The images “not made by human hands”
- Daniel Oltean
- Nov 11, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: 8 hours ago
Legends surrounding the so-called images “not made by human hands” (acheiropoieta) emerged around the 6th century, with the aim of popularising the miracles attributed to them, promoting their veneration, and increasing the number of pilgrimage sites. In a period where the Decalogue’s commandment against depicting the divine was still observed, these legends ascribed the initiative to paint icons to God himself. The new trend thus became difficult to challenge. The miraculous creation of these images made them akin to relics, attracting crowds and enhancing the prestige of the churches that housed them.
The oldest images “not made by human hands”
It is often forgotten that Christians started to venerate icons because they believed the images, like relics, had miraculous powers. First of those icons were the images regarded as “not made by human hands.” The best known and probably the oldest of them is the image of Edessa, whose feast is inscribed in the calendar on August 16. According to the earliest version of the legend, written in the 5th or 6th centuries to support the idea of the city’s apostolic origins, a painter depicted Christ on a canvas before the Passion. Since the legend was deemed implausible, the text was revised, and according to the new version, Christ himself imprinted his face on a cloth. The legend became very popular from the 6th century onward and served as a model for other similar local traditions. [1]
At that time, it was said that in the Cappadocia region, at Kamouliana, a pagan woman named Hypatia had discovered another acheiropoieton of Christ on a cloth in the water. The image, which had the power to multiply, was brought to Constantinople as early as the 6th century. It became a veritable palladion, protecting the city, like other objects that “fell from heaven” venerated by Christians. During the reign of Emperor Justinian (527-565), one of the copies of this icon was carried in procession for six years through the Pontus region (Asia Minor) to raise money for the restoration of a church. [2]
In Egypt, a church in Memphis preserved another cloth, on which Christ was said to have imprinted his face during his childhood. According to local tradition, the image changed its appearance when viewed carefully. [3] As for Jerusalem, the city was said to have preserved the column of the Flagellation of Christ, on which pilgrims could see the imprint of the face, chin, nose, and eyes, imprinted in the stone as if in wax. [4]
From Christ, the fashion for these miraculous images passed to the Virgin Mary. According to a list of images “not made by human hands” preserved in the manuscript Venice, BNM gr. 573 (9th century), such an image was venerated in the church located at the presumed tomb of the Virgin in Gethsemane. [5] In Lydda (Diospolis), Palestine, in a church built, according to legend, by the apostles Peter and John, there was said to be another acheiropoieton of the Virgin, miraculously imprinted on the wall or on a column. [6]
The acheiropoieta in Rome
The fashion for icons “not made by human hands” enjoyed great success in Rome from the mid-6th century onward, when the Byzantines occupied the city. By the 9th century, no fewer than four such images were venerated in Rome’s most important churches: both the Lateran and the Vatican claimed to possess an acheiropoieton of Christ, while the churches of Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Maria in Trastevere considered their icons of the Virgin also to have a divine origin. It seems there was competition among these churches, each seeking to promote its treasures and increase its ecclesiastical power by any means.
The earliest reference to a Roman icon “not made by human hands” concerns an image of the Virgin Mary kept at Santa Maria in Trastevere. A text that may date from the 7th or 8th century, attached to a pilgrimage guide entitled De locis sanctis martyrum, mentions in this church an icon “that made itself” (imago sanctae Mariae quae per se facta est). [7] In response, in the 8th century, the church of St. John Lateran, which at that time served as the seat of the pope, also acquired an acheiropoieton of Christ. On the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin, the Lateran icon was carried in procession to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, [8] which also claimed to possess another similar miraculous image. [9]
In the 9th century, it was said that there was in Rome, likely in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, an acheiropoieton of Christ on a veil that had belonged to Berenike/Veronica, the woman who suffered a 12-year haemorrhage. [10] According to the oldest version of this legend, preserved in two apocryphal texts, Cura sanitatis Tiberii (CANT 69) and Vindicta Salvatoris (CANT 70), Veronica painted this image of Christ. [11] But as in the case of the image of Edessa, the legend was later transformed. According to the new version, it was Christ who imprinted his face on a cloth, this time on the road to Calvary. [12]
In the 8th and 9th centuries, when Roman images “not made by human hands” had already become numerous, other churches began to claim that their icons had been painted by the Apostle Luke. Even though the initiative to paint these icons was attributed to an apostle and not to Christ, they enjoyed a popularity similar to that of the acheiropoieta. Over time, the two categories of images merged, with the icons in the Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore being considered both “not made by human hands” and painted by the Apostle Luke.
[1] A. Desreumaux et al. (trans.), Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus (Apocryphes, 1), Turnhout, 1993, p. 59 (§6); C. Jullien – F. Jullien (trans.), Les Actes de Mar-Mari. L’apôtre de la Mésopotamie (Apocryphes, 11), Turnhout, 2001, p. 67 (§3); Evagrius Scholasticus, The Ecclesiastical History, §4.27, trans. M. Whitby (Translated Texts for Historians, 33), Liverpool, 2000, p. 226.
[2] The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor: Religion and War in Late Antiquity, trans. G. Greatrex et al. (Translated Texts for Historians, 55), Liverpool, 2011, p. 425-427 (§12.4.a-b). According to this work, the image of Kamouliana was known in three identical versions, created from the same original. See also H. Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art, Chicago, 1994, p. 53-56.
[3] The Piacenza Pilgrim, Travels, §44, trans. J. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades, Jerusalem, 1977, p. 88.
[4] Theodosius, The Topography of the Holy Land, §7b, trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades, p. 66.
[5] A. Alexakis, Codex Parisinus Graecus 1115 and Its Archetype (Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 34), Washington (DC), 1996, p. 349.36-37.
[6] Ibidem, p. 349.22-36. On this image, see E. von Dobschütz, Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende, Leipzig, 1899, p. 79-83 et 146*-147*.
[7] R. Valentini – G. Zucchetti (ed.), Codice topografico della città di Roma, 2 (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 88), Rome, 1942, p. 122. This is the icon Madonna della Clemenza. See J. Osborne, Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art, Cambridge, 2020, p. 63-65.
[8] Liber Pontificalis, §94.11, ed. L. Duchesne, vol. 1, Paris, 1886, p. 443, trans. R. Davis, The Lives of Eighth-Century Popes (Translated Texts for Historians, 13), Liverpool, 2007, p. 56. The image is now located in the Sancta Sanctorum chapel. See Belting, Likeness and Presence, p. 311-313; K. Noreen, Re-Covering Christ in Late Medieval Rome: The Icon of Christ in the Sancta Sanctorum, in Gesta, 49.2 (2010), p. 117-135.
[10] Alexakis, Codex Parisinus Graecus 1115, p. 349.8-12.
[11] Z. Izydorczyk, Healing of Tiberius, e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha, https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/healing-of-tiberius; S.C.E. Hopkins, Vengeance of the Savior, e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha, https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/vengeance-of-the-savior. CANT refers to Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti.
[12] J.-M. Sansterre, Variations d’une légende et genèse d’un culte entre la Jérusalem des origines, Rome et l’Occident. Quelques jalons de l’histoire de Véronique et de la Veronica jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle, in J. Ducos – P. Henriet (ed.), Passages. Déplacements des hommes, circulation des textes et identités dans l’Occident médiéval, Toulouse, 2013, p. 217-231, https://books.openedition.org/pumi/38233?lang=en.
