The mother of Constantine the Great, Helen, collected relics – the three crosses used for the crucifixion in Jerusalem. In order to find out which one Jesus died on she had them put on a corpse one by one. The third cross revived the deceased person so this miracle proved its authenticity. Performing miracles was the essence of relics (a…
The mother of Constantine the Great, Helen, collected relics – the three crosses used for the crucifixion in Jerusalem. In order to find out which one Jesus died on she had them put on a corpse one by one. The third cross revived the deceased person so this miracle proved its authenticity. Performing miracles was the essence of relics (and there were hundreds, maybe thousands) and these miracles – and the authenticity of the relic – needed to be verified by reliable witnesses or someone of high authority in the church.
I'd be curious to know how Jews and pagans arrived at this strange concept of relics. There's nothing like it in either groups' concept of the sacred. Paganism represented spiritual images as idealized humans with a canon of proportion relating every part of the human body to the whole. This was a manifestation of a divine being and example of ideal beauty.
Jews viewed God as an abstract but highly personal being, completely tribal.
It could be that the early pagan Christians’ attempt to conceptualize God in more Jewish terms created the concept of the relic as a more abstract representation of divine order. Parts of saints bodies, the cross, and even Christ’s tears were a reaction to the pagan emphasis on the whole body. Since Christians also believed that moral progress was not only possible in this world but also in the next, this would have further alienated them visually from the pagan representation of the soul.
Early Christians also believed that Christ would return from the dead and cast judgement on all human life. Neither Jew nor pagan imagined this.
Me, personally, I don't think a human could conceive of these revolutionary mysteries but I am certainly intrigued by your overarching theme. Thanks for a very interesting read.
Given how imaginative modern speculative fiction can be, to say nothing of European mythology, I'd be hesitant to claim that the human mind is not capable of conceptualizing some pretty out there stuff. I don't see why magic artifacts should be beyond those very wife boundaries.
Interesting point nonetheless. I'll have to look to see if there's any precedent for relics holding numinous powers. I suspect the answer is yes but don't know.
As to an abstract God of everything, this is the God of the philosophers. Gmirkin's research has given good reason to suspect that Jewish priests got this idea from Plato.
The mother of Constantine the Great, Helen, collected relics – the three crosses used for the crucifixion in Jerusalem. In order to find out which one Jesus died on she had them put on a corpse one by one. The third cross revived the deceased person so this miracle proved its authenticity. Performing miracles was the essence of relics (and there were hundreds, maybe thousands) and these miracles – and the authenticity of the relic – needed to be verified by reliable witnesses or someone of high authority in the church.
I'd be curious to know how Jews and pagans arrived at this strange concept of relics. There's nothing like it in either groups' concept of the sacred. Paganism represented spiritual images as idealized humans with a canon of proportion relating every part of the human body to the whole. This was a manifestation of a divine being and example of ideal beauty.
Jews viewed God as an abstract but highly personal being, completely tribal.
It could be that the early pagan Christians’ attempt to conceptualize God in more Jewish terms created the concept of the relic as a more abstract representation of divine order. Parts of saints bodies, the cross, and even Christ’s tears were a reaction to the pagan emphasis on the whole body. Since Christians also believed that moral progress was not only possible in this world but also in the next, this would have further alienated them visually from the pagan representation of the soul.
Early Christians also believed that Christ would return from the dead and cast judgement on all human life. Neither Jew nor pagan imagined this.
Me, personally, I don't think a human could conceive of these revolutionary mysteries but I am certainly intrigued by your overarching theme. Thanks for a very interesting read.
Given how imaginative modern speculative fiction can be, to say nothing of European mythology, I'd be hesitant to claim that the human mind is not capable of conceptualizing some pretty out there stuff. I don't see why magic artifacts should be beyond those very wife boundaries.
Interesting point nonetheless. I'll have to look to see if there's any precedent for relics holding numinous powers. I suspect the answer is yes but don't know.
As to an abstract God of everything, this is the God of the philosophers. Gmirkin's research has given good reason to suspect that Jewish priests got this idea from Plato.
precedent for relics holding numinous powers - don’t know whether they preceded crucifixion relics but I think they’re called sigils.