Holy Prepuce
The Holy Prepuce, or Holy Foreskin (
History and rival claims
All
- And when the time of his circumcision was come, namely, the eighth day, on which the law commanded the child to be circumcised, they circumcised him in a cave.
- And the old Hebrew woman took the foreskin (others say she took the navel-string), and preserved it in an alabaster-box of old oil of spikenard.
- And she had a son who was a druggist, to whom she said, "Take heed thou sell not this alabaster box of spikenard-ointment, although thou shouldst be offered three hundred pence for it."
- Now this is that alabaster-box which Mary the sinner procured, and poured forth the ointment out of it upon the head and feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wiped it off with the hairs of her head.[2]
Foreskin relics began appearing in Europe during the
David Farley recounts how the foreskin was then looted during the Sack of Rome in 1527. The German soldier who stole it was captured in the village of Calcata, 47 km (29 mi) north of Rome, later the same year. Housed in Calcata, it was venerated from that time onwards, with the Church vouching for its authenticity by offering a ten-year indulgence to pilgrims. Pilgrims, nuns and monks flocked to the church, and "Calcata [became] a must-see destination on the pilgrimage map." A local priest reported the foreskin as stolen in 1983.[8]
However, in 1905 Pope Pius X authorized an inventory compiled by Professor Hartmann Grisar, of the University of Innsbruck.[9] Grisar's report corresponds to the earlier Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae. The gold cross was dated to between the sixth and eighth centuries. Grisar's study stated that, like Pope Paschal's enameled silver reliquary cross, the gold jeweled cross was clearly initially designed to hold a relic of the True Cross. This is further supported by the statement in the Descriptio relating it to a procession on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The Vita of Pope Sergius I (687-01) mentions both the Feast of the Exaltation, the jeweled cross, and veneration of the relic contained therein.[10] Grisar attributed the reference to the foreskin and umbilicus as derived from later Medieval traditions. The gold cross was lost in 1945.[5]
Traffic in relics
Mary Dzon says that for many people during the Medieval period, devotion to the Holy Prepuce reflected a focus on the
According to Farley, "Depending on what you read, there were eight, twelve, fourteen, or even 18 different holy foreskins in various European towns during the Middle Ages."
One of the most famous prepuces arrived in Antwerp in
The abbey of Charroux claimed the Holy Foreskin was presented to the monks by Charlemagne. In the early 12th century, it was taken in procession to Rome where it was presented before Pope Innocent III, who was asked to rule on its authenticity. The Pope declined the opportunity. At some point, however, the relic went missing, and remained lost until 1856 when a workman repairing the abbey claimed to have found a reliquary hidden inside a wall, containing the missing foreskin.
According to Farley, the
Modern practices
Most of the Holy Prepuces were lost or destroyed during the
In the Italian village of
Modern literary allusions
According to an unconfirmed 19th-century source,[16][17] in the late 17th century the Vatican librarian Leo Allatius wrote an unpublished[18] treatise entitled De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba (A Discussion of the Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ), claiming that the Holy Prepuce ascended, like Jesus himself, and was transformed into the rings of Saturn.
Voltaire, in A Treatise of Toleration (1763), referred to veneration of the Holy Foreskin as being one of a number of superstitions that were "much more reasonable... than to detest and persecute your brother".[19]
Umberto Eco, in his book Baudolino, has the young Baudolino invent a story about seeing the holy foreskin and navel in Rome to the company of Frederick Barbarossa.
In 2009, Farley's An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town was published.[20]
James Joyce's Ulysses has Stephen Dedalus pondering the Holy Prepuce while he urinates with Leopold Bloom, in the section titled "Ithaca".
In The Gospel According To Jesus Christ, José Saramago writes that anyone "wishing to venerate that foreskin today need only visit the parish church of Calcata near Viterbo in Italy, where it is preserved in a reliquary for the spiritual benefit of the faithful and the amusement of prying atheists."[21]
See also
References
- ^ "Bible Gateway passage: Luke 2:21 – King James Version".
- ^ The Lost Books of the Bible, New York: Bell Publishing Company, 1979.[page needed]
- ^ Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision From Ancient Judea to Modern America, OUP, 2005, p. 96
- ^ ISBN 9780812248845
- ^ ISBN 9788882652173
- ISBN 978-0812206517. Retrieved 22 October 2015.. This quote is copied content from Catherine of Siena; see that page's history for attribution.
- ^ The Letters of Saint Catherine of Siena, Volume II, Suzanne Noffke OP, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tempe Arizona 2001, p. 184. This quote is copied content from Catherine of Siena; see that page's history for attribution.
- ^ a b c d e David Farley (December 19, 2006), "Fore Shame", Slate
- ^ Grisar, Hartmann. Romische Kappelle Sancta Sanctorum und ihr Schatz, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1908, pp. 1–9, 57
- ^ LP 1:374 (R.d Davis, Trans.) The Book of the Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis). The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to 715, Liverpool, 1989, p. 85
- ISBN 9780801429545
- General Roman Calendar as in 1954, the General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII, and the General Roman Calendar of 1960
- ^ Pope John XXIII, Motu proprio Rubricarum instructum
- ^ Variationes in Breviario et Missali Romano ad normam novi Codicis Rubricarum
- ^ "The Quest for the Holy Foreskin".
- ^ Foote, G. W.; Wheeler, J. M. (1887). Crimes of Christianity. London: Progressive Publishing Company. p. 94. Archived from the original on 27 August 2013.
- ISBN 2503514707. Archived from the originalon 2013-11-21.
I [Palazzo] have not been able to locate a copy of De Praeputio to confirm or deny [Foote and Wheeler's] quotation.
- ^ Fabricius, Johann Albert (1728). Bibliotheca Graeca (Vol. 14) (in Latin). Hamburg: Sumptu Christiani Liegbezeit. p. 17.
Adhuc ineditis praefixus Astericus [Unpublished works prefixed with an asterisk].
- ^ Wikisource:Page:Toleration and other essays.djvu/105 page 81 Chapter "Whether it is Useful to Maintain the People in Superstition"
- ISBN 978-1-59240-549-7.
- ISBN 9780002713573.
Further reading
- Jacobs, Andrew (2012). Christ Circumcised: A Study in Early Christian History and Difference. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812206517.
- Müller, Alphons Victor (1907). Die hochheilige Vorhaut Christi im Kult und in der Theologie der Papstkirche. Berlin.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Shell, Marc (1997). Boyarin, Jonathan; Boyarin, Daniel (eds.). "The Holy Foreskin; or, Money, Relics, and Judeo-Christianity". Jews and Other Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
External links
- Relics article from the Catholic Encyclopedia
- Peter Charles Remondino. History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present. Philadelphia and London; F. A. Davis; 1891.
- "Searching for Christianity's Most Sensitive Remnant" in Toronto Star