Relics
Bones, garments, and fragments honored as holy · regulated by councils from Nicaea II to Trent · the treasure of Wittenberg on the eve of the Reformation.
A relic is the bodily remains of a saint, or an object that belonged to a saint or touched his body. Popular devotion sorts them into three classes: the body or its parts, such as bones and hair; things the saint used, such as clothing; and objects touched to either of these. Rome holds that the bodies of the saints were temples of the Holy Spirit and will be raised in glory, and that God may work favors through them. The Catechism counts the veneration of relics among the expressions of popular piety that surround the sacraments (CCC 1674).
From Martyrs’ Tombs to a Medieval Trade
Early Christians gathered at the graves of the martyrs. By 787 the Second Council of Nicaea required relics for the consecration of every church, and the present Code of Canon Law still directs that relics be placed beneath a fixed altar (canon 1237). In the Middle Ages relics drew pilgrims, enriched shrines, and changed hands by gift, sale, and theft; the crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204 carried hundreds westward. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 forbade the sale of relics and required papal approval before newly found ones could be venerated, but the trade continued. Its sixty-second canon complained that pilgrims were being deceived by false relics.
The Relics of Wittenberg
The most famous collection of the age belonged to Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony and later Luther’s protector. Housed in the Castle Church at Wittenberg, it grew to more than nineteen thousand pieces by 1520, and those who viewed them with the required devotions could earn indulgences reckoned at nearly two million years off purgatory. The relics were displayed each year on All Saints’ Day. Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses at the door of that church on its eve, October 31, 1517.
Trent and the Reformers
The Council of Trent, in its final session in December 1563, decreed that “the holy bodies of holy martyrs, and of others now living with Christ … are to be venerated by the faithful,” and condemned those who deny it. It also ordered bishops to remove superstition and gain from the practice. The Reformers judged the practice itself unwarranted. In the Smalcald Articles Luther counted relics, with their many falsehoods, among the abuses that the mass and purgatory had bred. Calvin’s Inventory of Relics (1543) cataloged the fragments of the true cross scattered across Europe and concluded that “if all the pieces which could be found were collected into a heap, they would form a good ship-load, though the gospel testifies, that a single individual was able to carry it.” The danger, he warned, was worse than fraud: “a longing for relics is never free from superstition, nay, what is worse, it is the parent of idolatry.” Even the Catholic Erasmus satirized the pilgrim trade. The Church of England put the judgment plainly:
The Romish doctrine concerning … worshipping and adoration, as well of Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.
The Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XXII
What Scripture Says
Rome appeals to the bones of Elisha, which raised a dead man (2 Kings 13:21), and to the handkerchiefs carried from Paul to the sick (Acts 19:11–12). Yet Scripture records these as sovereign acts of God, never as warrant for preserving or honoring such objects. The pattern runs the other way. The Lord buried Moses where no one could find him (Deuteronomy 34:6). Hezekiah broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Israel had begun to honor, though God Himself had commanded it to be made (2 Kings 18:4). Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes when the people of Lystra tried to worship them (Acts 14:14–15).
Above all, the Christian faith is not centered on a tomb that holds sacred remains, but on a tomb that is empty. “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen” (Luke 24:5–6). Grace does not come to us through the bones of the saints, but through Christ, who lives and is present to His people by His Word and Spirit.
Terms. The “first, second, and third class” scheme is common in Catholic devotion but is not official. Church norms distinguish “significant” relics, the body or notable parts of it, from “non-significant” ones. Canon law forbids the sale of sacred relics absolutely (canon 1190).
