medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Seems easy enough to me. We know from all those paintings of Luke painting the Virgin's portrait that L. customarily worked alone. So human hairs embedded in the paint of any of the surviving portraits attributed to him (cf., e.g.,
http://www.travel-wise.com/europe/india/stthomas.html
[one is housed in the church at St. Thomas Mount] or
http://www.cosmosnet.net/azias/cyprus/visit9a.htm
[one is at the Kykko monastery on Cyprus]) would surely be those of the evangelist himself. If the DNA from one or more of these hairs matches DNA extracted from the relics in Padua, the latter would be genuinely those of St. Luke. And we would be secure in our knowledge, thanks to the miracles of modern science.
Best,
John Dillon
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 16:18:35 -0700 Phyllis wrote:
>Today (18. October) is the feast day of:
>
>Luke the Evangelist (1st cent.) Author of the third gospel and the book of
>Acts. The latter work tells how Luke, a physician, accompanied Paul on
>some of his journeys, and there is also a reference to him in the letter to
>the Colossians (4:14). Nothing historical is known of L. after that, and
>there's no evidence that he was martyred. Sixth-century legend made him an
>artist, who painted a great icon of the Virgin Mary. L's relics in Padua
>were DNA-tested in 2001; my source says they were "found to be probably
>genuine." Genuine what? Genuinely related to somebody? Genuinely human
>bones? I really don't understand this.
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