c. 150–250 AD

The Gospel of the Hebrews mentions linen

A fragment quoted by Origen tells of Jesus giving a linen cloth to James.

Jerome preserves a post-resurrection story in which Jesus gives his burial cloth to a priest’s servant before appearing to James. The Gospel itself is lost, the fragment survives through Jerome, and its relation to the Turin Shroud is unproven.

The episode survives only as a short quotation embedded in Origen’s third-century polemic against Celsus. Origen names a Gospel “according to the Hebrews” while discussing a post-resurrection appearance to James; the line says that the Lord gave a linen cloth to the servant of the priest and then appeared to James. The original gospel is lost, and the quotation is not preserved in a manuscript of that gospel.¹

What the surviving source says

Origen’s purpose is to report a noncanonical narrative, not to document relic custody. The date often assigned to the Gospel of the Hebrews is approximate, and the fragment’s wording reaches us through Origen’s Greek text and later transmission. The passage offers no description of the cloth’s size, appearance, image, location, or subsequent owner.¹²

Historical significance and limits

It is evidence that a second-century or early-third-century Christian story could imagine a linen cloth being transferred after the resurrection. It cannot demonstrate that the Turin object existed then. The distinction between a text’s possible composition date and the date of its surviving quotation matters here.²³

Sources and further reading

1. Origen, Against Celsus 2.45 (fragment quoted by Origen). 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. Mark Guscin, The Tradition of the Image of Edessa (source study). Further reading or contextual source retained from this event’s earlier bibliography.
6. 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.