The Physical Appearances of Jesus and Paul
A key turning point in
my research came when I was stunned by a remark in Colin Wilson’s Atlantis and the Kingdom of the Neanderthals:
The Romans issued a wanted poster
for Jesus, which still survives, describing him as short (about four foot six),
bald-headed, and hump-backed.
This description of
Christ appears to match the description of Paul in the apocryphal The Acts of Paul and Thecla:
A man of small stature, with a
bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and
nose somewhat hooked.
Could Jesus and Paul
have been the same person? One of the greatest mysteries associated with modern
theories about Christ is—if accepting that he had survived his crucifixion—the
question of what had become of him afterwards. If Christ had indeed survived
his crucifixion, he would not have gone through such an ordeal only to vanish
into obscurity. He could hardly have continued to be around as “Jesus”, since
he was supposed to have been taken up into heaven forty days after his
resurrection. In Barbelo it is shown
that following his recovery from the crucifixion, Christ continued leading his
revolution and building up his forces under the guise of the biblical Paul of
Tarsus. Josephus knew him very well, but referred to him as the Egyptian who
led a failed uprising against the Romans, an accusation brought against Paul
during his final arrest.
Another great
misconception about Christ is that he was a strikingly handsome and imposing
figure, as typically depicted below. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The
romantic image of Christ
In this article I will
only point out the physical similarities between Paul and Christ, and some
unique events that were common to both.
To begin with, in the Halosis of Josephus, Christ is described
as
…a man of simple appearance, mature age, dark skin, small
stature, three cubits high,
hunchbacked, with a long face, long nose, and meeting eyebrows, so that they who see him might be affrighted,
with
scanty hair
(but) having a line in the middle of the head after the fashion of the
Nazireans, and with an undeveloped beard.
A similar description
of Paul is given in The Acts of Paul and
Thecla,
[Paul]…a man of small stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a
good state of body, with eyebrows
meeting and nose somewhat hooked.
Quite small, bald-headed,
bow-legged, with knees far apart, with meeting
eyebrows, large eyes, a long nose
and a red, florid face.
The renowned scholar
Robert Eisler recognises the resemblance between Christ and Paul:
A glance at the personal description of Paul already
given shows at once that the tradition has come down to us in a form exactly
corresponding to the one found in the iconismus (imagery) of Jesus,…This
resemblance of Paul to Jesus …
However, despite a
lengthy rationalisation, this intelligent man fails to consider the most
logical of conclusions, that Christ and Paul of Tarsus must have been, or at
least could have been, one and the same person.
I’ll next list additional
physical descriptions of Christ and Paul as presented by the fathers and
critics of the early church.
Of
Christ …
1. According
to Hierosolymitanus, as well as John of Damascus, ‘the Jew Josephus’ recorded
that Christ ‘was seen having connate
eyebrows, goodly eyes, long-faced,
crooked, well-grown.
3. In
the hadith (sayings) of Muhammad,
Christ is referred to as red-faced
and of medium height, matching the
accounts given above.
4. In
the Letter of Lentulus, Christ is
described as being of medium height,
with a ‘slightly reddish complexion’.
He was ‘terrible in his reprimands’ and was never known to laugh.
Let us compare with Scripture the
rest of His dispensation. Whatever that poor despised body may be, because it
was an object of touch and sight, it shall be my Christ, be He inglorious, be
He ignoble, be He dishonoured; for such was it announced that He should be,
both in bodily condition and aspect. Isaiah comes to our help again.…According
to the same prophet, however, He is in bodily condition ‘a very worm, and no
man; a reproach of men, and an outcast of the people.
As when they said, Whence has
this man this wisdom and these mighty works? Thus spoke even they who despised His
outward form. His body did not reach even to human beauty, to say nothing of
heavenly glory. Had the prophets given us no information whatever concerning His
ignoble appearance, His very sufferings and the very contumely He endured
bespeak it all.
