RELICS, in the Church of Rome, the remains of the bodies or clothes of saints or martyrs, and the instruments by which they were put to death, devoutly preserved, in honour of their memory.

The respect which was justly due to the martyrs and the teachers of the Christian faith increased in the course of time almost to adoration; and at length all but divine honour was really paid both to departed saints and to relics of holy men or holy things. Such was the rage for them at one time, that, as MabUlon, a Benedictine, justly complains, the altars were loaded with suspected relics, numerous spurious ones being everywhere offered to the piety and devotion of the faithful. He adds, too, that bones are often consecrated, which, so far from belonging to saints, probably do not belong to Christians. From the catacombs numerous relics have been taken, and yet it is not known who were the persons interred therein. In the eleventh century, relics were tried by fire, when those which did not consume were reckoned genuine, and the rest not. Relics were, and still are, sometimes preserved on the altars whereon mass is celebrated.

The Romanists plead antiquity in behalf of the respect paid to relics. The Manicheans, say they, out of hatred to the flesh, which they considered as an evil principle, refused to honour the relics of saints; and this is reckoned a kind of proof that the Christians in the first ages did so. We know, indeed, that the touching of linen cloths on relics, from an opinion of some extraordinary virtue derived therefrom, was as ancient as the first ages; there being a hole made expressly for the purpose in the coffins of the forty martyrs at Constantinople. The honouring the relics of saints, on which the Church of Rome afterwards founded her superstitious and lucrative use of them, as objects of devotion, as a kind of charms or amulets, and as instruments of pretended miracles, appears to have originated in a very ancient custom which prevailed amongst Christians, of assembling at the cemeteries or burying-places of the martyrs, for the purpose of commemorating them, and of performing divine worship. When the profession of Christianity obtained the protection of the civil government, under Constantine the Great, stately churches were erected over their sepulchres, and their names and memories were treated with every possible token of affection and respect. This reverence, however, gradually exceeded all reasonable bounds; and those prayers and religious services which were performed over their tombs were thought to have a peculiar sanctity and virtue. Hence the practice, which afterwards obtained, of depositing relics of saints and of martyrs under the altars in all churches. This practice was then thought of such importance, that St Ambrose would not consecrate a church because it had no relics; and the council of Constantinople ordained, that those altars should be demolished under which there were not found any relics. The rage of procuring relics for this and other purposes of a similar nature became so excessive, that in 386 the Emperor Theodosius the Great was obliged to pass a law, forbidding the people to dig up the bodies of the martyrs, and to traffic in their remains. Such was the origin of that respect for sacred relics, which, when perverted afterwards, became the occasion of innumerable processions, pilgrimages, and miracles.