MIRACLES AND THE HOLY PREPUCE.
What strange fancies have circled themselves about the subject of
generation or its organisms during the different stages of moral
civilization since the world has existed! The efforts in this regard
among different creeds have been something peculiar. Neither Mohammedans
nor Hebrews--both zealous circumcisers--ever went to the lengths reached
by Christian churches and their followers in some particulars concerning
this rite; this being especially strange when it is considered that the
new creed was the one that abolished the rite and through which the Jews
suffered such cruel and unjust persecutions. The early Christian Church
celebrated and continues to celebrate the Feast of Circumcision, and
history relates some strange events in connection with this
circumcision. Having abolished and repudiated the rite, it would seem
inconsistent that it should celebrate its performance on any occasion
and consider such an event sufficiently memorable that its occurrence
should excite the veneration of the church and be the means of exciting
the pious zeal of the faithful. The strangest events in this connection
are still more mysterious and incomprehensible, if not amusing, the only
excuse for the occurrence being the greedy thirst for relics of any and
all kinds that in the middle ages pervaded Europe.
At some remote period--in the thirteenth or fourteenth century--the
abbey church of Coulombs, in the diocese of Chartres, in France, became
possessed in some miraculous manner of the holy prepuce. This holy
relic had the power of rendering all the sterile women in the
neighborhood fruitful,--a virtue, we are told, which filled the
benevolent monks of the abbey with a pardonable amount of pride. It had
the additional virtue of inducing a subsequent easy delivery, which also
added to the reputation and pardonable vanity of the good monks. This
last virtue, however, we are told, came near causing the loss to the
abbey of this inestimable prize, for, as a French writer observes, a too
great reputation is at times an unlucky possession; at any rate, the
royal spouse of good and valiant King Henry V--he of Agincourt, whom
England waded up to its knees in the sea at Dover to meet on his return
from that campaign--had followed the example of all good dames and was
about to give England an heir. Henry then governed a good part of
France. Having heard of the wonderful efficacy of the relic of Coulombs,
he early one morning threw the good monks into consternation by the
arrival at the convent gate of a duly equipped herald and messenger from
his kingship, asking for the loan of the relic with about as much
ceremony as Mrs. Jones would ask for the loan of a flat-iron or saucepan
from her neighbor, Mrs. Smith. The queen, Catherine of France, was of
their own country and Henry was too powerful to be put off or refused;
there was no room for evasion, as the holy prepuce could not be
duplicated; so the poor monks with the greatest reluctance parted with
their precious relic, entrusting it into the hands of the royal envoy,
which wended its way to London, where it in due time, being touched by
the queen, insured a safe delivery. Honest Henry then returned the relic
to France; but so great was its reputation that royalty caused a special
sanctuary to be erected for its reception, and a full period of
twenty-five years occurred before the monks of Coulombs again regained
possession of their prize, during which period the population of the
neighborhood must have suffered from the natural increase of sterility
and the physicians must have reaped a rich harvest owing to the
increased difficulty and complications of labor induced by the absence
of the relic. On its return, the relic was found to have lost none of
its virtues, and the good people and monks were all correspondingly made
happy; in 1870, when the writer was in France, it was still working its
miracles. Balzac found ample facts to found his famous "Droll Stories"
without straining his imagination.
So great an attraction was not to go without attempted rivalry or
imitators; hence we find in the "Dictionary of Moreri," edition of 1715,
in the third volume, at page 108, that several other establishments
claim the honor of a like relic,--namely, the Cathedral of Puy, in
Velay; the collegial church of Antwerp; the Abbey of our Saviour, of
Charroux; and the Church of St. John Lateran, in Rome. All of these have
had very adventurous histories. The Abbey of Charroux was founded by
Charlemagne in 788, and among the relics with which that monarch endowed
the abbey the principal one was a fragment of the holy prepuce. This
abbey enjoyed great reputation, and indulgences were granted by Papal
bull to all those who assisted at the adoration of the relics. In the
internecine wars of the sixteenth century the abbey fell into the hands
of the godless and heretical Huguenots and the holy relic disappeared.
