Monday, September 18, 2023

Gregory of Tours (538-594) on Relics of Mary

Note: these relics are more than likely second or third-class relics, not first-class relics:

 

Relics of Mary are kept in the oratory of an estate at Marsat, in the territory of Clermont. (Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs 8 [trans. Raymond Van Dam; Translated Texts for Historians 4; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988, 2004], 10)

 

10. The fire [controlled] by the power of the relics of St. Mary

 

Once I was as usual wearing relics of this blessed Virgin along with those of the holy apostles and of the blessed Martin that had been placed in a gold cross. As I was travelling along the road, I noticed, not far from the road, that a poor man’s cottage was on fire. The cottage had been covered with leaves that served as ready kindling for the flames. With his children and wife the poor man was running about carrying water, but the flames were not dying down. Lifting the cross from my chest I held it up against the fire; soon, in the presence of the holy relics the entire fire stopped so [suddenly], as if there had been no blaze. (Glory of the Martyrs 10, ibid., p. 13)

 

18. The relics of the blessed Mary

 

Previously I saw a man named Johannes who had departed from Gaul as a leper. He said that he had waited for an entire year at that spot where I said the Lord had been baptized. Frequently he washed himself in the river; when his skin was transformed for the better, he was cured and restored to his earlier health. From Jerusalem he received relics of the blessed Mary. He set out for his fatherland but decided first to visit Rome. As soon as he entered the vast mountains of Italy, he met bandits. Immediately he was robbed of his clothing; even the reliquary in which he carried the blessed relics was seized. For these highwaymen thought that gold coins were in the reliquary, and after breaking the lock they closely examined everything. When they found no money in it, they took out the relics and threw them in a fire. After beating the man, they left. Although half-unconscious, the man got up to collect the ashes of the relics that had burned. He found the relics lying unburned on top of smoldering embers. He was astonished that the linen cloth in which the relics were wrapped was so spotless that one might think it had been not tossed on coals but soaked in water. Happily he gathered everything up and set out on the road he was travelling; he reached Gaul in safety, I have seen many people who bathed either in the Jordan river or in the springs of the city of Levida and were healed of this disease. (Glory of the Martyrs 18, ibid., p. 19)