medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
"John B. Wickstrom" schrieb:
> The following fascinating article regarding St. Luke is from yesterday's
> NYTimes online (sorry, I can't send the URL instead of the text)
Today's German newspaper (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) says that some
serpents (!) have been found in the coffin, which crawled in to hibernate and
died during an inundation. They are typical for northern Italy, not existing in
Greece, so their death in the fifth c. (or 7th? It was early this morning...)
would give a terminus ante for the relics' translation to Italy.
Best regards
Marcus
>
>
> 'Body of St. Luke' Gains Credibility
>
> October 16, 2001
>
> By NICHOLAS WADE
>
> A new DNA analysis gives tentative support to the belief
> that the remains in an ancient lead coffin are those of St.
> Luke, traditionally considered the author of the third
> Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.
>
> Dr. Guido Barbujani, a population geneticist at the
> University of Ferrara, Italy, has extracted DNA from a
> tooth in the coffin. He concluded that the DNA was
> characteristic of people living near the region of Antioch,
> on the eastern Mediterranean, where Luke is said to have
> been born. Radiocarbon dating of the tooth indicates that
> it belonged to someone who died between 72 A.D. and 416
> A.D.
>
> A report by Dr. Barbujani and colleagues appears today in
> the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
> United States.
>
> The Evangelist, according to ancient sources, was a
> physician who was born in Antioch and died at 84 in about
> 150 A.D. in the Greek city of Thebes. The coffin with his
> remains was taken to Constantinople, the capitol of the
> Byzantine empire, in 338 A.D. and later moved to Padua,
> Italy.
>
> Dr. Barbujani and his colleagues speculate that the coffin
> may have been sent out of Constantinople for safekeeping,
> either during the reign of the Emperor Julian, who tried to
> restore paganism, or during the iconoclast period of the
> eighth century, when many religious images and objects were
> destroyed.
>
> The coffin is known to have been in Padua at least since
> 1177 A.D. It was placed in a marble sarcophagus and kept in
> the Basilica of Santa Giustina. It was last opened in 1562
> A.D. and seems to have been somewhat ignored until October
> 1992. At that time the bishop of Padua, Antonio Mattiazzo,
> received a letter from Hieronymos, the Orthodox
> Metropolitan of Thebes, asking that part of the relics to
> be donated to the site of Luke's tomb in Thebes.
>
> Bishop Mattiazzo, according to an article in November 2000
> in Traces, a Catholic journal, decided to investigate the
> relics under the leadership of Dr. Vito Terribile Viel
> Marin, a pathologist at the University of Padua. In 1998
> the 400-year-old seals were removed from the lead coffin,
> and the study began.
>
> The dimensions of the coffin exactly fit the tomb in Thebes
> considered to be Luke's. In the coffin was a skeleton, but
> not the skull.
>
> Dr. Barbujani and his colleagues say the body appears to
> have decomposed in the coffin because of matching insect
> marks on the lead and the pelvis, which has fused to the
> lead.
>
> The spread in the radiocarbon dating indicates at least two
> possibilities. One is that the body is that of Luke or a
> man who died at the same time, the other is that for some
> reason, a new body was put in the coffin in Constantinople
> around 300 A.D.
>
> To help distinguish between the two, Dr. Barbujani, an
> expert on the genetics of European populations, analyzed
> fragments of DNA from the tooth, a canine, found on the
> floor of the coffin, and sought to compare them with likely
> living representatives of the ancient populations of
> Antioch and of Constantinople. An Antioch match would
> suggest the body could be Luke's.
>
> Since the present population of Antioch includes many
> Kurds, Dr. Barbujani sampled the DNA of Syrians from nearby
> Aleppo. In place of the inhabitants of ancient
> Constantinople, now Istanbul, he tested Greeks from Attica
> and Crete.
>
> The DNA from the Padua tooth, a type inherited only through
> the mother's line, turned out to resemble Syrian DNA more
> than Greek DNA.