In 1856, while some workmen were at work demolishing an ancient wall on
the abbey site, they discovered some relic cases. The bishop was at once
notified, who immediately proceeded to investigate, when, lo and
behold! there, sure enough, was a piece of desiccated flesh, with marks
of coagulated blood; nothing more or less than the lost prepuce--long
lost, but now found. It was placed in charge of the Ursuline Sisterhood,
where it has remained ever since undisturbed, except by a controversy in
regard to the propriety of the relic, in which the good bishop ambled
about in the most ambiguous manner, the only clearly defined portion of
his dissertation being the one wherein he laments "the decadence of that
truly Christian spirit which animated the laity of the middle ages with
a radiant zeal. A piety also pervaded those gentle Christians of former
times, who were possessed of a religious instruction which determined
for them the tenets of the creed and its practices,--a happy state or
condition of affairs, which prevented the intelligence of the faithful
from wandering into the sloughs of unprofitable skepticism." This
settled the question as to the propriety of the prepuce being converted
into a miracle-working relic; at least, as far as the good bishop was
concerned.
It would be an injustice not to mention the other shrines in detail
after the prominence that has been given to the abbeys of Coulombs and
Charroux; so the history of another will be given. We are not told just
how the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome first became possessed of
_its_ holy prepuce, but it nevertheless had one; also the only authentic
one in existence, like all the others. It disappeared at one of the
periodical sackings that Rome has repeatedly suffered at the hands of
Goth, Vandal, or Christian. This time it was the soldiery of the eldest
son of the church--- Charles V--who did the sacking; it was in the year
1527, a soldier--probably some impious, heathenish mercenary--broke into
the holy sanctuary of the church and stole therefrom the box that
contained the holy relics, among them the holy prepuce. These impious
wretches, as a rule, came to grief in short order; hence we are told
that this mercenary and sacrilegious soldier was compelled to secrete
his box, when only a short distance from Rome, where the box remains and
the mercenary wretch disappears, probably carried off bodily by the
devil, as he deserved. Thirty years afterward the box is discovered by a
priest, who, ignorant of its contents, carries it to the lady on whose
domain it was found. On being opened it was found to contain a piece of
the anatomy of Saint Valentine, the lower jaw of Saint Martha, with one
tooth still in place, and a small package upon which the name of the
Saviour was inscribed. The lady picked up the package, when immediately
the most fragrant odor pervaded the apartment, being exhaled by the
miraculous packet, while the hand that held it was seen perceptibly to
swell and stiffen; investigation proved it to be the holy prepuce stolen
by the miscreant mercenary from St. John Lateran. It is related that in
1559, a canon of the church of St. John Lateran, impelled by a worldly
curiosity untempered by piety, undertook to make a critical examination
of this relic, in the process of which, to better satisfy himself, he
had the indiscretion to break off a small piece; instantly the most
dreadful tempest broke over the place, followed by crashing peals of
thunder and blinding flashes of lightning; then a sudden darkness
covered the country, and the luckless priest and his assistants fell
flat on their sacerdotal noses, feeling that their last hour had
arrived.[26]
Wonderful and miraculous cures are performed at these shrines, and some
of the cures are of a nature that would baffle the intelligence of the
most learned mind to ascertain the intricate and devious way that
nature must at times journey to accomplish some of these changes. The
writer well remembers seeing, in the Church of Corpus Christi, in
Turin,[27] a long hall, covered, from marble pavement to ceiling, with
votive tablets, after the manner inaugurated in the old temples of
Greece. Modern votaries have the advantage of being able to record their
cure, safe venture or escape from peril, by means of faithful
representation of the event in painting or drawing, as the material and
art is more common now than in the days of ancient Greece, who recorded
its cures by simple inscription in laconic terms. Modern medicine labors
under the disadvantage of presuming that the people are endowed with an
intelligence that was unknown to ancient or mediaeval people, when, in
fact, the people are as credulous and as subject to imposition as they
were in the earlier centuries of the present era. With all its supposed
superior intelligence, there is no fatter pasture for quacks and
impostors than that presented by the people of the United States.
