Table of Contents
The Two Babylons
Alexander Hislop
Chapter V
Section II
Relic Worship
Nothing is more characteristic of Rome than the worship of relics. Wherever
a chapel is opened, or a temple consecrated, it cannot be thoroughly complete
without some relic or other of he-saint or she-saint to give sanctity to
it. The relics of the saints and rotten bones of the martyrs form a great
part of the wealth of the Church. The grossest impostures have been practised
in regard to such relics; and the most drivelling tales have been told
of their wonder-working powers, and that too by Fathers of high name in
the records of Christendom. Even Augustine, with all his philosophical
acuteness and zeal against some forms of false doctrine, was deeply infected
with the grovelling spirit that led to relic worship. Let any one read
the stuff with which he concludes his famous "City of God," and he will
in no wise wonder that Rome has made a saint of him, and set him up for
the worship of her devotees. Take only a specimen or two of the stories
with which he bolsters up the prevalent delusions of his day: "When the
Bishop Projectius brought the relics of St. Stephen to the town called
Aquae Tibiltinae, the people came in great crowds to honour them. Amongst
these was a blind woman, who entreated the people to lead her to the bishop
who had the HOLY RELICS. They did so, and the bishop gave her some flowers
which he had in his hand. She took them, and put them to her eyes, and
immediately her sight was restored, so that she passed speedily on before
all the others, no longer requiring to be guided." In Augustine's day,
the formal "worship" of the relics was not yet established; but
the martyrs to whom they were supposed to have belonged were already invoked
with prayers and supplications, and that with the high approval of the
Bishop of Hippo, as the following story will abundantly show: Here, in
Hippo, says he, there was a poor and holy old man, by name Florentius,
who obtained a living by tailoring. This man once lost his coat, and not
being able to purchase another to replace it, he came to the shrine of
the Twenty Martyrs, in this city, and prayed aloud to them, beseeching
that they would enable him to get another garment. A crowd of silly boys
who overheard him, followed him at his departure, scoffing at him, and
asking him whether he had begged fifty pence from the martyrs to buy a
coat. The poor man went silently on towards home, and as he passed near
the sea, he saw a large fish which had been cast up on the sand, and was
still panting. The other persons who were present allowed him to take up
this fish, which he brought to one Catosus, a cook, and a good Christian,
who bought it from him for three hundred pence. With this he meant to purchase
wool, which his wife might spin, and make into a garment for him. When
the cook cut up the fish, he found within its belly a ring of gold, which
his conscience persuaded him to give to the poor man from whom he bought
the fish. He did so, saying, at the same time, "Behold how the Twenty Martyrs
have clothed you!" *
* De Civitate. The story of the fish and
the ring is an old Egyptian story. (WILKINSON) Catosus, "the good Christian,"
was evidently a tool of the priests, who could afford to give him
a ring to put into the fish's belly. The miracle would draw worshippers
to the shrine of the Twenty Martyrs, and thus bring grist to their mill,
and amply repay them.
Thus did the great Augustine inculcate the worship of dead men, and the
honouring of their wonder-working relics. The "silly children" who "scoffed"
at the tailor's prayer seem to have had more sense than either the "holy
old tailor" or the bishop. Now, if men professing Christianity were thus,
in the fifth century, paving the way for the worship of all manner of rags
and rotten bones; in the realms of Heathendom the same worship had flourished
for ages before Christian saints or martyrs had appeared in the world.
In Greece, the superstitious regard to relics, and especially to the bones
of the deified heroes, was a conspicuous part of the popular idolatry.
