi, which the Phoenicians call Paneas... the woman afflicted with a flow of blood, whom we know from the testimony of the holy Gospels to have found a remedy for her disease from our Savior, was a native of that city. Her house is shown there, and certain wonderful monuments and, as it were, trophies of the Savior's beneficence toward her endure to this time. For before the doors of her house, there was placed upon a raised stone a bronze image of a woman, kneeling and with hands extended in a suppliant posture toward the front. Opposite this, an erect image of a man, cast from the same material, decently adorned with a garment falling to the ankles, extending his hand to the woman. At his feet, on the very base, a strange and unusual species of plant grows up, which indeed, when it has grown up to the fringe of the bronze garment, has the power and efficacy of healing every kind of disease. This statue, they say, represents the likeness of Jesus, and it remained to our own age; we ourselves saw it with our own eyes when we visited that city." So far Eusebius. But the Emperor Julian, according to Sozomen in Book 5 of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 20, when he had been informed that there was at Caesarea Philippi a distinguished statue of Christ, which the woman who had suffered from a flow of blood had placed there after she was freed from her disease, overturned it and placed his own in its stead. Whereupon a violent fire descended from heaven, severed the statue about the breast, and cast down the head together with the neck to the ground, fixing it face downward in the earth at the part that had been torn from the breast. From that day to the present it remains blackened, as though burned by a lightning stroke. At that time, therefore, the pagans dragged the statue of Christ with such violence that they broke it in pieces. But the Christians afterward, having collected its fragments, placed them in a church, where they are still preserved.
Section VI. The piety of Catholics toward the Image of Christ left by Saint Veronica at Rome.
[25] John VII, created Roman Pontiff in the year 595, built — as Anastasius the Librarian reports in his Life — an Oratory of the holy Mother of God within the church of Blessed Peter the Apostle, whose walls he decorated with mosaic; and there he spent a great quantity of gold and silver and erected images of the venerable Fathers on the right and left. The aforementioned Jacobus Grimaldus exhibits those images and paintings in Bzovius at the year 1216, number 16, and adds that the said Oratory was situated in the last lateral nave, on the right for those entering the basilica of Saint Peter, toward the Apostolic palace. There the same Pope John established an altar of the most holy Sudarium, and above it an overhanging ciborium of marble and inlaid work, resting on six columns, most reverently containing the most precious Veil of the most sacred countenance of our Savior Jesus Christ. The record of the consecration of the altars of this oratory is reported from an ancient Martyrology, in which are the names of the benefactors of the Vatican basilica, as follows: "The consecration of the altar of the most holy Sudarium; likewise of the altar of Saint Mary at the Manger behind it, on the ninth day before the Kalends of December, on the feast of Saint Clement." A diploma made in the year 1011 shows that the ministers assigned to this Oratory on account of both altars were called Clerics and Mansionaries of Saint Mary in Beronica. On the bronze gates enclosing the said ciborium of the most holy Sudarium, these words were inscribed: "Pope Celestine III caused this work to be made in the seventh year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 1197."
[26] Various processions are recorded as having been instituted in veneration of the holy Sudarium. First, according to the most ancient Gradual of the Vatican Library, on the night of the Lord's Nativity a procession goes to the Sudarium of Christ, singing the Te Deum laudamus, and there Mass is celebrated. Secondly, according to the book On the Ecclesiastical Office written by the Canon Benedict of Saint Peter's for Celestine II in the year of Christ 1143, the Pontiff celebrates the solemnities of the Mass in the basilica of Saint Peter on the Third Sunday of Advent — which they call Gaudete — and afterward goes to the Sudarium of Christ, which is called the Veronica, and incenses it, and the altar of Saint Mary likewise. But the principal procession, instituted by Pope Innocent III, is related in his ancient Acts, published by Franciscus Bosquetus together with his Epistles and inserted by Odoricus Raynaldus in his Ecclesiastical History at the year 1223, number 21, where near the end the following is recorded: "He also built at his own expense, for the care of the sick and the poor, the hospital of the Holy Spirit at Santa Maria in Sassia, on the public road beside the Tiber, before the basilica of Saint Peter... He instituted at the aforesaid hospital a solemn station on the first Sunday after the Octave of Epiphany, on which the Christian people flock together to see and venerate the Sudarium of the Savior, which is processionally carried with hymns and canticles, psalms and torches from the basilica of Saint Peter to that place; and to hear and understand the exhortatory sermon which the Roman Pontiff is to deliver there concerning works of piety, and to merit and obtain the indulgence of sins which he promises to those who exercise themselves in works of mercy. So that he might provoke others not only by words but by example, he ordered that to all the poor coming to those spiritual nuptials, bread, meat, and money should be distributed. The most prudent Prelate set forth the reason for all these things in the Homily which he wrote on that Gospel." In that Homily, Pope Innocent writes: "His Son Jesus also, with His disciples, is invited to these salutary nuptials, since the Image of Jesus Christ is today reverently carried by the ministers of the Church to this place, so that His glory might be admiringly beheld by the faithful peoples who come together to celebrate these nuptials of piety and mercy. And lest anyone depart hungry from these nuptials, to all who come together on this occasion, so that henceforth they may show themselves more liberally and cheerfully in salutary celebration, one year of enjoined penances is remitted to obtain a more ample indulgence of sins, so that thus the Bridegroom Christ may turn water into wine, who is blessed forever and ever. Amen."
