Thursday, March 24, 2022

Martin Chemnitz on relics of saints and care for the remains of the dead in the Bible

  

7 It is also worth of diligent observation that examples concerning the relics of saints are described in such a way in the Word of God that they furnish, as though pointing a finger at the fountain, explanations and refutations of the things which are set in opposition by the papalists. Thus Elisha (2 Kings 13:14-19), when He was about to die, prophesies about the victory of the Israelites over the Syrians, if they are converted to the Lord. And when Elisha had died and been buried, and in the same year bands of Moabite soldiers broke into the land of Israel, God, in order to confirm the truth of Elisha’s prophecy with a special and extraordinary miracle, raised a dead man to life by contact with his bones when he was already dead. (And that is that Sirach says, Ecclus. 48;13: “When he was dead, Elisha’s body prophesied.”) Why should not God be able by His power to do these things when he wants to through the bones of which He declares (Ps. 34:20) that they are entrusted to His keeping?

 

However, Scripture does not say that the dead man was brought to the tomb of Elisha with the aim and purpose that he might be brought back to life by contact with his bones, as though it had been at that time the custom among the people of God to run to the sepulchers of the prophets or saints in order to seek grace and power among the bones of the dead by means of vows and invocations. But the text says that the man was by an unexpected emergency cast into the sepulcher of Elisha when they wanted to bury him and, because the brigands came upon them, did not have time to make a grave. Therefore, lest the unburied corpse should be exposed to the caprice of the enemies, they opened the cover of the sepulcher that was nearest, which was that of Elisha, and did not lay the dead person in it (for they did not have time for that), but threw in the corpse. When it had fallen to the bottom, it touched the bones of Elisha and came back to life, in order that God might by this miracle remind the Israelites of the prophet Elisha, that they should not fear hostile incursions if only they would cling to the Lord.

 

Because that miracle was indeed outstanding and amazing, and the papalists have from miracles built up all their cults of relics, which we have described a little earlier (for from miracles they argue for the institution of these cults), we shall see whether Scripture did or commanded to be done on the basis of this outstanding miracle of the bones of Elisha what the papalists do in the cult of their relics. For if Scripture does the same thing on the basis of the miracle of the bones of Elisha, that deduction of the papalists from miracles to cult will have validity; but if not, then one will be able rightly and safely to reject it, no matter by whom it is made.

 

Now, also after that miracle took place, we do not read that the bones of Elisha were taken out of the tomb, elevated to a high place, carried about; they were not set forth out of the tomb, elevated to a high place, carried about; they were not set forth to be kissed, touched, viewed; they were not honored with candles, not adorned with silk, not adored with invocation for the purpose of obtaining help, not set forth for a special cult. Neither was a pilgrimage instituted to these bones for the purpose of there seeking the grace and power of God; indulgences were not promised; these relics were not laid on the sick and on the dead; people did not swear by them; faith and hope were not placed in them, etc. We read absolutely no such thing in Scripture about the relics of Elisha, also after that outstanding and amazing miracle through his bones had taken place. But the bones of the prophets were left in their tombs, or sepulchers, as also Christ declares (Matt. 23:29). Neither did the Jews go to these tombs of the just for the purpose of adoration or invocation. They worshiped in the temple.

 

They did indeed “build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous” (Matt. 23:29), thereby declaring their reverence for the holy prophets, whom they confessed to have been unjustly killed. But this zeal of theirs is not commended to a  very high degree by Christ, but rather, as also Chrysostom interprets, this is gravely criticized in them, that they are praisers and admirers of the dead prophets while they despite and persecute the living and present ones, who rebuke their sins and teach the Word of God purely, and that they neglect the poor saints who live here, and withhold much for the sake of ostentation in building the monuments. For Chrysostom adds also this interpretation.

 

These things are manifest, and are surely the kind of things by which this whole controversy about the relics of the saints can at once be defined, and the whole cult of the papalists in this matter refuted. For also Sirach (Ecclus. 48:12 ff.) describing the miracles of Elisha during his life and after his death, does not set down as their purpose and use even one of the points which we have noted about the cult of the papalists, but the confirmation of the prophecies of Elisha, and that the people might be converted from their sins to the God whom Elisha had taught. Sirach indeed praises the memory and relics of the saints and prophets reverently, but he does not add those superstitions about which the papalists contend; he leaves the bones in their sepulchers in the hope of a glorious resurrection, and regards them reverently (Ecclus. 46:12 and 49:10): “May their memory be blessed, and may their bones sprout forth or return to life, and may their name remain forever, their glory enduring to coming generations.”

 

8 Furthermore, there is found in Scripture also the example of the remains of Joseph, which were preserved and carried away. Consideration of this will furnish material for a true explanation and refutation of the things which the papalists argue about transferring and preserving the relics of the saints. For the body of the dead Joseph was neither consigned to burial in Egypt nor placed in a tomb, but placed with spices into an ark or chest made of precious wood, and preserved until the departure of the Israelites from Egypt.

 

Was this done in order to institute such a cult as has been described above in the chief points of the papalist veneration of relics? By no means! But Joseph, to testify to his faith in the promise of God, commanded that his body should not be entombed in Egypt, but should be kept until the time of visitation, that they might carry his bones with them into the land of promise, in order that those who came later might through this, as by a glorious pledge, be encouraged amid pressures and persecutions and not grow uncertain about their exodus from Egypt and about the Promised Land, which they were to inherit. For this reason also the others of the 12 patriarchs did not treat the set of Joseph as an example to follow, neither do we read that later prophets and righteous persons imitated this.

