attributed to the 6th century

A homily attributed to Pseudo-Theophilus

A later tradition links a face image with cloth placed on Jesus in the tomb.

The attribution and dating are uncertain, and no extant sixth-century manuscript establishes the proposed date. Treat this as a later-reported tradition.

A Coptic-Arabic homiletic tradition attributed to Theophilus of Alexandria tells of a cloth placed over Jesus’ face in the tomb and later bearing a likeness. The attribution points to a famous fourth-century patriarch, but a name attached to a homily is not enough to date its composition. The text belongs to a transmitted devotional tradition whose language and manuscript witnesses require separate evaluation.¹

What the surviving source says

The exact wording is known through later textual transmission; no secure sixth-century manuscript witness establishes the homily’s presence in Theophilus’ lifetime. The face-image detail may reflect a later interpretation of Gospel burial cloths or contact-image traditions. It is not an independent contemporary record of a tomb object.¹²

Historical significance and limits

The homily matters as evidence for how some later Christians narrated the origin of an image-bearing burial cloth. Because its attribution and date are uncertain, it should not be used as a firm sixth-century terminus for the Turin Shroud.²³

Sources and further reading

1. Mark Guscin, The Tradition of the Image of Edessa (source study). Consult the cited passage in the full source and its transmission context; the article distinguishes the source’s wording from later interpretation.
2. Otangelo Grasso, The Image That Should Not Exist: A Scientific Investigation of the Shroud of Turin (2026), ch. 2, “Origins and Historical Record,” pp. 23–31, and ch. 17, “The Mandylion, Art, and the Historical Record,” pp. 232–243. Author synthesis; not an independent witness.
3. Otangelo Grasso, From Forensics to Faith (2026), ch. 2, “Pre-1355 History,” pp. 32–125, and ch. 3, “6th to 14th Century History,” pp. 126–194. The book advances a proposed reconstruction; claims are assessed here against the primary texts.
4. Otangelo Grasso, Chronological List of Pre-1356 Literature Mentioning the Shroud and Christ’s Burial Cloth (20 July 2025), pp. 1–9. Prepared with AI assistance and used as a research checklist; its identifications and confidence labels are not treated as verified facts.
5. Andrea Nicolotti, From the Mandylion of Edessa to the Shroud of Turin (critical study). Further reading or contextual source retained from this event’s earlier bibliography.