The work of Pausanias, the learned Grecian antiquary, is full of reference
to this superstition. Thus, of the shoulder-blade of Pelops, we read that,
after passing through divers adventures, being appointed by the oracle
of Delphi, as a divine means of delivering the Eleans from a pestilence
under which they suffered, it "was committed," as a sacred relic, "to the
custody" of the man who had fished it out of the sea, and of his posterity
after him. The bones of the Trojan Hector were preserved as a precious
deposit at Thebes. "They" [the Thebans], says Pausanias, "say that his
[Hector's] bones were brought hither from Troy, in consequence of the following
oracle: 'Thebans, who inhabit the city of Cadmus, if you wish to reside
in your country, blest with the possession of blameless wealth, bring the
bones of Hector, the son of Priam, into your dominions from Asia, and reverence
the hero agreeably to the mandate of Jupiter.'" Many other similar instances
from the same author might be adduced. The bones thus carefully kept and
reverenced were all believed to be miracle-working bones. From the earliest
periods, the system of Buddhism has been propped up by relics, that have
wrought miracles at least as well vouched as those wrought by the relics
of St. Stephen, or by the "Twenty Martyrs." In the "Mahawanso," one of
the great standards of the Buddhist faith, reference is thus made to the
enshrining of the relics of Buddha: "The vanquisher of foes having perfected
the works to be executed within the relic receptacle, convening an assembly
of the priesthood, thus addressed them: 'The works that were to be executed
by me, in the relic receptacle, are completed. Tomorrow, I shall enshrine
the relics. Lords, bear in mind the relics.'" Who has not heard of the
Holy Coat of Treves, and its exhibition to the people? From the
following, the reader will see that there was an exactly similar exhibition
of the Holy Coat of Buddha: "Thereupon (the nephew of the Naga Rajah) by
his supernatural gift, springing up into the air to the height of seven
palmyra trees, and stretching out his arm brought to the spot where he
was poised, the Dupathupo (or shrine) in which the DRESS laid aside by
Buddho, as Prince Siddhatto, on his entering the priesthood, was enshrined...and
EXHIBITED IT TO THE PEOPLE." This "Holy Coat" of Buddha was no doubt as
genuine, and as well entitled to worship, as the "Holy Coat" of Treves.
The resemblance does not stop here. It is only a year or two ago since
the Pope presented to his beloved son, Francis Joseph of Austria, a "TOOTH"
of "St. Peter," as a mark of his special favour and regard. The teeth
of Buddha are in equal request among his worshippers. "King of Devas,"
said a Buddhist missionary, who was sent to one of the principal courts
of Ceylon to demand a relic or two from the Rajah, "King of Devas, thou
possessest the right canine tooth relic (of Buddha), as well as
the right collar bone of the divine teacher. Lord of Devas, demur not in
matter involving the salvation of the land of Lanka." Then the miraculous
efficacy of these relics is shown in the following: "The Saviour of the
world (Buddha) even after he had attained to Parinibanan or final emancipation
(i.e., after his death), by means of a corporeal relic, performed infinite
acts to the utmost perfection, for the spiritual comfort and mundane
prosperity of mankind. While the Vanquisher (Jeyus) yet lived, what must
he not have done?" Now, in the Asiatic Researches, a statement is
made in regard to these relics of Buddha, which marvellously reveals to
us the real origin of this Buddhist relic worship. The statement is this:
"The bones or limbs of Buddha were scattered all over the world, like those
of Osiris and Jupiter Zagreus. To collect them was the first duty of his
descendants and followers, and then to entomb them. Out of filial piety,
the remembrance of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fictitious
one, with all possible marks of grief and sorrow till a priest announced
that the sacred relics were at last found. This is practised to this day
by several Tartarian tribes of the religion of Buddha; and the expression
of the bones of the Son of the Spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese
and some tribes in Tartary." Here, then, it is evident that the worship
of relics is just a part of those ceremonies instituted to commemorate
the tragic death of Osiris or Nimrod, who, as the reader may remember,
was divided into fourteen pieces, which were sent into so many different
regions infected by his apostacy and false worship, to operate in terrorem
upon all who might seek to follow his example. When the apostates regained
their power, the very first thing they did was to seek for these dismembered
relics of the great ringleader in idolatry, and to entomb them with
every mark of devotion. Thus does Plutarch describe the search: "Being
acquainted with this even [viz., the dismemberment of Osiris], Isis set
out once more in search of the scattered members of her husband's body,
using a boat made of the papyrus rush in order more easily to pass through
the lower and fenny parts of the country...And one reason assigned for
the different sepulchres of Osiris shown in Egypt is, that wherever any
one of his scattered limbs was discovered she buried it on the spot; though
others suppose that it was owing to an artifice of the queen, who presented
each of those cities with an image of her husband, in order that, if Typho
should overcome Horus in the approaching contest, he might be unable to
find the real sepulchre. Isis succeeded in recovering all the different
members, with the exception of one, which had been devoured by the Lepidotus,
the Phagrus, and the Oxyrhynchus, for which reason these fish are held
in abhorrence by the Egyptians. To make amends, she consecrated the Phallus,
and instituted a solemn festival to its memory." Not only does this show
the real origin of relic worship it shows also that the multiplication
of relics can pretend to the most venerable antiquity. If, therefore, Rome
can boast that she has sixteen or twenty holy coats, seven or eight arms
of St. Matthew, two or three heads of St. Peter, this is nothing more than
Egypt could do in regard to the relics of Osiris. Egypt was covered
with sepulchres of its martyred god; and many a leg and arm and skull,
all vouched to be genuine, were exhibited in the rival burying-places for
the adoration of the Egyptian faithful. Nay, not only were these Egyptian
relics sacred themselves, they CONSECRATED THE VERY GROUND in which they
were entombed. This fact is brought out by Wilkinson, from a statement
of Plutarch: "The Temple of this deity at Abydos," says he, "was also particularly
honoured, and so holy was the place considered by the Egyptians, that persons
living at some distance from it sought, and perhaps with difficulty obtained,
permission to possess a sepulchre within its Necropolis, in order that,
after death, they might repose in GROUND HALLOWED BY THE TOMB of
this great and mysterious deity." If the places where the relics of Osiris
were buried were accounted peculiarly holy, it is easy to see how naturally
this would give rise to the pilgrimages so frequent among the heathen.
