§ 131. The Worship of Relics.
LITERATURE : See Lit., p. 268 sq. GUIBERT OF NOGENT, d. 1124: de pig nonbus sanctorum, Migne, vol. 156, 607-679. — GUXTIIERUS : Hist. Constantinopol., Migne, vol.212. — PKTER THE VENERABLE : de miraculis, Migne, vol. 189. — C^SAR OF HEISTERBACH, JACOB OF VORAGINE, SALIM- BENE, etc. — P. VIGNON : T?ie Shroud of Christ, Engl. trans., N.Y., 1903.
1 DC laude virginis. Migne, 183. 58.
§ 131. THE WORSHIP Otf RELICS.
The worship of relics was based by Thomas Aquinas upon the regard nature prompts us to pay to the bodies of our deceased friends and the things they held most sacred. The bodies of the saints are to be reverenced because they were in a special manner the temples of the Holy Ghost. The worship to be paid to them is the lowest form of worship, dulia. Hyperdulia, a higher form of worship, is to be rendered to the true cross on which Christ hung. In this case the worship is rendered not to the wood but to him who hung upon the cross. Latreia, the highest form of worship, belongs to God alone.1 Following the seventh oecumenical council, the Schoolmen denied that when adoration is paid to images, say the image of Peter, worship is given to the image itself. It is rendered to the prototype, or that for which the image stands.2
In the earlier years of the Middle Ages, Italy was the most prolific source of relics. With the opening of the Crusades the eyes of the Church were turned to the East, and the search of relic-hunters was abundantly rewarded. With open-mouthed credulity the West received the holy objects which Crusaders allowed to be imposed upon them. The rich mine opened up at the sack of Constantinople has already been referred to. Theft was sanctified which recovered a fragment from a saint's body or belongings. The monk, Gunther, does not hesitate to enumerate the articles which the abbot, Martin, and his accomplices stole from the reliquary in one of the churches of the Byzantine city. . Salimbene 3 mentions a present made to him from one of the churches of Ravenna of the bones of Elisha, all except the head, which had been stolen by the Austin friars.
The Holy Lance was disclosed at a critical moment in the siege of Antioch. The Holy Grail was found in Csesarea in 1101. The bones of the three kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Belthazar, reputed to have been the magi who presented
1 Th. Aq., Summa, III. 25, 6, Migne, IV. 240 sq. ; Bonavent., Peltier's ed., IV. 206 sq., VIII. 196. Thomas accords a single brief chapter to relics and quotes Augustine but not Scripture in favor of their' worship.
3 Bonavent., III. 27, 2, Peltier's ed., IV. 619. 3 Coulton's ed., p 253.
846 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
their gifts at the manger, were removed from Milan to Cologne, where they still repose. In the same city of Cologne were found, in 1156, the remains of Ursula arid the virgin martyrs, put to death by the Huns, the genu ineness of the discovery being attested by a vision to Eliza beth of Schonau. Among the endless number of objects transmitted to Western Europe from the East were Noah's beard, the horns of Moses, the stone on which Jacob slept at Bethel, the branch from which Absalom hung, our Lord's foreskin, his navel cord, his coat, tears he shed at the grave of Lazarus, milk from Mary's breasts, the table on which the Last Supper was eaten, the stone of Christ's sepulchre, Paul's stake in the flesh, a tooth belonging to St. Lawrence. Christ's tooth, which the monks of St. Medard professed to have in their possession, was attacked by Guibert of Nogent on the ground that when Christ rose from the dead he was in possession of all the parts of his body. He also attacked the genuineness of the umbilical cord.1 The prioress of Fretelsheim claimed to be in possession of two relics of the ass which bore Christ to Jerusalem.
The holy coat, the blood of Christ, and his cross have perhaps played the largest part in the literature of relics. Christ's holy coat is claimed by Treves and Argenteuil as well as other localities. It was the seamless garment — tunica inconsutilis — woven by Mary, which grew as Christ grew and was worn on the cross.2 A notice in the Gresta Trevirorum (1105-1124) carries it back to the empress Helena who is said to have taken it to Treves. In the time of Frederick Barbarossa it was one of the glories of the city. On the eve of the Reformation it was solemnly shown to Maximilian I. and assembled German princes. At dif ferent dates, vast bodies of pilgrims have gone to look at it;
1 De pignoribus, Migne, 156. 649 sqq.
58 Among the legends of its discovery is the following : Herod gave the coat to a Jew because the drops of blood would not come out. The Jew threw it into the sea. A whale swallowed it. Orendel, son of the king of Treves, on his way to Jerusalem caught the fish and rescued the garment. It is described as five feet one inch long, and of the color of a sponge.