Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/374

Rh 356 RELICS innocence unjustly accused, and we also find the possession of the bones of a departed hero made the condition of a successful war. 1 But the second book of Kings relates the revival of a dead man by the bones of Elisha, a narrative rendered the more remarkable by the fact that, as a rule, the contact with a corpse, a bone, or a grave made a man unclean for seven days (Num. xix. 11-22). The New Testament does not relate any case precisely similar to that of Elisha. The remains of the protomartyr Stephen are simply committed to the tomb, with much lamentation by devout men (Acts viii. 2) ; and of the funeral of the first martyred apostle, James, we have no record. It is not, however, to be denied that the book of Acts tells of miracles of healing resembling that of her who was cured by the touch of our Lord's garment (Matt. ix. 20-22). Even the shadow of Peter, it is implied, may have healed the sick ; and handkerchiefs or aprons which had been worn by Paul relieved not only the diseased but the possessed (Acts v. 15; xix. 12). To a great extent the homage paid to the tombs and the remains of patriot, sage, or bard was transferred, at an early period in the history of the Christian church, to those of its own heroes, more especially to those of martyrs. Such a result was natural, and almost inevitable. The intercession of the departed on behalf of the living was everywhere recognized, and that of martyrs naturally believed to be especially powerful. But it was further inferred from the instance of Elisha and from the passages of the book of Acts already cited that it might please the Almighty to repeat similar manifestations of miraculous power. Whether the fathers who maintain this view would have written so freely if they could have foreseen the abuses which were to arise may perhaps be doubted. 2 But three or four features in the history of early Christen- dom conspired to spread the cultus of relics. These were the heathen persecutions, the rise of Gnosticism, the strong and exaggerated feeling about possession and witchcraft, to which may probably be added the sense of a sort of education connected with visible and tangible links of connexion with the past. The way in which these elements of the case would operate is tolerably obvious. If, as at Lyons and Vienne, pagan persecutors burnt the ashes of the martyrs, and threw them into the Rhone, exulting in the idea that they were disproving one of the most important articles of the Christian creed, the resurrection of the body, with still more fervid zeal would the faithful seize every opportunity of honouring those remains which their opponents sought to vilify. Then, again, the other great foe of early Christen- dom, the heresy of Gnosticism (often denounced as a more subtle and dangerous evil than the open hostility of heathendom), amidst all its varied forms was consistent in representing matter as something essentially evil. The counter teaching, implied in the central doctrine of the 1 We allude to the miracle claimed by two poets, Ovid (Fast., iv. 310) and Propertius (Eleg., iv. 14, 51), as also by Livy, Cicero, and Pliny, to have been wrought by Cybele on behalf of the Vestal Claudia, and to the oracular injunction from Delphi to the Spartans to find and carry with them the bones of Orestes as a condition of success against the men of Tegea (Herodotus, i. 67-68). 2 A set of passages is given by Petavius (De Dogmatibus Theologicis, " De Incarnatione," xiv. 11). It certainly includes most of the leading post-Nicene patristic names, such as Eusebius and many fathers commonly honoured with the prefix of saint, as Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, both the Cyrils, Ambrose, Jerome, and others. Of these St Jerome is the most extreme and vehement ; but this is accounted for, not only by the author's temperament, but by the fact of his writing against an opponent whom he specially dis- liked on personal as well as theological grounds (Contra Vigilantium liber unus). Later writers on the same side with Vigilantius are Claudius of Turin and Agobard of Lyons, but our limits forbid us to discuss their views. Some sectaries (e.g., the Novatianists) appear to have been as anxious as their opponents to collect relics. Christian faith, the mystery of the incarnation, and in the sacraments, might seem to gain some aid from the venera- tion shown to what was regarded as another form of hallowed matter, the bodies of the saints or the material instruments of Christ's passion. And, thirdly, the dread of possession found some alleviation in the check to satanic malice which relics were believed to effect. It is also conceivable that the interest created by such memorials might have its share in that education of the earlier Middle Ages which was so powerfully assisted by pilgrimages and by biographies. Guizot, in a well-known chapter of his Civilisation en France has dwelt largely on the value of even the legends of this period. He main- tains that, in a world full of violence, disorder, and oppression, the legends of the saints found food for some of the most powerful instincts and invincible needs of the human mind that exaggeration of details, or even failure in material truth, did not prevent them from being a moral relief and a protest on behalf of many of the rights of man. Material memorials, or even supposed memorials, would certainly help to impress such stories upon the mind, as is the case with the facts and the legends of secular history. Leibnitz, among the large concessions in his Systema Theo- logicum to the Roman Catholic view of these questions, in some degree anticipates the language of Guizot concerning pious legends. In any case, alike for good and for evil, and it will be necessary to speak presently of the sadder aspects of the question, relics from the 4th to the 16th century occupied a large space in the mind of Christendom. The word relics (reliquiae, Actual/a) became almost restricted, in theological language, to the bodies (or parts of the bodies) of saints, or, as has been intimated, to memorials of Christ's passion, or instruments which had been used in the torture and execution of martyrs. Inquiries con- nected with their genuineness are, as is well known to students of ecclesiastical history, conspicuous in the life of the mother of Constantino, St Helena, who claimed to have discovered the true cross on which our Lord suffered, and in the career of St Ambrose at Milan. Once at least a really glorious series of campaigns, those of the emperor Heraclius against the barbarian Avars and the Persians (622-628), is connected with a successful en- deavour to regain the cross (see PERSIA, vol. xviii. pp. 614- 615). It is remarkable that the Persians are reported to have kept the cross in its case with the seals unbroken. Thus far relics have been regarded as evidencing two marks of a very powerful element of life, namely, the capacity of evoking enthusiasm and of influencing even bystanders or opponents. But it is time to turn to the more painful features of their history in connexion with Christian thought and practice. It must not be supposed that the recognition of such phases is by any means a purely Protestant sentiment, although it is no doubt a pro- minent feature in the Reformation of the 16th century. Thus, for example, one of the most credulous biographies of a saint of the 4th century, that of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus, mentions (chap, viii.) an instance where the supernatural insight of Martin was exerted in the way of repression of such homage. The country people were exhibiting veneration at the tomb of a supposed saint, but it was revealed to the bishop of Tours that it was that of a robber executed for his crimes. St Augustine, in his severe and satiric tractate against certain unworthy mt>nk> who made their profession a mere cloak for idleness, clearly insinuates the sale of questionable relics as one of their faults. "Alii membra martyrum, si tamen martyrum, venditant." The traffic in relics became part of the recog- nized commerce of Christendom and was countenanced by sovereigns of undoubted excellence. Thus Athel-stan was