In 1483, Leonardo received a brief from the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, a brotherhood of Franciscan monks (not nuns, as Dan Brown thinks) elected to promote the Vatican’s doctrine of Mary’s immaculate conception. This is a doctrine that suggests the Virgin Mother, like Jesus, was also conceived without sex. There is no suggestion of this in the Bible, but this weird idea was invented and made a matter of faith by the Church of Rome. So, Leonardo painted the ‘Virgin of the Rocks’, of which there has been much speculation because it appears at first glance to have nothing much to do with an immaculate conception.
There are two versions; this is the National Gallery explanation of their version:
‘Leonardo’s mysterious painting shows the Virgin Mary with Saint John the Baptist, Christ’s cousin, and an angel. All kneel to adore the infant Christ, who in turn raises his hand to bless them. They are crowded in a grotto overhung with rocks and dense with vegetation. The painting was part of a large, elaborate altarpiece made for the church of San Francesco Grande, Milan, to celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.
So they begin by saying, ‘Leonardo’s mysterious painting’, but then tell us exactly what the painting is about, thus dispelling any idea that there is something mysterious about it. But I am afraid their description is wrong, and there is something very mysterious about this painting. But all efforts to explain why it is mysterious seem to be very bizarre, to say the least, but I must admit I have great fun reading them. A BBC article suggested that the pearl brooch, in the Paris version, is linked by the line of the cloak to a palm that looks like a scallop shell, which somehow proves that the earth has undergone much turmoil for seashells to be high up in the mountains??
Then, commenting on the London version, where a cross has been added on to the Baptist, he suggests:
‘The collision of the tilting cross with the palm, against which it appears to rest, prefigures the brutal bolting of Christ’s own palms onto the cross during crucifixion.’ (BBC – Kelly Grovier)
I would love to show you more of these explanations, but maybe one of the most extraordinary attempts is in Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’, where it is suggested that in the Louvre version, the Virgin is gripping the invisible head of John the Baptist, and the angel is slicing the invisible neck with her finger!
While these explanations are weird and wonderful, they fail to address the most important mystery that is raised by these two paintings: what have they got to do with Mary’s birth by immaculate conception? While nobody seems to ask that question, I can quite clearly see one major detail of the paintings that does suggest an immaculate conception, a detail that nobody dares talk about!
Look again. Am I mad, or is that strange rock sticking up in the hole on the right not the most phallic thing you have ever seen in your life? Surely it cannot be an accident, a slip of the brush, to look like that. It even appears as if it is spouting something. And to make sure you don’t think it is a mistake, the rocks on the left are in the form of a giant hand. Is this God’s rock hand and God’s rock… that impregnated the virgin? Is this an example of Leonardo’s famed sense of humour? Or is it just a very naughty boy’s imagination?
While Leonardo may have toned down his hand of God in his second London version, he has added at the foot of the virgin, the flower of the bridal bouquet, an arum lily with a very erect stamen pointing directly to certain parts of the virgin
I once posted this comment about the rock in the hole on Facebook, and a woman complained that Leonardo would never paint such a crude idea. Of course she did not know about his sketch called ‘The Incarnate Angel’, a humorous take on his Baptist painting, which was thought to be pinned up in his studio.
I hope my schoolboy humour has not put you off, as I am now going to turn to more serious concerns about the context of the painting. Most critics suggest it represents a moment during the flight into Egypt by the Holy Family, which is reported in Matthew’s Gospel.
‘Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.” (Matthew 2:12-19)
And we are told there is an apocryphal story that Jesus met with the Baptist in Egypt, and that is the moment portrayed in the painting. But is it? The brief from the commissioners suggested a nativity scene, and furthermore there is no apocryphal story of a meeting between John and Jesus. It was invented to explain the painting and did not exist before the painting. Look at the London version, where somebody has added the Baptist symbol of the cross to one of the babies. The trouble is that if that is the Baptist, he looks about six months old. And if he is six months old, then Jesus has just been born so would be a babe in arms, but he also looks about six months old! Now we are getting to the real mystery. Perhaps you could argue that Leonardo made a mistake painting them the same age, but Leonardo knows something that was known in esoteric circles. Look at Leonardo’s Burlington House Cartoon.
