Arculf: Turin Shroud Encyclopedia

Turin Shroud Encyclopedia
Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

Arculf #11

This is "Arculf," part #11 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. For more information about this series, see part #1 and part #2. Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated.

[Index #1] [Previous: Antioch #10] [Next: Baima Ballone, P. #12]

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Arculf was a 7th century bishop of Perigueux, France[2]. In about 680

[Right (enlarge)[3]: Location of the Island of Iona.]

[see "680"] Arculf made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land[4], where he lived for nine month[5]. On his return journey Arculf was shipwrecked on the Island of Iona in the Scottish Hebrides[6]. Arculf was given shelter in the island's monastery (later Abbey) by its

[Left (enlarge)[7]: Iona Abbey (13th-15th century), built on the site of the original 6th century monastery.]

abbot, St. Adamnan (c. 624–704)[8].

Arculf related to Adamnan the story of his pilgrimage[9]. Based on what Arculf told him of his travels, Adamnan, with aid from other sources, produced De Locis Sanctis (Concerning Sacred Places), a descriptive work in three books, about Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other places in Palestine, as well as Alexandria and Constantinople[10].

From Arculf's description of Jerusalem, Adamnan produced in his De Locis Sanctis a map of Jerusalem [Right (enlarge)[11]] which for 11 centuries was the oldest known map of Jerusalem until the discovery of the Madaba Map in 1884[12]. Also, from Arculf's description of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Adamnan also included in De Locis Sanctis a floor plan of the Church[13] [Above (enlarge)[14]].

Arculf reported seeing in Jerusalem the column to which Jesus had been bound during the scourging (Mt 27:26; Mk 15:15; Lk 23:16 & Jn 19:1), the cup from which Jesus drank the Last Supper (Mt 26:26-28; Mk 14:22-24; Lk 22:17-20; 1Cor 11:23-26) and the lance which pierced Jesus' side (Jn 19:31-34)[15]; and in Constantinople the three major pieces of the True Cross, the crossbeam and the vertical bar in two pieces[16].

Arculfus also related to Adamnan that in Jerusalem he had seen "the sudarium of Our Lord which was placed over his head in the tomb"[17]. Pro-Shroud writers on this topic have all (as far as I am aware) assumed that Arculfus was referring to the Shroud, even though he says the cloth was "eight feet" long[18], about half the length of the fourteen-foot Shroud[19], and Arculf did not mention this cloth bearing an image[20], which he surely would have if it did[21]. It cannot have been the Shroud folded in two[22], because Arculf actually kissed it[23] and he could not have failed to notice up that close that the sudarium was folded in two and so was twice eight feet long.

While eight feet may seem too long for a face cloth[24], the Greek soudarion "face cloth" (Jn 20:7) is a loan word from the Latin "sudarium": "towel," "napkin"[25] and so could have applied to a cloth eight foot long, but not to one fourteen foot long.

Because Latin originally had no word of its own for the Greek sindon ("shroud") of the synoptic gospels (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53), it was often used in Latin writings to mean the larger cloth that covered Jesus' body[26]. But in the Vulgate, the 4th century Latin translation of the Bible by St. Jerome (c. 342-347), the sudarium is the face cloth (Jn 20:7)[27], and the Shroud is sindone (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46 & Lk 23:53). Bishop Arculf and Abbot Adamnan would surely have been aware of the Vulgate's distinction between the sindone in which Jesus' "body" was "wrapped (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46 & Lk 23:53) and the sudarium that had been "about Jesus' head" (Jn 20:7). So when Arculf told Adamnan that he had seen in Jerusalem the sudarium, they both would have understood it to have been the face cloth, not the Shroud.

Finally, the account of the origin of this "sudarium" given to Arculf in Jerusalem shows that it was neither the Shroud of Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46 & Lk 23:53, i.e. the Shroud of Turin, nor the face cloth of Jn 20:7, i.e. the Sudarium of Oviedo, but merely a cloth that had acquired a local legendary status:

"A certain trustworthy believing Jew, immediately after the Resurrection of the Lord, stole from His Sepulchre the sacred linen cloth and hid it in his house for many days; but, by the favour of the Lord Himself, it was found after the lapse of many years, and was brought to the notice of the whole people about three years before [this statement was made to Arculf]"[28]!

