Jesus' Strangest Piece of Clothing

Unravelling the Seamless Tunic in John 19

In the gospels, we are told very little about what Jesus wore.

Every so often, there is a fleeting glimpse into his wardrobe: the ‘edge’ of his cloak, the disciples’ gospel dress, his parodic rental of kingly robes. Yet when it comes to detailed description, almost everything is left to the imagination.

That is, until we come to one of the final scenes of the Fourth Gospel.

In John’s crucifixion, we are afforded an extended look at one of Jesus’ garments. Like the Synoptic Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke - John tells us that Jesus’ clothes were divided on the cross. But unlike the Synoptics, John unpacks this division:

‘Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his clothes (ta himatia) and divided them into four parts, to every soldier a part, and the tunic (kai ton chitona). Now the coat was without seam, woven whole from the top down.’ (19:23)

What is this mysterious, seamless tunic? And why does John describe it in such detail?

The most immediate explanation is that John was soberly unpacking a biblical prophecy. In the Greek text of Psalm 22, which John cites a verse later, the righteous sufferer has his clothes (plural) divided and lots are cast for his (singular) garment (v.19).

It is true that this passage illustrates the fulfilment of scripture. Yet this motive alone does not explain why John has gone to such lengths in describing the garment. Nor does it explain what this special tunic might have evoked to his readers. In this piece, then, I want to take a closer look at the meaning of Jesus’ strangest garment.

A Symbol of Unity

One of the most ancient interpretations of the tunic was as a symbol of Church unity. Consider what Cyprian of Carthage has to say about the tunic:

‘… So truly because Christ’s people cannot be torn apart, his tunic, ‘woven without seam,’ and holding fast together, has not become divided amongst its owners. The description ‘unable to be split (united, linked together),’ reveals the concord that holds together the unity of our people who have put on Christ. By the sign and seal of the tunic Christ has declared the unity of his Church.’ (De Unitate, Ch. 7.)

Despite centuries of this reading, modern commentators are often quick to dismiss it. They note that “John makes nothing of this detail and neither should we”¹ and often point out that this alleged symbol of unity is ultimately taken away from Jesus.²

Yet I suspect that this reading has largely fallen out of favour in modern (Protestant) commentary due to its allegorical character. Leon Morris betrays this concern when he calls it a “trifle fanciful,” immediately drawing his readers’ attention to Cyril of Alexandria’s genuinely odd reading of the tunic as a symbol of the virgin birth.³

We should not be afraid, however, of reading the tunic symbolically. There are two other places in the gospel where John uses the term anõthen (‘from above’) and in both cases, it has both a literal and a symbolic meaning.⁴ This should prime us to see beyond the literal meaning of the seamless tunic towards its symbolic meaning.

Moreover, just because there are weak allegorical readings of the tunic does not mean that all such readings are wrong. In this instance, there are a number of reasons why the Church-unity reading is far better supported than the ‘virgin birth’ reading, not least for the simple reason that the virgin birth never actually appears in John.⁵

The first reason is that unity is a major theme in John.⁶ Just a few chapters before we are introduced to Jesus’ tunic, Jesus explicitly prays for the unity of the Church. He asks that ‘they would be one, just as you and I are one,’ asking God to guarantee the unity of the Church and future believers. The fact that the tunic’s unity is woven ‘from above’ – that is, woven by God – can be read as an answer to Jesus’ prayer.

Yet there is another reason to see this as a symbol of unity. Earlier in the gospel, Jesus has stated that when he is ‘lifted up’ – an allusion to his crucifixion – he would gather all to himself (12:32). And here we find a four soldiers taking a share of his clothes.

Why has John told us that there are four soldiers? On a literal plane, Craig Keener notes that four soldiers was half of a contubernium, a standard Roman unit.⁷ This smaller unit was typically dispatched for a simple task such as crucifixion.

Yet we might suspect that the number four is also functionally symbolically, as John uses numbers elsewhere in his gospel. Four is a number of totality and completeness. For example, Revelation speaks of the four winds of the earth to refer to the totality of the world. We might therefore see the four soldiers – the whole Church – each taking a share or part (meros) in Christ (cf. 13:8). The seamless tunic slots into this interpretation nicely, representing the unity which will be preserved among them.

Finally, it is not only John who uses garments to symbolise unity. In 1 Kings the prophet Adijah tears his new garment as a sign of the Lord’s tearing apart of Israel (11:30). And in a more contemporary work, Philo provides an exegesis of a high priestly garment as a symbol of the Logos, which holds all things together in unity.

While modern commentators may shy away from this reading, I think it has more plausibility than they imagine. It makes sense of how garments are used elsewhere in biblical and second-temple literature; it fits in well with John’s use of numbers and theme of unity; and it explains why the tunic is undivided among the ‘whole’ Church.

A Priestly Vestment

The view that the seamless tunic is a symbol of unity has the strongest precedent in the ancient Church. Yet in modern commentaries, there is another popular candidate for the tunic’s meaning: the tunic as a high priestly vestment.

