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Antiquity’s Great Inventions

Today is the feast day of the Invention of the Relics of St. Stephen. Now, “invention” here does NOT mean “fabrication,” but rather “discovery.”

The Church is one place on earth that pays profound respect to the work of archeologists. We even have feast days in honor of their greatest digs, as in the feast of the “Invention of the Cross.” In the preface to his great novel Helena, Evelyn Waugh tells of a British aristocrat who vents her hostility to Christianity by saying “I got the real lowdown at last. The whole story was made up by a British woman named Ellen. Why, the guide showed me the very place where it happened. Even the priests admit it. They call their chapel the ‘Invention of the Cross.'” (If you haven’t read Helena, do yourself a favor and start it today.)

Well, the Invention of the Relics of St. Stephen (the martyr of Acts 6-7 in the New Testament) might seem like a relatively minor discovery, but in its day (415 A.D.) it was instant news, worldwide. Augustine reported it breathlessly and stayed on the story as the relics were distributed throughout the empire.

The body was exhumed in a field outside the village of Caphargamala, near Jerusalem. A priest named Lucianus was an eyewitness at the discovery and sent off a letter detailing the moment of the find: “At that instant the earth trembled and a smell of sweet perfume came from the place such as no man had ever known of, so much that we thought that we were standing in the sweet garden of Paradise. And a that very hour, from the smell of that perfume, seventy-three persons were healed.” Immediately came a downpour, which ended a long drought in the region.

St. Augustine was thrilled that the body had been found after more than three and a half centuries. “His body lay hidden for so long a time. It came forth when God wished it. It has brought light to all lands, it has performed such miracles.” (You can find the Latin text of Augustine’s sermon on Stephen, Sermon no. 319, right here.)

Some of the relics came to rest quite near Augustine, in the town of Uzalis, outside Carthage. Many miracles followed. Here’s our preacher again, this time from his City of God, book 22.8:

When the bishop Projectus was bringing the relics of the most glorious martyr Stephen to the waters of Tibilis, a great concourse of people came to meet him at the shrine. There a blind woman entreated that she might be led to the bishop who was carrying the relics. He gave her the flowers he was carrying. She took them, applied them to her eyes, and forthwith saw. Those who were present were astounded, while she, with every expression of joy, preceded them, pursuing her way without further need of a guide.

Lucillus bishop of Sinita, in the neighborhood of the colonial town of Hippo, was carrying in procession some relics of the same martyr, which had been deposited in the castle of Sinita. A fistula under which he had long labored, and which his private physician was watching an opportunity to cut, was suddenly cured by the mere carrying of that sacred fardel,21 -at least, afterwards there was no trace of it in his body.

Eucharius, a Spanish priest, residing at Calama, was for a long time a sufferer from stone. By the relics of the same martyr, which the bishop Possidius brought him, he was cured. Afterwards the same priest, sinking under another disease, was lying dead, and already they were binding his hands. By the succor of the same martyr he was raised to life, the priest’s cloak having been brought from the oratory and laid upon the corpse.

There was there an old nobleman named Martial, who had a great aversion to the Christian religion, but whose daughter was a Christian, while her husband had been baptized that same year. When he was ill, they besought him with tears and prayers to become a Christian, but he positively refused, and dismissed them from his presence in a storm of indignation. It occurred to the son-in-law to go to the oratory of St. Stephen, and there pray for him with all earnestness that God might give him a right mind, so that he should not delay believing in Christ. This he did with great groaning and tears, and the burning fervor of sincere piety; then, as he left the place, he took some of the flowers that were lying there, and, as it was already night, laid them by his father’s head, who so slept. And lo! before dawn, he cries out for some one to run for the bishop; but he happened at that time to be with me at Hippo. So when he had heard that he was from home, he asked the presbyters to come. They came. To the joy and amazement of all, he declared that he believed, and he was baptized. As long as he remained in life, these words were ever on his lips: “Christ, receive my spirit,” though he was not aware that these were the last words of the most blessed Stephen when he was stoned by the Jews. They were his last words also, for not long after he himself also gave up the ghost.

There, too, by the same martyr, two men, one a citizen, the other a stranger, were cured of gout; but while the citizen was absolutely cured, the stranger was only informed what he should apply when the pain returned; and when he followed this advice, the pain was at once relieved.

Audurus is the name of an estate, where there is a church that contains a memorial shrine of the martyr Stephen. It happened that, as a little boy was playing in the court, the oxen drawing a wagon went out of the track and crushed him with the wheel, so that immediately he seemed at his last gasp. His mother snatched him up, and laid him at the shrine, and not only did he revive, but also appeared uninjured.

Augustine’s telling, while marvelous, is still on the sober side. You’ll find the tradition at its most fanciful in the late-medieval Golden Legend.

2 thoughts on “Antiquity’s Great Inventions

  1. Wow, this is the first time I’ve heard of St stephens relics being found. You neglected to mention where the relics can be found now

  2. I think they’re dispersed. So you might find them in the altar of a nearby parish. Anybody out there ever venerate one of St. Stephen’s relics?

    If ever you’re in Pittsburgh, make sure to visit St. Anthony Chapel in the Troy Hill neighborhood. It’s supposed to house the largest relic collection outside Rome. I would be surprised to find out they’re missing Stephen.

    Good to hear from you again, my good Bulb. Thanks for drawing such kind comments from my friend Kevin Edgecomb. You surf wisely.

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