^ 87. WORSHIP OF RELICS. DOGMA OF THE EESUKRECTION. 449
auspices of tlie same order, though not with the same historical learning and critical acumen, and proceeds tediously toward completion.' This colossal and amazing work of more than two centuries of pious industry and monkish learning will always remain a rich mine for the system of martyr and sainfc- A'orship and the history of Christian life.
§ 87. Worship of Relics. Dogma of the Resurrection. Miracles of Relics.
Comp. the Literature at § 84. Also J. Mabillon (R. 0.) : Observationea de sanctorum reliquiis (Prsef. ad Acta s. Bened. Ordinis). Par. 1669. Baerington and Kirk (R, C.) : The Faith of Catholics, &c. Lend. 1846. Vol. iii. pp. 250-307. On the Protestant side, J. II. Jung: Disquisitio antiquaria de reliqu. et profonis et sacris earumque cultu, ed. 4. Hannov. 1788.
The veneration of martyrs and saints had respect, in the first instance, to their immortal spirits in heaven, but came to be extended, ai30, in a lower degree, to their earthly remains or relics.* By these are to be understood, first, their bodies, or rather parts of them, bones, blood, ashes; then all which was in any way closely connected with their persons, clothes, staff', furniture, and especially tlie instruments of their martyrdom.
' The names connected with the new (third) series are Joseph van der Moere, Joseph van Hecke, Bossue, Buch, Tinnebroek, etc. By 1858 five new folio volumes had appeared at Brussels (to the twenty-second of October), so that the whole work now embraces fifty-eight volumes, which cost from two thousand four hundred to three thousand francs. The present Bollandist library is in the convent of St. Michael in Brussels and embraces in three rooms every known biography of a saint, hundreds of the larest missals and breviaries, hymnals and martyrologics, sacrt.. inentaries and ritvials. A not very correct reprint of the Antwerp original has appeared at Venice since 1734. A new edition by Jo. Carnandet is now coming ottt at Paris and Rome, 1863 sqq. Complete copies have become very rare. I hare seen and used at different times three copies, one in the Theol. Seminary Library at Andover, and two at New York (in the Astor Library, and in the Union TheoU Sem. Library). Comp. the Procemium de ratione universa operia, in the Acta Sanotorum, vol. vi. for Oct. (published 1845). R. P. Dom Pitra: Etudes sur la Collection des Actes des Saintes, par les RR. PP. Jusuitea Bollandistes. Par. 1850. Also an article on the BoUandists by J. M. Neale in hia Essays on Liturgiology and Jhurch History, Lond. 1863, p. 89 flF.
* Rcliquise, and reliqua, Mi^ava.
450 THIllD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
After the time of Ambrose the cross of Clirist also, which, with the supei-scription and tlie nails, ai-e said to iiave been niiraculouelj discovered by the empress Helena in 326,' was included, and subseqiientl J His crown of thorns and His coat, which are preserved, the former, according to the legend, in Paris, and the latter in Treves." Eelics of the body of Christ cannot be thought of, since He arose without seeing corruption, and ascended to heaven, where, above the i-each of idolatry and superstition. He is enthroned at the right hand of the Father. His true relics are the Holy Supper and His living presence in the church to the end of the world.
The worship of relics, like the worship of Mary and the saints, began in a sound religious feeling of reverence, of love, and of gratitude, but has swollen to an avalanche, and rush(^d into all hinds of superstitious and idolatrous excess. "The most glorious thing that the mind conceives," says Goethe, "is
' ' The legend of the "invention of the cross" (invcntio s. crucis), which is celebrated in the Greek and Latin churches by a special festival, is at best faintl)' implied in Eusebius in a letter of Constantine to the bishop Maearius of Jerusalem (Vita ('onst. iii. SO — a passage which Gieseler overlooked — though in iii. 25, where it should be expected, it is entirely unnoticed, as Gieseler correctly observes), and does not appear till several decennia later, first in Cyril of Jerusalem (whose Epist. ad Gonstantium of 351, however, is considered by Gieseler and others, on critical and theological grounds, a much later production), then, with good agreement as to tlie main fact, in Ambrose, Chrysostom, Paulinus of Nola, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodorct, and other fathers. With all these witnesses the fact is still hardly credible, and has against it particularly the following considerations: (1) The place of the crucifixion was desecrated under the emperor Hadrian by heathen temples and statues, besides "icing filled up and defaced beyond recognition. ('2) There is no clear testimony of a contemporary. (3) The pilgrim from Bordeaux, who visited Jerusalem in 333, and in a still extant ithicrarium (Vetera Rom. itineraria, ed. P. Wesselmg, p. 593) enumerates all the sacred things of the holy city, knows nothing of the holy cross or its Invention (comp. Gieseler, i. 2, p. 279, note 37 ; Edinb. ed. vol. ii. p. 36). This miracle contributed very much to the increase of the superstitious use of crosses and crucifixes. Cyril of Jerusalem remarks that about 380 the splinters of the holy cross filled the whole world, and yet, according to the account of the devout but credulous Paulinus of Nola (Epist. 31, al. 11), the original remained in Jerusalem undiminished ; — a continual miracle ! Besides Gieseler, conip. particularly the minute investigation of this legend by Isaac Taylor, The Invention o*" the Cross and the Miracles therewith connected, in "Ancient Christianity," vol. ii. pp. 277-315.
■^ Comp. Gildemeister : Der heil. Rock von Trier, 2d ed. 1845 — a controvcr^ia.' work called forth by the Ronge excitement in (icrman Catholicism in 1844.