>
> "Our data tell us the body is absolutely compatible with a
> Syrian origin," he said. "But I am aware of the limitations
> of the DNA data, and though a broad spectrum of ages is
> possible, the most likely is 300 A.D." Hence both
> possibilities should remain open, he said.
>
> The body, if indeed it is Luke's, has experienced a simpler
> voyage through history than the head, which was removed by
> the Emperor Charles IV in 1354 and taken from Padua to
> Prague, where it rests in the Cathedral of St. Vitus, in
> the Prague Castle.
>
> "There were officially two heads of St. Luke, one at Prague
> and one in Rome," Dr. Barbujani said. At Bishop Mattiazzo's
> request, the Prague skull was brought to Padua and found to
> fit perfectly to the topmost neck bone. The tooth, found on
> the floor of the coffin, also fit into the right socket in
> the jawbone.
>
> Though many relics turn out to be forgeries, executed in
> modern or medieval times as demand arose, the Padua body
> seems more likely than most to be what it is claimed to be,
> although exact proof is lacking.
>
> "I think we should accept that there is no way to tell if
> it was the Evangelist Luke, but the genetic evidence does
> not contradict the idea," Dr. Barbujani said.
>
> Last October, according to the Traces article, at least
> part of the body completed the circle to its original
> resting place. Bishop Mattiazzo sent a rib from the
> skeleton for Metropolitan Hieronymus to place in the empty
> Theban tomb.
>
> John B. Wickstrom
> Kalamazoo College
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Phyllis Jestice
> Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 8:12 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [M-R] saints of the day 18. October
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Today (18. October) is the feast day of:
>
> Luke (1st cent.) Luke is named as the author of the third gospel as well
> as the Acts of the Apostles. Little, however, is known about his life and
> deeds. He may have been born in Antioch, and the epistle to the Colossians
> attests that he was a physician. It is unknown when Luke converted to
> Christianity (he was most likely raised as a pagan) or whether he knew
> Jesus personally. It is probable that he was converted by Paul, whom he
> accompanied for about 17 years, starting in 50/51. Nothing is known of
> Luke after Paul's death in c. 67. Some accounts report that he settled in
> Achaia (Greece), where he wrote his gospel and Acts, and that he died
> peacefully there at the age of 84. Other reports say that he died in
> Ephesus or in Thebes. In 357 Luke's relics were taken from Thebes to
> Constantinople and plaed in the church of the apostles. Some relics made
> it to Padua on an 18th of October in the eighth century; these were
> officially recognized as the relics of Luke in 1177 by Pope Alexander III.
> The legend that he painted an icon of the Virgin Mary led to his veneration
> as patron saint of artists.
>
> Justus of Beauvais (?) A legendary passio reports that Justus was a
> nine-year-old boy from Auxerre. On his flight from Christian-persecutors
> he was seized near Beauvais. The little Justus refused to tell where his
> Christian father and uncle had hidden, so was beheaded. According to the
> legend, Justus took his head and carried it to his kinsmen, who then buried
> him.
>
> Gwenn (Gwendolin) (5th cent.) Gwenn probably lived in the fifth century in
> Britain, and was married to the king of Cornwall. She is supposed to have
> been the mother of several saints, and the foundation of several churches
> in Devon and Cornwall is attributed to her. Her cult was especially
> popular in Brittany, which may have been her original homeland.
>
> Monon (d. c. 645) Monon, originally from either Scotland or Ireland,
> decided while on a pilgrimage to settle as a hermit in a forest in the
> Ardennes. He became an active preacher and missionary, a career cut short
> when he was killed by robbers.
>
> Dr. Phyllis G. Jestice
> [log in to unmask]
>
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--
Dr. Marcus Frings
TU Darmstadt, FG Kunstgeschichte
El-Lissitzky-Str. 1
64287 Darmstadt
Tel. 06151-163430, Fax 06151-166014, Mobil 0173-1748905
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http://www.architektur.tu-darmstadt.de/kuge
http://www.villa-rotonda-projekt.de
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