[27] So writes Innocent III, who died on July 17, 1216, having previously composed the above-related Prayer concerning Saint Veronica and this image of Christ. Honorius III, who succeeded Innocent, mentions the same Procession in a letter to the Rector and Brothers of the said hospital, issued on the third day before the Nones of July, in the eighth year of his pontificate (the year of Christ 1224), with this opening: "To commemorate the salutary nuptials." And then among other things he writes: "Since Jesus with His disciples is recorded to have been invited to these nuptials in Cana of Galilee, where His Mother was, therefore we have reasonably instituted that the Image of Jesus Christ be reverently carried from the basilica of Blessed Peter by its Canons to the said hospital, where the memory of His most blessed Mother is recalled, within a casket specially wrought for this purpose of gold, silver, and precious stones, to be longingly displayed to the faithful peoples who devoutly come together to celebrate these nuptials. Moreover, so that we, who by the Lord's revelation have opened to others the venerable Sacrament, may also by His inspiration offer an example for imitation by others, we grant, decree, and command that for one thousand poor arriving from outside and three hundred persons dwelling within, seventeen pounds in current coin — so that each may receive three denarii, one for bread, another for wine, and another from the Almoner of the Supreme Pontiff — shall be given to you annually and in perpetuity; and to the Canons aforesaid who will processionally carry the prescribed image of the Savior, twelve coins each and a candle of one pound's weight, to be carried lit, shall be provided from the offerings at the Confession of Blessed Peter. Since, however, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, the Roman Pontiff with his Cardinals ought to be present at this Station, both to celebrate the solemnities of Mass and to deliver an exhortatory sermon on this celebration. And lest the faithful people return hungry from these nuptials, beyond instruction, let him also bestow spiritual food upon them, granting a remission of one year of enjoined penances," etc.
[28] The same privileges were confirmed by the Pontiffs who lived in that thirteenth century: Alexander IV, Clement IV, Gregory IX, Nicholas III, and Nicholas IV. Then Boniface VIII, in the Jubilee year 1300, ordered — as Giovanni Villani testifies in Book 8, chapter 36 — the same image of Christ to be shown to the people every Friday and on solemn feast days. Urban V, in the eighth year of his pontificate (the year of Christ 1370), gave to Jacobus, Bishop of Arezzo, his Vicar in the City, the faculty of showing the said Sudarium to the people on Wednesday, on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday of the Greater Week, on the feast of the Lord's Ascension, and on the first Sunday after the Octave of Epiphany. Frederick III, Emperor, after receiving the Imperial crown from Nicholas V, burning with a great desire to see and touch the Sudarium — a privilege granted only to the Canons — ascended in the habit and vestments of a Canon (for he was a Canon of the basilica of Saint Peter), saw it, and touched it. I pass over other Pontiffs by whose command the Sudarium was solemnly shown to the faithful, or who themselves carried it in solemn procession — as Paul II, according to Ciacconius, did barefoot in the year 1470, to obtain victory against the Turks. Finally, by command of Paul V, on the Tuesday of the Greater Week in the year 1606, with a most solemn supplication instituted, the same image of Christ was translated into the new basilica of Saint Peter, as the same Grimaldus, an eyewitness, reports at length in Bzovius, from whose collection many instruments, diplomas, and manuscript codices are adduced to prove the ancient veneration of this sacred image.
Annotation* Other reading: Saria.
Section VII. Images fashioned after the archetype, and celebrated with veneration.
