RELIGION
738
RELIGION
into remote antiquity. On the one hand no one is
constrained to pay homage to the relic, and sup-
posing it to be in fact spurious, no dishonour is done
to God by the continuance of an error which has been
handed down in perfect good faith for many cen-
turies. On the other hand the practical difficulty
of pronouncing a final verdict upon the authenticity
of these and similar relics must be patent to all.
Each investigation would be an affair of much time
and expense, while new discoveries might at anj'
moment reverse the conclusions arrived at. Further,
devotions of ancient tlate deeply rooted in the heart
of the peasantry cannot be swept away without some
measure of scandal and popidar disturbance. To
create this sensation seems unwise unless the proof
of spuriousness is so overwhelming as to amount to
certainty. Hence there is justification for the
practice of the Holy See in allowing the cult of cer-
tain doubtful ancient relics to continue. Mean-
while, much has been done by quietly allowing many
items in some of the most famous collections of
relics to drop out of sight or by gradually omitting
much of the solemnity which formerly surrounded the
exposition of these doubtful treasures. Many of the
inventories of the great collections of Rome, or of
Aachen, Cologne, Naples, Salzburg, Antwerp, Con-
stantinople, of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris etc.,
have been published. For illustration's sake ref-
erence may be made to the Count de Riant's work
"ExTiviae Constantinopolitanff" or to the many
documents printed by Mgr Barbier de Montault
regarding Rome, particularly in vol. VII of his
"(Euvres completes". In most of these ancient in-
ventories, the extravagance and utter improbability
of many of the entries can not escape the most un-
critical. Moreover, though some sort of verification
seems often to be traceable even in Merovingian
times, still the so-called authentications which have
been printed of this early date (seventh century) are
of a most primitive kind. They consist in fact of
mere labels, strips of parchment with just the name
of the relic to which each strip w;is attached, bar-
barously written in Latin. For example "Hie sunt
reliquas sancti Victuriepiscopi, Festivitate Kalendis
Septembris", "Hie sunt patrocina sancti Petri et
Paullo Roma civio", etc. (See Delisle, "Melanges de
r^cole frangaise de Rome," IV, 1-8.)
It would probably be true to say that in no part of the world was the veneration of relies carried to greater lengths, with no doubt proportionate danger of abuse, than among Celtic peoples. The honour paid to the handbells of such saints as St. Patrick, St. Senan, and St. Mura, the strange adventures of sacred remains carried about with them in their wanderings by the Armorican people under stress of inviision by Teutons and Northmen, the prominence given to the taking of oaths upon relics in the various Welsh codes founded upon the laws of Howell the Good, the expedients used for gaining possession of these treasures, and the numerous accounts of translations and miracles, all help to illustrate the im- portance of this aspect of the ecclesiastical life of the Celtic races.
IV. Translations. — At the same time the solem- nity attached to translations was by no means a peculiarity of the Celts. The story of the transla- tion of St. Cuthbert's remains is almost as marvel- lous as anv in Celtic hagiography. The forms observed of all-night vigils, and the carrs'ing of the precious remains in "feretories" of gold or silver, over- shadowed with silken canopies and surrounded with lights and incense, extended to every part of Chris- tendom during the Middle Ages. Indeed this kind of solemn translation {clrralio corporis) wa,s treated as the outward recognition of heroic sanctity, the equivalent of canonization, in the period before the Holy See reserved to itself the passing of a final
judgment upon the merits of deceased servants of
God, and on the other hand in the earlier forms of
canonization Bulls it was customary to add a clause
directing that the remains of those whose sanctity was
thus proclaimed by the head of the Church should be
"elevated", or translated, to some shrine above
ground where fitting honour could be paid them.
This was not always carried at once. Thus St. Hugh of Lincoln, who died in 1200, was canonized in 1220, but it w;is not until 1280 that his remains were translated to the beautiful "Angel Choir" which had been constructed expressly to receive them. This translation is noteworthy not only because King Edward I himself helped to carry the bier, but be- cause it provides a typical example of the separation of the head and body of the saint which was a pecu- liar feature of so many English translations. The earliest example of this separation was probably that of St. Edwin, king and martvr; but we have also the cases of St. Oswald, St. Chad", St. Richard of Chiches- ter (translated in 1276), and St. William of York (translated 1284). It is probable that the ceremonial observed in these solemn translations closely imi- tated that used in the enshrining of the relics in the sepulcrum of the altar at the consecration of a church, while this in turn, as Mgr Duchesne has shown, is nothing but the development of the primitive burial service, the martyr or saint being laid to rest in the church dedicated to his honour. But the carrying of relics is not peculiar to the procession which takes place at the dedication of a church. Their presence is recognized as a fitting adjunct to the solemnities of almost every kind of procession, except perhaps those of the Blessed Sacrament, and in medieval times no exception was made even for these latter.
IV. Fe.\st of Relics. — It has long been customarj', especially in churches which possessed large collec- tions of relics, to keep one general feast in commemoration of all the saints whose memorials are there preserved. An Office and Mass for this purpose will be foimd in the Roman Missal and Breviary, and though they occur only in the supple- ment Pro aliquibus locis and are not obligatory upon the Church at large, still this celebration is now kept almost universally. The office is generally assigned to the fourth Sunday in October. In Eng- land before the Reformation, as we may learn from a rubric in the Sarum Breviary, the Festum Reli- quiarum was celebrated on the Sunday after the feast of the Translation of St. Thomas of Canter- bury (7 July), and it was to be kept as a greater double "wherever relics are preserved or where the bodies of dead persons are buried, for although Holy Church and her ministers observe no solemnities in their honour, the glory they enjoy with God is known to Him alone".
Stralek in Real-Encydopadie d. christ Altertamer (Freiburg, 1886); Barbier de Montault. (Euvres, VIII (Paris, 1893), 126-309; Beissel, Vtrehrung der Heiligen und ihrer Rehguien in Deutschland (2 vols.. Freiburg, 1890-1892); SlEBERT, BeitrSge zur torreformatorischen Heiligen- und Religuienverehrung (Freiburg, 1907) ; MiONi. /( cuUo delle religuie (Turin, 1908) ; Riant and MtLY, Exutia Conslantinoplitanir (Geneva, 1876); GoiRAro, Commerce des reliques in Mdanges de Rossi (Rome, 1892); Benedict XIV, De servorum Dei beatificatione et canonizatione, IV. Ft. 2; PrisTER, Der Reliquienk-ult im Allertum (Lei|)zig, 1909) ; ScrDAMORE in Did. Christ. Antig. To give indications of tlie many monographs whieh have been devoted to particular relics, such as the Holy Shroud of Turin, the Holy Coat of Trier, the relics of the Paaaion, the Chemises de la Vierge etc., would be impossible here.
Herbert Thurston.
Religion.— I. Derivation, Analysis, and Def- inition. — The derivation of the word "religion" has been a matter of dispute from ancient times. Not even to-day is it a closed question. Cicero, in his "De natura deorum", II, xxviii, derives religion from relegere (to treat carefully): "Those who carefully took in hand all things pertaining to the gods were called religiosi, from relegere." Max Miiller favoured
