Category Archives: Days and Seasons

Maccabees and Moses and St. Peter

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Statue of Moses by Michelangelo, in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. The relics of the Maccabees were kept in this same church.

The veneration of the Maccabean martyrs is unique in the Judeo-Christian tradition: they are the only martyrs commemorated by Jews and Christians alike. The seventh chapter of the Second Book of Maccabees (in the Old Testament) tells the story of seven faithful Jewish brothers who maintained their fidelity to the Law of God in the face of persecution during the tyranny of Antiochus IV in the second century B.C. The New Testament book of Hebrews commends these martyrs of Maccabees as exemplars of living faith (Heb 11:35).

These seven Jewish brothers and their mother were arrested and ordered to eat the un-kosher flesh of a pig. The horrific murder of these Maccabean martyrs was so terrible and gruesome that we derived an English word from it—-macabre.

The festival of Hanukkah in December celebrates the revolt led by the Maccabees against the Syrian emperor Antiochus IV. Christians have long commemorated the Maccabees on August 1 and the relics of the 7 Maccabee brothers, with their mother and teacher were long kept in the Church of St. Peter’s Chains (Rome). The relics were sent to Germany to be housed in a church in Cologne (the same city where the relics of the Magi are kept); evidently the Maccabean relics had been kept in Cologne before they had been sent to Rome.

By keeping the Maccabean relics and the statue of Moses in the Church of St. Peter’s Chains, we can see the connection between the Law of Moses and those Maccabean martyrs who died for refusing to abandon that Law. Even more, their memory is joined with the imprisonment and eventual martyrdom of the Apostle Peter. (We know that the festival of Hanukkah was still fairly new in the first century AD but that Jesus celebrated it with the apostles in John 10:22-23.)

You can find a very interesting article (in German!) here about the relics of the Maccabees that includes close-up photos of the golden reliquary which contains their bones. (If you open the page using Chrome, it will offer to translate the page for you–I want to thank my daughter Rebekah for teaching me that trick!)

The reliquary itself is fascinating. It was apparently made in 1500; it is a wooden box in the form of a church, covered with gilded copper plates. The walls of the shrine and top portions are composed of 40 scenes in which the story of the Maccabee brothers and their mother is placed in parallel with the suffering of Christ and His mother Mary. One of the most obvious examples is the contrast of the flagellation of the Maccabee brothers and the flagellation of Jesus. On the front of the shrine is the Coronation of Mary and the Coronation of the Maccabees, while on the back the Ascension of Christ is depicted with the heavenly glorification of the Maccabees.

The shrine for the Maccabees’ relics in St. Andrew’s Church (Cologne, Germany).

Saint Panteleimon and His Liquid Blood

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Relics of St. Panteleimon/Panteleon in a German church (municipality Vogtsburg im Kaiserstuhl, Baden-Württemberg), Niederrotweil,
St Pantaleon Church (built 1735–1741).

Saint Panteleimon (known by Pantaleon during his life, he changed his name shortly before his death, meaning “all-compassionate”), is counted in the West among the late-medieval Fourteen Holy Helpers and in the East as one of the Holy Unmercenary Healers. He was a physician and a martyr who was beheaded during the Great Persecution of AD 305. After the Black Death of the mid-14th century in Western Europe, as a patron saint of physicians and midwives, he came to be regarded as one of the fourteen guardian martyrs, the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

Eastern Christian icons of St. Panteleimon show him holding a small box of medicinal herbs which he can feed a patient with a spoon which he holds in his other hand. This makes him look like an Orthodox priest, about to give Holy Communion with a spoon, which underscores the connection between “health” and “salvation;” both words share a common linguistic root. Jesus’ miracles of healing in the Gospels are taken as paradigms of salvation: to be saved is to be spiritually healed and to be healed is to be saved.

When he was beheaded, his relics–including the spilled blood–were collected and preserved. A phial containing some of his blood was long preserved in the Italian city of Ravello. On the feast day of the saint (July 27), the blood is said to become fluid and to bubble.

He was also a popular saint in Venice, and he therefore gave his name to a character in the commedia dell’arte, Pantalone, a silly, wizened old man (Shakespeare’s “lean and slippered Pantaloon”) who was a caricature of Venetians. This character was portrayed as wearing trousers rather than knee breeches, and so became the origin of the name of a type of trouser called “pantaloons,” which was later shortened to “pants”.

You can read a fascinating article about St. Panteleimon and the liquid blood relic here; be sure to scroll down the page a little to find it. There is another blood relic of St. Panteleimon kept at a monastery in Madrid; you can see a television report about it here. You can also read another blog post about other saints with similar blood relics here.

A contemporary Russian icon of Saint Panteleimon, holding his spoon to administer medicine as a priest holds a spoon to share Holy Communion with the faithful.

Dog Days, Part 2–with St. Roch

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A statue of St Roch made in Normandy in the early 16th century. His pilgrim’s hat is adorned with the keys of St Peter, indicating Rome as his destination. The dog which brought him food is traditionally shown at his side.

Where is St. Roch when we need him?! The summer has been especially sweltering this week in New York. The combination of heat and humidity has made it officially feel like 100+ on several days. Whew!

St. Roch, the patron of dogs, is celebrated on August 16 during the last period of the sultry Dog Days of summer. (Disease–such as plague–was thought to be especially likely to spread during the hot Dog Days so his association with both dogs and illness contributes to his association with the Dog Days of summer.) He lived from AD 1295-1327 and is invoked against the plague as well as being considered the patron saint of dogs, falsely accused people, and bachelors.

When he was 20 years old, Roch’s parents died. He distributed all his worldly goods among the poor (like Francis of Assisi) and set out as a pilgrim for Rome. Coming into Italy during an epidemic of plague, he was very diligent in tending the sick in the public hospitals and is said to have effected many miraculous cures by prayer and the sign of the cross and the touch of his hand. He himself finally fell ill. He withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves, which was miraculously supplied with water by a spring that arose in the place; he would have perished had not a dog supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them.

St. Roch is usually portrayed with the dog licking his plague-wounds. Plague-related images of St. Roch often include the most popular symbols of plague: swords, darts, and arrows. There was also a prevalence of memento mori images, such as dark clouds and comets, which were often referenced by physicians and writers of plague tracts as causes of plague. The physical symptoms of plague–a raised arm, a tilted head, or a collapsed body–began to symbolize plague in post-Black Death painting as well.

Plague saints offered hope and healing before, during, and after times of plague. A specific style of painting, the plague votive, was considered a talisman for warding off plague. It portrayed St. Roch or another saint as an intercessor between God and the person or persons who commissioned the painting–usually a town, government, lay confraternity, or religious order to atone for the “collective guilt” of the community. Rather than a society depressed and resigned to repeated epidemics, these votives represent people taking positive steps to regain control over their environment. Paintings of St. Roch represent the confidence in which renaissance worshipers sought to access supernatural aid in overcoming the ravages of plague.