[29] Images painted after the Roman archetype of the Sudarium of Saint Veronica are publicly venerated in many places. On the borders of Belgium, near the town of La Capelle in Thierache, an image is shown with a great concourse of pilgrims in a convent of Virgins of the Cistercian institute, which they call Montreuil-les-Dames. In the year 1249, Jacobus Pantaleo of Troyes, who later became Pope Urban IV, sent it from Rome, at the request of his sister, a nun of Montreuil. His letter, translated from French into Latin by Jean-Jacques Chifflet in his book On the Burial Linens of Christ, chapter 34, we here subjoin: "To the venerable and devout Sisters beloved in the Lord, the Abbess and Religious of the convent of Montreuil, Jacobus of Troyes, Archdeacon of Laon, Chaplain of our holy Father the Pope, greeting, and thereafter the full and perfect enjoyment and clear vision of the good so long desired. Through the report of our dearest sister we have learned that you desire with ardent affection to see and to have among you the face and figure of our Savior, which we have in our keeping, with which He was seen on earth and conversed with men, beautiful above the sons of men; and that from its contemplation your devout affections would be more enkindled and your minds rendered more pure. We, therefore, who most willingly wish to procure all those things by which you may acquire the grace of God in this world and eternal glory in the next, desiring, insofar as it lies in us, to satisfy the holy desires of our aforesaid beloved sister, send you the holy Face mentioned above. And do not be concerned that you will find it discolored and faded. For, just as those who always dwell under a temperate and cool atmosphere, and rest continually in pleasant places, have white and delicate flesh; while, on the contrary, those who are perpetually occupied in the fields have weathered, darkened, and altered flesh — so was this blessed Face discolored by the sun and the heat of tribulations, as is said in the Canticles Song of Songs 1:5, when our Lord labored in the field of this world for our redemption. Therefore we earnestly ask you that, out of reverence for Him whom it represents, you receive it as the Saint Veronica, or the true image and likeness of Him; that you treat it piously, gently, and fittingly, so that from its contemplation you may be the better for it. Be mindful of us in your holy prayers and meditations, and believe assuredly that here it is seen with the greatest honor and veneration, for it was granted to us by holy men. Done in the year of grace 1249, on July 3, Monday after the feast of Saints Peter and Paul." These details Chifflet draws from the records of Montreuil, and following him Chrysostom Henriquez in his Lives of the Fathers of the monastery of Dunes in Flanders, chapter 21, under Abbot Theoderic, who, about to arrange the consecration of his church, brought that sacred Image from Montreuil thither, so that the new church might be dedicated with greater solemnity by the Bishops Ralph of Therouanne (in whose diocese the monastery of Dunes then was) and John of Tournai. And indeed, while the sacred Image was honored there for about three months, by divine power health was restored to many of the sick — sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, and walking to the lame. And those who attempted to impede the pious veneration of this Image were not spared a dreadful punishment, by which others, terrified, were sincerely converted to their due piety — as Henriquez relates at greater length in chapters 17, 18, 19, and 20 of the said book. Chifflet himself testifies that the same Image, brought from Montreuil to Saint-Quentin of the Vermandois in the year 1495, gave especially great relief to those suffering from diseases of the eyes.
[30] Another ancient monastery of the same Cistercian institute, Cadouin, in the Perigord region in the diocese of Sarlat, founded in the year of Christ 1119, as Gaspar Jongelinus attests in his Register of Abbeys of the Cistercian Order, among other relics reverently preserves a Sudarium of our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Abbot Bertrand du Molin, in the year 1392, fearing that the monastery would be exposed to the plundering of English soldiers, brought it to Toulouse. The history of this Translation is recorded by Guillaume Catel in Book 2 of his History of Occitania, in his description of the city of Toulouse and the church of le Taur, and in Book 5 on the Archbishops of Toulouse. Of these, Pierre de Saint-Martial, having received the most holy Sudarium in the aforesaid year 1392, with nine Prelates in attendance, displayed it for viewing to the people — more than three thousand strong, who came running — in the church of Saint-Roch, then recently built, on October 28, the day dedicated to the Apostles Simon and Jude. He then carried it through the whole city and deposited it in the church of le Taur in the eighth district of the city, in the vicinity of which a house was purchased by the Syndic of the city, designated for receiving the Abbot and his monks. In the year 1399, by command of King Charles VI of France, this sacred pledge was brought to Paris by the Bishop of Saintes and the Abbot of Cadouin, accompanied by the Syndic and Assessor of the city of Toulouse and certain men of the Clergy; and after some period of time it was brought back to Toulouse. When afterward the people of Toulouse preferred to keep that treasure for themselves, while the Abbot on the other hand demanded the return of what was owed to his monastery, the dispute was agitated both at Rome and at Paris in the Pontifical and Royal courts. The Abbot, with the King so ordering, had the most holy Sudarium, enclosed in a silver chest, brought back to Cadouin from the College of Saint Bernard, where it was then being kept, by his monks. So far from Catel. Chifflet, at the place indicated above, with a double error, records that this image of Christ is preserved at Cahors in Gascony — the Gascons dwelling in the third Aquitaine, or Novempopulania, while the Cadurci belong to the first Aquitaine, near to whom are the Petrocorij in the second Aquitaine, under whose jurisdiction we have said the monastery of Cadouin in the diocese of Sarlat is situated.
