"old man joe" <***@home.com>
whined about relics.
The word relics comes from the Latin reliquiae (the counterpart of the Greek
leipsana) which already before the propagation of Christianity was used in
its modern sense, viz., of some object, notably part of the body or clothes,
remaining as a memorial of a departed saint. The veneration of relics, in
fact, is to some extent a primitive instinct, and it is associated with many
other religious systems besides that of Christianity. At Athens the supposed
remains of Oedipus and Theseus enjoyed an honour which it is very difficult
to distinguish from a religious cult (see for all this Pfister,
"Reliquienkult in Altertum", I, 1909), while Plutarch gives an account of
the translation of the bodies of Demetrius (Demetr. iii) and Phocion (Phoc.
xxxvii) which in many details anticipates the Christian practice of the
Middle Ages. The bones or ashes of Aesculapius at Epidaurus, of Perdiccas I
at Macedon, and even-if we may trust the statement of the Chronicon Paschale
(Dindorf, p. 67)-of the Persian Zoroaster (Zarathustra), were treated with
the deepest veneration. As for the Far East, the famous story of the
distribution of the relics of Buddha, an incident which is believed to have
taken place immediately after his death, seems to have found remarkable
confirmation in certain modern archaeological discoveries. (See "Journ. of
R. Asiatic Society", 1909, pp. 1056 sqq.). In any case the extreme
development of relic-worship amongst the Buddhists of every sect is a fact
beyond dispute.
The teaching of the Catholic Church with regard to the veneration of relics
is summed up in a decree of the Council of Trent (Sess. XXV), which enjoins
on bishops and other pastors to instruct their flocks that "the holy bodies
of holy martyrs and of others now living with Christ-which bodies were the
living members of Christ and 'the temple of the Holy Ghost' (1 Corinthians
6:19) and which are by Him to be raised to eternal life and to be glorified
are to be venerated by the faithful, for through these [bodies] many
benefits are bestowed by God on men, so that they who affirm that veneration
and honour are not due to the relics of the saints, or that these and other
sacred monuments are uselessly honoured by the faithful, and that the places
dedicated to the memories of the saints are in vain visited with the view of
obtaining their aid, are wholly to be condemned, as the Church has already
long since condemned, and also now condemns them." Further, the council
insists that "in the invocation of saints the veneration of relics and the
sacred use of images, every superstition shall be removed and all filthy
lucre abolished." Again, "the visitation of relics must not be by any
perverted into revellings and drunkenness." To secure a proper check upon
abuses of this kind, "no new miracles are to be acknowledged or new relics
recognized unless the bishop of the diocese has taken cognizance and
approved thereof." Moreover, the bishop, in all these matters, is directed
to obtain accurate information to take council with theologians and pious
men, and in cases of doubt or exceptional difficulty to submit the matter to
the sentence of the metropolitan and other bishops of the province, "yet so
that nothing new, or that previously has not been usual in the Church, shall
be resolved on, without having first consulted the Holy See."
The justification of Catholic practice, which is indirectly suggested here
by the reference to the bodies of the saints as formerly temples of the Holy
Ghost and as destined hereafter to be eternally glorified, is further
developed in the authoritative "Roman Catechism" drawn up at the instance of
the same council. Recalling the marvels witnessed at the tombs of the
martyrs, where "the blind and cripples are restored to health, the dead
recalled to life, and *devils?* expelled from the bodies of men" the
Catechism points out that these are facts which "St. Ambrose and St.
Augustine, most unexceptionable witnesses, declare in their writings that
they have not merely heard and read about, as many did but have seen with
their own eyes", (Ambrose, Epist. xxii, nn. 2 and 17, Augustine, Serm.
cclxxxvi, c.v.; City of God XXII, "Confess.", ix). And from thence, turning
to Scriptural analogies, the compilers further argue: "If the clothes, the
kerchiefs (Acts 19:12), if the shadow of the saints (Acts 5:15), before they
departed from this life, banished diseases and restored strength, who will
have the hardihood to deny that God wonderfully works the same by the sacred
ashes, the bones, and other relics of the saints ? This is the lesson we
have to learn from that dead body which, having been accidentally let down
into the sepulchre of Eliseus, "when it had touched the bones of the
Prophet, instantly came to life" (2 Kings 13:21, and cf. Sirach 48:14). We
may add that this miracle as well as the veneration shown to the bones of
Moses (See Exodus 13:19 and Joshua 24:32) only gain additional force from
their apparent contradiction to the ceremonial laws against defilement, of
which we read in Numbers 19:11-22. The influence of this Jewish shrinking
from contact with the dead so far lingered on that it was found necessary in
the "Apostolical Constitutions" (vi, 30) to issue a strong warning against
it and to argue in favour of the Christian cult of relics.
