Holy Bones: Human Remains as Relics

 

Head shaped reliquary which would have held the skull of Pope Alexander I

 

    The idea of human remains as holy relics conjures up images of medieval Europe. Soaring cathedrals holding the finger, or rib, of a pope, or saint, housed in a bejeweled container somewhere inside for pilgrims to look at. This class of holy relic, the part of a saint held within a reliquary, has always seemed interesting to me, but I had never actually given the practice much thought beyond recognizing it as an interesting, if not slightly macabre, old fashioned religious practice. The idea of giving human remains religious significance has much older roots in Christianity, as evidenced in the reading from the past week. An event is recounted where, after opening the tomb of Saint Stephen, the air "filled with such sweet scent" that a priest attending remarked that he thought he was "in Paradise", connecting the physical body of the saint to heaven itself (Armstrong 221). 

    The importance of the holy relic is attributed to the idea that the body of a saint, or other holy person, "create[s] a link" between our material world and heaven (Armstrong 221). In this conceptualization of the relic, the relic serves a role as an axis mundi. Since the body - or, in some cases, the body part - of the saint is connected to heaven, the space where the relic is held becomes a place that is closer to heaven. This vision of the relic was continued into the medieval period, where the spirit of a saint is "fully present in both their relic and in heaven" which supports the idea that a relic possesses an axis mundi-like function (Hahn 299).

    Interestingly,  there seems to be more focus on taking relics out of Jerusalem than leaving them where they were found. The body of Samuel was thought to be discovered and then was moved from "Palestine to the imperial capital" in Constantinople (Armstrong 219). In this instance, the relocation of the relic can be thought of in more political, than spiritual, terms. Moving Samuel's body, a holy relic, to Constantinople would help give Constantinople religious authority, both by attaching it to Jerusalem and its surroundings and bringing something with a sacred connection to the city of Constantinople. It was also a gesture in the conflict between Jews and Christians, representing the idea that figures from the Old Testament would feel more "at home in Christian territory" than in Jewish territory (Armstrong 219).

 

Works Cited:

Armstrong, K. (1997). Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Ballantine Books.

 

Hahn, C. (2010). What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics? Numen, 57(3/4), 284–316.                            http://www.jstor.org/stable/20789594