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F e a t u r e A r t i c l e
NO BONES ABOUT DEM BONES
By T.L. FRAZIER
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This Rock
Volume 4, Number 6
 June 1993 
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I WAS sitting in my bishop's apartment holding
a reliquary which contained what could be a sliver of the True Cross.
Beholding it filled me with a sense of wonder that is impossible to
convey to those whose religion forbids the appreciation of relics.
One cannot describe the ineffable fascination evoked by a holy relic;
one can only experience it.
As I held it close to my face, I couldn't help but ask myself whether
this could be a part of the instrument used by my Lord to accomplish
the redemption of the world. The uncertain and mystical stories which
recount how the Empress Helena discovered the True Cross in Jerusalem
some three centuries after the Passion naturally lend themselves to
questions.
To many skeptics, to even question the spurious nature of a relic
is held as a symptom of terminal credulity. As I sat there alone that
evening with the True Cross, I recalled my Fundamentalist background,
which was highly skeptical of such relics. Typical of such Fundamentalist
attitudes is a comment by Ralph Woodrow in his
little book Babylon Mystery Religion. He asserts that so many
pieces of the True Cross "were scattered throughout Europe that
the Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) once said if all pieces were
gathered together, they would form a good shipload, yet the cross
of Christ was carried by one individual! Are we to believe that these
pieces miraculously multiplied as when Jesus blessed the loaves and
fishes?"[Ralph Woodrow, Babylon Mystery Religion (Riverside:
Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association, 1986 [1990 edition]) 52.]
Unfortunately for Woodrow's case, the French Reformer John Calvin
had never done any serious research into the True Cross. About three
hundred years later, in 1870, another Frenchman, Rohault de Fleury,
attempted to catalogue all the pieces of the True Cross. After measuring
the known pieces and estimating the volume of the lost ones, he calculated
that the pieces made up only one-third of a typical Roman cross. So
much for Calvin's sensational claims.
Many Church Fathers and councils have denounced and attempted to check
the abuses of those who have preyed upon the unwitting with spurious
relics. Augustine freely used miracles resulting from relics as an
apologetic tool to establish the credentials of Christianity against
paganism,[De civitate Dei (City of God) 22:8.]
yet he also saw the need to condemn the unscrupulous who were masquerading
as monks and trafficking in counterfeit relics.[De opere monachorum
28.] The First and Second Councils of Lyons (1245 and 1275) forbade
the veneration of "newly recovered" relics unless their
credentials had first been verified by the pope.
To restrain the omnipresent con-artists as well as the opportunistic
propaganda of the Reformers, the Council of Trent in its twenty-fifth
session enacted strict guidelines to maintain the propriety of the
veneration of relics and for the authentication of dubious ones. No
relic, it stated, was to be recognized unless it had first been investigated
and endorsed by the local bishop. It is unknown when the practice
of accompanying a relic with an official document of authentication
began, but this was helpful in controlling many of the abuses. Another
sensible reform enacted in the post-Tridentine Church was a prohibition
on the sale of relics.
There's more to non-Catholic aversion to relics than the question
of authenticity. Non-Catholics often feel that the veneration of relics
is unbiblical at best and magic or idolatry at worst. They claim ascribing
miracles to relics borders on the talismanic or a degenerate fetishism.
First of all, what are relics? Relics are the remains or possessions
of holy persons and are divided into three categories. First-class
relics consist of the bodily remains of saints and the instruments
of Christ's Passion, such as the True Cross. Second-class relics are
personal belongings of saints, such as articles of clothing, or the
instruments used in the torture and death of martyrs. Third-class
relics are any objects which have come into physical contact with
first- or second-class relics.
While no Catholic is compelled to venerate any particular relic (and
one shouldn't if one has doubts as to its authenticity), the Church
always has maintained that the veneration of relics is proper. Harkening
back to the eighth-century iconoclastic controversy and the seventh
ecumenical council at Nicaea (787), the Council of Trent maintained
against the Reformers that the honor given to a relic, statue, or
icon was honor not to an object (fetishism and idolatry), but to the
person it represented. Latria (Greek: worship) must be given
to God alone, whereas dulia (Greek: veneration or respect)
may be given to holy people or articles.
