Chapter VIII: Image-Worship And Other Superstitious Practices Of The (5)

112 Studien über Russland, vol. i. p. 87.

113 Simocatta, _apud_ Basnage, p. 1332.

114 This reform, accomplished in the reign of Alexius, father of Peter
the Great, consisted chiefly in the correction of the text of the
Slavonic Scriptures and liturgical books, which had been greatly
disfigured by the ignorance of successive copyists, and in the
prohibition of some superstitious practices, which had usurped an
important part in the divine service of the Russian Church. These
wise reforms produced, however, a violent opposition, and several
millions separated from the established church, and are known,
though divided into many sects, under the general appellation of
_Raskolniks_, _i.e._, schismatics, whilst they call themselves
_Starovertzi_, or those of the old faith, and designate the
established church by the name of the Niconian heresy.

115 Leveque, Histoire de Russie revue, par Malte Brun et Depping, tom.
iv. p. 131.

116 The title of this book is “Das Merk würdige Jahr Meines Lebens”—“The
Memorable Year of my Life.” It has been, I believe, translated into
English.

117 A civil grade equal to that of a captain in the army.

118 The author observes in a note that, in former times, a petty
ecclesiastical prince, the Archbishop of Cologne, could conceive and
partly execute the gigantic plan of the Cologne minster, and that in
the present time, though the whole of Germany had undertaken to
build the remainder of it, her people would have abandoned this
project long ago, if it were not supported by the kings. He ought,
however, I think, to confine his remarks to Germany, because there
are certainly more places of worship built by voluntary
contributions in England than in Russia.

119 Studien über Russland, vol. i. p. 91.

120 Studien über Russland, vol. i. p. 93.

121 Leveque, Histoire de Russie, vol. iv., p. 133.

122 London: Longman & Co. 1854.

123 The title of this curious production is, “An Appeal on the Eastern
Question to the Senatus Academicus of the Royal College of
Edinburgh. By a Russian, Quondam Civis Bibliothecæ Edinensis.”
Edinburgh: Thomas C. Jack, 92 Princes Street. London: Hamilton,
Adams, & Co. 1854.

124 Letter xxxvi., at the end.

_ 125 Vide supra_, p. 184.

126 “Custine’s Russia,” letter xxxvi. The same opinion is expressed by
Baron Haxthausen, whom I have quoted above, and who says, “The sons
of the papas and other young men acquire in the seminaries and
ecclesiastical academies a certain degree of theological learning,
after which they indue the monacal dress, and are inscribed on the
rolls of some convent, without however remaining in it. They enter
the offices of bishops and archbishops to perform their personal as
well as clerical service. Their position becomes then exactly the
same as that of the military aides-de-camp of the Generals, and of
the civil ones of ministers, and it is from amongst them that
bishops, archimandrites, abbots, &c., are chosen. It is a career
like every other service in Russia. Several of these ecclesiastics
may have chosen their calling from a real devotion; the most part of
them are, however, driven into it by an immeasurable ambition,
selfishness, speculation, and vanity, the curse of the upper classes
of Russia.”—(_Studien über Russland_, vol. i., p. 89.) It must be
remarked that all the dignities of the Greek church are reserved for
the monastic or _regular_ clergy, whilst the secular (who cannot
take orders without being married) do not rise above the station of
a parish priest. This last-named function, which gives no prospects
of promotion, is generally left to such theological students as are
not fit for any thing better, and, with some few honourable
exceptions, they are generally an ignorant and drunken set, treated
with very little respect by the upper classes. The following
anecdote, characteristic of the moral and intellectual condition of
that class of the Russian clergy, was related to the author by a
friend who had resided for some time in Russia. A landowner of the
government of Kazan, Mr Bakhmetieff, who was very fond of the
pleasures of the table in the old style, was in the habit of
inviting to his revels the priests of the neighbourhood. Once, when
his clerical guests had got so drunk as to lose all consciousness,
their host, who was less overpowered by the effect of drink,
determined to play them a practical joke, by daubing their beards
with melted wax. The distress of these poor fellows, on awaking from
their sleep, at this strange unction of their beards, was very
great, because it was impossible to get rid of the wax without
greatly injuring that hirsute appendage, upon which so much of their
personal respectability rests. They became the laughing-stock of
their congregations, and the story made a great noise over all the
country.

