Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/327

Rh after his execution by Herod. St. Luke the Evangelist is stated to have been very desirous of removing the holy corpse. Joining with some of the other disciples of St. John, they together opened the grave under cover of night, but dreading the risk of discovery should they attempt the removal of the whole body, they severed the right hand, which they considered• the most sacred portion, as having been employed in the baptism of our Lord. St. Luke carried the hand to Antioch, and when he left that city to preach the gospel in Bithynia, he placed the precious relic in charge of the church he had established there. The hand remained at Antioch until the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who, as a devout catholic, was extremely desirous of transferring it to the city of Constantinople. Any open attempt on his part would have been in vain, for the people of Antioch prized their treasure highly, and guarded it most carefully. Constantine, in his religious zeal, had no delicate scruples as to the means he employed for the attainment of his purpose. He bribed a deacon of the church of Antioch to steal the hand and to bring it to Constantinople, where as soon as it arrived it was placed in the church of St. John. It remained there until the capture of the city by Mahomet, when, owing to the value of its casket, it was placed in the imperial treasury, whence it was withdrawn by Bajazet for presentation to D’Aubusson.

The following account has been given by an old chronicler of the ceremony of translation of this precious relic to the cathedral of St. John:—“ On the 25th May, 1484, the anniversary of the disembarkation of the Turks at Rhodes, the clergy, the monks, and the people started in procession from the church of St. John to the chapel of the palace, where the Grand-Master awaited them with the dignitaries of the Order. D’Aubusson presented the precious hand to the prior of the church, and from there they marched in solemn procession to the square, where a platform had been erected covered with a dais, in the form of a throne or altar, upon which the holy relic was deposited, enclosed in a casket of ivory enriched with precious stones and placed under glass, through which the hand of the saint was visible. An Augustine monk delivered a sermon on the occasion, after which the prior of the church took the