THE VERONICA. 



155 



that the servant of Abgarus, called Ananias, who was 

 a painter, was commissioned to bring back the likeness 

 of our Lord to his master, if he failed to bring Him in 

 person ; and that our Lord, seeing the vain attempts 

 which he made to accomplish his task, owing to the 

 dense crowd that surrounded him, washed His face in 

 water, and whilst drying it with a towel, left the impress 

 of His features upon it This relic the servant was 

 commanded to give to the king, whose disease it would 

 cure at the same time that it would satisfy his curiosity. 

 At the siege of Edessa the sacred icon was brought to 

 Constantinople and placed in a suitable shrine in the 

 Church of St. Sophia. Its subsequent history, when 

 Constantinople fell into the hands of the Maho- 

 metans, is involved in obscurity. Either the picture 

 itself or copies of it were found in different parts of 

 Italy about this time the Genoese asserting that it was 

 brought to their city in 1384 by Montalto, and by him 

 was presented to the Armenian Church of St. Bartho- 

 lomew, where it is still preserved and exhibited once 

 a year ; while the Venetians, on the other hand, claim 

 to have brought it to Rome, and to have presented it 

 to the Church of St. Sylvester there. 



At this point the legend diverges and assumes a 

 different form. It leaves the Eastern Church, in which 

 it originated, and is taken up by the Western Church, 

 which thereupon forges the story of St. Veronica in its 

 desire to possess a relic of equal importance with that 

 which belonged to the rival Church. When Jesus was 

 on His way to Calvary to be crucified, a woman, whose 



