THE HOLY COAT AT TREVES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 50, 18 September 1891, Page 19

THE HOLY COAT AT TREVES.

(Liverpool Catholic Times,}

As the time of exposition of the sacred relic for the veneration of the faithful draws near (it begins with the end of August and is to last for Bix weeka) this rare, unusnal event attracts more attention. Already the London Press brings such scraps of information as that the railway company has built three extra stations to meet the requirements^ the occasion, that additional tramways have been laid in the town, etc. Daring the last exposition, nearly fifty years ago, over one million of pilgrims, amongst them eleven bishops, passed in procession through the cathedral, before the altar of exposition. With our increased travelling facilities many more may be expected on the present occasion, and we are Bure to hear a good deal of the solemnities before long, much, presumably, that will be written by no friendly pen, some by people " whom to please," as a writer remarks, " we would hare to give up, not only the Holy Ccat but our Saviour and His teachings as well." We give the following information, extracted from '• The Holy Coat at Treves." •' Ber Heilige Rock nu Trier" an exhaustive work, written at the command of the Bishop of Treves by bis secretary, Dr Willems, than whom there could be no better authority. It deals fully with the state of preservation of the relic, with documents old and new (there is quite a literature on the subject), and gives also the report of the committee which was named bn the Bishop last summer to examine the relic, and which consisted of several learned ecclesiastics, the Burgomaster of Troves, an architect, and other laymen. They declare in their lengthy report that " the examination has resulted in nothing which is in contradiction with the ancient traditions of the Church of Treves."

The relic consists in its entirety of different layers of cloth. 1 . The one uppermost a silken material of damask kind with a pattern in it, golden and purple streaks and large squares, containing, •till faintly discemable, two birds facing each other. 2. The relic proper, in shape of a shirt-like garment with short, loose sleeves. Last year's committee report describes the relic proper as patches, " pieces of a cloth material, hanging together, spread out between the upper and lower lay j these have without doubt formed originally the whole garment." 3. A kind of gauze (ciGpe de chine) covering the back part of the relic. There are also jointed pieces of silken material, without any pattern, put inside between the front and back of the relic proper. In this threefold state the relic has been from time immemorial, the materials No 1 and 3 having evidently been intended as a protection. So it was found in 1844, in the previous exposition of 1810, and in 1512, when an exposition took place and the chest containing the relic was opened after a lapse of centuries. With regard to the material of the relic proper the experts of last year's committee say : "Itis a texture of brownish dye, without pattern, to all appearance of linen or cotton wool." This, they say, after a careful examination by touch and by the microßCope, showed a characteristic difference of the structure from the lower and upper protective materials ; the former, being without any pattern, it is impossible to form an opinion as to the time of its manufacture. It is different with the rich upper part ; it is proved that no such stuff was manufactured in Europe and that it must have been made in the Bast before the ninth century, perhaps as early as the sixth or fifth. It follows from this as an important fact that the material of the relic is certainly of still greater antiquity.

Professor Weiss, in a work on costumes in Our Lord's Lifetime. (Kottumhunde'), says : " The dress of a Hebrew of the better class, probably cousisted, at the time of the Babylonian captivity, in addition to a shirtlike undergarment, of one or two uppergarments, with an appropriate belt, according to the weather. (Here it is well to remember that the Passion took place in the inclement season of the year.) Secondly, an overall, sometimes closely fitting, sometimes wide and loose. The form and fashion of the upper garment has been maintained to the present time ; it was always like a shirt, with sometimes short, sometimes long sleeves — rich people had it made long, so as to reach the ankles." In addition to these garments there would be a caplike covering for the head, and lace sandals for the feet. We may take it that Our Lord during His public life, and as Rabbi, wore tbe dress of a Jew of the better class, and that his garments, though not showy, were of good quality. He would wear the three above named kinds of garments. There is a consensus of opinioniabout this amongst the commentators of Holy Scripture. Now, when St John speaks of " the coat without a seam, woven from the top throughout " (xix, 23), only the uppergarment {tunica) can be meant ; the Greek word here used is never applied to the undergarment. Such seamless garments have been discovered even recently in Egyptian tombs, in a perfect itata of preaervation, sometimes in coarse material, sometimes of linen