Whenever I see the poor, intelligent, broad-minded physician struggling
along, barely able to procure for himself the necessaries required to
maintain himself with proper books and appliances, while the itinerant
quack or dogmatic practitioner rolls in undeserved affluence, I question
the wisdom of our ethical code. Braddock, at the Monongahela, scorned to
have his regulars, who had fought under Marlborough and Eugene, break
ranks before a lot of breech-clouted savages, and take shelter that the
nature of the ground and the trees could afford, thinking it an unfit
action for men who had faced the veterans of Louis XIV on many a
hard-fought European field. I sometimes think that if _our_ regulars
were, for only a season, to follow the example of the provincial
militia at that battle, it would be better for the country, the people,
science, and last, but not the least, for the profession. The theory
that we should not counsel with quacks is altogether mischievous and
fallacious, although right and rigidly orthodox in its intent; were we
to counsel and meet these gentry, we should expose their ignorance and
assumption, and we should not be exposed to the charge of jealousy and
of fear to meet them in consultation. I remember on one occasion a
client went to a lawyer for advice as to how he might dispossess some
parties who had some adverse claim to some property which he owned,
after due deliberation and a protracted siege of the house, in the vain
hope of gaining admittance; the lawyer advised his client to go and nail
up all exits and fasten them in, which had the effect of driving them
out. So with our profession--we should not neglect an opportunity of
meeting a quack in consultation, regardless of the nature of the case;
it is the only way to nail them up; as it is, we have simply chained up
the shepherd-dog and given the wolves full play.
The French Guards at Fontenoy, who out of courtesy refused to fire first
on the English, may have been very ethical and chivalrous, but they were
very foolish, as the English discharge nearly swept them from the field,
and but for the Irish Brigade, who knew no ethics, Louis XV would in all
likelihood have followed the example of King John, who, after Crecy,
visited England for a season. A disregard of ethics gave Copenhagen to
Lord Nelson, who insisted on looking at Admiral Parker's signal to
withdraw from action with his sightless eye, which could not see it. A
fear of disregarding ethics lost to Grouchy the chance of assisting
Napoleon at Waterloo. In our strife against ignorance and quackery the
profession should follow the general plan of action usually adopted by
Lord Nelson--lie alongside of whom you can and sink or capture your
enemy; let each man do his duty; never mind any general plan. A reverse
to this mode of fighting invariably lost the battle to the French and
Spaniards, who were, as a rule, all tied up in ethical red tape. Our
profession is broad, intelligent, and fearless; we do not profess any
exclusive dogma, and should not, therefore, exclude persons; as a large
ship throws its grappling-irons on to its adversary, we should always
seek an opportunity to meet these gentry when practicable. As it is, we
have placed them on the vantage-ground of appearing as being persecuted;
our ethics need circumcising in this regard, and the prepuce of
exclusion should be buried in the sands of the desert.
Moreover, we often are apt to learn something from even the most
ignorant of these men. Rush investigated the nature of a cancer-cure by
not refusing to meet and talk with one of this kind;[28] Fothergill
learned from an old, unlicensed practitioner that there was a knowledge
important to the physician beyond that picked up in the pathological
laboratory or the study of microscopy; and that the practiced eye of an
otherwise unlearned man could detect that there were general physical
signs that negatived the unfavorable prognosis suggested by the presence
of tube-casts.[29] It is related of Sir Isaac Newton, that while riding
homeward one day, the weather being clear and cloudless, in passing a
herder he was warned to ride fast or the shower would wet him. Sir Isaac
looked upon the man as demented, and rode on, not, however, without
being caught in a drenching shower. Not being able to account for the
source of information through which the rustic had gained his
knowledge, he rode back, wet as he was, to learn something. "My cow,"
answered the man, "always twists her tail in a certain way just before a
rain, your Worship, and she so twisted it just before I saw you."[30]
Although twisting cow-tails do not figure in his "Principia," it is very
probable that such a lesson was not without its remote effects on a mind
like Newton's. A spider taught a lesson to one of Scotland's kings; so
that one man may learn something from another.