The Baptist is clearly not six months older than Jesus. He looks more like six years. What may surprise you is that a Slavonic version of Josephus was first brought to light in 1866, and it has a scene with the Baptist as an adult in 6 AD. So how did Leonardo know that the Baptist was much older than Jesus before this document was discovered?
And it was not just Leonardo who seems to know this, but his master, Andrea del Verrochio, painted Jesus with a very interesting Baptist in 1472.
Clearly the Baptist is more than six months older than Jesus; in fact, it looks like Verrocchio is actually making sure we notice the age difference. Leonardo was well aware of this painting since it is described as being ‘completed by Verrocchio in collaboration with his apprentice, Leonardo da Vinci. It is thought Leonardo painted and finished the details of some parts of the painting, particularly the angel.’
So master and apprentice have painted the Baptist some seven years older than Jesus, so that raises the question, who are the two babies in the Virgin of the Rocks? We know the brief from the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, and it was to be the Virgin Mary and Christ child, with two prophets, surrounded by angels. Above them was to be a lunette containing a relief panel of God and the Virgin Mary, beneath which was a panel showing the crib. So they were not asking for a painting of the ‘Flight into Egypt’, which every expert says this painting is about; they were asking for a painting of the birth of Jesus with his crib. And there certainly was no desire for John the Baptist in the painting.
In the Bible there is a disciple called Thomas. ‘Thomas’ is not a name; ‘Toma’ in Hebrew is the word for ‘twin’. And, in the Bible, he is sometimes called Thomas Didymus. Would you believe ‘Didymus’ is also the Greek word for twin? So in the Bible he is Mr Twin Twin! His actual name was Yehuda T’oma in Hebrew and Judas Thomas in Latin, and Judas is omitted except when he is accidentally named after Judas Iscariot leaves the Last Supper and a second Judas is introduced. So one has to admit there definitely was a twin amongst Jesus’ entourage, and there is a clear attempt to conceal his real name.
The idea that Jesus had a twin was one of the most persistent of the ancient heresies. The texts where Jesus was clearly mentioned to have a twin were in general use till the Bible was formulated by Rome and all other texts were destroyed. But in jars in the desert at Nag Hammadi, some of these non-canonical gospels were discovered in 1945. One, the “Gospel of Thomas”, states:
‘These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas recorded.’
And from the Acts of Thomas we have:
‘Twin brother of Christ, apostle of the Most High and fellow initiate into the hidden word of Christ, who does receive his secret sayings.’
It was a strong belief of Priscillian, the fourth-century teacher from Spain, who was Bishop of Avila. But in AD 386, Priscillian became the first heretic to be executed by the Church of Rome. So have you any wonder that believing in the twin idea slowly slipped underground till it has been forgotten?
Many religions have twins at their centre. The Magi of Persia had twins at the centre of their worship of Zoroastrianism. And of course it is their priests, the Magi, who come to worship the newly born in Bethlehem. Although I don’t buy the stories about Jesus’ early years, it is really strange that Matthew puts Zoroastrian priests at the centre of his story. And if they saw twins in the manger, they would certainly bow a knee.
The Bible seems to confirm the twin idea because Judas is the name of one of Jesus’ brothers. (Mark 6:3) And if you want confirmation from the academic world, then let me quote to you from Prof. Robert Eisenman, who speaks Hebrew and Aramaic.
‘The claim implicit in the name ‘Judas Thomas, is that he is a twin, ‘thoma’ in Aramaic meaning twin. The implication usually is that he is a twin of Jesus, his third brother’
Now you know what the real mystery is about The Virgin of the Rocks, but you may still be uncertain that Leonardo knew these facts.
Interestingly, the blasphemous church of Rennes-le-Château, dealt with in the book ‘Holy Blood and Holy Grail’, has a very nice pair of statues facing each other in pride of place on either side of the altar. Mary with one baby Jesus and facing, Joseph with the other
© Julian Doyle 2025 – Author of, ‘Leonardo Da Vinci’s Penultimate Supper’.