Additional information on the way.
In the last posts, I’ve dealt mainly with the treatment of Veronica (the woman) and
the Veronica (the image) in the West. This time, let’s look briefly at the East.
Historically in the East, Veronica (or should I say
Berenice) is associated more with the role she is given in the
Acts of Pilate: as the hemorrhaging woman who was healed by touching Jesus’ garment. In this capacity Berenice is usually named in early Byzantine (and Germanic) folk charms and incantations for stopping blood flow along with Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist, conflated with “Zechariah son of Barachiah” of Matthew 23:35). Here’s one example:
By the great name of the almighty God. The prophet Zacharias was slaughtered in the temple to the Lord and his blood solidified in the middle of the sanctuary like a Stone. So thou too stop the blood of the servant of God, congeal disease, as that one and as a Stone, may it be annulled.
I exorcise thee by the Faith of Berenice (
Beraioonikii), blood, that you may not drip further; let us stay good, let us stay in fear; amen. Jesus Christ conquers.
Notice how “the faith of Berenice/Veronica” is invoked in the context of hemorrhaging. A medieval Latin charm also runs pretty much the same:
For stopping blood from the nose. In the name of Christ write on the forehead with the own blood of the same the name of Veronica. The same is it who said: If I touch the fringe of the garment of my Lord I shall be healed.
Ever since early Christianity the woman with the issue of blood (or the
Haemorrhoissa) is almost always seen in the context of the early Christian concern with the presence of menstruating women in sacred space. Simply put, early Christians are at a dilemma: are menstruating women allowed to partake of sacred functions or not - especially considering that in Judaism, menstrual blood is always seen as something impure? One camp argued that they could; another argued that they couldn’t. Both made use of the story of the hemorrhaging woman to prove their point.
The
Didascalia Apostolorum (3rd century), for instance, discourages the making of newly-converted women withdraw from their place in the community just because they are menstruating. The author makes use of the woman’s boldness to touch Jesus’ clothing as proof-text for his argument:
For this cause therefore do you approach without restraint to those who are at rest, and hold them not unclean. In like manner also you shall not separate those (women) who are in the wonted courses; for she also who had the flow of blood was not
chidden when she touched the skirt of our Saviour’s cloak, but was even vouchsafed the forgiveness of all her sins (Matthew 9.20-22).
Meanwhile, a student of Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264), held the opposite view.
Concerning women in their menstrual separation, whether it is right to them in such a condition to enter the house of God, I think it is unnecessary even to inquire. For I think that they, being faithful and pious, would not dare in such a condition either to approach the home table or to touch the body and blood of Christ.
Dionysius also uses the story of the woman to prove his point: in support of his argument, he points out to the fact that the woman only touched
the hem of Jesus’ garment.
The controversy continued for some time. As late as 597, when St. Augustine of Canterbury asked Pope St. Gregory the Great about whether menstruating women could receive communion, the pope answered in the affirmative, again using the Haemorrhoissa as an illustration:
A woman must not be prohibited from entering a church during her usual periods, for this natural overflowing cannot be reckoned a crime. If the woman who was suffering from the issue of blood humbly came behind the Lord’s back and touched the hem of his garment …] was justified in her boldness, why is it that what was permitted to one woman, was not permitted to all women?
However, a later archbishop of Canterbury,
Theodore of Tarsus (602-690), expressed the opposite view. According to him menstruating women are under no circumstances to receive communion; he even required from women who had given birth a waiting period before they could attend church again. An 8th century Carolingian bishop and theologian, J
onas of Orléans, agrees with this view, saying in his
De Institutione laicali that “Women do not enter the church during carnal impurity.”
); this time, I’ll tell the version found in the Cura first and then compare it with later retellings. After which I’ll again focus a bit on the story of the Holy Mandylion. (You’ll learn why.)