The view that the tunic is priestly goes back to 1641, when the Dutch jurist and theologian, Hugo Grontius, found a parallel in Flavius Josephus. The first century Jewish historian describes a high priestly garment as follows:

‘But this tunic (ὁ χιτὼν) is not composed of two pieces, to be stitched (ῥαπτὸς) at the shoulders and at the sides: it is one long woven (ὑφασμένον) cloth, with a slit for the neck, parted not crosswise but lengthwise from the breast to a point in the middle of the back.’ (Antiquities 3. 161 LCL).

What is striking is the number of cognate terms that this description shares with John. For example, Josephus describes a high priestly tunic (ὁ χιτὼν) that is not sewn (ῥαπτὸς), a word relating to ἄραφος (‘without seam’). Moreover, his description of the garment as ‘one long woven (ὑφασμένον) cloth’ bears resemblance to John’s own description of his tunic as ‘woven in one piece’ (ὑφαντὸς δι’ ὅλου; NASB).

There are two criticisms of this parallel raised in the literature. The first is that John shows a lack of interest in casting Jesus in a high priestly role. Craig Keener, for example, notes that “John seems to lack the sort of explicitly high priestly emphasis one finds in Hebrews….”⁸ Likewise, Andrew Lincoln deems a priestly interpretation doubtful “since a high-priest Christology plays no role elsewhere in his narrative.”⁹

Yet this criticism carries little force. While John may not have same focus as Hebrews, John shows more interest in the high priest than any of the gospels. Thus, the roles of both Caipahas and his father-in-law Annas are accentuated, while the trial scene seems to display Jesus’ superiority to the high priest (Jn. 18:19-24). What is more, in the build-up to the crucifixion, Jesus may even take upon the role of high priest, when he consecrates himself as a sacrifice, interceding with the Lord (17:19).

A greater problem for Grotius’ parallel is that there is no clear link between Josephus’ description and the Jewish Scriptures. As Joan Taylor notes, scripture describes a sacred linen tunic worn by the High Priest on Yom Kippur (Lev. 16:4) and a ‘checkered tunic of fine linen’ worn on other instances (Exod. 28:29).

But these tunics only have in common with Jesus’ tunic the fact that they are called tunics; neither has anything to do with the tunic that Josephus is describing in this passage.¹⁰ What Josephus is calling a ‘tunic’ is actually the robe of the ephod, described in all its glory in Exodus 28:31-34. It is not the simple garment undivided in John.¹¹

This may seem to refute the idea that John has a priestly tunic in mind. Yet while it rules out the specific tunic mentioned by Josephus, it is possible that Jesus’ tunic may be linked to priestly garments more widely. As Helen Bond notes, there are a number of ways in which Jesus’ tunic corresponds to a high priestly wardrobe more broadly.¹²

Notably, Jesus’ tunic is called ‘woven’ (ὑφαντός), a word used exclusively in the Bible of the high priest’s garments.¹³ The high priestly vestments were also remembered in rabbinic times as both ‘woven’ (b. Zebahim 88a and b. Yoma 72b) and also as seamless. One text states that the ‘the priestly garments were not sewn’ (b. Zebahim 88b) a point that b. Yoma 27b makes in reference to the woven garments of Exod. 31.10.

There is still a further reason to think that the seamless tunic may be high priestly. Namely, that the presentation of Jesus as high priest fits hand in glove with John’s overall depiction of Jesus as the fulfilment of various feasts and institutions. He is the meaning of the Temple, the Sabbath, the Light of the World, the Living Water, and – importantly, as I have argued elsewhere – the Passover lamb in his death.

But if Jesus is the paschal lamb, who is the priest making the sacrifice? The priest is, of course, Jesus himself. The imagery of Jesus as high priest fits the scene well. As Saint Augustine described, Jesus is both priest and victim (De Civ. De. 10, 20).

A Simple Garment

So far, we have considered Jesus’ seamless tunic as a high priestly vestment that functions as a symbol of ecclesiastical unity. But in her recent book, What did Jesus Look Like? (2018), Joan Taylor proposes a completely different reading of the tunic. Instead of asking what the tunic symbolises, she instead looks to the material culture of first-century Palestine for clues as to what a ‘seamless tunic’ might have been.¹⁴

Approached from this perspective, Taylor identifies it as a simple “bag-style” tunic, created by making a hole in a piece of cloth. This is an unusual design for tunics, which are typically made of two pieces of material sewn together, and could have been woven without great skill. Examples of this tunic have been found in the Khirbet Qazone cemetery near the Dead Sea, dating from the first to the third century.¹⁵

The idea that Jesus wore such a basic garment certainly fits with Jesus’ overall attitude to clothing and its pretences in the synoptic gospels. It might also explain why some Church fathers associated the tunic with the Galilean poor,¹⁶ and why the soldiers did not want to rend it. Dividing it would rid it of the little value it had.

