relics

88:2.1It was a sup­posed pref­er­ence of ghosts to in­dwell some ob­ject which had be­longed to them when alive in the flesh. This be­lief ex­plains the ef­fi­cacy of many mod­ern relics. The an­cients al­ways revered the bones of their lead­ers, and the skele­tal re­mains of saints and heroes are still re­garded with su­per­sti­tious awe by many. Even to­day, pil­grim­ages are made to the tombs of great men.

88:2.2Be­lief in relics is an out­growth of the an­cient fe­tish cult. The relics of mod­ern re­li­gions rep­re­sent an at­tempt to ra­tio­nal­ize the fe­tish of the sav­age and thus el­e­vate it to a place of dig­nity and re­spectabil­ity in the mod­ern re­li­gious sys­tems. It is hea­then­ish to be­lieve in fe­tishes and magic but sup­pos­edly all right to ac­cept relics and mir­a­cles.

150:3.64. Charms and relics are im­po­tent to heal dis­ease, ward off dis­as­ter, or in­flu­ence evil spir­its; the be­lief in all such ma­te­rial means of in­flu­enc­ing the spir­i­tual world is noth­ing but gross su­per­sti­tion.

190:1.2When the apos­tles re­fused to be­lieve the re­port of the five women who rep­re­sented that they had seen Je­sus and talked with him, Mary Mag­da­lene re­turned to the tomb, and the oth­ers went back to Joseph’s house, where they re­lated their ex­pe­ri­ences to his daugh­ter and the other women. And the women be­lieved their re­port. Shortly af­ter six o’clock the daugh­ter of Joseph of Ari­mathea and the four women who had seen Je­sus went over to the home of Nicode­mus, where they re­lated all these hap­pen­ings to Joseph, Nicode­mus, David Zeb­e­dee, and the other men there as­sem­bled. Nicode­mus and the oth­ers doubted their story, doubted that Je­sus had risen from the dead; they con­jec­tured that the Jews had re­moved the body. Joseph and David were dis­posed to be­lieve the re­port, so much so that they hur­ried out to in­spect the tomb, and they found ev­ery­thing just as the women had de­scribed. And they were the last to so view the sepul­chre, for the high priest sent the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards to the tomb at half past seven o’clock to re­move the grave cloths. The cap­tain wrapped them all up in the linen sheet and threw them over a near-by cliff.

187:2.9It was well that the Ro­man sol­diers took pos­ses­sion of the Mas­ter’s cloth­ing. Oth­er­wise, if his fol­low­ers had gained pos­ses­sion of these gar­ments, they would have been tempted to re­sort to su­per­sti­tious relic wor­ship. The Mas­ter de­sired that his fol­low­ers should have noth­ing ma­te­rial to as­so­ciate with his life on earth. He wanted to leave man­kind only the mem­ory of a hu­man life ded­i­cated to the high spir­i­tual ideal of be­ing con­se­crated to do­ing the Fa­ther’s will.