Relics (Gr. leipsana, Lat. reliquiae, 'remains'), personal memorials of those among the dead who have been distinguished during life by eminent qualities: especially, in the history of the church, objects which derive their value from their connection with our Lord and with the saints; as, for example, fragments of our Lord's cross or crown of thorns, portions of the dust, the bones, the blood, the instruments of torture, the chains, &c. of the martyrs, the mortal remains, the clothes, the books, and other objects of personal use of the other saints. With them may be grouped objects to which a certain indirect sacred interest is given by their being brought into contact with the direct memorials of the distinguished dead, as by their being placed on the tombs of the martyrs, touched with the relics, or blessed at the shrine or sanctuary of the saints, &c. Reverence for relics developed with the increasing honour paid to Martyrs (q.v.).
The earliest monuments of Christian history contain evidences of the deep and reverential affection with which martyrs of the faith, their mortal remains, and everything connected with their martyrdom were regarded by their fellow-Christians, and for which Catholics profess to find warrant in many passages of the Old and of the New Testament, as Ex. xiii. 19; 2 Kings, xiii. 21, and xxiii. 16-18; Matt. ix. 20-22; Acts, v. 12-16, and xix. 11, 12. The letter of the Church of Smyrna attests this plainly as to the martyrdom of Polycarp; Pontian's Life of Cyprian tells of their stealing the martyr's body, and carrying it away by night in holy triumph. The Apostolical Constitutions bear witness to the honours paid. Miracles, too, are described as connected with relics. Thus, Ambrose tells of a blind man's sight restored by his touching the bodies of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius; and similar wonders are detailed by Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and Leo the Great; so that the possession of relics of the martyrs, and even the occasional touching of them, was regarded as a special happiness. According to Theodoret, even cities were content to share with each other portions of the sacred treasure. Connected with this feeling, too, is found a belief of a certain sacred efficacy in the presence or the touch of the relics; and especially there is ascribed by Chrysostom, Basil, Theodoret, and other Fathers, to prayers offered before the relics, a virtue in dispelling or warding off sickness, diabolical machinations, and other evils. Hence we find that altars were erected over the tombs of the martyrs, or at least that relics were invariably placed on the altars, wherever erected; inasmuch that the Trullan Council ordered the demolition of all altars in which no relics had been deposited. Far more sacred than the relics of martyrs was the cross of our Lord, which was believed to have been discovered at Jerusalem by Helena (q.v.), mother of the Emperor Constantine. Minute portions of the wood were distributed to the principal churches; and Cyril of Jerusalem, within less than a century after the discovery of the cross, describes the precious wood as dispersed throughout the world. According to Rohault de Fleury's Memoire sur les Instruments de la Passion, 'the total cubic volume of all the known relics of the True Cross is about 5,000,000 cubic millimetres, whereas a cross large enough for the execution of a man must have contained at least 180,000,000 or thereby.' The practice of relic-worship, and the feeling on which it was founded, were not suffered to pass without a protest. At quite an early period many abuses and superstitions had crept in, which even the Fathers who admit the worship do not fail to condemn; and Vigilantius, in a treatise now lost, reprobated in the strongest terms the excesses to which it was carried, and indeed the essential principles on which the practice rests. He had so few followers, however, that were it not for the refutation by Jerome of his work against relics we should have no record of his opposition to the popular view; and it is urged by Catholics, as a proof of the universal acquiescence of the church of the 4th century in the practice of relic-worship, that it was not even found necessary to call a single council to condemn Vigilantius.
The writings of Augustine, of Paulinus of Nola, of Ephraem the Syrian, of Gregory the Great, and others are full of examples of the miraculous virtue ascribed to relics, and of the variety and the extensive multiplication of sacred memorials of all kinds. Nor was this confined to the orthodox alone; all the different parties in the controversy on the Incarnation agreed with Catholics and with one another on this subject, and even the Iconoclasts, at the very time that they most fiercely repudiated the use of images, admitted without difficulty the veneration of relics.
In the age of the Crusades a fresh impulse was given to the worship of relics in the West by the novelty and variety of the sacred objects brought home from the churches of Syria, Asia Minor, and Constantinople by crusaders, by palmers returning from Palestine, and by the Latin conquerors of Constantinople; and it is admitted by the most zealous Catholics that at this period many false, and perhaps even absurd and ridiculous relics were introduced, and were successfully commended to the veneration of individuals or individual churches in the West; nor do they venture to doubt that abuse and superstition found their way side by side with what they regard as the genuine and authorised worship of the church. Nevertheless, with the exception of the Waldenses, Wyclif, and a few isolated individuals, the practice remained unchallenged till the 16th century, when, in common with many other doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome, it was utterly repudiated by the Reformers. Catholics, however, allege that the practice, as sanctioned by the church, has nothing in common with the abuses which form the main ground of the objections alleged by Protestants. The Roman Catholic use of relics, as authorised by the church, is to serve as incentives to faith and piety, by recalling vividly to men's minds the lives, and, as it were, the corporeal presence and the earthly converse of the saints, and thus placing before them, in a more touching manner, the virtues which, in the examples, are held up for men's imitation. The decree of the Council of Trent connects the subject of relic-worship with the general question of saint-worship, and regards the relics of the saints not as possessing intrinsic virtue, but only as instruments 'through which God bestows benefits on men.' The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) forbade the sale or veneration of relics until their authenticity had been approved by the authorities; the Council of Trent renewed the prohibition. In the pastoral of the Bishop of Treves, inviting pilgrims to the exhibition of the Holy Coat (1891), it is expressly stated that 'the authenticity of no relic, be it the most eminent of the oldest church of Christendom, falls under any precept of Catholic faith.' Relics are usually venerated in costly cases or 'reliquaries' set on the altar; they are also carried in procession, and the faithful are blessed with them.
The Greek and other Oriental churches, and most of the Oriental sects, agree with Roman
Catholics in the practice of relic-worship. On the contrary, the Reformed churches, without exception, have rejected the usage; though non-religious relic-worship is rife enough, in the form of swords of Wallace and Bruce, locks of Prince Charlie's hair, &c. The practice of relic-worship forms a notable feature of the Mohammedan usage of pilgrimages, and is an even more important feature of Buddhism.