According to the more common opinion of theologians, relics are to be
honoured; St. Thomas, in Summa III:25:6, does not seem to consider even the
word adorare inappropriate-cultu duliae relativae, that is to say with a
veneration which is not that of latria (divine worship) and which though
directed primarily to the material objects of the cult-i.e., the bones,
ashes, garments, etc.-does not rest in them, but looks beyond to the saints
they commemorate as to its formal term. Hauck, Kattenbusch, and other
non-Catholic writers have striven to show that the utterances of the Council
of Trent are in contradiction to what they admit to be the "very cautious"
language of the medieval scholastics, and notably St. Thomas. The latter
urges that those who have an affection to any person hold in honour all that
was intimately connected with him. Hence, while we love and venerate the
saints who were so dear to God, we also venerate all that belonged to them,
and particularly their bodies, which were once the temples of the Holy
Spirit, and which are some day to be conformed to the glorious body of Jesus
Christ. "whence also", adds St. Thomas, "God fittingly does honour to such
relics by performing miracles in their presence [in earum praesentia]." It
will be seen that this closely accords with the terms used by the Council of
Trent and that the difference consists only in this, that the Council says
per quae-"through which many benefits are bestowed on mankind"-while St.
Thomas speaks of miracles worked "in their presence". But it is quite
unnecessary to attach to the words per quae the idea of physical causality.
We have no reason to suppose that the council meant more than that the
relics of the saints were the occasion of God's working miracles. When we
read in the Acts of the Apostles, xix, 11, 12, "And God wrought by the hand
of Paul more than common miracles. So that even there were brought from his
body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons, and the diseases departed from
them, and the wicked spirits went out from them" there can be no
inexactitude in saying that these also were the things by which (per quae)
God wrought the cure.
There is nothing, therefore, in Catholic teaching to justify the statement
that the Church encourages belief in a magical virtue, or physical curative
efficacy residing in the relic itself . It may be admitted that St. Cyril of
Jerusalem (A.D. 347), and a few other patristic and medieval writers,
apparently speak of some power inherent in the relic. For example, St.
Cyril, after referring to the miracle wrought by the body of Eliseus,
declares that the restoration to life of the corpse with which it was in
contact took place: "to show that even though the soul is not present a
virtue resides in the body of the saints, because of the righteous soul
which has for so many years tenanted it and used it as its minister". And he
adds, "Let us not be foolishly incredulous as though the thing had not
happened, for if handkerchiefs and aprons which are from without, touching
the body of the diseased, have raised up the sick, how much more should the
body itself of the Prophet raise the dead?" (Cat., xviii, 16.) But this
seems rather to belong to the personal view or manner of speech of St.
Cyril. He regards the chrism after its consecration "as no longer simple
ointment but the gift of Christ and by the presence of His Godhead it causes
in us the Holy Ghost" (Cat., xxi, 3); and, what is more striking, he also
declares that the meats consecrated to idols, "though in their own nature
plain and simple become profane by the invocation of the evil spirit" (Cat.,
xix, 7)-all of which must leave us very doubtful as to his real belief in
any physical virtue inherent in relics. Be this as it may, it is certain
that the Church, with regard to the veneration of relics has defined
nothing, more than what was stated above. Neither has the Church ever
pronounced that any particular relic, not even that commonly venerated as
the wood of the Cross, as authentic; but she approves of honour being paid
to those relics which with reasonable probability are believed to be genuine
and which are invested with due ecclesiastical sanctions.
