Christ's Stature

What was the stature of the man Jesus? How tall was He? How sturdy or frail? Painters and sculptors have clouded over their ignorance by emphasizing His face, putting therein all the passion and pity or suffering within their abilities. His body they have made secondary, usually slim, occasionally even pudgy, sometimes tall, seldom short, according to the current ideas of ascetic beauty.

But possibly Jesus was a man short of stature, possibly only about 5 ft. 2 in. Such last week was the British analysis attributed to Dr. James Rendel Harris, curator of MSS at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, Eng. Dr. Harris is one of the greatest living authorities on biblical history and texts. At one time he was a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Most of his life he has spent in the East searching for manuscripts. Thus in a Syriac document of the Eighth Century, just deciphered, he has found this reference to Christ's stature: "Thy stature, O Christ, was smaller than that of the children of Jacob, who sinned against Thy Father who elected Thee, and who kindled the wrath of the Eternal Son who dwelt in Thee, and who angered the Holy Spirit who sanctified Thee." According to another record: "Ofttimes He would appear to me as a small man and uncomely, and then again as one reaching unto Heaven. His head touched Heaven so that I was afraid and cried out, and He turning about appeared as a man of small stature."

Most specific is the description of St. Ephraem, the Syrian: "God took human form and appeared with a stature of three human cubits while at the same time assuming all things. He rose upon us little of stature."

As every one knows, a cubit is the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. But there are five historical calculations for the cubit, the shortest being the Roman of 17.4 in., by which Jesus would have been 4 ft. 4.2 inches tall; the longest the Egyptian of 20.61 in., by which He would have been 5 ft. 1.83 in. tall* Dr. Harris doubtless has unpublished data on the subject.

*The English cubit was 18 in.; the Greek 18.25 in.; the Hebrew 17.58 in.