showing that in ancient times the knowledge of making seamless garments was not uncommon. There is, therefore, nothing surprising in the statement of a writer of the 11th century (Buthymias) " that according to ancient tradition the Blessed Virgin had herself woven the unsewn tunica of our Lord. The Old Testament gives proof that such an accomplishment was common enough, and an apocryphal writing of the second century praises the skill of the Blessed Virgin in the use of the spindle. The holy coat of Treveß corresponds in measure perfectly to the description of a tunica of a Jaw of the better class, both in make and material. Last year's commission says : "No direct conclusion has been reached on account of the defective state of preservation, as to whether there were any seams originally ; at the same time nothing whatever has been found indicative of seams." Everything tends to show that the idea of the holy coat being not a manufacture of our Lord's time, but of later centuries must be dismissed. No such garments were made or worn in Ganl or Franconia at the time when it is first heard of in Treves. It is not only a venerable relic, but there is every indication of its being, what the tradition of the Church of Treves has always taken it to be, the unsewn tunica worn by our Lord in fchedayß of Hie Life and Passion I It is obvious that no documentary evidence can be furnished as to how the soldier gave away, sold or exchanged the tunic after our Lord's death ; how it changed hands and finally came into the possession of the Empress Helena and was sent by her to Treves This relic shares with others the fate that it has no contemporary* but only later and rare-written testimony. To conclnde from this that it had no earlier existence would be wrong ; few fact B of ancient history could stand if they were only to be tested by contemporary written evidence. Our oldest Biblical manuscripts date from the fourth century ; yet no one will therefore maintain that the Gospels had no earlier existence. Where is the proprietor of an old estate who could show the title deeds by which his family first came into possession ? The best title in such a case is the fact of an uninterrupted possession from time immemorial. It is also important to remember, that in the earlier centuries of Christianity, through a holy respect, it was not customary to open reliquaries or to show their contents. "To do so," says St Gregory the Gieat, « would be considered unbecoming, nay, a sacrilege." The consequence is that they were not much talked or written about, often forgotten, which is no wonder, considering those turbulent times, and the constant changes they brought about. A change for the better began with the ninth century j from that time the historian has easier work. Treves was, in the third and fourth centuries, the second city of the Roman Empire, the most important town on this side of the AlpsIt had in those days, as well as later on, great Bishops, who took an important part in making the history of their times. It had at one time four great Benedictine abbeys, everywhere the seats of learning Yet so little is leff from them or their work regarding the history of the city, owing to its having been sacked and pillaged so often by the rude hordes from the North, that we must look elsewhere for written documents. Even so late as 882 the Normans set the town on fire after four days' pillage, destroying the very remnants of its former glory. In the year 1196 part of the Cathedral was rebuilt, and the annals of the city {Gesta Trevirorum) report with short simplicity : « On the day of consecration of the Cathedral church being the Feast of the Apostles SS. Philip and James, the Archbishop consecrated with great solemnity tha high altar, accompanied by pious men, and deposited therein with great veneration the tunica of Our Lord." Thi B very shortness goes to show that the presence of the tunica was a well-known fact. More, much more, would naturally have been said if it had been otherwise— indeed, there ia an earlier mention of it in the same annals, as early as the year 1100 eauallv short. It is evidently treated as a well-known fact. q 7

A document going by the name of the Diploma of Pope Sylvester is discussed by all writers on the relic. In it Pope Sylvester (314-355) confers on the Archbishop of Treves ecclesiastical pre-eminence over the Gauls and Germans, •' in honour of this city being the home of the Empress Helera, who enriched its chnrch by precious relics, amongst them the tunica of our Lord." Now no original of such a document is known to exist, but it is mentioned in the above-named Gesta Trevirorum about the year 1100, and what there is given as a verbatim copy of the diploma, is now taken by the best authorities as being written by Bishop Valasian, who occupied the See of Troves in the fifth century, and as giving the original not word for word, but only in substance. This being so, it would be a valuable proof that in the fifth century it was a eeneral tradition that the tunica was at Treves. seuerai

The life of St Agritius, written in the 11th century, glorifies him as being the person wbo was " commissioned by Pope Sylvester and St Sylvester and St Helena to take the holy relics, amongst them the tunica of Our Lord to Treves," and the biographer goes on to say :-« The church consecrated by him (Agritius) in the city of Troves to the Prince of Apostles, is proud of having the relics in her treasury." Further, he speaks of an event whicb we know by most trustworthy tradition— viz., how on a certain day the treasury box, of which this church of St Peter is the keeper, was opened and what then happened. We have, therefore, in this " life " a proof, of

bow firmly the people in the writer's time believed in the presence of the tunica in the church, and had this as a tradition from their ancestors.