Early history
Few points of faith can be more satisfactorily traced back to the earliest
ages of Christianity than the veneration of relics. The classical instance
is to be found in the letter written by the inhabitants of Smyrna, about
156, describing the death of St. Polycarp. After he had been burnt at the
stake, we are told that his faithful disciples wished to carry off his
remains, but the Jews urged the Roman officer to refuse his consent for fear
that the Christians "would only abandon the Crucified One and begin to
worship this man". Eventually, however, as the Smyrnaeans say, "we took up
his bones, which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than
refined gold, and laid them in a suitable place, where the Lord will permit
us to gather ourselves together, as we are able, in gladness and joy, and to
celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom." This is the keynote which is
echoed in a multitude of similar passages found a little later in the
patristic writers of both East and West. Harnack's tone in referring to this
development is that of an unwilling witness overwhelmed by evidence which it
is useless to resist. "Most offensive", he writes, "was the worship of
relics. It flourished to its greatest extent as early as the fourth century
and no Church doctor of repute restricted it. All of them rather, even the
Cappadocians, countenanced it. The numerous miracles which were wrought by
bones and relics seemed to confirm their worship. The Church therefore,
would not give up the practice, although a violent attack was made upon it
by a few cultured heathens and besides by the Manichæans" (Harnack, "Hist.
of Dog.", tr., IV, 313).
From the Catholic standpoint there was no extravagance or abuse in this cult
as it was recommended and indeed taken for granted, by writers like St.
Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom,
St. Gregory Nazianzen, and by all the other great doctors without exception.
To give detailed references besides those already cited from the Roman
Catechism would be superfluous. Suffice it to point out that the inferior
and relative nature of the honour due to relics was always kept in view.
Thus St. Jerome says ("Ad Riparium", i, P.L., XXII, 907): "We do not
worship, we do not adore [non colimus, non adoramus], for fear that we
should bow down to the creature rather than to the Creator, but we venerate
[honoramus] the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore Him whose
martyrs they are." And St. Cyril of Alexandria writes ("Adv. Julian.", vi,
P.G. LXXVI, 812): "We by no means consider the holy martyrs to be gods, nor
are we wont to bow down before them adoringly, but only relatively and
reverentially [ou latreutikos alla schetikos kai timetikos]." Perhaps no
single writing supplies a more striking illustration of the importance
attached to the veneration of relics in the Christian practice of the fourth
century than the panegyric of the martyr St. Theodore by St. Gregory of
Nyssa (P.G., XLVI, 735-48). Contrasting the horror produced by an ordinary
corpse with the veneration paid to the body of a saint the preacher
expatiates upon the adornment lavished upon the building which had been
erected over the martyr's resting place, and he describes how the worshipper
is led to approach the tomb "believing that to touch it is itself a
sanctification and a blessing and if it be permitted to carry off any of the
dust which has settled upon the martyr's resting place, the dust is
accounted as a great gift and the mould as a precious treasure. And as for
touching the relics themselves, if that should ever be our happiness, only
those who have experienced it and who have had their wish gratified can know
how much this is desirable and how worthy a recompense it is of aspiring
prayer" (col. 740).
This passage, like many others that might be quoted, dwells rather upon the
sanctity of the martyr's resting place and upon that of his mortal remains
collected as a whole and honourably entombed. Neither is it quite easy to
determine the period at which the practice of venerating minute fragments of
bone or cloth, small parcels of dust, etc., first became common. We can only
say that it was widespread early in the fourth century, and that dated
inscriptions upon blocks of stone, which were probably altar slabs, afford
evidence upon the point which is quite conclusive. One such, found of late
years in Northern Africa and now preserved in the Christian Museum of the
Louvre, bears a list of the relics probably once cemented into a shallow
circular cavity excavated in its surface. Omitting one or two words not
adequately explained, the inscription runs: "A holy memorial [memoria
sancta] of the wood of the Cross, of the land of Promise where Christ was
born, the Apostles Peter and Paul, the names of the martyrs Datian,
Donatian, Cyprian, Nemesianus, Citinus, and Victoria. In the year of the
Province 320 [i.e. A.D. 359] Benenatus and Pequaria set this up" ("Corp.
Inscr. Lat.", VIII, n. 20600).
We learn from St. Cyril of Jerusalem (before 350) that the wood of the
Cross, discovered c. 318, was already distributed throughout the world; and
St. Gregory of Nyssa in his sermons on the forty martyrs, after describing
how their bodies were burned by command of the persecutors, explains that
"their ashes and all that the fire had spared have been so distributed
throughout the world that almost every province has had its share of the
blessing. I also myself have a portion of this holy gift and I have laid the
bodies of my parents beside the ashes of these warriors, that in the hour of
the resurrection they may be awakened together with these highly privileged
comrades" (P.G., XLVI, 764). We have here also a hint of the explanation of
the widespread practice of seeking burial near the tombs of the martyrs. It
seems to have been felt that when the souls of the blessed martyrs on the
day of general were once more united to their bodies, they would be
accompanied in their passage to heaven by those who lay around them and that
these last might on their account find more ready acceptance with God.