Ralph Woodrow points out in his book that the Israelites were led
into idolatry by the bronze serpent they had kept as a "relic"
from the time of the Exodus. The bronze serpent was an object God
instructed Moses to construct so that Israelites looking upon it might
be spared the judgment which the Lord was inflicting upon them for
their constant complaining (Num. 21:4-9, 1 Cor. 10:9, 11). Later King
Hezekiah had the bronze serpent destroyed because the people had turned
it into an idol and burned incense to it as to a god (2 Kings 18:4).
Woodrow's point is well taken. To give an object worship reserved
for God alone (latria) is idolatry.
A Catholic venerates a relic of Christ much as a man gazes longingly
on and even kisses a photograph of his beloved. Because God so loved
the world that he sent his Son to die for it (John 3:16), a Christian
cherishes any memento (relic) of Christ. The Church upholds the right
of Christians to express their love for God in this way against the
misguided strictures of the Reformers.
Earthly remains of the saints are venerated because the saints are
living members of Christ and their bodies, like ours, were temples
of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16-17, 6:15, 19, Eph. 2:19-22). These
remains will one day be awakened and glorified (1 Cor. 15:42-54).
While the saints were on earth, God bestowed many graces upon his
Church through them (2 Cor. 1:11), and he continues to do so now
that they are glorified in God's presence (Heb. 12:1). We honor (dulia)
the relics, statues, and images of the saints with a veneration that
is directed toward the saints themselves, and in honoring the saints
we honor Christ whose members they are (1 Cor. 12:27).
In fact, Protestants honor the relics of their dead when they visit
or lay flowers on the graves of their loved ones. If a Catholic does
something similar with respect to a saint to whom he may have no blood
relation, he is accused of idolatry.
The critic who compares the veneration of relics to magic fails to
comprehend either magic or the veneration of relics. Magic employs
material objects in order to cause a supernatural effect through demonic
forces. Using relics doesn't compel God to act in a certain way. Miraculous
events associated with relics are simply cases in which God, according
to his sovereign will, uses the mementos of Christ and his saints
as conduits of grace. Nothing could be more scriptural.
Luke 6:18-19 tells us, "Those troubled by evil spirits were cured,
and the people all tried to touch him [Jesus], because power was coming
from him and healing them all." This power is again referred
to in Luke 8:40-48, where the woman who touches the tassel of Jesus'
shawl is healed of the hemorrhage she had endured for twelve years.
According to Mosaic Law, menstruating women were considered ritually
unclean (Lev. 15:25-30). Rabbinical law later included hemorrhaging
women in this category, and everything such a woman touched was considered
defiled. Thus the hemorrhaging woman in Luke 8:40-48 doesn't try to
touch Jesus himself, but tries secretly ("from behind")
to touch a tassel on his prayer shawl (Num. 15:38-41, Deut. 22:12).
Was the hemorrhaging woman in Luke 8:40-48 guilty of superstition
or fetishism? No, there is none of that, nor did Jesus' prayer shawl
have any magical effect. Because of the woman's faith, the prayer
shawl was the conduit of the grace which came directly from Jesus.
Jesus tells us as much in Luke 8:46, where he responds to the woman's
touch: "Someone has touched me; I know that power has gone out
from me."
We also learn from Scripture that not only power, but holiness could
be transmitted through contact, even through articles of clothing.
In the prophet Ezekiel's vision of the ideal Temple, regulations are
given for the attire of priests: "When [the priests] go out into
the outer court where the people are, they are to take off the clothes
they have been ministering in and are to leave them in the sacred
rooms and put on other clothes, so that they do not consecrate the
people by means of their garments" (Ezek. 44:19). Later on Ezekiel
is shown special rooms in the Temple and is told, "This is the
place where the priests will cook the guilt offering and the sin offering
and bake the grain offering, to avoid bringing them into the outer
court and consecrating the people" (Ezek. 46:20).