127 The Greek Church admits no carved images, as being prohibited by the
second commandment.

128 They have considerably more, as will be shown presently.

129 Every altar in a Roman Catholic church must contain some relic.

130 It is said to have been made of pasteboard.

131 There are, besides the five water pots mentioned by Calvin, thirteen
others, at St Nicolo of the Lido at Venice, at Moscow, at Bologne,
at Tongres, at Cologne, at Beauvaia, at the abbey of Port Royal at
Paris, and at Orleans, though the Gospel mentions but six. The
materials of which they are made are very dissimilar to each other,
and so are their respective measures, whilst those mentioned in the
Gospel seem to have been all of the same size.

132 There are, besides these, thirteen more, unknown probably to Calvin;
but it would be too tedious to enumerate where they may be seen.

133 If a diligent inquiry were instituted after these relics in
particular, four times as many as are here enumerated might be found
in other parts.

134 I have employed the term Sudary, which has been adopted by Webster,
from the Latin word _sudarium_, to designate the relic in question.

135 It appears that a kerchief with the likeness of the face of Jesus
Christ imprinted on it, and covered with blood and sweat, was kept
in a church at Rome in the eleventh century, for it is mentioned in
the brief of Pope Sergius IV., dated 1011. We do not know what tales
respecting this relic were related at that time, but it appears that
copies of it called _Veronies_, _i.e._, a corruption of _verum
icon_, “the true image,” were sold; and no doubt this appellation
gave rise to the legend of _Sancta Veronica_ who wiped the face of
Christ with her kerchief as he was going to Calvary. There are many
versions of this legend, as for instance that it was this woman whom
Christ had cured of the bloody issue, whilst again it is maintained
that she was no less a person than Berenice, niece to King Herod. It
is also related that after the dispersion of the apostles, St
Veronica went in company with Mary Magdalene, Martha, and Lazarus,
to Marseilles, where she wrought many miracles with her kerchief.
The Emperor Tiberius heard of these miracles, and having fallen ill,
he summoned Veronica to Rome. She cured him in a moment, and was
rewarded with great honours and rich presents. The remainder of her
life was spent at Rome in company with St Peter and St Paul, and she
bequeathed the miraculous kerchief to Pope St Clement. It must,
however, be observed, that this legend has not obtained the official
approbation of the Roman Catholic Church, though St Veronica is
acknowledged and has a place in the calendar for the 21st of
February; and it is said she suffered martyrdom in France. With
regard to the large sudaries or sheets upon which the whole body of
Jesus Christ is impressed, and the absurdity of which Calvin has so
clearly exposed, the most celebrated of these is that at Turin. Its
history is curious, inasmuch as it shows that the efforts of
enlightened and pious prelates to prevent idolatrous practices
invading their churches proved unavailing against that general
tendency to worship visible objects, so strongly implanted in
corrupt human nature, that even in this enlightened age we are
continually witnessing such manifestation of its revival as may be
compared only to that of the dark period of the middle ages. The
most striking instances undoubtedly are those of the holy coat of
Treves, and the relics of St Theodosia, which have been recently
installed at Amiens, with great pomp, and in the presence of the
most eminent prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, who seem now to
be as anxious to promote this kind of fetishism, as some of their
predecessors were formerly to repress the same abuse. But let us
return to our immediate subject—the _holy sudarium_ of Turin. It is
a long linen sheet, upon which is painted in a reddish colour a
double likeness of a human body, _i.e._, as seen from before and
from behind, quite naked with the exception of a broad scarf
encircling the loins. It is pretended that this relic was saved by a
Christian at the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, and it was preserved
for many centuries by the faithful.

In 640 it was brought back to Palestine, from whence it was
transferred to Europe by the Crusaders. It was taken by a French
knight named Geoffroi de Charny, who presented it to the collegiate
church of a place called _Liré_, which belonged to him, and which is
situated about three leagues from the town of Troyes, in Champagne;
the donor declaring, on that occasion, that this holy sheet was
taken by him from the infidels, and that it had delivered him in a
miraculous manner from a prison dungeon into which he had been cast
by the English.

The canons of that church, seeing at once the great profits to be
derived from such a relic, lost no time in exhibiting it, and their
church was soon crowded with devotees. The bishop of Troyes, Henri
de Poitiers, finding however no proofs of the authenticity of this
relic, prohibited it to be shown as an object of worship, and it
remained unheeded for twenty-four years.