[31] A third veil of the countenance of Christ is preserved with great devotion among the Spaniards in the Cathedral church of the city of Jaen in Baetica. Twice each year — on Good Friday and on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, to whom that church is dedicated — it is displayed for the faithful to behold with great reverence and a certain holy fear and awe among the spectators, and with a great concourse and gathering of peoples. The aforementioned Ruspuerta and Acuna Adarueus have published the history of this sacred Image of Jaen, and other writers of Spanish histories have likewise mentioned it in various places. We have rejected above the fabulous things related in the Chronicle of Julianus Petrus concerning Saint Veronica, whom we have said is there confused — first with Berenice, granddaughter of King Herod and mother of Herodias; secondly, with Saint Beronicus, a man and Martyr of Antioch; thirdly, with the Evangelical Hemorrhoissa. Under the name of the same Julianus there exist Adversaria, in which the following is recorded at number 336: "From the most ancient times among the Gareseni — that is, the people of Jaen — the face of Christ, one of three brought from the city of Rome, is venerated with the greatest devotion and shown to pilgrims." And at number 337: "This remained from the Gothic times in the keeping and at the highest value among the Mozarab Christians among the Moors." So much for these texts, which Ruspuerta and Acuna Adarueus seize upon as sacrosanct, and those things which they conjecture will be objected by others as contradictory, they endeavor to reconcile. Ruspuerta, citing the conjecture of Sancho Davila, Bishop of Jaen, in Section 6 is of the opinion that the sacred veil was brought along by Saint Euphrasius when he was sent by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul to Spain — which we cannot approve without the authority of ancient writers. We have treated of Saint Euphrasius on February 1, in the Life of Saint Caecilius the Bishop, and shall treat more fully on May 15, the day of his feast.
[32] Setting aside the authority of Julianus Petrus, some years after these treatises were published by Ruspuerta and Acuna Adarueus, Rodrigo Mendez Silva published his Universal Description of the Cities of Spain, and Gil Gonzalez Davila his Ecclesiastical Theatre of the Kingdom of Castile. Both record in their books, printed in the year 1645, that Nicolas de Biedma, sprung from a most noble family in the kingdom of Galicia, was created Bishop of Jaen in the year 1368. After he had visited, by the authority of Gregory XI, very many bishoprics of Spain and Portugal, as well as the masterships or prefectures of the military orders, in the year 1376, he received as a gift the most holy Sudarium of the countenance of Christ, once given to Saint Veronica, and brought it from Rome to Jaen and deposited it in his Cathedral Church. Davila adds that in the Episcopal residence there is found an ancient painting representing the image of this Bishop Nicolas venerating the sacred veil of Saint Veronica, and that an inscription added to the painting indicates that it was brought by him from Rome.
[33] Meanwhile, Davila, not sufficiently mindful of the chronology he had established, adds that the holy King Ferdinand, when passing through on his way to the siege of the city of Seville, took this sacred image from Jaen with him, so that, protected by such a safeguard, he might obtain a successful expedition. The King then departed from there to the eternal and most secure kingdom, and the holy Veronica was returned to Jaen. The city of Seville was wrested from the Moors in the year 1248 — therefore 138 years before this sacred Image was brought to Jaen. Ferdinand died at Seville on the third day before the Kalends of July in the year 1252, on which day we shall treat of him. Concerning the King's piety, Lucius Marineus Siculus writes in Book 5 of Spanish Affairs: "The blessed Ferdinand, King of Spain, is not undeservedly to be numbered among the Saints; for he was renowned for the highest sanctity, innumerable miracles, and the most upright character. Indeed, he most devoutly adored the image of God, which he always had with him, and celebrated it with the greatest veneration. From it, whatever he asked for, whether out of necessity or propriety, he always easily obtained. Therefore, with the help of this divine presence, he gained possession of Seville and many other towns, having put the Moors to flight." Marineus speaks here of a different image of Christ. He then, near the end of the same Book 5, under the heading on sacred buildings in Spain, writes: "Mentesa also, which they call Jaen, one of the principal cities of the province of Baetica, justly glories in the Sudarium of Christ, which we call by another name the Veronica. For this city, endowed with this most holy gift, is exceedingly blessed, exceedingly rich, and is visited by many, and is held in the greatest veneration. Moreover, those who look carefully upon this Sudarium are completely unable to discern what its color is, so great is the divinity in it and the variety of colors." So Marineus, whose not quite fair interpreter Ruspuerta, in Section 5, renders "the image of God" (in Spanish, "la Veronica").