In the Gospel of Matthew we read that the people of Gennesaret brought
all their sick to Jesus and "begged him to let the sick just
touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed"
(Matt. 14:35-36). Here again Jesus' garment is used as a conduit of
the power of God. It doesn't seem likely that Jesus would reinforce
"superstition" by allowing these people to be healed by
touching the fringe of his garment if such an action were truly superstitious.
The same idea is probably behind 2 Kings 2:13-14. The prophet Elisha
has just watched his teacher, Elijah, being taken into heaven in a
flying chariot and notices that Elijah's cloak or mantle had fallen
to the ground. In an act of succession to prophetic leadership, Elisha
picks up the mantle and dons it himself. He then goes to the Jordan
and, calling on "the God of Elijah," strikes the water with
the mantle, and it immediately parts for him to cross over. The power
of God was conveyed through a relic of a departed saint.
We find similar phenomena in Acts 5:15-16. The people of Jerusalem
bring out the sick and those tormented by evil spirits and lay them
in the street "that at least Peter's shadow might fall on them
as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from around Jerusalem . . .
and all of them were healed." In Acts 19:11-12 the grace that
God gave to Paul was directed through the items, specifically handkerchiefs
and aprons, that came into contact with him. Later on in Church history,
a custom arose of going to Paul's grave and lowering handkerchiefs
into his tomb on a string so they could touch his remains, making
them third-class relics. In both Acts 5:15-16 and Acts 19:11-12 we
see the power of God being conveyed through items associated with
the apostles.
While the Israelites were wandering in the desert, the Lord fed them
by dropping bread-like manna on the ground at night. In Exodus 16:33
Moses instructs Aaron to place a jar of manna inside the Ark of the
Covenant. Later on, in Exodus 40:20 (cf. Ex. 25:16, 21, Deut. 10:1-5),
the Decalogue is placed in the Ark as well. To complete the list,
Hebrews 9:4 adds Aaron's rod to the items placed in the Ark. In essence
the Ark, the holiest object in Israel, was a large, portable reliquary!
Not only were items associated with the saints used by God as conduits
of grace, but the saints' physical remains were used by God as well.
In 2 Kings 13:20-21 we read that, after the prophet Elisha had
died, "while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they
saw a band of raiders so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb.
When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood
up on his feet." Hardly a more dramatic example of the power
of God working through relics could be imagined!
The ancient Jews were scrupulously observant about attending to the
remains of their ancestors. In Genesis 50:25 Joseph made his family
swear an oath to carry his bones out of Egypt when the time came for
them to return to Palestine. This is precisely what Moses himself
did over 400 years later when the Israelites were preparing to leave
Egypt during the Exodus (Ex. 13:19).
Later in the history of God's people, this respect for the remains
of the dead is evidenced in the book of Tobit (early second century
B.C.). Tobit, a devout Israelite deported to Nineveh from the northern
kingdom in 721 B.C., was ridiculed and persecuted for burying those
fellow captives of his who died (Tob. 1:16-2:8). The motivation behind
Tobit's actions was that in Israel the lack of a proper burial was
considered a great misfortune (1 Kings 13:22, 2 Macc. 5:10, Jer. 16:6).
This reverence for the remains of the departed can be seen at the
time of John the Baptist. After Herod had John beheaded, his disciples
claimed his body and laid it in a tomb (Mark 6:29).
The early Christians were of the same mind with regard to their martyred
brethren. The Jerusalem Church, while under "a great persecution"
after Stephen's martyrdom, managed to obtain his remains (quite a
courageous act under the circumstances) and give him proper burial
rites (Acts 8:1-2). According to an account based on the official
court proceedings in Rome around the year 165, the Christian apologist
Justin Martyr and six companions were sentenced by Rusticus, the prefect
of Rome, to be executed. "The holy martyrs, having glorified
God and having gone forth to the accustomed place, were beheaded and
perfected their testimony in the confession of the Savior. Some of
the faithful, having secretly removed their bodies, laid them in a
suitable place, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ working with them,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."[Martyrdom of
Justin Martyr 5.]
