How should a Christian view relics?

Relic-Worship

The history of relic-worship being similar in its character to that of saint-worship, a brief notice will be sufficient. Its origin is the same. The passion, the weakness, it may be, of our nature, for cherishing memorials of beloved ones, was used by the enemy to betray Christians into the most degrading kind of worship. If it was argued, our fondness for the memorials of human affection be so excusable, and so amiable, "how much more so of objects of holy love, the saints, the blessed Virgin, the Saviour Himself!" But however specious such reasoning may be, it is neither fair nor true. The deep delusion, the Satanic power, and the terrible wickedness of relic-worship, lies mainly in the fact, that the church of Rome maintains that there is an inherent indefeasible power in relics to work miracles; and as such they are used and devoutly worshipped, from the pope down to the lowest in her communion.

As early as the days of Constantine, reverence for the relics of saints and martyrs had assumed the more definite form of positive adoration. The Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, in her superstitious zeal to do honour to the places in Palestine which had been hallowed by the life and death of the Saviour, erected splendid churches over the supposed places of His birth, His death, and ascension. During the necessary excavations the Holy Sepulchre, it was affirmed, came to light; and in the sepulchre were found the three crosses and the tablet, with the inscription originally written by Pilate in three languages. The news of this wonderful discovery rapidly spread all over Christendom, and created great excitement. As it was doubtful to which of the crosses the tablet belonged, a miracle decided the claims of the true cross. Singularly enough, the nails of the Saviour's passion were also found in the holy sepulchre. These precious treasures, we need scarcely say, proved inexhaustible capital for the traffic in relics. Parts of the true cross were made into crucifixes for the rich, and parts were enshrined in the principal churches both in the East and the West. So rapidly did the wood of the cross vegetate, said the wits, that it soon grew into a forest.

We have already seen how deliberately, by Gregory Thaumaturgus, and in Africa, the martyrs' relics, and memories, so-called, were deliberately substituted for pagan holy places, to draw the people off from them. And they got drunk in church to their honour; as they had to Theseus or Hercules. And the Virgin Mary, mother of God, displaced Cybele, the mother of the gods, with the church's, so-called, full sanction. Our friend, Martin of Tours, was useful in this in Gaul. A martyr altar, consecrated by bishops, and frequented by the pious, he suspected, as old priests could not tell whose it really was; so he went to it, and asked the Lord to shew whose it was, and then saw a sordid fierce ghost on his left. He commanded him to tell his name and deserts; and he confessed he was a thief and no martyr; he in punishment, and the martyrs in glory. I add another, that follows in Severus (Sulp. Sev. Vita Martini, 8, 9). He met a crowd, which he supposed to be an idolatrous procession, with an image. It was really a funeral. At some distance, he lifted up the cross and commanded them to stop and lay down their burden. They could not move, with all their efforts, and at last rolled round with a ridiculous vertigo, and laid down their burden. Finding that it was a funeral, he lifted up his hand and gave them the power of going away and taking the body. This is astonishingly like mesmerism. I forgot to add, that in imitation of Saul, in the thief's ghost case, his companions heard the voice of him that spake, but saw no person.

207 The present use of miracles is not to testify of Christ, but to what is called the church; and individual glory is the fruit of superstition, used to confirm false teaching; and many are confessedly false, so that the civil power had to forbid hawking relics about for sale, once opposed by the ecclesiastical authority, now gloried in, in its most absurd and superstitious shapes. But, I repeat, I wholly reject miracles as a test of the truth. They confirmed the word, but the word is the test of truth. When it was settled that no church could be consecrated without relics, a supply was to be found. The catacombs at Rome supplied them; and when no one knew anything about the bones they got, they gave a saint's name to them; and it was called baptizing them (Mabillon, Posth. Works, 2, 257-287, quoted by Maitland, Catacombs, 181).

200 It has been remarked by others that up to A.D. 350 the heathen ridiculed the Christians for worshipping a dead man; after that, for worshipping saints' and martyrs' tombs; and Augustine tells us that, above all, the monks drove a lively trade in relics. We have already seen it forbidden. Strange to say, the heathen insisted on the one universal God and Father, reproaching the Christians with going to martyrs and their memories, as they were called.

The veneration that was paid in the early ages of Christianity to those who had faithfully witnessed and suffered for Christ, no doubt led to the practice of invoking the saints, and imploring the benefit of their intercession. A pardonable affection became a superstitious veneration, and ended in a positive adoration. The step between veneration and adoration is easy and natural, though not always observable. Hence the importance of the apostle's warning, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." According to this word it would appear, that all who have not the Person of Christ before them, as the one all-governing object of the heart have an idol. The apostle has just been speaking of our wondrous place and blessing in Him; as he says, "We are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." Having eternal life in Him, and being identified with Him as to our position before God, surely He ought to be our one object. Any other is an idol. And the best of Christians are in danger of paying too much homage to some favourite teacher or leader. How will all this compare with John's epistle in the last great day? The Lord keep us from undue veneration for the creature, whether living or dead!

