Ancient writers have left but little information about the personal appearance of the Saviour; and the vagueness of their accounts proves the absence of a type which was universally recognized as authentic. Many documents concerning this subject must be rejected as forgeries of a later age. Such is the pretended letter of Lentulus, governor of Judæa, to the Senate, describing the appearance of Jesus. In the same way we should regard the images attributed to Nicodemus and Luke, and those called _acheiropitæ_ (not painted by human hands), like the famous one of the chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum,[167] the first historical mention of which dates from A. D. 752, when Pope Stephen II. carried it in a procession from the Lateran to S. Maria Maggiore, to obtain divine protection against Aistulphus. Garrucci questions whether it may not be that of Camulianus, described by Gregory of Nyssa; or a copy of the image alleged to have been sent by the Saviour himself to Abgar, king of Edessa,[168] with an autograph letter. Must we consider these and other portraits, like the "Volto Santo" in the Vatican, as fanciful as the old youthful Roman type of the Good Shepherd? There can be no doubt that in some provinces of the East, like Palestine, Syria, and Phœnicia, the oral traditions about the personal appearance of the Saviour were kept for many generations. It is also probable that the tradition was confirmed by some work of art, like the celebrated group of Paneas (Bâniâs). With regard to this, Eusebius says that the woman with the issue of blood, grateful to the Saviour for her cure (Mark v., 25-34), caused a statue, representing Him in the act of performing the miracle, to be set up in front of her house; that it still existed when he wrote, and was held in great veneration throughout Palestine and the whole East. Sozomenos adds that Julian the Apostate substituted his own statue for it, but that the imperial image was struck by lightning. This excited the wrath of the pagans to such an extent that they destroyed the group of Christ and the Woman, which Julian had caused to be removed. Cassiodorus, Rufinus, Kedrenos, and Malala, assert that the head was saved from destruction. It has been suggested that the group did not represent the woman at the feet of the Saviour, but a conquered province kneeling before the Roman emperor and addressing him as her Saviour (ΣΩΤΗΡΙ). But this explanation seems more ingenious than probable, because it implies that Christians, Eusebius included, had mistaken the portrait of a Roman conqueror for that of