We may note also that, while this and other passages suggest that no great
repugnance was felt in the East to the division and dismemberment of the
bodies of the saints, in the West, on the other hand, particularly at Rome,
the greatest respect was shown to the holy dead. The mere unwrapping or
touching of the body of a martyr was considered to be a terribly perilous
enterprise, which could only be set about by the holiest of ecclesiastics,
and that after prayer and fasting. This belief lasted until the late Middle
Ages and is illustrated, for example, in the life of St. Hugh of Lincoln,
who excited the surprise of his episcopal contemporaries by his audacity in
examining and translating relics which his colleagues dared not disturb. In
the Theodosian Code the translation, division, or dismemberment of the
remains of martyrs was expressly forbidden ("Nemo martyrem distrahat", Cod.
Theod., IX, xvii, 7); and somewhat later Gregory the Great seems in very
emphatic terms to attest the continuance of the same tradition. He professed
himself sceptical regarding the alleged "customs of the Greeks" of readily
transferring the bodies of martyrs from place to place, declaring that
throughout the West any interference with these honoured remains was looked
upon as a sacrilegious act and that numerous prodigies had struck terror
into the hearts of even well meaning men who had attempted anything of the
sort. Hence, though it was the Empress Constantina herself who had asked him
for the head or some portion of the body of St. Paul, he treated the request
as an impossible one, explaining that, to obtain the supply of relics
needful in the consecration of churches, it was customary to lower into the
Confession of the Apostles as far as the second "cataract"-so we learn from
a letter to Pope Hermisdas in 519 (Thiel, "Epist. gen.", I, 873) ] a box
containing portions of silk or cloth, known as brandea, and these brandea,
after lying for a time in contact with the remains of the holy Apostles,
were henceforth treated as relics. Gregory further offers to send
Constantina some filings from St. Peter's chains, a form of present of which
we find frequent mention in his correspondence (St. Gregory, "Epist.", Mon.
Germ. Hist., I, 264 -66). It is certain that long before this time an
extended conception of the nature of a relic, such as this important letter
reveals, had gradually grown up. Already when Eusebius wrote (c. 325) such
objects as the hair of St. James or the oil multiplied by Bishop Narcissus
(Church History VII.39, and Church History VI.9) were clearly venerated as
relics, and St. Augustine, in his City of God (XXII.8), gives numerous
instances of miracles wrought by soil from the Holy Land flowers which had
touched a reliquary or had been laid upon a particular altar, oil from the
lamps of the church of a martyr, or by other things not less remotely
connected with the saints themselves. Further. it is noteworthy that the
Roman prejudice against translating and dividing seems only to have applied
to the actual bodies of the martyrs reposing in their tombs. It is St.
Gregory himself who enriches a little cross, destined to hang round the neck
as an encolpion, with filings both from St. Peter's chains and from the
gridiron of St. Laurence ("Epist.", Mon. Germ. Hist., I, 192). Before the
year 350, St. Cyril of Jerusalem three times over informs us that the
fragments of the wood of the Cross found by St. Helen had been distributed
piecemeal and had filled the whole world (Cat., iv, 10; x, 19; xiii, 4).
This implies that Western pilgrims felt no more impropriety in receiving
than the Eastern bishops in giving.
During the Merovingian and Carlovingian period the cultus of relics
increased rather than diminished. Gregory of Tours abounds in stories of the
marvels wrought by them, as well as of the practices used in their honour,
some of which have been thought to be analogous to those of the pagan
"incubations" (De Glor. Conf., xx); neither does he omit to mention the
frauds occasionally perpetrated by scoundrels through motives of greed. Very
significant, as Hauck (Kirchengesch. Deutschl., I 185) has noticed is the
prologue to the text of the Salic Laws, probably written, by a contemporary
of Gregory of Tours in the sixth century. "That nation", it says, "which has
undoubtedly in battle shaken off the hard yoke of the Romans, now that it
has been illuminated through Baptism, has adorned the bodies of the holy
martyrs with gold and precious stones, those same bodies which the Romans
burnt with fire, and pierced with the sword, or threw to wild beasts to be
torn to pieces." In England we find from the first a strong tradition in the
same sense derived from St. Gregory himself. Bede records (Hist. Eccl., I,
xxix) how the pope "forwarded to Augustine all the things needful for the
worship and service of the church, namely, sacred vessels, altar linen,
church ornaments, priestly and clerical vestments, relics of the holy
Apostles and martyrs and also many books". The Penitential ascribed to St.