A great and influential system arose out of these small beginnings, through the subtlety of the priesthood, which ultimately brought enormous wealth to the church. Pilgrimages with their atonement money and free-will offerings are parts of the system. At an early period it was customary to perform religious services with peculiar sanctity at the graves of the saints and martyrs. But as the darkness thickened and the spirit of superstition increased, this was not enough. In the fourth century splendid churches were built over their once humble burial-places; and even some supposed relic of the saint was enshrined in the building erected to his honour. It was usually affirmed that the body of the miracle-working saint was buried under the high altar; and that there was a special efficacy in the intercession of such saints. This drew myriads to their shrines; some to see wonders done, others to have miracles wrought in their favour, or receive good to their souls. Pilgrimages soon became the most popular kind of worship, and as the worshippers were lavish with their oblations — their hearts being warm and tender- it was greatly encouraged by a sordid priesthood. During the sixth century an incredible number of temples arose in honour of the saints, and numerous festivals were instituted to keep up the remembrance of these holy men.

We have seen in the third century Cyprian declaring that corruption was universal, and that the bishops were running about everywhere for money, and making gain by fraud. We have seen that the martyrs' memories were, in the fourth and fifth, celebrated with drunken feasts, and Augustine fearing a sedition if an attempt was made to stop it. We have learned from him that this was deliberately allowed, to please heathens coming in and let them go on in their own ways unchanged, only substituting martyrs for idols. This is holiness neither in practice, purpose, nor doctrine. St. Augustine — De Opere Manichaeorum — complains of their running about to sell relics, to make money; and so great was the superstition, that the fifth Council of Carthage orders the innumerable altars to martyrs to be overturned, unless it made a tumult; and, if it could not be done, warns the people not to go.

It is more than likely that most of us have some precious relics that in some sort of way keep memory alive, and move the heart and moisten the eye, but how unsatisfying they are; they do not avail to bring back “the touch of the vanished hand, or the sound of the voice that is still”. But it is not so with Christ. He is not dead; He lives. Peter is dead, Paul is dead, many whom we loved are dead, and communion with the dead, whether saints or sinners, is a hellish delusion; but Christ is not dead; He lives victorious over death, and communion with H is a blessed reality by the power of the Holy Ghost.

It is more than likely that most of us have some precious relics that in some sort of way keep memory alive, and move the heart and moisten the eye, but how unsatisfying they are; they do not avail to bring back "the touch of the vanished hand, or the sound of the voice that is still". But it is not so with Christ. He is not dead; He lives. Peter is dead, Paul is dead, many whom we loved are dead, and communion with the dead, whether saints or sinners, is a hellish delusion; but Christ is not dead; He lives victorious over death, and communion with H is a blessed reality by the power of the Holy Ghost.

What think I? — that Matthew Arnold has betrayed himself badly by appealing to philosophy, and yet confounding two entirely different mental phases — superstition and faith. Superstition is "the subject of the mind of man, in the things of God, to that for subjection to which there is no warrant from divine testimony." Faith is the reception of a divine testimony into the soul. The object of our superstitious reverence gets between our souls and God: faith puts us into immediate connection with God.

When Christian was in the Palace Beautiful, we are told, the three maidens took him into a mansion in which he saw, amongst other relics, Shamgar's ox-goad. Happily the Dreamer had too sound a mind to give the relics themselves more than a passing mention; and perhaps it is as well that nobody else ever saw them. For there is such an inveterate tendency to worship the mere instrument that the whole significance of the event is distorted; and, instead of our learning from it the wholesome stimulating lesson of how great things may be done with small means and giving God the glory, we assume that there is something to be venerated in the instrument itself and burn incense to it, as the Israelites did to the brazen serpent until Hezekiah wisely dashed it to pieces and derisively called it "Nehushtan" — a bit of brass. Thus we perversely attribute all the credit of the work to the ox-goad, instead of to the strong arm and stout heart behind it and to God overhead; as the Rabbis say that the rod of Moses was a magic wand brought by Adam out of Eden and inherited through Seth, etc., etc. Any puerile story will do so long as it takes the glory from God and gives it to the instrument.

That which happened with respect to the brazen serpent shews us the tendency of the heart to idolatry. And how many things, to which man continues attached in a carnal way, remain hidden in the midst of so many blessings and chastenings This teaches us also how near — with such hearts as ours — is the remembrance of blessing, to idolatry of the symbols of blessing. Faith gets rid of these things; for God had given the brazen serpent, not to be a token of the remembrance after the cure, but in order to cure. Man preserved it by a very natural feeling; but this is not of God, and it soon became the instrument of Satan.