Another account of a martyrdom, occurring a few years earlier (circa
156) in Asia Minor, is that of Polycarp, who was the bishop, our contemporary
witness states, of "the Catholic Church at Smyrna." The
document has Polycarp claiming that he had "served" Christ
86 years, which indicates that he had probably been baptized as an
infant around 69. Tradition unanimously states that Polycarp had been
taught the Faith by the apostle John and later was made bishop of
Smyrna by him as well.[See, for example, Irenaeus, Against
Heresies 3:3:4 and Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3:36,
5:20].
The account, which scholars consider genuine, was written by the Church
at Smyrna and is addressed "to the colony of God's Church at
Philomelium and to all colonies of the Holy Catholic Church everywhere."
Since it was intended to edify the universal Church and was in fact
preserved by the Church (there exist several good copies), its contents
are likely representative of the attitude toward martyrdom in the
mid-second century. After relating Polycarp's brave witness before
the governor and his subsequent execution, the document gives an account
of how the Christians of Smyrna tried to recover Polycarp's remains
and the effort by Nicetas, father of the police commissioner, to thwart
the attempt:
"But the jealous and envious Evil One . . . took care that not
even his poor body should be taken by us, though many desired to do
this, and to claim our share [Greek: koinonasai] [According
to Joseph H. Thayer, the Greek verb koinoneo means "to
come into communion" or "fellowship," to "become
a sharer, be made a partner." It's used as "sharing"
in spiritual blessings in Romans 15:27 and 1 Peter 4:13.]
in the hallowed relics. Accordingly [the Evil One] put it into the
head of Nicetas . . . to make an application to the governor not to
release the body, 'in case,' he said, 'they should forsake the Crucified
One and take to worshiping this fellow instead.' . . . Little do they
know that it could never be possible for us to abandon the Christ
who died for the salvation of every soul that is to be saved in all
the world - the Sinless One dying for sinners - or to worship
any other. It is to him, as the Son of God, that we give our adoration,
while to the martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, we give
the love they have earned by their matchless devotion to their king
and teacher. . . When the centurion saw that the Jews were
spoiling for a quarrel, he had the body fetched out publicly, as is
their usage, and burned.
"So after all we did gather up his bones - more precious to
us than jewels and finer than pure gold - and we laid them to rest
in a spot suitable for the purpose. There we shall assemble, as occasion
allows, with glad rejoicings, and with the Lord's permission we shall
celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom."[Martyrdom of
Polycarp 17-18.]
What makes this account so interesting is its apologetic nature. The
author feels it necessary to interrupt his narrative at this point
to give a defense of the apparently widespread practice of the veneration
of the relics of martyrs. Unbelievers were criticizing the superstitious
tendency of Christians to worship dead people - first this martyr
Jesus and then all these other martyrs, including Polycarp, if given
the opportunity. Against this pagan charge the author of the Martyrdom
of Polycarp gives the classic explanation of the Catholic distinction
between latria, worship given to God, and dulia, honor
given to the saints whom God himself honors. Reading this apologia
for the veneration of relics nearly two thousand years later, one
can't help but wonder at how little anti-Catholic allegations have
changed with the times.
Also noteworthy is the reference to placing Polycarp's bones "in
a spot suitable for the purpose." The relics of martyrs and other
saints were often kept in the place of worship, which was usually
a large private home (Rom. 16:3-5, 2 John 10). Here, it's said,
they will "celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom."
The entrance of the saint into the Kingdom of God is the Christian's
"birth" into the next world, and they celebrate the Eucharist
on this "birthday." We are seeing here the infancy of the
Christian liturgical calendar.
Under Roman law executed criminals, especially enemies of the state
as the Christians were perceived to be, weren't entitled to the normal
burial customs. Rather than allow friends or family to claim the remains,
the body was ignominiously cast into the city dump to be fed upon
by the dogs. The only way Christians could recover the bodies of their
martyrs was through bribery, stealth, or influential friends (Mark
15:42-45).
