In Conquest David Day describes one of the key ways in which the Roman Emperor, Constantine, soght to create Constantinople as a rival city to Rome. He did it by making Constantinople a centre of sacred relics.
In the forum Constantine erected a 37-metre-tall column, topped by a bronze statue that evidently represented Constantine himself, with it being claimed that the column itself concealed various relics. These were said to include:
- The crosses of the two thieves.
- The alabaster jar of Mary Magdalene.
- The baskets of miraculous loaves.
In addition, it was claimed that the crown of the statue contained nails from the cross of Christ himself. Indeed, because Constantine’s mother was obsessed with idols, Constantinople became the primary centre for such relics. Both custom and law stood against the removal of human remains from their burial places. But rules are made to be broken and, anyway, do they really apply to the emperor? At any rate, certain human remains reverently installed in the church were said to be those of Paul’s disciple, Timothy, and Jesus’ disciple, Andrew, the brother of Peter. To these were added various holy heads, including supposedly that of John the Baptist, plus other human remains of so-called saints, along with those of various Christian martyrs. It was also claimed that in Constantinople could be found the table used in the Last Supper, plus the doors used by Noah on his Ark.
Such practices were rightly slammed and ridiculed in 1543 in Calvin’s stinging and penetrating A Treatise on Relics. He starts this book with the following contention:
HERO-WORSHIP is innate to human nature, and it is founded on some of our noblest feelings, — gratitude, love, and admiration, — but which, like all other feelings, when uncontrolled by principle and reason, may easily degenerate into the wildest exaggerations, and lead to most dangerous consequences.
It is uncontrolled hero-worship that Calvin sees as lying at the heart of the veneration of relics and saints and martyrs – all manifestations of false-religion. Also, a basic distinction between true and false religion is indicated by Calvin’s comment, namely that the feelings involved in true religion are controlled by principle and reason, whereas the feelings involved in false religion are not. Of course, this is of great relevance in assessing Eastern Religions. Both Hinduism and Buddhism encourage the cultivation of a feeling of intuition which ultimately cuts the cords of principle and reason.
Posted September 18, 2010
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