Question: I have heard that the original tablet that Pilate had fastened to the Cross of Christ, with the INRI words, is on display in a church in Rome. Is this true and, if so, do we know if it is authentic?
As you say, the tablet that Pilate asked to be fastened to Christ’s Cross, or at least a replica of it, is indeed on display in a church in Rome.
The tablet, whose proper Latin name is Titulus Crucis, or Title of the Cross,is in the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in Rome, very near the Basilica of St John the Lateran.
The tradition is that St Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, found the Title along with the true Cross and other relics associated with the crucifixion around the year 326 AD.
She took part of the Cross to Constantinople and another part to Rome.
According to St John, the words Pilate ordered to be put on the Title were “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”, and the words were written “in Hebrew, in Latin and in Greek” (Jn 19:19-20).
The first letter of each of the Latin words, Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, give us the familiar INRI, which we sometimes see on crucifixes as an abbreviation.
As regards when the Title arrived in Rome, the pilgrim Egeria reported in 383 AD that in a visit to Jerusalem she had been present at a ceremony where “both the wood of the Cross and the Title are placed upon the table” and then venerated by the faithful.
If the Title was still in Jerusalem in 383 it was not St Helena, who died around 328 AD, who took it to Rome.
Moreover, in the year 570 Antonio de Piacenza described having venerated both the Cross and the Title in the Basilica built by Constantine in Jerusalem.
He said the Title was made of walnut wood and had the words, as recorded by St Luke, “This is the King of the Jews” (Lk 23:38).
Italian Professor Maria Rigato believes the Title may have been taken to Rome by Pope Gregory the Great around the end of the sixth century.
The Title on display in Rome is made of walnut wood and is 25 centimetres long by 14 centimetres wide, with a thickness of 2.6 centimetres.
It is written in the three languages, with Hebrew first, then Greek and Latin.
Since the Hebrew language is written right to left, the other two languages are also written in this way, with not only the words but each letter written in reverse.
The top of the tablet with the first line, in Hebrew, is almost destroyed but the other two lines are intact and quite legible.
Among the recorded events associated with the Title is the renovation of the Church of the Holy Cross by Cardinal Gherardo Caccianemici early in the twelfth century.
He was made Cardinal Priest of the church in 1124 and he had the church renovated and the Title deposited in a lead box bearing his seal as Cardinal sometime before he was elected Pope in 1144.
Three centuries later, when workers were restoring a mosaic in the church on 1 February 1492, they discovered the box hidden behind a brick bearing the inscription Titulus Crucis.
The Spanish Cardinal Priest of the church at the time, Pedro González de Mendoza, then encouraged veneration of the rediscovered relic.
Can we be sure that the Title in Rome is the original one on the Cross of Christ? In 1997 the German historian and author Michael Hesemann showed the inscription of the Title to seven experts in Hebrew, Greek and Latin palaeography, all of whom were associated with universities and other historical institutes in Israel.
According to Hesemann, none of the experts found any indication of forgery and they all dated the Title to between the first and fourth centuries AD.
A majority preferred, and no one excluded, the first century.
Hesemann’s conclusion was that it was quite likely that the Titulus was indeed the original one on the Cross of Christ.
Nonetheless, in 2002 the Roma Tre University carried out radiocarbon dating on the Title, which showed that it was made sometime between 980 and 1146 AD.
This obviously casts doubts on the belief that the Title is the original from the Cross of Christ.
Professor Maria Rigato has proposed the possibility that the Title is a copy of the original, which would now be lost.
In the absence of any explanation as to why the carbon dating might be mistaken, the Title is most probably at least a copy of, or very similar to, the original.