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, which certainly was known in England at
an early date, declares that "the relics of the saints are to be venerated",
and it adds, seemingly in connexion with the same idea, that "If possible a
candle is to burn there every night" (Haddan and Stubbs, "Councils", III,
191). When we remember the candles which King Alfred constantly kept burning
before his relics, the authenticity of this clause in Theodore's Penitential
seems the more probable. Again the relics of English saints, for example
those of St. Cuthbert and St. Oswald, soon became famous, while in the case
of the latter we hear of them all over the continent. Mr. Plummer (Bede, II,
159-61) has made a short list of them and shows that they must have been
transported into the remotest part of Germany. After the Second Council of
Nicaea, in 7 87, had insisted with special urgency that relics were to be
used in the consecration of churches and that the omission was to be
supplied if any church had been consecrated without them the English Council
of Celchyth (probably Chelsea) commanded that relics were to be used, and in
default of them the Blessed Eucharist. But the developments of the
veneration of relics in the Middle Ages were far too vast to be pursued
further. Not a few of the most famous of the early medieval inscriptions are
connected with the same matter. It must suffice to mention the famous
Clematius inscription at Cologne, recording the translation of the remains
of the so called Eleven thousand Virgins (see Krause, "Inscrip d.
Rheinlande", no. 294, and, for a discussion of the legend, the admirable
essay on the subject by Cardinal Wiseman.
Abuses
Naturally it was impossible for popular enthusiasm to be roused to so high a
pitch in a matter which easily lent itself to error, fraud and greed of
gain, without at least the occasional occurrence of many grave abuses. As
early as the end of the fourth century, St. Augustine denouncing certain
impostors wandering about in the habit of monks, describes them as making
profit by the sale of spurious relics ("De op. monach.", xxviii and cf.
Isidore, "De. div. off.", ii, 16). In the Theodosian Code the sale of relics
is forbidden ("Nemo martyrem mercetur", VII, ix, 17), but numerous stories,
of which it would be easy to collect a long series, beginning with the
writings of St. Gregory the Great and St. Gregory of Tours, prove to us that
many unprincipled persons found a means of enriching themselves by a sort of
trade in these objects of devotion, the majority of which no doubt were
fraudulent. At the beginning of the ninth century, as M. Jean Guiraud had
shown (Mélanges G. B. de Rossi, 73-95), the exportation of the bodies of
martyrs from Rome had assumed the dimensions of a regular commerce, and a
certain deacon, Deusdona, acquired an unenviable notoriety in these
transactions (see Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script., XV, passim). What was perhaps
in the long run hardly less disastrous than fraud or avarice was the keen
rivalry between religious centres, and the eager credulity fostered by the
desire to be known as the possessors of some unusually startling relic. We
learn from Cassian, in the fifth century, that there were monks who seized
upon certain martyrs' bodies by force of arms, defying the authority of the
bishops, and this was a story which we find many times repeated in the
Western chronicles of a later date.
In such an atmosphere of lawlessness doubtful relics came to abound. There
was always a disposition to regard any human remains accidentally discovered
near a church or in the catacombs as the body of a martyr. Hence, though men
like St. Athanasius and St. Martin of Tours set a good example of caution in
such cases, it is to be feared that in the majority of instances only a very
narrow interval of time intervened between the suggestion that a particular
object might be, or ought to be, an important relic, and the conviction that
tradition attested it actually to be such. There is no reason in most cases
for supposing the existence of deliberate fraud. The persuasion that a
benevolent Providence was likely to send the most precious pignora sanctorum
to deserving clients, the practice already noticed of attributing the same
sanctity to objects which had touched the shrine as attached to the contents
of the shrine itself, the custom of making facsimiles and imitations, a
custom which persists to our own day in the replicas of the Vatican statue
of St. Peter or of the Grotto of Lourdes, all these are causes adequate to
account for the multitude of unquestionably spurious relics with which the
treasuries of great medieval churches were crowded. In the case of the Nails
with which Jesus Christ was crucified, we can point to definite instances in
which that which was at first venerated as having touched the original came
later to be honoured as the original itself. Join to this the large license
given to the occasional unscrupulous rogue in an age not only utterly
uncritical but often curiously morbid in its realism, and it becomes easy to
understand the multiplicity and extravagance of the entries in the relic
inventories of Rome and other countries.
