RELICS, the mortal remains of departed saints; objects associated' in memory with them, such.as articles they used in life—clothes, vestments, the pectoral cross or the pastoral staff of a holy bishop, or the like: similar re minders of the life and death of Jesus Christ are also relics; and the religious venera tion of all such relics when they are duly au thenticated is expressly by the Catholic. Church. The Council of Trent in Sec. xxv of its Acts and Decrees regarding invocation of saints condemns those who hold that *veneration and honor is not due to relics of saints)); but all the Protestant churches teach that veneration of relics, or relic worship, is a sin of the nature of idolatry. In favor of the Catholic doctrine is cited the teaching of the early Fathers, who find both in the Hebrew Scripttrres and in the New Testament the high. est sanction for the veneration of relics, for ex ample, the incident of the coming to life again of a corpse on contact with the bones of the prophet faseus (Elisha: 2 .Kings 21) ; and that recounted Acts xix, 12 (compare v, 15), of sick persons being healed with *hand kerchiefs or aprons') that had touched the living body of Saint Paul : °there is a power,'" says Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses xviii) "latent even in the bodies of the just." And the practice of the faithful in the first ages of the Church is fully consonant with this belief in the physical and spiritual efficacy of relics. The early Christians were careful to save the remains of martyrs from desecration. In the year 107 the bones of Saint Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, were gathered and wrapped in fine linen, to be guarded thereafter °as a priceless treasure left to the Holy Church." In the year
167 the faithful of Smyrna exhumed the re mains of their bishop, Saint Polycarp, who had been burned alive 10 years before under Marcus Aurelius and treasured them as °more precious than costly stones and more valuable than gold." When Saint Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was about to be decapitated (258 A.n.), the Chris tians cast towels and napkins before him that they might be soaked in his blood. After the persecutions were over, the practice of ven eration of sacred relics persisted in the Church, as is testified by the writings of Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome and indeed by all the Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries. In all ages there have been abuses connected with the practice. A canon of the Fourth Coun cil of Lateran in the year 1215 forbade relics to be sold or to be exposed outside of their cases or shrines and prohibited the veneration of new relics till their authenticity had been approved by the Pope: and these laws are confirmed in decrees of the Council of Trent. The venera tion of relics has attained its maximum in the Roman Church and there, according to Addis and Arnold ( 'Catholic ), these articles comprise the "bodies, or fragments of the bodies of departed Saints: articles, or por tions of articles, which they have used; the holy nails, lance, spear, or fragments of the True Cross; and the girdle, veil, etc., of the Blessed Virgin?' In the Roman Breviary there are special offices for the Most Holy Relics (to be said on the fourth or last Sunday in October), for the Crown of Thorns, the Lance and Nails, etc.