The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome

by Charles Michael Baggs

Principal relics.

In the afternoon at Tenebrae, the office, being that of Holy Saturday anticipated as usual, refers to the repose of the body of our blessed Lord in the tomb. When it is finished, the Pope wearing his stole, and the Cardinals having taken off their cappe, go to S. Peter's in procession, accompanied by the Papal Anticamera segreta, the guards and others, to venerate the relics of the Cross, the Lance, and the Volto Santo, which are shewn by the Canons from the gallery above the statue of S. Veronica [¹⁰⁵]. The Pope meantime, and the Cardinals and others arranged on each side of Him, remain kneeling. The Pontifical cross is borne as usual before the Pope, when going to S. Peter's by an Uditore di Rota, and when returning to His apartments by His cross-bearer who is one of His chaplains.

Grounds of belief in relics.

Catholics are bound to believe with divine faith only those doctrines, which the church defines to be doctrines taught by God; and hence with regard to particular images or relics or miracles, concerning which Christ has taught nothing, they believe them to be genuine or reject them, according to the evidence which accompanies them. We shall therefore briefly examine what evidence there is in favour of the relics in question.

1. Relic of the cross.

1. The relic of the cross was placed here in 1629 by Urban VIII; but it was formed of some pieces taken from the churches of S. Anastasia and S. Croce in Gerusalemme. The Jews were accustomed to bury the instruments of punishment in or near the place where the persons executed were buried; but on this subject I must content myself with referring to Baronius, Calmet, Menochius, Gretser etc. who cite the Rabbins in proof of this assertion. Now according to the ancient historians, Eusebius, Sozomen and Socrates: the Emperor Adrian erected a temple of Venus over the tomb of the God of purity, after he had covered it with a great quantity of rubbish. Helen the saintly mother of the emperor Costantine, after many searches (according to Eusebius in his life of that emperor) at length discovered the sacred tomb, in which was found, according to Sozomen, the inscription placed over the cross by Pilate, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews"[¹⁰⁶]. Near the tomb in another part of the cave were found three crosses: but here a difficulty arose on which of these three was our Saviour crucified? At the suggestion of Macarius Bp. of Jerusalem, a woman at the point of death, as Ruffinus, Socrates, Theodoret, Sozomen and Nicephorus relate; or a dead man, according to Paulinus and Severus Sulpicius, was brought to the spot, and restored to health or to life, when placed on one of the three crosses. If we consider, that it is related in the 2nd book of Kings c, XIII, that when some persons "were burying a man, they cast the body into the sepulchre of Eliseus. And when it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man came to life and stood up on his feet," we may not be unwilling to admit the possibility or probability, that such a miracle may have occurred at the sepulchre of the God of Eliseus. Besides the authors whom I have mentioned, this history is attested by S. Ambrose, S. Chrysostom, and S. Cyril of Jerusalem. This great bishop and Eusebius lived at the time when the event is said to have happened: the other writers lived not long after, and Ruffinus and Theodoret passed part of their lives in Syria. The same historians mention, that S. Helen divided the Cross into three parts, one she left in Jerusalem, another she sent to Costantine, according to the author of the life of Pope Sylvester published by Pope Damasus towards the close of the 6th cent.; and the third she reserved for herself, to Rome. She placed the last mentioned piece in the Sessorian Basilica, called also the Basilica of Helen, because erected by her, in the Horti Variani: hence is derived its title of S. Croce in Gerusalemme. On this subject additional information may be found in the work of the late Padre De Corrieris, De Sessorianis praecipius D.N.J.C. reliquiis, in Trombelli De cultu SSrum and Ben. XIV. De festis. From Santa Croce a piece of the cross was taken to S. Peter's, and is one of the relics shewn on good friday. Even in the fourth century S. Cyril of Jerusalem testifies, that particles of the true cross had been sent to every Christian country.

2. of the lance.

2. The lance also with which our divine Saviour's side was pierced, was found by S. Helen, as the Bollandists shew: and it was preserved in Jerusalem, as S. Gregory of Tours and our venerable Bede observe: but towards the end of the 6th cent., the iron part of it was transfered to Costantinople; of this the point was placed in the imperial palace; the other part in the church of S. Sophia, and afterwards in that of S. John. William of Tyre and Anna Comnena mention it as existing there in the 11th and 12th centuries. Towards the close of the 13th century the point of the lance with other relics passed into the possession of S. Louis of France: the other part of the lance still remained at S. John's in Constantinople, as Buondelmount, who saw it, bears witness. When Mahomet subdued Costantinople, he preserved all the relics, as Theodore cited by Benedict XIV relates in his history of the Turks, and his son Bajazet sent an ambassador with the relics of the lance to Pope Innocent VIII, in order to induce his Holiness not to protect Zizimus, who disputed with him the succession to the Turkish throne. The Pope received it with great reverence, and placed it in the Vatican. As some suspicion was entertained about the veracity of the Turkish ambassador, Benedict XIV, as he mentions in his very learned work on the Canonisation of the Saints, from which I have extracted this account, sent for an exact cast of the point preserved at Paris, which perfectly corresponded with the piece preserved in the Vatican; and thus were confirmed the assertion of the Turk[¹⁰⁷].

3. Volto Santo.

3. As for the Volto Santo, or image of our Saviour it was placed in an Oratory of the Vatican Basilica by John VII as long ago as 707, as may be seen in Marlinetti, Dei pregii della Basilica Vat. Who S. Veronica or Berenice was, who is said to have wiped our Saviour's face with the handkerchief is another question, as Benedict XIV observes, to whom and to Marlinetti I shall content myself with referring. It appears that this ancient likeness of our Saviour was afterwards kept at S. Spirito: six Roman noblemen had the care of it; and to each of them was confided on of the six keys, with which it was locked up. They enjoyed various privileges, and among others, says an ancient MS. Chronicle quoted by Cancellieri, "havevano questi sei ogni anno, da Santo Spirito, due vacche in die S. Spiritus le quali se magnavano li con gran festa". In 1410 the Volto Santo was carried back to S. Peter's, where it has ever since remained[¹⁰⁸].