Veronica in the Vindicta Salvatoris

The text known as the Vindicta Salvatoris is a major landmark in the literary traditions regarding Veronica but its history is enigmatic. It has undergone several rewritings and the oldest forms are as yet unedited. Partly based on unpublished materials, this article shows that the scribes who transmitted and transformed the text over time were not unaware of the figure of Veronica. However, rather than reinforcing it, their actions blurred it, while at the same time according ever greater importance to Jesus' portrait. In what seems to be the earliest forms of the Vindicta Salvatoris – the so-called "non-Volusianian" recension –, Veronica plays an important role throughout the narrative. She makes the portrait of Jesus available to miraculously cure all sick people who visit her. After healing Tiberius, she takes it back with her to Judea. In the later forms, Veronica becomes merely a foil for the relic and disappears in the final scene. Veronica's attachment to Jesus' portrait throughout the Volusianian recension is in all probability aimed at strengthening the believers' devotion to this remarkable relic, which no longer heals anyone but Tiberius.