When the Christians' preoccupation with the relics of their martyrs
became generally known, the corpses of the martyrs were burned and
the ashes scattered, or the corpses were thrown, properly weighted,
into a river.
For this reason there was considerable secrecy as to the location
of Christian relics lest they be confiscated and defiled by the pagan
authorities. Emperor Julian "the Apostate," the nephew of
Constantine the Great, wrote in one of his ranting, anti-Christian
tracts that even in the time of the apostle John, "the tombs
of Peter and Paul were being worshiped - secretly, it is true."[Against
the Galileans.]
By the middle of the third century the Christians were so closely
associated with tombs, cemeteries, and catacombs that the Emperor
Valerian issued an edict prohibiting under penalty of death Christians
from assembling in cemeteries. As Emperor Julian would later describe
it, the Christians "had filled the whole world with tombs and
sepulchers" at which they would "grovel and pay them honor."
Of course, it was the barbaric persecutions of Julian's predecessors
that gave the Christians so many tombs at which to "grovel."
When church buildings began to be built, they were usually constructed
upon the graves of martyrs, the actual remains usually located in
or directly under the altar (Rev. 6:9). St. Peter's in Rome is built
over the graveyard on Vatican Hill where, ancient tradition records,
lay the remains of Peter.
About the year 200 a Roman priest named Gaius in a private letter
referred familiarly to the tropaion (Greek: a memorial, as
in a shrine) of Peter standing on Vatican Hill.[This reference
is preserved in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (2:25), where
Eusebius is speaking of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul in Rome,
which are "confirmed by the fact that the cemeteries there are
still called by the names of Peter and Paul." From the context
given to us by Eusebius, Gaius was corresponding with Proclus, the
"leader of the Phrygian heretics" (Montanists). This exchange
is one in which the graves of the apostles were appealed to in order
to sanction certain beliefs.] This tropaion
was a large structure with a courtyard, a graveyard for the popes,
a baptistery, and a portable platform next to an altar located over
Peter's remains. Emperor Constantine built a basilica over the top
of the tropaion, and the present St. Peter's was constructed
on top of Constantine's basilica during the Renaissance.
In 1939, while digging underneath the floor of St. Peter's in the
underground area known as the grottoes, workers accidentally uncovered
the ancient Roman graveyard. With permission from Pope Pius XII, archaeologists
began an arduous six-year excavation which was to unearth Peter's
tomb under the high altar. After decades of study researchers were
able to confirm the authenticity of the relics, and Pope Paul VI was
able to announce in 1968 that "the relics of St. Peter have been
identified in a manner which we believe convincing. . . . Very patient
and accurate investigations were made with a result which we believe
positive." The bones themselves, with what is left of the purple
cloth discovered with them, are in transparent receptacles in a small
chamber in the Grottoes under the high altar.
Another relic to seize the spotlight in recent years is the Shroud
of Turin, which appeared in France during the fourteenth century.
The Shroud possesses a full-length image, both front and back, of
what seems to be Jesus Christ lying in the state of death.
The image exhibits nail wounds in the wrists and feet, a skinned knee,
horrible scourge wounds from a Roman flagellum on the back
and buttocks, a swollen nose and eye, and wounds on the head as from
a cap of thorns. The eyes are covered by what seem to be coins, giving
the image an eerie staring look.
Until the end of the nineteenth century the Shroud shared the fate
of most relics that appeared late in history - it was derided by
the clergy and venerated by the laity. The situation changed dramatically
in 1898 when a photographer took a picture of the Shroud. Developing
the photograph revealed that the image on the cloth was actually a
negative. The "positive" likeness, the natural light and
dark shading, appeared on the film negative. Since photographic negatives
were unknown before the advent of the camera, the finding caused a
sensation. The Shroud has ever since intrigued the scientific community
and captured the imagination of the public.
