The Reliquary Effect

Enshrining the Sacred Object

Cynthia Hahn

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781780237022
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

From skeletons to strips of cloth to little pieces of dust, reliquaries can be found in many forms, and while sometimes they may seem grotesque on their surface, they are nonetheless invested with great spiritual and memorial value. In this book, Cynthia Hahn offers the first full survey in English of the societal value of reliquaries, showing how they commemorate religious and historical events and, more important, inspire awe, faith, and, for many, the miraculous.
Hahn looks deeply into the Christian tradition, examining relics and reliquaries throughout history and around the world, going from the earliest years of the cult of saints through to the post-Reformation response. She looks at relic footprints, incorrupt bodies, the Crown of Thorns, the Shroud of Turin, and many other renowned relics, and she shows how the architectural creation of sacred space and the evocation of the biblical tradition of the temple is central to the reliquary's numinous power. She also discusses relics from other traditions—especially from Buddhism and Islam—and she even looks at how reliquaries figure in contemporary art. Fascinatingly illustrated throughout, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the enduring power of sacred objects.

1

Relics and Reliquaries: Matter, Meaning, Multiplication

WE BEGIN THIS CHAPTER with a consideration of the seemingly unpromising materials of which relics are made, proceed to a discussion of the form and function of reliquaries and conclude with an investigation into the ur-reliquary of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the Ark of the Covenant. Along the way we will discuss the question of how relics multiply, and highlight one of their foremost attributes – their reputed persistence. Above all we will be concerned with an exploration of the possibilities of sacred matter.

But first we must pause to further explore the meaning of ‘relic’ – surely the core concept at the heart of our endeavour, but also a consistently problematic one. We think we know what the word relic means; most of us think of bodies or bones. This conception is, however, not sufficient to describe the substance of venerated relics in any era (and far from comprehensive when considering secular relic objects). For example, Buddhist relics often claim to be a body part such as a bone, but when examined might reveal themselves to be man-made jade simulacra of such bones. (To complicate matters, certain jewels are also considered to be relics of the Buddha.) Some of the most renowned Islamic relics are a footprint or a sandal. The earliest Christian relics were often cloth, pebbles or even dust (see illus. 4). Evidence from treasuries as well as from comments in early texts confirm this variety of relic material, and two of the most prominent commentators on relics of the Christian Middle Ages, Paulinus of Nola (c. 420) and Thiofridus of Echternach (c. 1100), consistently refer to relics as dust.¹

All relics, it should be noted, share a quality in that they are indexical – that is, in Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotic definition, they are representative of a sacred person or place in terms of being a product of (as blood indicates a body), adjacent to (as touching or having touched) or actually being a portion of (a fragment or splinter) the holy thing.² In these associations, as index, the relic is testimony or ‘indicative’ because it shares an authentic physical relationship with the holy thing.

The Material Sacred

We might, then, begin our query into relic materials, substances and things by asking, why dust? What is it? The answer to the latter question might seem obvious – dust is fine powder or earth, very similar in origin and as outcome to ashes (a common relic material – Buddha was cremated and early Christian martyrs were often burned to death). If we, however, examine the meaning of the word ‘dust’, we find it operates through a process of exclusion rather than through positive identity. Dust is a secondary product of dirt. Dust is what we unhappily discover in corners. Dust is the opposite of the valuable, whole and active; it is the extraneous, the inert, the unwanted, the other. How does dust become the powerful and valuable relic? Why disparage precious objects with such a demeaning term? The answer is both simple and complex.

‘Dirt constitutes a border between being and not-being’ and as ‘the material dissolution of matter that becomes the dust of mortification and physical decay . . . [it] is cast aside through purification rituals, in order that the body might live.’³ As the very essence of the non-living, the no-longer-living or the yet-to-live, dust as a category features large in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, especially the biblical Old Testament, which contains 102 occurrences in the King James translation, including the oft-cited, ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground’ (Genesis 2:7); ‘For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’ (3:19); and ‘[I] am but dust and ashes’ (18:27). The body is disparaged as dust, humiliated as dust and will return to this most base state at death. However, dust is also generative: God used dust to make man, and further: ‘And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed’ (Genesis 28:14). Finally, dust has paradoxical potential: ‘Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?’ (Psalm 30:9).

Dust as relic in the Christian era finds its place above all as a base material that is collected and honoured and then disseminated. The immolated remains of St Polycarp were gathered by his followers and declared more precious than gems. In this first identifiable act of Christian relic-ing, the faithful recognized ashes as valuable and equivalent in meaning to a holy human being, despite their unpromising form.

Intrinsic to this act of collection and identification (or transformation) of dust into relic is the corollary act of framing. As already mentioned in the introduction, reliquaries offer a relic more than mere spatial delimitation and enframement. A reliquary’s enshrinement constitutes a temporal act, and implicates an array of practices such as ritual, storytelling and collecting. A reliquary’s nature is above all intrinsically paradoxical; its function is emphatically contrary to its core message that no act of relicing ever took place. Through a reliquary’s construction and its display of precious materials, it asserts that the relic is by nature valuable, eternal and has existed from a designated and pregnant historical moment worthy of remembrance – the death of a saint, the Crucifixion of Christ, the moment of a touch – and will be preserved forever without change. The reliquary therefore constitutes as its very mission the support of memory (which also, without doubt, implies a value that precedes its existence). In that it insists on truth and authenticity, it cannot allow making or time, least of all history. But here again, contrary to sense, the relic does not exist without the reliquary in that the presentation serves to fix the relic’s authenticity and meaning and prove its persistence.

