THE VERONICA. 



This generally accepted type of countenance attri- 

 buted to the Saviour was not arbitrarily invented. 

 When so many independent persons, both in the East 

 and the West, portrayed the sacred lineaments in a 

 way so remarkably similar, and according to a type 

 entirely different from the classical ideal, it is difficult 

 not to believe that they had a common traditional 

 guide before them. And when we bear in mind that 

 some of the portraits go as far back as the earliest cen- 

 turies of our era, the conviction almost forces itself 

 upon our minds that this common traditional type of 

 countenance must have been derived directly from the 

 description of those who had beheld the Saviour's liv- 

 ing countenance. Although no mention is made in 

 Scripture of our Lord's personal appearance, and no 

 hint given by which any true conception of it could 

 be formed, we cannot suppose that it was allowed to 

 fade away utterly from human memory when the cloud 

 received Him out of the sight of the disciples. His 

 own generation would describe it to the next, and that 

 again to the following, until the tradition had become 

 the fixed heritage of the Church ; and believers in the 

 following ages were able to form a reverent idea, 

 approaching the reality, of the bodily features of Him, 

 whom having not seen they loved. 



Such is the origin and history of the Veronica myth 

 of the Roman Catholic Church. It was a beautiful 

 superstition which transferred it to a common wild 

 flower. Why that wild flower should have been se- 

 lected for this honour in preference to other more 



