Brow,+incandescent

The "incandescent Brow" mentioned in Bon's letter (AA 103) clearly belongs to Christ, but what's the significance in context? Why Brow?

The most likely story involving Christ's Brow is His interaction with Saint-to-be Veronica while He was carrying the cross to Golgotha. Seeing his suffering, she offered Him her veil so that He could daub his forehead. When Christ did so and returned the veil, on the clothe was the image of His face. It became known as the Veil of Veronica.

This allusion would seem significant in light of Bon's letter, suggesting, perhaps, that the black stove polish on the white paper was his complexion rubbed off, a miraculous revelation of his mixed race. It would also further associate him with Christ.

Cool fact: The Veil of Veronica is also called the Sudarium, which is Latin for "sweat-cloth."

Sources:

"Saint Veronica." //Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition//. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 20 Dec. 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_Veronica

-Nick Neely

//... imagine, I say, the prey and prize, the ten plump defenceless sutlers' wagons, the scarecrows tumbling out box after beautiful box stencilled each with that U. and that S. which for four years now has been to us the symbol of spoils which belong to the vanquished, of the loaves and the fishes as was once the **incandescent Brow,** the shining nimbus of the Thorny Crown ... (AA 103)//