Notes
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to quote from any part of this post (but not the whole post), provided it includes a reference citing my name, its subject heading, its date and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
2. Beecher, P.A., 1928, "The Holy Shroud: Reply to the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J.," M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin, p.143; Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, p.94; Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, pp.109, 147. [return]
3. Extract from "Island of Iona," Google Maps, 2020. [return]
4. Scavone, D.C., 1989, "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, p.76; Wilson, 2010, p.109; "Arculf," Wikipedia, 25 January 2020. [return]
5. Beecher, 1928, p.143. [return]
6. Beecher, 1928, p.143; Wilson, 1979, p.94; Wilson, 2010, pp.109, 147; "Arculf," Wikipedia, 25 January 2020. [return]
7. "File:Abbey on the Isle of Iona - geograph.org.uk - 1459438.jpg," Wikimedia Commons, 16 August 2020. [return]
8. Beecher, 1928, p.143; Wilson, 1979, p.94; Wilson, 2010, pp.109, 147; "Arculf," Wikipedia, 25 January 2020. [return]
9. Wilson, 1979, p.94; "Arculf," Wikipedia, 25 January 2020. [return]
10. "De locis sanctis," Wikipedia, 21 May 2020. [return]
11. "File: Arculf De Locis Sanctis Jerusalem.jpg," Wikimedia Commons, 10 November 2019. [return]
12. "Arculf Map of Jerusalem," Wikipedia, 21 May 2020. [return]
13. "Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Crusader period (1099–1244)," Wikipedia, 28 October 2020. [return]
14. "File: Rotunda, Adomanan de locis santis.jpg," Wikimedia Commons, 6 October 2020. [return]
15. Ruffin, C.B., 1999, "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, p.54. [return]
16. Bennett, J., 2001, "Sacred Blood, Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo: New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin," Ignatius Press: San Francisco CA, p.194. [return]
17. Wilson, 2010, p.109. [return]
18. Beecher, 1928, p.144; Barnes, A.S., 1934, "The Holy Shroud of Turin," Burns Oates & Washbourne: London, p.51; Currer-Briggs, N., 1984, "The Holy Grail and the Shroud of Christ: The Quest Renewed," ARA Publications: Maulden UK, p.16; Currer-Briggs, 1988, p.62; Wilson, I., 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, p.103; Bennett, 2001, p.194. [return]
19. Beecher, 1928, p.144; Currer-Briggs, 1984, p.16; Currer-Briggs, 1988, p.62; Scavone, 1989, p.77. [return]
20. Wilson, 1986, p.103; Scavone, 1989, p.77. [return]
21. Wilson, 1979, p.94. [return]
22. Beecher, 1928, p.144; Ricci, G., "Historical, Medical and Physical Study of the Holy Shroud," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., 1977, "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, pp.58-73, 59; Currer-Briggs, 1984, p.16; Currer-Briggs, 1988, p.62; Scavone, 1989, p.77. [return]
23. Beecher, 1928, p.144; Wilson, 1979, p.94; Ricci, G., 1981, "The Holy Shroud," Center for the Study of the Passion of Christ and the Holy Shroud: Milwaukee WI, pp.xxxi-xxxii; Scavone, 1989, p.77. [return]
24. Beecher, 1928, p.144. [return]
25. Guscin, 1998, p.11; Bennett, 2001, p.146. [return]
26. Guscin, M., 1998, "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, p.11. [return]
27. Guscin, 1998, p.11. [return]
28. Macpherson, J.R., 1895, "Pilgrimage of Arculfus in the Holy Land About the Year A.D. 670," London. No longer online. [return]

Posted: 27 October 2020. Updated: 15 May 2021.