The reader does not need to be told what merit Rome attaches to such pilgrimages
to the tombs of saints, and how, in the Middle Ages, one of the most favourite
ways of washing away sin was to undertake a pilgrimage to the shrine of
St. Jago di Compostella in Spain, or the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Now,
in the Scripture there is not the slightest trace of any such thing as
a pilgrimage to the tomb of saint, martyr, prophet, or apostle.
The very way in which the Lord saw fit to dispose of the body of Moses
in burying it Himself in the plains of Moab, so that no man should ever
known where his sepulchre was, was evidently designed to rebuke every such
feeling as that from which such pilgrimages arise. And considering
whence Israel had come, the Egyptian ideas with which they were
infected, as shown in the matter of the golden calf, and the high reverence
they must have entertained for Moses, the wisdom of God in so disposing
of his body must be apparent. In the land where Israel had so long sojourned,
there were great and pompous pilgrimages at certain season of the
year, and these often attended with gross excesses. Herodotus tells us,
that in his time the multitude who went annually on pilgrimage to Bubastis
amounted to 700,000 individuals, and that then more wine was drunk than
at any other time in the year. Wilkinson thus refers to a similar pilgrimage
to Philae: "Besides the celebration of the great mysteries which took place
at Philae, a grand ceremony was performed at a particular time, when the
priests, in solemn procession, visited his tomb, and crowned it with flowers.
Plutarch even pretends that all access to the island was forbidden at every
other period, and that no bird would fly over it, or fish swim near this
CONSECRATED GROUND." This seems not to have been a procession merely of
the priests in the immediate neighbourhood of the tomb, but a truly national
pilgrimage; for, says Diodorus, "the sepulchre of Osiris at Philae
is revered by all the priests throughout Egypt." We have not the same minute
information about the relic worship in Assyria or Babylon; but we have
enough to show that, as it was the Babylonian god that was worshipped in
Egypt under the name of Osiris, so in his own country there was the same
superstitious reverence paid to his relics. We have seen already, that
when the Babylonian Zoroaster died, he was said voluntarily to have given
his life as a sacrifice, and to have "charged his countrymen to preserve
his remains," assuring them that on the observance or neglect of this
dying command, the fate of their empire would hinge. And, accordingly,
we learn from Ovid, that the "Busta Nini," or "Tomb of Ninus," long ages
thereafter, was one of the monuments of Babylon. Now, in comparing the
death and fabled resurrection of the false Messiah with the death and resurrection
of the true, when he actually appeared, it will be found that there is
a very remarkable contrast. When the false Messiah died, limb was severed
from limb, and his bones were scattered over the country. When the death
of the true Messiah took place, Providence so arranged it that the body
should be kept entire, and that the prophetic word should be exactly fulfilled--"a
bone of Him shall not be broken." When, again, the false Messiah was pretended
to have had a resurrection, that resurrection was in a new body,
while the old body, with all its members, was left behind, thereby showing
that the resurrection was nothing but a pretence and a sham. When, however,
the true Messiah was "declared to be the Son of God with power, by the
resurrection from the dead," the tomb, though jealously watched by the
armed unbelieving soldiery of Rome, was found to be absolutely empty, and
no dead body of the Lord was ever afterwards found, or even pretended to
have been found. The resurrection of Christ, therefore, stands on a very
different footing from the resurrection of Osiris. Of the body of Christ,
of course, in the nature of the case, there could be no relics. Rome, however
to carry out the Babylonian system, has supplied the deficiency by means
of the relics of the saints; and now the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul,
of St. Thomas A'Beckett and St. Lawrence O'Toole, occupy the very same
place in the worship of the Papacy as the relics of Osiris in Egypt, or
of Zoroaster in Babylon.