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Sorry all, I should have forwarded Bill's original with my message. Thanks, Morgyn ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 14:27:33 GMT Subject: Re: Non-Christian religions From: Bill East <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Reply-to: [log in to unmask] It may be helpful to inject into the discussion the notion of "Virtue". I do not mean Virtue in the reduced sense of a moral quality, such as courage or patience, but in older senses which are defined as follows in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary: VIRTUE I. as a personal attribute. 1a. The power or operative influence inherent in a supernatural or divine being . . . II. As a quality of things. 7a. Of a precious stone: magical or supernatural power, esp. in the prevention or cure of a disease etc. Virtue is conceived of as a supernatural power, in its most intense form quite tangible, and inherent in holy people and things. It is communicable by contact, quite as readily as, in modern terms, a magnetic or electric charge. The notion is perfectly scriptural. We find it perhaps at 2 Samuel 6:6-7, "And . . . Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it . . . And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah . . . and God smote him . . . and there he died." More indisputably, we find it as a quality inhering in Jesus, in the story of the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment at Mark 5:27ff: "For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that VIRTUE had gone out of him . . ." [So KJV; Douai, "And immediately Jesus, knowing in himself the VIRTUE that had proceeded from him . . ."; Vulgate "gognoscens VIRTUTEM quae exierat de illo"]. Virtue then is a power residing in a holy person, living or dead. This is the rationale behind the cult of relics. The humerus of St Lawrence, preserved so reverently at Ampleforth, is an object replete with Virtue, a very powerful force for curing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, building up faith or whatever good purpose is required. Thus we find in 2 Kings 20-21, "And Elisha died, and they buried him . . . And they cast [a corpse] into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet." Virtue can be communicated to any object, animate or inanimate. The ground on which a saint has walked is charged with Virtue. Soil from the Holy Land is replete with Virtue. The other day I was visiting a parishioner who had received a greeting card from the Holy Land. The lettering was raised by embossing, and a message in smaller print informed her that the raised lettering had touched the earth of the Holy Land. This made a great impression on my parishioner. I thought it best not to inform her that her priest had sunbathed on the Holy Land and swum in the River Jordan. Her devotion to my skin might have become excessive. Elisha sends his servant Gehazi to lay his staff on the corpse of the child of the Shunemite (2 Kings 4:29 ff). The expectation is that the staff will be sufficiently charged with Virtue to raise the child to life. In the event, it doesn't work, and Elisha has to do the job himself. Even so intangible and immaterial an object as a shadow can possess Virtue. So we find at Acts 5:15, "Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them." A saint's clothing, or any of his possessions, will be charged with Virtue. So will the ground of his grave, or any object (e.g. a handkerchief) which has touched it. Objects charged with Virtue were often dipped into water, and the water drunk or rubbed on affected parts. Thus, the hand of St James at Reading Abbey was dipped into water, which was then drunk by the faithful. This water had powerful emetic properties, and the cure was usually accompanied by violent vomiting. Likewise the hair-breeches (femoralia) of St Thomas Becket, reputed to have been darned by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself [honestly - I'm not joking] were kept at Canterbury, and dipped into water which was given to the faithful to drink. This was the high-point of the Canterbury pilgrimage, and I think gives added point to Chaucer's Host when he says to the Pardoner: Thou woldest make me kisse thyn olde breech, And swere it were a relyk of a seint, Though it were with thy fundement depeint! Had the 'olde breech' really belonged to a saint, it would have been a perfectly acceptable relic. Thus, water which had had any contact with a saint, or his clothing, or anything that had belonged to him, would be considered charged with Virtue. Certainly the water in which a saint had been baptised, or in which he had been accustomed to baptise others, would be full of Virtue. Certain bodies of water were considered to have healing powers, even in biblical times, both in the Old and New Testaments. Thus, Elisha advises Naaman the Syrian to wash seven times in the Jordan (2 Kings 5:10 ff); Jesus tells a blind man to wash his eyes in the pool Siloam (John 9:7); and St John also records the miracles of the pool of Bethesda: "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatever disease he had." (John 5:2-4) All this by way of demonstrating that the cult of relics, as possessing Virtue, is not pagan but Christian and Scriptural; the Christian antecedents are not pagan but Jewish, and amply recorded in the Hebrew scriptures; and the cult of holy wells, pools and springs finds its place in this tradition. Christians may (for ought I know) have from time to time, taken over a pagan spring; but the notion of a holy spring is in itself authentically and scripturally Christian. Bill. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%