The sons of Geoffroi de Charny, about the year 1388, obtained
permission from the Papal legate to restore this relic of their
father’s to the church of Liré, and the canon exposed it in front of
the pulpit, surrounding it with lighted tapers, but the bishop of
Troyes, Peter d’Arcy, prohibited this exhibition under pain of
excommunication. They afterwards obtained from the king, Charles
VI., an authorization to worship the _holy sudarium_ in the church
of Liré. The bishop upon this repaired to court, and represented to
the king that the worship of the pretended sheet of Jesus Christ was
nothing less than downright idolatry, and he argued so effectually
that Charles revoked the permission by an edict of the 21st August
1389.

Geoffroi de Charny’s sons then appealed to Pope Clemens VII., who
was residing at Avignon, and he granted permission for the holy
sudarium to be exhibited. The bishop of Troyes sent a memorial to
the Pope, explaining the importance attached to this so-called holy
relic. Clemens did not, however, prohibit the sudarium to be shown,
but he forbade its being exhibited as the _real_ sudary of Jesus
Christ. The canons of Liré, therefore, put aside their sudary, but
it reappeared in other places, and after being shown about in
various churches and convents it remained at Chambery in 1432, where
nobody dared to impugn its reality. From that time its fame
increased, and Francis I., king of France, went a pilgrimage on
foot, the whole way from Lyons to Chambery, in order to worship this
linen cloth. In 1578 St Charles Borromeo having announced his
intention of going on foot to Chambery to adore the holy sudary, the
Duke of Savoy, wishing to spare this high-born saint the trouble of
so long a pilgrimage, commanded the relic to be brought to Turin,
where it has since remained, and where the miracles performed by it
and the solemn worship paid to it, may be considered as a proof that
its authenticity is no longer doubted.

There are about six holy sudaries preserved in other churches,
besides the pieces shown elsewhere.

136 Calvin, speaking of the silver pieces for which Judas betrayed our
Lord, does not say where they are shown. Two of them are preserved
in the Church of the Annunciation at Florence, one in the Church of
St John of the Lateran, and another in that of the Holy Cross at
Rome. There is one piece at the Church of the Visitandine Convent at
Aix in Provence besides many other places where they are
displayed.—_Collin de Plancy, Dictionaire des Reliques._

137 The whole skeleton of the animal is preserved at Vicenza, enclosed
in an artificial figure of an ass.

138 Eusebius relates, that Abgarus, king of Edessa, having heard of
Christ’s teaching and miracles, sent an embassy to acknowledge our
Lord’s divinity, and to invite him to his kingdom, in order to cure
Abgarus of a complaint of long standing; upon which Christ sent him
the likeness mentioned in the text. Now, it is impossible for one
moment to admit, that, if such an important fact had any truthful
foundation, it would have been left unrecorded by the apostles.

139 The Roman Catholic Church maintains that the Blessed Virgin was
carried to heaven by angels, and it commemorates this event by the
festival of the Assumption on the 15th August. This belief was
unknown to the primitive church; for, according to a Roman Catholic
writer of undoubted orthodoxy, the Empress Pulcheria, in the fifth
century, requested the Bishop of Jerusalem, Juvenal, to allow her to
have the body of the Virgin, in order to display it for the public
adoration of the faithful at Constantinople.—(Tillerant’s “Memoires
Ecclesiastiques.”)—There are many other proofs that, even at that
time, when many idolatrous practices had begun to corrupt the
church, the Virgin’s body was generally believed to be in earth, and
not in heaven.

140 Vials filled with such milk were shown in several churches at Rome,
at Venice in the church of St Mark, at Aix in Provence, in the
church of the Celestins at Avignon, in that of St Anthony at Padua,
&c. &c., and many absurd stories are related about the miracles
performed with these relics.

141 There are about twenty gowns of the Blessed Virgin exhibited in
various places. Many of them are of costly textures, which, if true,
would prove that she had an expensive wardrobe.

142 The number of miraculous images of the Virgin in countries following
the tenets of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches is _legion_, and
a separate volume would be required if we were to give even an
abridged account of them.

143 “The most celebrated relic of St Joseph is his ‘_han_,’ _i.e._, the
sound or groan which issues from the chest of a man when he makes an
effort, and which St Joseph emitted when he was splitting a log of
wood. It was preserved in a bottle at a place called Concaiverny,
near Blois, in France.”—_D’Aubigne’s Confessions de Sancy_, chap.
ii. _apud_ Colin de Plancy.