Perhaps even more importantly, as part and parcel of these assertions of importance and permanence, the reliquary has the essential job of teaching the devotee the significance of the relic. Defining the means of approach, it constructs an environment and instructs the viewer in terms of use and decorum. Finally, in a last and once again paradoxical move, it deflects attention from itself, promising truth and spiritual interiority at its secret and ineffable centre. It must therefore be emphasized that enframement does not stage the relic subsequent to its importance, but is coterminous with its moment of recognition. Of fundamental and ontological importance,⁴ the reliquary and its ritual or story define the relic as valuable and worthy of preservation and honour, and occur simultaneously with its identification. Acts of selection and enframement make the relic rather than the reverse, especially in the case of dust in its quality as amorphous and undefined or transitional. And then they do their best to disappear.

The nature of the relic-reliquary relationship did not go unremarked in the Christian Middle Ages. Just about 1100, in his Flores epytaphii sanctorum (the only medieval treatise dedicated solely to relics and reliquaries), Thiofrid, Abbot of Echternach, insists that relic and reliquary are truly a single unit and that without the compensatory beauty of the reliquary, a relic could be repulsive (and thus ineffective).⁵ He further argues that, although by necessity of earthen materials, reliquaries of sufficient beauty to honour a saint should be made of the finest materials, aureus atque gemmis (gold and gems).⁶ Elaborating on the comment on value made in the life of Polycarp, Thiofrid insists that repulsive and intrinsically valuable contents must be joined to and enclosed by beautiful but earthen and intrinsically valueless stuff, in a symbiotic union.

By calling attention to the earthen origin of even the most seemingly valuable materials, Thiofrid intends to deepen our understanding of reliquaries, their worth and their link to their contents through a reference to 2 Corinthians 4:7: ‘But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.’ This text seems to discuss terracotta, but metaphorically refers to the human body and its nature as a container for the divine, and of course also thus implicates Christ’s human body. Furthermore, although emphasizing the material nature of both relics and reliquaries, Thiofrid, in something like sleight of hand, reveals the reliquary to be an index of the divine, setting the stage for a clear value and meaning for reliquaries themselves in their place in the created universe – made of materials derived from God’s earth. Thus, we insistently circle back to matter, to the material and questions of its intrinsic meaning.

Through its participation in what we might call a ‘reliquary strategy’, dust is revelatory of the paradoxical nature of sacred substances and their need for reliquaries. A similarly unexpected relic material that, unlike dust, actually at times resists ‘gathering’, circumscribing and enclosure, reveals instead how relics and reliquaries function as indices of ‘sacred space’.

What material could be more indicative of God’s earth than stone? Although some reliquaries are fashioned of stone, especially those in the form of tombs, it is striking that a common form of early relic was stone itself: the pebble, or, in other words, small mineral fragments. Although the diminutive pebble is seemingly insignificant and worthless, its outsize value lies in its indexical reference to the earth – to rocks of larger size and even to immovable bedrock (which, as we shall see, sometimes also might move).⁷

Stone relics may present a more impenetrable and troubling aspect than dust, and are ultimately and particularly resistant to assigned meaning. Nevertheless, as one of the most essential of materials, stone is instrumental in turning us towards spatial concerns: ‘When space is not overseen by the geometer, it is liable to take on the physical qualities and properties of the earth.’⁸ In speaking of the invisibility of space and its tendency to delude the viewer/inhabitant into believing it is transparent, natural and pre-existent, the famed theoretician of space Henri Lefebvre counters such an intuition with the corollary perception of space as confrontational in the form of the earth. Stones can be presented in reliquaries, or rock-as-relic may appear in more spatially complex configurations, including displays in the open air, but in any case, the potential for the dense materiality of stone to be perceived as a condensation of the significance and essence of place is near universal to human culture.

As with dust, stone is mentioned frequently in the Bible, from Jacob’s pillow to pillars and altars or, metaphorically, in Deuteronomy 32:4, which states, ‘He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgement: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.’ Rocks are an unmovable foundation (or person – Peter), have clefts and caves at their depths, or represent the ultimate heights. They have blood spilled upon them and give up water and oil in both the Old and New Testament: ‘And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ’ (1 Corinthians 10:4). They are precious stones, foundation stones, cornerstones and bedrock:⁹

As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4–5)

‘In many countries stone is the symbol of indestructibility, invulnerability, stability, light, and immortality.’¹⁰ The German word Eckstein is both cornerstone and diamond; such stones can be pillars that are grounded but also rise to the heavens, objects of immeasurable value – the cornerstone of the Gospels might even be the apex of a pyramid rather than a stone located at the foundation.

Perhaps it is, therefore, not surprising that rocks and stones are so often treated as relics or numinous matter. The mysterious, perhaps meteoric black rock of the Ka’aba in Mecca is a prominent example. Stones and pebbles are used in burial ritual by Jews, in pilgrimage by Muslims and in burial and shrine cairns by Native Americans, which have also served syncretistically for North American Christians when they are topped with crosses. In the Buddhist tradition in China, mountainous r...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The Eternal Relic
• 1 Relics and Reliquaries: Matter, Meaning, Multiplication
• 2 Objects of Infinite Power: Relics in the Early Middle Ages
• 3 Reliquaries of the Late Medieval and Renaissance
• 4 The Reliquary After Trent: The Affective, the Collective
• 5 Relics Destroyed, Relics Returned, Relics Reinvented: The French Revolution, Napoleon, Celebrity, the Photograph
• 6 The Reliquary Effect: Contemporary Artists and Strategies of the Relic
• Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Photo Acknowledgements
• Index