11. According
to Irenaeus, Christ was described as weak, unattractive and afflicted:
13. In
The Acts of Peter we read:
14. According to The Acts of John, John wrote of Christ:
16. Tertullian,
denying that the appearance of Christ had any beauty, goes as far as stating
that:
The
ignominy of the face (of Jesus) would roar (as a witness against the heretics)
if it could.
17. In
the Koran Christ is described as an ‘amazing thing’ brought forth by Mary.
18. Mandaean and Gnostic texts describe Christ as ‘something that was created in the
womb of Mary’ and an ‘amorphous substance’ that Sophia (a figure based on the life of
Mary, Christ’s mother) had given birth to, causing her to grieve at the sight of its
imperfection. In another text this birth is further described as ‘something came out of
her that was imperfect and different in appearance from her, for she had produced
it without her partner. It did not resemble its mother and was misshapen.’ Sophia
later repented ‘with many tears’ the wickedness that had occurred and the robbery that her
son had committed. Christ’s reign of terror is described in full in Barbelo (see also
accompanying article The Violent Messiah). Paul would later described himself as ‘one
abnormally born’ (1 Cor 15:8), matching the descriptions presented above.
19. Christ
anticipated that he would be taunted ‘Physician, heal yourself’ and at his
crucifixion he was indeed taunted that while he saved others, he could not save
himself. The statement about the physician healing himself suggests that Christ
had to be healed, or in other words, he had a physical affliction or deformity
of some kind.
20. Christ
no doubt attempted to use the messianic promise of Isaiah 53 to convince his
simple-minded followers that he was indeed their promised Messiah. Isaiah 53
dictated step by step what he should do to qualify as the Messiah, including
that he should die and rise again from the dead. More specifically, Isaiah’s
Messiah had to comply with the description
He had no beauty or majesty to
attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was
despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him
not.
which Christ evidently did.
Of
Paul …
22. In
The History of the Contending of Saint
Paul, he is described as having a countenance that was ‘ruddy with the
ruddiness of the skin of a pomegranate’, and his cheeks were full, and bearded,
and of the colour of a rose, matching Christ’s reddish complexion.
23. A
description of Paul as recorded in The
Passion of Paul reads:
And he was easily recognizable,
having a crooked body, a black beard
and a bald head.
24. When
Paul supposedly raised the deceased son of the Emperor as described in The Acts of Saint Peter, the ‘revived’
son told his father that he had seen men standing before the throne of God,
petitioning on his behalf. With them ‘there was another man whose petition was
bold, whose head was bald and shining,
whose hair was red, and whose appearance was like unto that of
Paul.’ The person who supposedly intercedes before God on behalf of the
sinners is of course Jesus Christ himself.
Paul
and Christ, the same person …
It is not only their physical appearances that
match, but also their actions and legends about them:
26. A
remark in The Acts of Paul and Thecla,
that Thecla ‘saw the Lord sitting in the form of Paul,’ suggests that they were
indeed the same person.
27. In
The Acts of Saint Peter, John and
Peter have doubts about Paul:
And I, Peter, held converse with
my brother John secretly, for we were marvelling at the act of Paul, and
wondering whether Simon the magician (having heard the rumour of us) had
appeared unto us in the form of Paul…
29. Following
Paul’s arrest, he was accused of being ‘the man who teaches all men everywhere
against our people and our law and this place,’ and ‘who had brought Greeks
into the temple area and had defiled that holy place.’ Christ was the one who
turned Judea upside down with his teachings and who stormed the temple with 310
of his savages, robbing it of all its holy items.
30. Paul
was also accused of being the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four
thousand terrorists into the wilderness. Several scholars have identified this
Egyptian as Simon Magus, confirming that Christ, earlier identified as Simon
Magus, was also the same person as Paul. Christ fed four thousand of his followers in the desert.
31. Felix
and his wife Drusilla frequently sent for Paul to talk to him, while Simon
Magus convinced Drusilla to marry Felix. Simon Magus and Paul are therefore
linked to Felix and Drusilla in the same setting, confirming that they must
have been one and the same person.
Given the evidence
presented above, those with an open mind should come to only one conclusion,
namely that Christ and Paul must have been one and the same person.
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