144 It is said that as late as 1784, at Mount St Michael in Bretagne, a
Swiss was vending feathers from the archangel Michael’s wings, and
that he found purchasers for his wares.

145 This multiplication of St John’s head reminds one of an anecdote
related by Miss Pardoe in her “City of the Magyar.” A museum of
curiosities was kept in the chateau of Prince Grassalkovich in
Hungary, and it was usually shown to strangers by the parish priest
of that place. This worthy man was once conducting a traveller over
the collection, and showed him amongst other curiosities two skulls,
of large and small size, saying of the first, “This is the skull of
the celebrated rebel Ragotzi;” and of the second, “That is the skull
of the same Ragotzi when he was a boy!”

146 Calvin has not rendered full justice to the relics of John the
Baptist exhibited in various places. He only mentions the different
parts of his head and the fingers; and the quantity altogether shown
implies no doubt that the head was one of no ordinary dimensions. He
evidently was not aware that there are about a dozen whole heads of
St John the Baptist, which are or were exhibited in different towns.
The most remarkable of them was undoubtedly that one which the
notorious Pope John XXIII., who was deposed for his vices by the
Council of Constance, had sold to the Venetians for the sum of fifty
thousand ducats; but as the people of Rome would not allow such a
precious relic to quit their city, the bargain was rescinded. The
head was afterwards destroyed at the capture and pillage of Rome by
the troops of Charles V. in 1527. There are, besides, many other
parts of St John’s body preserved as relics. A part of his shoulder
was pretended to have been sent by the Emperor Heraclius to King
Dagobert I.; and an entire shoulder was given to Philip Augustus by
the Emperor of Greece. Another shoulder was at Longpont, in the
diocese of Soissons; and there was one at Lieissies in the Hainault.
A leg of the saint was shown at St Jean d’Abbeville, another at
Venice, and a third at Toledo; whilst the Abbey of Joienval, in the
diocese of Chartres, boasted of possessing twenty-two of his bones.
Several of his arms and hands were shown elsewhere, besides fingers
and other parts of his body; but their enumeration would be too
tedious here.

147 Calvin here alludes to the haircloth worn by the monks of some
orders, and other Roman Catholic devotees, instead of the ordinary
shirt.

148 There is a French edition of the New Testament, published, I think,
at Louvaine, in which the 13th chapter of Acts, 2d verse, is thus
translated: “_Etquand ils disotent la messe_,”—“And when they were
saying mass.”

149 The relics of Peter and Paul became at an early period the objects
of veneration to the Christians of Rome. Gregory the Great relates
that such terrible miracles took place at the sepulchres that people
approached them in fear and trembling, and he adds that those who
ventured to touch them were visibly punished. The Emperor Justinian,
desiring some relics of these two apostles, some filings from their
prison chains, and sheets that had been consecrated by having been
laid over their bodies, were sent to him; but some time afterwards
these relics were touched and handled without persons suffering any
visible punishment for so doing. Their heads were transferred to the
church of St John of Lateran, and their bodies were divided and
placed in the churches of St Peter and St Paul in the Ostian Road.
We have seen in the text that different parts of their bodies are
shown in many places, and the celebrated D’Aubigné relates that
France had possessed formerly the entire bodies of Peter and Paul
before the Huguenots burnt and destroyed a great number of the
relics in that country.

150 This relic is considered a very efficient remedy for cutaneous
disorders.

151 Calvin was evidently in haste to get over his task, as he intimated
to us at the commencement of this chapter. He has made very great
omissions. In the first place, he appears to have forgotten the body
of St James the Major at Compostella in Spain, one of the most
celebrated places of pilgrimage of the Western Church. According to
the legend, this apostle went to Spain to preach Christianity and
then returned to Jerusalem, where he was beheaded by Herod.—(Acts
xii.) His body was afterwards removed by his disciples to Spain.
This is, therefore, his second body. He has a third at Verona, and a
fourth at Toulouse, besides several heads elsewhere. The other
apostles have also more bodies than are mentioned in the text, but
the limits of this work forbid enumeration.

152 St Matthew is not so poor in relics as Calvin supposed, for we could
quote several whole bodies, as well as members, with which he was
not acquainted.

153 An oratory is a small chapel or cabinet, adorned with images of
saints, &c., and used by the Roman Catholics for private devotions.
The absurdity of ascribing to John the Evangelist the possession of
such an oratory is too palpable a falsehood to require any comment.