Professor Letenneur, of the Medical School of Nantes, in his "Causerie a
propos de la Circoncision," mentions that the Convent of Saint
Corneille, in Compiegne, claims to possess the identical instrument with
which the Holy Circumcision was performed. Such a holy relic must have
been unusually potential in performing many miracles.
In this connection it will not be amiss to notice the lapping over that
the old phallic worship and idea has made on the new religions. It is
also as interesting to observe how the human mind still leans toward
observances and ideas which are believed to belong to a solely pagan
people. Hargrave Jennings, in a chapter devoted to phallic worship among
the ancient Gauls, gives many interesting and curious examples, the
first example that he notices being that of Saint Foutin (from whom the
very expressive French word "_foutre_" is taken). Foutin was the first
Christian bishop of Lyons, and after his death, so intimately was
priapic worship intermingled with the religion or theology of the Gauls,
that somehow the memory of St. Foutin and the old, dethroned Priapus
became commingled, and finally the former was unconsciously made to take
the place of the latter. St. Foutin was immensely popular. He was
believed to have a wonderful influence in restoring fertility to barren
women and vigor and virility to impotent men. It is related that, in the
church at Varages, in Provence, to such a degree of reputation had the
shrine of this saint risen, it was customary for the afflicted to make a
wax image of their impotent and flaccid organ, which was deposited on
the shrine. On windy days the beadle and sexton were kept busy in
picking up these imitations of decrepit and penitent male members from
the floor, whither the wind wafted them, much to the annoyance and
disturbance of the female portions of the congregation, whose devotions
are said to have been sadly interfered with. At a church in Embrun there
was a large phallus, which was said to be a relic of St. Foutin. The
worshippers were in the habit of offering wine to this deity,--after the
manner of the early Pagans,--the wine being poured over the head of the
organ and caught underneath in a sacred vessel. This was then called
"holy vinegar," and was believed to be an efficacious remedy in cases of
sterility, impotence, or want of virility.
Near the city of Bourges, at Bourg Dieu, there existed, during the Roman
occupation of Gaul, an old priapic statue, which was worshipped by the
surrounding country. The veneration in which it was held and the
miracles with which it was accredited made it impolitic as well as
impossible for the early missionaries and monks to remove it; it would
have created too much opposition. It was therefore allowed to remain,
but gradually changed into a saint,--St. Guerluchon,--which, however,
did not detract any from its former merit or reputation. Sterile women
flocked to the shrine, and pilgrimages and a set number of days of
devotion to this saint were in order. Scrapings from this statue infused
in water were said to make a miraculous drink which insured conception.
Similar shrines to this same saint were erected at other places, and we
are told that the good monks, who must have had an intense and lively
interest in seeing that the population was increased, were kept busy
supplying the statues with new members, as the women scraped away so
industriously, either to prepare a drink for themselves or for their
husbands, that a phallus did not last long. At one of these shrines, so
onerous became the industry of replacing a new phallus to the saint,
that the good monks placed an apron over the organ, informing the good
women that thereafter a simple contemplation of the sacred organ would
be sufficient; and a special monk was detailed to take special charge of
this apron, which was only to be lifted in special cases of sterility.
By this innovation the good monks stole a march on their brothers in
like shrines in other localities, such as those of St. Gilles, in
Brittany, or St. Rene, in Anjou, where the old-fashioned scraping and
replacing still was in vogue. Near the seaport town of Brest, in
Brittany, at the shrine of St. Guignole, the monks adopted a new
expedient. They bored a hole through the statue, through which a phallus
was made to project horizontally; as fast as the devotees scraped away
in front the good monks as industriously pushed forward the wooden peg
that formed the phallus, so that it gave the member the miraculous
appearance of growing out as fast as scraped off, which greatly added to
its reputation and efficacy. The shrine continued in great vigor until
the middle of the last century. Delaure mentions a similar shrine at
Puy, also in France, which existed up to the outbreak of the French
Revolution. The scrapings in this case were immersed in wine, and the
guardians of the statue saw to it that no amount of paring or scraping
should remove from the saint any of that appearance of vigor or
virility which his great reputation demanded, this being done by a
similar procedure as followed at the church near Brest, one of the
attendants having been sent to investigate into the marvelous growth of
the Brest phallus.