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On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Dennis D. Martin wrote: [...] The claim that so many purported relics of the > True Cross exist that they would exceed the mass of a single real cross > several times older is an ancient polemic, probably already of medieval > origin, certainly widely repeated during the Protestant Reformation. Among medieval commentators to make this claim was none less than St Bernardino of Siena, who says in a famous sermon that if all the pieces of the True Cross were brought together six yoke of oxen could not draw them. I do not have the exact reference to hand, but it is reported in Iris Origo's World of San Bernardino, 177, along with Bernardino's equally sceptical remarks about relics of the Virgin's milk (not all the cows in Lombardy, etc.). There are plenty of relics of the nails of crucifixion: about 30 are venerated. See NCE 10:199 and CE 10:672. Scepticism and credulity contended in the Middle Ages as they do today. -- Paul Chandler || Yarra Theological Union [log in to unmask] || Melbourne College of Divinity %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%