 

There is indeed no doubt that the children of Israel preserved the bones or relics of Joseph reverently, as Sirach shows with the word epeskepeesan, which means to preserve something so diligently as if it were guarded and protected with some kind of covering. However, we read nothing about them showing these relics of Joseph the superstitious veneration we have described above. The old translation of Ecclus. 49:15 reads that the bones of Joseph were visited and that they prophesied after his death. Some twist this as though the Israelites had instituted a pilgrimage to the bones of Joseph and had run to them as to an oracle. But the Greek texts says epeskepeesan, which has already been explained. The following words [in the Vulgate] the Greek text does not have at all, but copyists, against the true meaning of the text, transferred from 48:13 what is there said about the bones of Elisha to the bones of Joseph.

 

Furthermore, the sacred history speaks of the transported relics of Joseph also in Ex. 13:19, but not in the way or with the purpose, nor for the cause, nor with the opinion with which the carrying about of relics is performed among the papalists. Without doubt the Israelites carried these relics of Joseph away reverently from Egypt into the Promised Land, but they rendered no such thing to them as we have shown above that the papalists do to their relics. Neither did they take refuge to the relics of Joseph for the sake of obtaining aid, as the Tridentine decree speaks, when Pharaoh pursued them, they when they were attacked by fiery serpents, and when they were oppressed on all sides by enemies. And when they had carried these relics into the Promised Land, they did not elevate them (as the papalists speak), nor institute pilgrimages and cults for them, but placed them beneath the ground and buried them (Joshua 24:32). Nor do we read that afterward such assemblies and cults as the papalists celebrate as their relics were ever instituted at the sepulcher of either Joseph or of the other patriarchs and prophets. Indeed, Epiphanius quotes against the Antidicomarionites a statement of Scripture from the Septuagint translation in which those are condemned who observe a cult of the dead. And in Cyril, Bk. 10, Contra Julianum, there is quoted a statement from Isaiah: “They sleep outside graves and caves on account of sleeplessness.” Yet Jerome praises this in a certain Constantia, who was accustomed to spend nights in vigils in the tombs of Hilarion. And some do not scruple to interpret in this way even the patch in Ecclus. 49:15 about the bones of Joseph prophesying.

 

9 Likewise, there is found in Scripture also the example of the bones or relics of dead persons transferred from one sepculcher to another, in order that we might understand that Scripture furnishes a certain rule also in this dispute about the transfer of relics. By no means, however, is such a transfer undertaken in Scripture described as having been made for the reasons, in the manner, and for the purpose for which it is done among the papalists. But because the citizens of Jabesh-gilead had buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan in a grove in Jabesh (1 Sam. 31:11-13), therefore David later transferred their bones into the land of Benjamin and put them into the paternal sepulcher of Saul (2 Sam. 21:12-14). You hear that the reason was political, because at that time great families had their own special sepulchers. And Barzillai, an aged man, refused the dignity of the royal palace in order that he could be buried near the sepulcher of his parents (2 Sam. 19:31 ff.). Another illustrious example is found in 2 Kings 23:16-18. For when Josiah was destroying the tombs which were in the high places of Jeroboam, he pulled the bones out of the sepulchers and burned them on the altar. However, when he understood that not far off there was the sepulcher of a man of God and prophet, Josiah, commanded: “Let him be; let no man move his bones.” And the text adds: “So they let his bones alone.” On the contrary, however, a divine punishment is described thus, Jer. 8:1 ff.: “Their bones shall be brought out of their tombs.” Baruch 2:24-25: “The bones of our fathers are taken from their place and cast forth.”

 

10 From what we have until now recited it is clear that, if we want to have sacred Scripture as canon and rule for our teaching and worship, the papalist veneration of relics can lawfully and rightly be rejected, since it lacks testimonies and examples of Scripture and is not in agreement with them. However, according to Scripture the sacred relics of the godly are rightly honored when we think about them to the earth, the great mother, according to the statement of God: “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return” [Gen. 3:19]. And there is the hope of the resurrection and glorification we reverently let them rest (Is. 57:2) and sleep in the dust (Dan. 12:2), until those who are in the graves hear the voice of the Son of God, by which they are raised to life (John 5:25).

 

In this way we commend the relics of the saints to God Himself (Ps. 34:20), in order that they may be, as a certain oration of Tatian to the Greeks elegantly says, deposited in the storehouse, locked chamber, or bedroom of a very rich Lord. And Cyril, Contra Julianum, Bk. 10, describes the true honor of relics in the church as follows: “Anyone,” says he, “may see the relics of the dead with us, not naked, and negligently cast forth into the earth, but well arranged. For they are somehow concealed in the bosom of their mother, in the depths of the earth, as also Prudentius elegantly sings:

 

Now receive him, O earth, to cherish him;
Receive him in your tender bosom;
I give up a person’s members to you for safekeeping.
And consign the noble fragments to you. (Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, 4 vols. [trans. Fred Kramer; St. Louis, Miss.: Concordia Publishing House, 2021], 4:26-30)