Scientific investigations of believed remains of two apostles

https://www.eurekalert.org ^ | 1-FEB-2021 | UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN DENMARK

[Red Badger]

In Rome lies the Santi Apostoli church, cared for by Franciscan brothers for more than 500 years. For more than 1500 years, this site has held the believed remains of two of the earliest Christians and Jesu apostles: St. Philip and St. James the Younger - relics of the Holy Catholic Church.

In the first few centuries of Christianity, life was difficult for the Christian minority, but gradually towards sixth century Christianity became the dominant religion and after Emperor Constantine on his deathbed declared Christianity the state religion, churches were erected all over the Roman Empire.

Shortly after the churches were erected, remains of worshipped Christian martyrs were moved from their graves to designated worship churches in the towns. This also applied for the remains of the two apostles, St. Philip and St. James. Such movements of remains were called translations.

A foot, a femur and a tibia

It is unknown who translated the believed remains of St. Philip and St. James and where from, but it is a fact, that they came to glorify the current church of Santi Apostoli in Rome, constructed in their honor. It is also a fact that the remains have been kept in the church since the sixth century.

So, are the relics really the remains of St. James and St. Philip? And what else can we learn from the bones?

The skeletons are today far from complete. Only fragments of a tibia, a femur and a mummified foot remain. The tibia and foot are attributed to St. Philip, the femur to St. James. It appears likely that this has been the case since the sixth century.

Radiocarbon dating

Professor of chemistry and archaeometry, Kaare Lund Rasmussen from University of Southern Denmark has led the scientific investigations of these remains supported by a team consisting of colleagues from University of Groningen in Holland, University of Pisa in Italy, Cranfield Forensic Institute in England, Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology in Italy and the National Museum of Denmark.

The results are published in the scientific journal Heritage Science.

The researchers considered the remains of St. Philip too difficult to de-contaminate and radiocarbon date, and their age thus remains unknown so far. But the femur, believed to belong to St. James, underwent several analyses. Most importantly, it was radiocarbon dated to AD 214-340.

Thus, the preserved relic, the femur, is not that of St. James. It originates from an individual some 160-240 years younger than St. James, explains Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen, University of Southern Denmark, adding:

- Though the relic is not that of St James, it casts a rare flicker of light on a very early and largely unaccounted for time in the history of early Christianity.

Who that person was, is of course impossible to say.

Searching for martyr corpses

- We consider it very likely, that whoever moved this femur to the Santi Apostoli church, believed it belonged to St. James. They must have taken it from a Christian grave, so it belonged to one of the early Christians, apostle or not, comments Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen.

The same goes for the believed remains of St. Philip, he adds.

- One can imagine that when the early church authorities were searching for the corpse of the apostle, who had lived hundreds of years earlier, they would look in ancient Christian burial grounds where bodies of holy men might have been put to rest at some earlier time, the researchers write in Heritage Science.

Moving bones - a popular tradition:

The first known movement of a martyr's remains to a church is that of St Babylas in AD 354. His remains were transferred from a cemetery in Antioch to Daphne and placed in a church especially built for the purpose by Governor Caesar Gallus Immediately after this, translations got popular: the translations of St Timotheus, St Andrew, and St Lukas to Constantinople followed in a year's time At the same time, sources reflect an increasing popularity and circulation of relics from the second part of the 4th century onwards Despite the criticism of bishop Athanasius of Alexandria († 373) and Shenoute († 465) at the end of the same century and in the following, relics of martyrs and saints began to be moved into the churches Throughout the Roman empire, bodies or body parts were exhumated, transferred, and reburied in the apse in close vicinity of the altar of many important churches. ###

Read the research paper 'Investigations of the relics and altar materials relating to the apostles St James and St Philip at the Basilica dei Santi XII Apostoli in Rome' Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

[Red Badger]

IMAGE: A PIECE OF THE FEMUR, BELIEVED TO BE OF ST JAMES THE YOUNGER, MOUNTED ON A WOODEN PEG AND WITH A GILDED RING

CREDIT: KAARE LUND RASMUSSEN/SDU

[Red Badger]

PinGGG!..................

