Robert Wagman

CHAPTER XVIII

It can be argued that Greeks are not always correct in assuming that excommunication is at the origin of such undissolved corpses. For one finds also fully preserved bodies of devout and religious people, bodies that retain perfect form in all their parts, just as when they were alive.  The Greeks do not despise them, like they do the corpses of those under excommunication, but venerate them deeply, as holy relics, and they offer them to other Christians as objects of veneration, and they display excessive joy if these objects remain intact for an especially long time.  Manuel Caleca counted that as a mark against them in his fourth book Against the Greeks. To those who were saying that the Council of Lyons was tyrannical and claimed that the body of the very man who had organized it, namely the emperor Michael Palaeologus, by not dissolving proved his depravity for having assembled a council like that, Calecas responded:

Indeed they judge faith relying on their senses. For what they consider to be a sign of sanctity in certain cases, they interpret as a proof of damnation when it is convenient to them, almost as if it were God’s judgement instead of their own. If they think that a body which does not dissolve is a sign of sanctity, what are they going to say about of the bodies of Peter, Paul, and most other saints, which dissolved and turned into dust? When they see that so many bodies of saints dissolve, how are they going to prove that bodies which do not undergo the same process are saintly as well? What are they also going to say about the infidels, or those who they themselves excommunicate, whose bodies also remain intact? And if they judge these to be signs of damnation, how do they honor the relics of the saints?

They counter that it is easy to distinguish the corpses of excommunicated individuals from those of devout men. For the bodies of the excommunicated are bloated, and, as their skin is distended like that of a drum, they are hideously stretched out and reverberate if you strike them; you could never look at them without horror. The bodies of devout men have the same serene appearance they had in life, venerable in both aspect and composure. Once you have been drawn to kiss them out of veneration, you would easily be convinced to kiss them again. In their countenance they show the same piousness they practiced when they were alive. They also often have a pleasant scent which is attractive to those who are looking at them. There is, therefore, an enormous difference between the bodies of the excommunicated and those of the saints.

NOTES

Forthcoming