Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/100

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84 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. St. Denis the Areopagite, one at Paris and one at Ratisbonne, and each equally authentic; ^ four " vernicles " or sacred handker- chiefs of St. Veronica, each with the original imprint of our Savi- our's face upon it; "^ two heads of St. John Baptist, one at Amiens and one at Constantinople, as we learn from the worthy Sir John Mandeville,*^ who was left thereby in grievous perplexity which to adore. St. Mark is found to have no less than sixteen legs in dif- ferent places;* St. Catherine of Sienna also was, as Howells ob- serves, " one of the best distributed saints on the calendar;"^ and the " verray true cross," which was found by the Empress Helena in A. D. 318, and distributed all over the world before 347 A. D., still existed unimpaired in Jerusalem A. D. 383, and was there wor- shipped by Paula, the companion of St. Jerome.^ In fact the supply originated from the demand ; and sacred objects which had not been known to exist for centuries suddenly started into being when the ascendency of Christianity was established under Con- stantine in the fourth century; and not only the pillar to which Christ was bound,'^ with the imprint of his hand therein, made when the stone miraculously softened to receive it three centuries before, was found to glad the eyes of the faithful; not only did the milk dropped from the bosom of the Virgin still whiten the stones of Bethlehem after a lapse of five centuries,^ and the hairs torn from her head at the Crucifixion, reappear after ten ; ^ but even the dunghill whereon sat the patient man of Uz, the pit into which Joseph had been cast,^*' the pillar of salt of Lot's wife, hay from the sacred manger,^^ and crystallized tears shed by the Virgin Mother ^^ 1 Pertz, Mon. Hist. Germ. xiii. 343, &c. 2 Xavier's Pers. Life of Christ gives three, one each at Rome, Milan, and Jahen, in Portugal. There was one at Lucca, Piers Plowm., v. 3997 n. It is worthy of remark, that as late as 1529 Sir Thomas More relies on the authenticity of the vernicle to justify the worship of images. Dyaloge, p. 354. 8 Voiage et Travaile, 107, 108. ^ Tuscan Cities, 162.

  • F.*?. Cobbe, " Italics," 273. 6 Conder, Syr. Stone Lore, 280.

■^ Seen by Eucherius, A. D. 427-440. Conder, ubi supra. 8 John of Hildesheim ap. Chester Myst. 289. It was still seen by the Seigneur d'Anglure in the fourteenth century. Jusserand, Eng. Wayf. Life, 401. See also Ellis Orig. Lett. 3d Series, iii. 107; Hare, Walks in Rome, ii. 125. 3 Odericus Vitalis, iii. 179, who himself had two of the hairs. See Hare, ubi supra, for a choice collection of relics. 10 B. de la Brocquiere (Early Trav. Palestine, 300, Bohn). So Fra Alex. Ariosti di Bologna, a. d. 1450; apud Civezza Missioni Franciscani (Rome, 1861), v. 673. Delia Valle, June 15, 1616, says, " ma io sto in dubbio." 11 John of Hildesheim, Chester Myst. 3CX3. ^ Bertrand de la Brocquiere, 340.