On the other hand it must not be supposed that nothing was done by
ecclesiastical authority to secure the faithful against deception. Such
tests were applied as the historical and antiquarian science of that day was
capable of devising. Very often however, this test took the form of an
appeal to some miraculous sanction, as in the well known story repeated by
St. Ambrose, according to which, when doubt arose which of the three crosses
discovered by St. Helena was that of Christ, the healing of a sick man by
one of them dispelled all further hesitation. Similarly Egbert, Bishop of
Trier, in 979, doubting as to the authenticity of what purported to be the
body of St. Celsus, "lest any suspicion of the sanctity of the holy relics
should arise, during Mass after the offertory had been sung, threw a joint
of the finger of St. Celsus wrapped in a cloth into a thurible full of
burning coals, which remained unhurt and untouched by the fire the whole
time of the Canon" (Mabillon "Acta SS. Ord. Ben.", III, 658).
The decrees of synods upon this subject are generally practical and
sensible, as when, for example, Bishop Quivil of Exeter, in 1287 after
recalling the prohibition of the General Council of Lyons against venerating
recently found relics unless they were first of all approved by the Roman
Pontiff, adds: "We command the above prohibition to be carefully observed by
all and decree that no person shall expose relics for sale, and that neither
stones, nor fountains, trees, wood, or garments shall in any way be
venerated on account of dreams or on fictitious grounds." So, again, the
whole procedure before Clement VII (the antipope) in 1359, recently brought
to light by Canon Chevalier, in connexion with the alleged Holy Shroud of
Lirey, proves that some check at least was exercised upon the excesses of
the unscrupulous or the mercenary.
Nevertheless it remains true that many of the more ancient relics duly
exhibited for veneration in the great sanctuaries of Christendom or even at
Rome itself must now be pronounced to be either certainty spurious or open
to grave suspicion. To take one example of the latter class, the boards of
the Crib (Praesaepe)- a name which for much more than a thousand years has
been associated, as now, with the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore-can only
be considered to be of doubtful. In his monograph "Le memorie Liberiane
dell' Infanzia di N. S. Gesù Cristo" (Rome, 1894), Mgr. Cozza Luzi frankly
avows that all positive evidence for the authenticity of the relics of the
Crib etc., is wanting before the eleventh century. Strangely enough, an
inscription in Greek uncials of the eighth century is found on one of the
boards, the inscription having nothing to do with the Crib but being
apparently concerned with some commercial transaction. It is hard to explain
its presence on the supposition that the relic is authentic. Similar
difficulties might he urged against the supposed "column of the
flagellation" venerated at Rome in the Church of Santa Prassede and against
many other famous relics.
Still, it would be presumptuous in such cases to blame the action of
ecclesiastical authority in permitting the continuance of a cult which
extends back into remote antiquity. On the one hand no one is constrained to
pay homage to the relic, and supposing it to be in fact spurious, no
dishonour is done to God by the continuance of an error which has been
handed down in perfect good faith for many centuries. On the other hand the
practical difficulty of pronouncing a final verdict upon the authenticity of
these and similar relics must be patent to all. Each investigation would be
an affair of much time and expense, while new discoveries might at any
moment reverse the conclusions arrived at. Further, devotions of ancient
date deeply rooted in the heart of the peasantry cannot be swept away
without some measure of scandal and popular disturbance. To create this
sensation seems unwise unless the proof of spuriousness is so overwhelming
as to amount to certainty. Hence there is justification for the practice of
the Holy See in allowing the cult of certain doubtful ancient relics to
continue. Meanwhile, much has been done by quietly allowing many items in
some of the most famous collections of relics to drop out of sight or by
gradually omitting much of the solemnity which formerly surrounded the
exposition of these doubtful treasures. Many of the inventories of the great
collections of Rome, or of Aachen, Cologne, Naples, Salzburg, Antwerp,
Constantinople, of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris etc., have been published.