Yet I think we need to be careful to assume that such a basic tunic is in mind. On a material level, the fact that the tunic is said to have been ‘woven from above’ may indicate that it was not a basic garment, but a work of some skill. And the fact that the soldiers did not divide it may be read in line with this. If the garment was of more considerable value, we can understand their rationale in gambling for it.

Notably, not all Church fathers saw this as an item of the poor. Some believed that it was a work of majesty,¹⁷ and even today, several Churches prize the relic of Jesus’ ‘seamless tunic’ as a longer and more impressive robe. Seamless tunics were also sometimes worn by the wealthy. It is therefore unclear that John’s readers would have seen this tunic as a basic item, woven without skill.

A Seamless Interpretation?

In this piece, we have tried to understand the strangest item in Jesus’ wardrobe. Yet it may seem like the interpretations we have offered take us in different directions. Whether or not it is a basic garment, does the idea that the seamless tunic is a symbol of church unity stand at odds with the view that it is priestly garb?

In many commentaries, we are invited to choose. But perhaps we do not need to. In Philo’s description of the high priest’s garments, it is precisely their unrent nature which symbolises the unity of the world, held together by the logos (Fug. 110-112).

So now, here in John, we are confronted with the incarnate logos (1:1), who is wearing a high priest’s garment. But the unity which the priestly tunic symbolises is not the unity of the world being held together, but the unity of the Church. These readings –though disparate – also be woven together in their own seamless unity.

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1. Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel (Leicester, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 2001), 251; Douglas J. Moo, The Old Testament in the Gospel Passion Narratives (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983), 255-256.

2. J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 953; Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2012), 1140.

3. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John. NIGT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), np.

4. Jesus teaches Nicodemus that he must be born ἄνωθεν, ‘from above’ (3:3, 7), following which he claims that ‘the one who has come from above (ὁ ἄνωθεν) is above all’ (3:31). Jesus uses the same term in his conversation with Pilate, when he claims that Pilate has no authority which has not been given to him ‘from above’ (ἄνωθεν) (19:11). It is striking that in both of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus and with Pilate, ἄνωθεν is used with a plain (literal) and a deeper (spiritual) meaning. Whilst Nicodemus thinks that being born ἄνωθεν means being physically born again and Jesus’ words to Pilate may be construed as Pilate gaining authority ‘from above,’ by his Roman superiors, the phrase has a spiritual meaning in both instances. Nicodemus must be born spiritually, and Pilate has been given his power by God, who in unity with Jesus is in control of Jesus’ death.

5. For a detailed defence, see De la Potterie, “La tunique sans couture, symbole du Christ grand prêtre?,” Bib 60 (1979): 255-269.

6. Jesus claims that there will be one flock and one shepherd (10:17); that he and the Father are one (10:30); that he would die so that he would gather all of the children of God who were scattered (11:52); that when he is ‘lifted up’ he would gather all to himself (12:32).

7. James L. Jones, “The Roman Army” in The Catacombs and the Colosseum: The Roman Empire as the Setting of Primitive Christianity, 187–217, eds Stephen Benko andJohn J. O’Rourke. (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 1971), 193-194 cited in Keener, John, 1139.

8. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Volume II. (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2003), 1140.

9. Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel According to Saint John. Black’s New Testament Commentaries. (London: Continuum, 2005), 476.

10. Joan E. Taylor, What did Jesus Look Like? (London: T&T Clark, 2018), 186.

11. See Alan Kerr, The Temple of Jesus’ Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John. Library of New Testament Studies 220 (London: T&T Clark, 2002), 319-320. It may be that Josephus has called this a tunic because it is described in the Septuagint as an ‘undergarment’ (ὑποδύτην; Exod 28:31, 34), worn beneath the ephod, just as a tunic is a type of undergarment, commonly worn beneath a mantle.

12. See Helen K. Bond, “Discarding the Seamless Robe: The High Priesthood of Jesus in John’s Gospel” in Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Essays in Honor of Larry W. Hurtado and Alan F. Segal, eds. David B. Capes, April D. DeConick, Helen K. Bond, Troy Miller (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2007), 183-194.

13. See Exodus 28:6, 32; 35:35; 36:10, 12, 15, 29, 34; 37:3, 5, 21.

14. See Taylor, Jesus, 186.

15. See Hero Granger-Taylor, ‘The Textiles from Khirbet Qazone (Jordan)’, in Archaéologie des Textiles des origines au Ve siècle: Actes du colloque de Lattes, octobre 1999, eds Dominique Cardon, Michel Feugère (Montagnac: Editions Monique Mergoil, 2000), 149–62.

16. See Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, vol. 2 (London: Doubleday, 1994), 956.

17. See Michel Aubineau, ‘Dossier patristique sur Jean, XIX, 23–24: la tunique sans couture du Christ’, in Bible et les pères (Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 1971), 9–50