154 According to the well-known Jesuit writer Ribadeneira, the Jews
seized Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Martha, Marcella, Maximin,
Celidonius (supposed to have been the man born blind, who was
restored to sight by Jesus Christ), and Joseph of Arimathea, and
placing them on board a vessel without helm, oars, or sails,
launched it forth into the sea. By a miracle the vessel reached
Marseilles, where Lazarus was appointed the first bishop of that
town. Maximin became bishop of Aix, Joseph of Arimathea went to
England, Martha entered a convent, and Mary, after preaching in
various parts of Provence for some time, retired into the desert of
St Beaume, to weep and lament over her sins.—_Flower of Saints, July
22._

155 The legends say that the soldier, whom they name Longinus, was
struck with blindness immediately after piercing Jesus Christ’s
side. He perceived the enormity of his crime, recognised the
divinity of our Lord, and having rubbed his eyes with the blood
which was on his lance, he recovered his sight, and finally became a
monk in Cappadocia. It is true that neither the Gospels nor the
early ecclesiastical writers mention anything respecting St
Longinus, but Ribadeneira and other narrators of legends speak much
of him. The reader may possibly object to the tale of his becoming a
monk, since in those days there were none; but that difficulty
merely requires the addition of another miracle.

156 Calvin is wrong here. Milan only assumes to have possession of the
graves of the wise men, not their bodies, which were removed to
Cologne at the capture of Milan in 1162, by Frederick Barbarossa.

_ 157 Vid. supra_, p. 120.

158 St Anthony is venerated, or rather worshipped, by the Eastern as
well as the Western Church, and he seems to have bestowed his
favours upon each with the utmost impartiality, for a body of his is
shown at Novgorod, in Russia, where a church, with a convent
attached to it, is dedicated to him. The legend concerning St
Anthony’s arrival at Novgorod is curious. It is said that this
saint, whilst at Rome, was commanded by an angel, in a dream, to go
and convert the inhabitants of Novgorod. In obedience to this
angelic injunction, St Anthony embarked on a millstone, and floated
on this extraordinary craft down the Tiber, passed over the
Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Baltic seas, and arrived safely at the
river Wolchow, upon which stream Novgorod is situated, having
accomplished the whole voyage in four days—a marvellous speed
indeed, and which completely shames all the wonders of modern steam
navigation! The date assigned to this wonderful voyage happens to be
that of a few centuries _after_ St Anthony’s death, but we suppose
this too must be considered as another miracle.

159 Calvin is much mistaken about Helena, who was better provided for
than he imagined. Besides the body mentioned in the text, she has
one in the Church of _Ara Cæli_, at Rome. There was one also at
Constantinople, in the Church of the Twelve Apostles, and another at
Hauteville, near Epernay, in Champagne.

160 The legend tells us that an English chief, after conquering and
taking possession of Lower Brittany, returned to his native land in
search of wives for his army and himself. He married Ursula, an
English princess, and took eleven thousand maidens as brides for his
companions in arms. Ursula, whilst journeying with this bridal train
to join her husband, was driven by a storm into the mouth of the
Rhine, and arrived at Cologne. There they were beset by a party of
Huns, who murdered them all. Their bodies were discovered at Cologne
in the 16th century, and the remains of St Ursula, which at first
were mixed with those of her companions, were pointed out, by a
miracle, for the special veneration of the faithful. Several of
these virgins have relics in various parts of Europe, and they are
distinguished by proper names, as, for instance, St Ottilla, St
Fleurina, &c. &c.. The origin of this absurd legend is ascribed by
some antiquarians to the following inscription found upon a
tomb:—“_St Ursula et XI. M. V._,” _i.e._, _et 11 martyres virgines_,
which, through ignorance or wilful deceit, has been converted into
_millia virgines_—11,000 virgins. Other savans believe that the
inscription meant “_St Ursula et Undecimilla, martyres virgines_,”
and that _Undecimilla_, which was the proper name of a virgin
martyr, was mistaken by some ignorant copyist for an abbreviation of
_undecim millia_, 11,000.

161 It must be remarked that many relics described in this Treatise were
destroyed during the religious wars, but particularly by the French
Revolution. I recommend to those who have an interest in this
subject the observations made on it in Sir George Sinclair’s
Letters, p. 88, _et seq._