[cuban leaf]

They can throw that in with that shroud thingee. Not to mention those pieces of toast with Jerry Garcia’s image on them. :)

[Beowulf9]

“Thus, the preserved relic, the femur, is not that of St. James. It originates from an individual some 160-240 years younger than St. James, explains Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen, University of Southern Denmark, adding:

- Though the relic is not that of St James, it casts a rare flicker of light on a very early and largely unaccounted for time in the history of early Christianity”.

[fidelis]

” In the first few centuries of Christianity, life was difficult for the Christian minority, but gradually towards sixth century Christianity became the dominant religion and after Emperor Constantine on his deathbed declared Christianity the state religion, churches were erected all over the Roman Empire.”

This fiction just keeps getting perpetuated. The facts are that Constantine converted after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in AD 312, but was not baptized until he was on his deathbed.

Also, Constantine issued the Edict of Tolerance that made the free practice of all religions legal (including Christianity), but he did not make Christianity the state religion. That was for a later emperor to do.

[Red Badger]

Maybe it was not THE St. James, but another: Really, Nice Guy James...........

[Red Badger]

I’ve never understood the veneration of relics, bones and preserved body parts....... gruesome and kinda disrespectful, IMHO.............

[knarf]

God understands it;

Exodus 20

And God spake all these words, saying,

2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

[PrairieLady2]

The “Saints” were thought to continue to have thr power of God in them, even in death. Therefore, a Church containing a “holy” relic would have the power of God himself. The saints were thought to be one step closer to God than the ordinary person, so by their relics, those who came in contact with that alter, were extra blessed or empowered by that saint.

[Red Badger]

If one believes in such things..........

[Bob434]

The power of God must have diminished a whole lot then, because we are not seeing anyone capable of raising g the dead, healing amputees, being transfigurated, walking on Water, etc these days. At best all we see today are people possibly being hea.ed in response to prayer in ways that are perfectly imljne with natural possibilities. Nothing super attractive,, ike should happen IF the power of God truly resided in churches in the same fashion that His power resided in the apostles.

[sphinx]

The best known set of remains, of course, are St. Peter's, which were rediscovered in situ in an ancient Roman necropolis. This was located along the Via Cornelia, which led out of Rome and at the time ran next to the Circus of Nero, where Peter was martyred. (St. Peter's Basilica shares a portion of the Circus' foundation wall.) The necropolis was in turn buried to create a the building platform when Constantine started construction on the first St. Peter's Basilica in 319. That's as close to an undisturbed time capsule as one can get on ancient remains, this side of Pompeii. Or a shipwreck. Attribution to a specific individual can't be done with absolute certainty, but the archaeology is pretty solid. The original grave was already a small shrine by the second century, with a small Roman style mortuary monument erected over the original hole in the ground. This is all directly under the high alter in the current St. Peter's and was buried and left undisturbed for over 1,600 years.

If you get a chance to visit Rome and St. Peter's and the Vatican Museums are on your list, be sure to sign up early for the necropolis tour. This is NOT part of the regular St. Peter's tour. It is an inherently limited access space and, in addition to being a tight space physically, the surviving frescos on the surviving Roman tombs are quite fragile. Only a couple of hundred people a day are allowed through. There's no trick to signing up; you just need to make your reservation early because the necropolis tours fill up fast.

[fruser1]

They should run the DNA through a criminal database just to see what comes up.

[IrishBrigade]

‘...for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me...’

nothing like holding a grudge over generations...

[knarf]

Is THAT what you came away with ?

[Scrambler Bob]

I’ve never understood the veneration of relics, bones and preserved body parts....... gruesome and kinda disrespectful, IMHO.............
= = =

Rignt.

But let’s look at fossils and dinosaur footprints, etc. that represent ‘real science’.

With that in mind.

I would not be surprised that some body parts of Apostles would have survived to this day.

Not to be worshiped, but as evidence.

[Red Badger]

They probably do, but they are just bones.................

[Scrambler Bob]

Shroud

Let’s run some DNA.

Get the ancestry.

Just what would Jesus’s DNA show?

Might blow 23andme into oblivion.

[Scrambler Bob]

They probably do, but they are just bones.................
= = =

Is there any DNA?

Process it and let 23andme announce results.

Not that I want any proof, but let’s throw a monkey wrench into the gears.

[Darteaus94025]

The Shroud of Turin continues to survive all attempts to debunk it as anything other than authentic.

“Needs additional testing” means I can’t disprove its authenticity.