The Biggest Curiosities of Literature. Disraeli Isaac
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Another has written a history of what he calls the translation of the relics of St. Majean to the monastery of Villemagne. Translation is, in fact, only a softened expression for the robbery of the relics of the saint committed by two monks, who carried them off secretly to enrich their monastery; and they did not hesitate at any artifice or lie to complete their design. They thought everything was permitted to acquire these fragments of mortality, which had now become a branch of commerce. They even regarded their possessors with an hostile eye. Such was the religious opinion from the ninth to the twelfth century. Our Canute commissioned his agent at Rome to purchase St. Augustin's arm for one hundred talents of silver and one of gold; a much greater sum, observes Granger, than the finest statue of antiquity would have then sold for.
Another monk describes a strange act of devotion, attested by several contemporary writers. When the saints did not readily comply with the prayers of their votaries, they flogged their relics with rods, in a spirit of impatience which they conceived was necessary to make them bend into compliance.
Theofroy, abbot of Epternac, to raise our admiration, relates the daily miracles performed by the relics of saints, their ashes, their clothes, or other mortal spoils, and even by the instruments of their martyrdom. He inveighs against that luxury of ornaments which was indulged under religious pretext: "It is not to be supposed that the saints are desirous of such a profusion of gold and silver. They care not that we should raise to them such magnificent churches, to exhibit that ingenious order of pillars which shine with gold, nor those rich ceilings, nor those altars sparkling with jewels. They desire not the purple parchment of price for their writings, the liquid gold to embellish the letters, nor the precious stones to decorate their covers, while you have such little care for the ministers of the altar." The pious writer has not forgotten himself in this copartnership with the saints.
The Roman church not being able to deny, says Bayle, that there have been false relics, which have operated miracles, they reply that the good intentions of those believers who have recourse to them obtained from God this reward for their good faith! In the same spirit, when it was shown that two or three bodies of the same saint was said to exist in different places, and that therefore they all could not be authentic, it was answered that they were all genuine; for God had multiplied and miraculously reproduced them for the comfort of the faithful! A curious specimen of the intolerance of good sense.
When the Reformation was spread in Lithuania, Prince Radzivil was so affected by it, that he went in person to pay the pope all possible honours. His holiness on this occasion presented him with a precious box of relics. The prince having returned home, some monks entreated permission to try the effects of these relics on a demoniac, who had hitherto resisted every kind of exorcism. They were brought into the church with solemn pomp, and deposited on the altar, accompanied by an innumerable crowd. After the usual conjurations, which were unsuccessful, they applied the relics. The demoniac instantly recovered. The people called out "a miracle!" and the prince, lifting his hands and eyes to heaven, felt his faith confirmed. In this transport of pious joy, he observed that a young gentleman, who was keeper of this treasure of relics, smiled, and by his motions ridiculed the miracle. The prince indignantly took our young keeper of the relics to task; who, on promise of pardon, gave the following secret intelligence concerning them. In travelling from Rome he had lost the box of relics; and not daring to mention it, he had procured a similar one, which he had filled with the small bones of dogs and cats, and other trifles similar to what were lost. He hoped he might be forgiven for smiling, when he found that such a collection of rubbish was idolized with such pomp, and had even the virtue of expelling demons. It was by the assistance of this box that the prince discovered the gross impositions of the monks and the demoniacs, and Radzivil afterwards became a zealous Lutheran.
The elector Frederic, surnamed the Wise, was an indefatigable collector of relics. After his death, one of the monks employed by him solicited payment for several parcels he had purchased for our wise elector; but the times had changed! He was advised to give over this business; the relics for which he desired payment they were willing to return; that the price had fallen considerably since the reformation of Luther; and that they would find a better market in Italy than in Germany!
Our Henry III., who was deeply tainted with the superstition of the age, summoned all the great in the kingdom to meet in London. This summons excited the most general curiosity, and multitudes appeared. The king then acquainted them that the great master of the Knights Templars had sent him a phial containing a small portion of the precious blood of Christ which he had shed upon the cross; and attested to be genuine by the seals of the patriarch of Jerusalem and others! He commanded a procession the following day; and the historian adds, that though the road between St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey was very deep and miry, the king kept his eyes constantly fixed on the phial. Two monks received it, and deposited the phial in the abbey, "which made all England shine with glory, dedicating it to God and St. Edward."
Lord Herbert, in his Life of Henry VIII., notices the great fall of the price of relics at the dissolution of the monasteries. "The respect given to relics, and some pretended miracles, fell; insomuch, as I find by our records, that a piece of St. Andrew's finger (covered only with an ounce of silver), being laid to pledge by a monastery for forty pounds, was left unredeemed at the dissolution of the house; the king's commissioners, who upon surrender of any foundation undertook to pay the debts, refusing to return the price again." That is, they did not choose to repay the forty pounds, to receive apiece of the finger of St. Andrew.
About this time the property of relics suddenly sunk to a South-sea bubble; for shortly after the artifice of the Rood of Grace, at Boxley, in Kent, was fully opened to the eye of the populace; and a far-famed relic at Hales, in Gloucestershire, of the blood of Christ, was at the same time exhibited. It was shown in a phial, and it was believed that none could see it who were in mortal sin; and after many trials usually repeated to the same person, the deluded pilgrims at length went away fully satisfied. This relic was the blood of a duck, renewed every week, and put in a phial; one side was opaque, and the other transparent; the monk turned either side to the pilgrim, as he thought proper. The success of the pilgrim depended on the oblations he made; those who were scanty in their offerings were the longest to get a sight of the blood: when a man was in despair, he usually became generous!
PERPETUAL LAMPS OF THE ANCIENTS.
No. 379 of the Spectator relates an anecdote of a person who had opened the sepulchre of the famous Rosicrucius. He discovered a lamp burning, which a statue of clock-work struck into pieces. Hence, the disciples of this visionary said that he made use of this method to show "that he had re-invented the ever-burning lamps of the ancients."
Many writers have made mention of these wonderful lamps.
It has happened frequently that inquisitive men examining with a flambeau ancient sepulchres which had been just opened, the fat and gross vapours kindled as the flambeau approached them, to the great astonishment of the spectators, who frequently cried out "a miracle!" This sudden inflammation, although very natural, has given room to believe that these flames proceeded from perpetual lamps, which some have thought were placed in the tombs of the ancients, and which, they said, were extinguished at the moment that these tombs opened, and were penetrated by the exterior air.
The accounts of the perpetual lamps which ancient writers give have occasioned several ingenious men to search after their composition. Licetus, who possessed more erudition than love of truth, has given two receipts for making this eternal fire by a preparation of certain minerals. More credible writers maintain that it is possible to make lamps perpetually burning, and an oil at once inflammable and inconsumable; but Boyle, assisted by several experiments made on the air-pump, found that these lights, which have been viewed in opening tombs, proceeded from the collision of fresh air. This reasonable observation conciliates all, and does not compel us to deny the accounts.
The story of the lamp of Rosicrucius, even if it