[34] Pope Clement VII, in a Bull of indulgences granted to this Church in the year 1529, inserts these words: "In which church, as we have received, there is preserved a devout and venerable Image of the countenance of the Lord Himself and of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, impressed upon a Sudarium and, as is piously believed, left to Blessed Veronica at the time of the saving Passion; and from a time so long past that the memory of men holds nothing to the contrary, it is honorably kept, and is shown there with great devotion and a great concourse of people on certain days," etc. These words of Clement VII are repeated by Julius III in another Bull granted to this Church in the year 1553. Acuna Adarueus presents both complete in treatise 29, and finally appends in an appendix the Litanies composed by Bishop Sancho Davila in the Spanish language concerning this holy Image of Christ, which are customarily recited when it is shown to the people. The following also treat of this veil of Saint Veronica at Jaen: the aforementioned Sancho Davila, On the Veneration of Relics; Hipolito Vergara, On the Holy King Ferdinand; Gabriel Vazquez, Book 2, disputation 2, chapter 1; Carthagena, Book 10, homily 20; Franciscus Bivarius, in his commentary on the Chronicle of Dexter at the year 48; Martin de Roa, On the Antiquity and Veneration of Images, chapter 5; Ambrosio de Morales, in his Spanish Antiquities; Pineda, Part 2 of the Monarchy, Book 10, chapter 23; Francisco Garcia del Valle, in his Evangelical Preacher, among the eulogies of the Churches of Spain; Pedro de Medina, On the Greatness of Spain; Juan de Marieta, On the Saints of Spain; Fernando de Ojea of the Order of Preachers of the Kingdom of Mexico, Book 4 of the Life of Christ, chapter 32; and many others indicated by Rodrigo Mendez Silva, Acuna Adarueus, and Francisco de Ruspuerta.
[35] Among the islands of the Ionian Sea subject to the Republic of Venice is found Zacynthus, with a city of the same name as the island, in which we have read in a certain manuscript Calendar of Icons, compiled by a modern author in the manner of adversaria, that Saint Veronica gave some Sudarium of Christ to the inhabitants when they were converted to the faith — no author being cited, which we regret.
[36] These are the more solemn Images of Saint Veronica, concerning which we pronounce with Gretser: "Such sacred pledges and relics, obtained by imitation and more frequently reproduced from the prototype, gave occasion to posterity to persuade themselves that they possessed the true exemplar, when in fact they had only an image copied from the first Sudarium or cloth." This error is free from all fault, since in both the originals and in those images that have been sketched in imitation of them, one God, our Redeemer, is honored. Some, with Ruspuerta and Acuna Adarueus, are of the opinion that the veil of Saint Veronica was folded threefold and that the face of Christ was impressed on all three layers, and that one is preserved at Jerusalem, another at Rome, and the third at Jaen — perhaps led to this interpretation by Julianus Petrus, who reports above that the face of Christ brought to Jaen was "one of three from the city of Rome," perhaps there solemnly consecrated by application to the archetype; the other two being among the Franks in the aforementioned convents of Montreuil and Cadouin, which boast that these images were given to them much earlier. We do not, however, oppose those who believe that a triple image was impressed on a threefold veil — which Christ could have done with the same ease as one — if an established tradition of the Churches should convince that it was so done.
[37] Gretser indicates the not inconsiderable devotion of the Germans toward this image in chapter 17 of his work On Images Not Made by Human Hands, where he records that on the back of the high altar the image of the Veronica is customarily painted, and that people going around the altar (for most altars are so built that there is room to walk around them) touch the sign of the Cross impressed on the image and then mark their own foreheads with the same sign. This custom is so widespread that such images are worn away within a few years by constant touching and must be renewed. We recall having once read in Maffei and other writers on Indian affairs about the singular devotion of the Indians and Japanese toward this image of the Veronica.
Annotation* Perhaps July 5.