Chemnitz on Relics

Now also after that miracle took place, we do not read that the bones of Elisha were taken out of the tomb, elevated to a high place, carried about; they were not set forth to be kissed, touched, viewed; they were not honored with candles, not adorned with silk, not adored with invocation for the purpose of obtaining help, not set forth for a special cult. Neither was a pilgrimage instituted to these bones for the purpose of there seeking the grace and power of God; indulgences were not promised; these relics were not laid on the sick and on the dead; people did not swear by them; faith and hope were not placed in them, etc. We read absolutely no such thing in Scripture about the relics of Elisha, also after that outstanding and amazing miracle through his bones had taken place. (EXAMEN IV:27)

However, according to Scripture the sacred relics of the godly are rightly honored when we think about them as we have shown with statements of Scripture, and in this opinion reverently take care of their funeral, piously take them to burial, and commend them to the earth, the great mother, according to the statement of God: “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” And there in the hope of resurrection and glorification we reverently let them rest (Is. 57:2) and sleep in the dust (Dan. 12:2), until those who are in the graves hear the voice of the Son of God, by which they are raised to life (John 5:25). In this way we commend the relics of the saints to God Himself (Ps. 34:20), in order that they may be, as a certain oration of Tatian to the Greeks elegantly says, deposited in the storehouse, locked chamber, or bedroom of a very rich Lord. And Cyril, Contra Julianum, Bk. 10, describes the true honor of relics in the church as follows: “Anyone,” says he, “may see the relics of the dead with us, not naked, and negligently cast forth into the earth, but well arranged. For they are somehow concealed in the bosom of their mother, in the depths of the earth, as also Prudentius elegantly sings: Now receive him, O earth, to cherish him; Receive him into your tender bosom; I give up a person’s members to you for safekeeping, And consign the noble fragments to you.” (EXAMEN IV:30)