Race and Appearance of Jesus - Early Church To The Middle Ages

Early Church To The Middle Ages

Despite the lack of direct biblical or historical references, from the second century onwards various theories about the race of Jesus were advanced, e.g. by Justin Martyr, based on arguments on the genealogy of Jesus. These arguments have been debated for centuries. The second century anti-Christian philosopher Celsus wrote that Jesus was "ugly and small".

The Church Fathers Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine of Hippo argued from a theological perspective that Jesus must have been ideally beautiful in face and body. For Augustine he was "beautiful as a child, beautiful on earth, beautiful in heaven". These theological arguments were further extended in the 13th century by Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae based on his analysis of the Perfection of Christ, reasoning that Christ must have embodied every possible human perfection.

By the Middle Ages a number of documents, generally of unknown or questionable origin, had been composed and were circulating with details of the appearance of Jesus, as described below.

Around the 9th century, Epiphanius Monachus referred to a tall angelic figure, which has at times been interpreted as Christ, but scholars consider it an unlikely reference to Jesus. Other spurious references include the Archko Volume and the letter of Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar, the descriptions in which were most likely composed in the Middle Ages.

A forged letter by Publius Lentulus, the Governor of Judea, to the Roman Senate dates to around the year 1300 and, according to most scholars, was composed to compensate for the lack of any physical description of Jesus in the Bible. Also in the 14th century Nicephorus Callistus quoted an unnamed antique source that described Jesus as tall and beautiful with fair, wavy hair, but his account was most likely without basis and was inspired by the prevailing artistic images of Jesus.

The Islamic Hadith, collections of 8-9th century AD sayings with no scriptural ascertainment or specific authorship, describe Jesus as "reddish-white" faced.