For illustration's sake reference may be made to the Count de Riant's work
"Exuviae Constantinopolitanae" or to the many documents printed by Mgr.
Barbier de Monault regarding Rome, particularly in vol. VII of his "Oeuvres
complètes". In most of these ancient inventories, the extravagance and utter
improbability of many of the entries can not escape the most uncritical.
Moreover though some sort of verification seems often to be traceable even
in Merovingian times, still the so called authentications which have been
printed of this early date (seventh century) are of a most primitive kind.
They consist in fact of mere labels, strips of parchment with just the name
of the relic to which each strip was attached, barbarously written in Latin.
For example "Hic sunt reliquas sancti Victuriepiscopi, Festivitate Kalendis
Septembris", "Hic sunt patrocina sancti Petri et Paullo Roma civio", etc.
It would probably be true to say that in no part of the world was the
veneration of relics carried to greater lengths with no doubt proportionate
danger of abuse, than among Celtic peoples. The honour paid to the handbells
of such saints as St. Patrick, St. Senan, and St. Mura, the strange
adventures of sacred remains carried about with them in their wanderings by
the Armorican people under stress of invasion by Teutons and Northmen, the
prominence given to the taking of oaths upon relics in the various Welsh
codes founded upon the laws of Howell the Good, the expedients used for
gaining possession of these treasures, and the numerous accounts of
translations and miracles, all help to illustrate the importance of this
aspect of the ecclesiastical life of the Celtic races.
Translations
At the same time the solemnity attached to translations was by no means a
peculiarity of the Celts. The story of the translation of St. Cuthbert's
remains is almost as marvellous as any in Celtic hagiography. The forms
observed of all-night vigils, and the carrying of the precious remains in
"feretories" of gold or silver, overshadowed with silken canopies and
surrounded with lights and incense, extended to every part of Christendom
during the Middle Ages. Indeed this kind of solemn translation (elevatio
corporis) was treated as the outward recognition of heroic sanctity, the
equivalent of canonization, in the period before the Holy See reserved to
itself the passing of a final judgment upon the merits of deceased servants
of God, and on the other hand in the earlier forms of canonization Bulls it
was customary to add a clause directing that the remains of those whose
sanctity was thus proclaimed by the head of the Church should be "elevated",
or translated, to some shrine above ground where fitting honour could be
paid them.
This was not always carried at once. Thus St. Hugh of Lincoln, who died in
1200, was canonized in 1220, but it was not until 1280 that his remains were
translated to the beautiful "Angel Choir" which had been constructed
expressly to receive them. This translation is noteworthy not only because
King Edward I himself helped to carry the bier, but because it provides a
typical example of the separation of the head and body of the saint which
was a peculiar feature of so many English translations. The earliest example
of this separation was probably that of St. Edwin, king and martyr; but we
have also the cases of St. Oswald, St. Chad, St. Richard of Chichester
(translated in 1276), and St. William of York (translated 1284). It is
probable that the ceremonial observed in these solemn translations closely
imitated that used in the enshrining of the relics in the sepulcrum of the
altar at the consecration of a church while this in turn, as Mgr Duchesne
has shown, is nothing but the development of the primitive burial service
the martyr or saint being laid to rest in the church dedicated to his
honour. But the carrying of relics is not peculiar to the procession which
takes place at the dedications of a church. Their presence is recognized as
a fitting adjunct to the solemnities of almost every kind of precession,
except perhaps those of the Blessed Sacrament, and in medieval times no
exception was made even for these latter.
Feast of relics
It has long been customary especially in churches which possessed large
collections of relics, to keep one general feast in commemoration of all the
saints whose memorials are there preserved. An Office and Mass for this
purpose will be found in the Roman Missal and Breviary, and though they
occur only in the supplement Pro aliquibus locis and are not obligatory upon
the Church at large, still this celebration is now kept almost universally.
The office is generally assigned to the fourth Sunday in October. In England
before the Reformation, as we may learn from a rubric in the Sarum Breviary,
the Festum Reliquiarum was celebrated on the Sunday after the feast of the
Translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury (7 July), and it was to be kept as a
greater double "wherever relics are preserved or where the bodies of dead
persons are buried, for although Holy Church and her ministers observe no
solemnities in their honour, the glory they enjoy with God is known to Him
alone."