A scientific commission in 1973 has given the Shroud its most thorough
analysis to date. Since that time, every form of non-destructive testing
known has been employed to learn more about this relic: Among the
researchers have been medical physicians to test the blood on the
Shroud, pathologists, criminologists knowledgeable on Roman executions,
textile experts, historians specializing in first-century Jewish burial
customs, chemists, spectroscopists, botanists to study the pollen
in the Shroud, physicists, art historians, New Testament scholars,
and archaeologists. The Shroud surely has been the most studied piece
of cloth in history.
In 1976 two U.S. Air Force Academy assistant professors, both physicists,
using a device called an image analyzer, discovered the Shroud yielded
a perfect, three-dimensional image, something unachievable with ordinary
photographs. The pollen extracted by botanists allowed them, by isolating
pollens exclusive to certain regions, to determine the Shroud had
been outside of France and Turin, most notably in the Jerusalem/Dead
Sea area, Edessa (modern Urfa in southeastern Turkey, not to be confused
with the Ukrainian port city of Odessa), and Constantinople (modern
Istanbul).
There is no trace of there ever having been paint pigment on the cloth,
and medical teams have found the wounds too flawlessly portrayed to
be made by a medieval artist. Anatomical knowledge as depicted on
the Shroud simply didn't exist until recently. Contrary to popular
myth, the consensus among most scientists, without admitting the Turin
Shroud is the actual shroud of Jesus Christ, is that it is not a forgery.
How many have gazed at the face upon the Shroud and uttered to themselves,
"Surely this is the face which awaits me upon the Day of Judgment"?
Others, perhaps uncomfortable with the whole idea of relics, would
rather find evidence of forgery. They have welcomed the recent carbon-14
testing that dated the Shroud to between 1260 and 1390. (To their
annoyance, more recently still the carbon-14 results have been called
into doubt: Possibly they must be invalidated because of centuries-
old contamination of the cloth.)
Assuming that this three-dimensional negative image wasn't forged
by a medieval swindler, and that the results of the carbon-dating
are accurate, the question remains: How was the Shroud created? The
Shroud is a tantalizing anomaly. Adroitly eluding both authentication
and invalidation, it seems to be God's grand laugh at the technologically
sophisticated twentieth century. We'll see much debate over the results
of the radiocarbon dating.[One of the Shroud of Turin's leading
exponents, Ian Wilson, has written some of the best books available
at the popular level for those wanting to learn more on this subject.
Recommended is his Shroud of Turin (New York: Image, 1978),
which gives the results of scientific investigation and convincingly
constructs a possible pre-fourteenth-century history of the Shroud
by tying it to the veil of Veronica legend. Wilson's latest book,
Holy Faces, Secret Places (New York: Doubleday, 1991) questions
the validity of the radiocarbon dating and strengthens the hypothetical
history of the Shroud. For a good overall treatment of the subject
of relics, see Joan Carroll Cruz, Relics (Huntington: Our
Sunday Visitor, 1984).]
Could this be the linen cloth Joseph of Arimathea purchased and in
which he wrapped the body of the Lord (Mark 15:46)? The Gospel of
John records that when Peter and John saw Jesus' grave clothes and
linen strips lying folded up, they "saw and believed" (John
20:6-8). Could it have been the image on the Shroud which caused this
reaction rather than simply concluding, as Mary Magdalene did, that
Jesus' body had been taken by grave robbers? Such questions, while
intriguing, will no doubt only be answered in eternity.
Sitting alone in my bishop's apartment with that reliquary containing
the True Cross was an experience I won't soon forget. If the Empress
Helena erred and I wasn't holding the True Cross, then still I was
holding a mysterious artifact: venerated since the days of Emperor
Constantine, captured by the Persian King Chosroes II when he sacked
Jerusalem in 614, and regained by the Christians in 629, only to be
crudely mocked by the Protestant Reformers a thousand years later.
The relic's having been the focus of so much Christian history alone
compelled fascination. Yet what if Helena were right? Sitting alone,
I marveled that I could be holding in my hand the very instrument
used to achieve my salvation - and not mine alone, but the salvation
of the world. What art can capture the sense of awe that is felt at
such a moment?
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