Fifth, when relics, the Gospel of St. John, or some verses of the Psalms are carried, not merely from devotion, but with vain circumstances attached; for example, that they be written in this way or that way; that the relics be in a triangular or round vessel, with power attributed to the form or to the material; that the writing be on virgin parchment; that it be written at sunrise; that it be fastened on by an uncorrupted person; that it be bound with so many threads or with threads of such a kind.
Likewise it is necessary that no figure be present except the sign of the cross; no image except that of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, some known saint, or a customary good angel; likewise that no barbarous and unknown names of God or of angels be added; finally that nothing vain or false be present. For God is never the author of falsehood or vanity.
[margin: St. Thomas, Secunda Secundae, question 96, article 4; Navarrus, Manual, chapter 11, number 35; canonists on the text “It is not lawful,” cause 26, question 5; St. Thomas again; St. Antoninus; Martin of Arles, treatise on superstition; Viguerius; Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book 2, chapter 20, repeated in Gratian, cause 26, question 2]
Perhaps someone will object that only the sign of the cross is permitted by canon law. I answer that the canon treats of characters, among which it numbers the cross; it does not treat of images. Since these are piously kept in churches, why could they not also be carried together with the others?
Concerning superstitious ligatures, St. Augustine writes in this way: “To this kind belong all ligatures and remedies which the discipline of physicians also condemns, whether in incantations, or in certain marks which they call characters, or in certain things to be hung and bound, or even danced in some fashion, not for preserving bodies but for certain hidden or even manifest significations. By a milder name they call these physical, so that they may seem to help by nature and not to entangle one in superstition, such as earrings at the top of each ear, or rings made from ostrich bones on the fingers, or when it is said to a person with hiccups that he should hold his left thumb with his right hand.”
St. Augustine therefore judged that vain observance is present in these things. I think this is because these were noted for observation of the future. For it can happen that the last two have some physical power for preserving health, and then they would be foreign to superstition. The same Augustine afterward adds something most worthy of observation: not everything which, when taken internally, helps naturally, also helps when hung on the body; and therefore greater caution must be applied in these things that are hung on the body, because in them greater danger is involved.
He says: “It is one thing to say, ‘If you drink this crushed herb, your belly will not hurt,’ and another thing to say, ‘If you hang this herb on your neck, your belly will not hurt.’ In the former case a wholesome mixture is approved; in the latter a superstitious signification is condemned.”
By these words he means that the former is a remedy, the latter a sign of a pact. Conversely, not everything that is effective by nature when hung on the body, as certain Indian stones are against pain of the kidneys, spleen, and so forth, is also effective when crushed and taken internally.
[margin: Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book 2, chapter 26; canon “Let them admonish,” cause 20, question 7; canons “It is not lawful” and “Do not observe,” cause 26, questions 5 and 7; Cassiodorus on Psalm 115]
Augustine wisely adds: “Although where there are no prayers, invocations, and characters, it is usually doubtful whether the thing that is bound or in some way attached to the body for healing has value by a natural power, and is to be used freely, or whether it prevails by some signifying obligation; the Christian ought to beware of this more prudently, the more effectively it seems to help. But where it is hidden by what cause something has value, the mind with which each person uses it matters.”
From these words gather three points. First, if the thing is thought to help naturally, then it is lawful to hang it on the body, because this is done as a remedy. Second, if it is thought not to help naturally as a cause, but only as a sign of future healing, then one must altogether abstain. Third, if the matter is doubtful and physicians are not present to be consulted, then the mind and intention of the person who hangs it makes the thing good or bad: good if he acts according to the former opinion, bad if he believes the latter. For then someone would fall under the canon “Let them admonish,” by which lay people are subjected to anathema and clerics to degradation.
The canons do not permit any prayers other than the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed to be written in amulets. But by Catholic usage this seems to have been extended to the Gospel of blessed John and to other parts of sacred Scripture, because the same reasoning proceeds in them: namely, the devotion of the one carrying it and the holiness of the words. If they help when piously recited, why not also when piously carried?
But the superstitious elements we have mentioned must always be avoided, above all repetition by a fixed number when power is attributed to it. Therefore what the great Cassiodorus wrote must surely be understood in this way: that the threefold recitation of the verse “You have broken my bonds” was an effective remedy for many people in various evils, not because God attributed the effect to the triple repetition itself, but to the devotion of the one repeating it three times in honor of the most holy Trinity. More will be said shortly about forms of prayers.
[margin: Chrysostom, homily 21 to the people of Antioch; Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book 2, chapter 20; Isidore on salissatores or salitores; Suidas and Theocritus on twitching or palpitation; Plautus, Braggart Soldier and Pseudolus; Caelius Rhodiginus, book 7, chapter 29]