The Martyrs’ Instruments

The Catholic tradition has preserved, for nearly two thousand years, not only the bodies of the martyrs but the instruments of their deaths. The gridiron on which St Lawrence was roasted alive in 258 is at the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome. The wheel of St Catherine of Alexandria, broken by an angel at her invocation, has fragments venerated at multiple sites. The chains of St Peter, by which he was bound in Herod’s prison before the angel led him out (Acts 12), are venerated at the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. These are not curiosities. They are, in the older Catholic understanding, the relics of the moment at which the saint's victory was sealed.

The theology is precise. The instrument of martyrdom is not the relic of the saint’s suffering; it is the relic of the saint’s triumph. The instrument was meant to destroy the saint and failed: the saint went to God; the instrument remained on earth as the visible record of the saint’s passage. To venerate the gridiron of Lawrence is not to dwell on the agony but to honour the moment at which the agony was outflanked. The site holds with this older reading without flinching from the matter.

The principle

“Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”1 Corinthians 15:54-55 (NIV) — the scriptural anchor for the martyr-instrument theology

“The instruments of the saints’ passion are not relics of pain but trophies of conquest. The cross of Christ is itself an instrument of execution. The Church has not feared the instrument; the Church has venerated what the instrument failed to destroy.”Site paraphrase of the patristic tradition on martyr-instrument relics

The instruments, named

The chains of St Peter and St Paul. St Peter was imprisoned in Herod Agrippa’s Jerusalem prison (Acts 12:6-7); an angel released him by night and the chains fell from his wrists. The chains were preserved and translated to Rome, where Empress Eudoxia in 442 gave them to Pope Leo I, who joined them to the chains of Peter’s second imprisonment under Nero. The two sets of chains fused miraculously into one. The relic is preserved at the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli (“St Peter in Chains”) in Rome, where Michelangelo’s Moses stands at the entrance to the chapel. The chains of St Paul, from his imprisonments in Caesarea and Rome, are venerated at the Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura, also in Rome.

The gridiron of St Lawrence. St Lawrence was roasted alive on a metal gridiron by order of the Roman prefect of Rome on August 10, 258, during the persecution under Valerian. The tradition records his final words on the gridiron: “Assum est; versa et manduca” — “I am done on this side; turn me over and eat.” The gridiron itself is preserved at the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome (where Lawrence’s blood was thrown after the execution). A second portion is at the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura. Lawrence is the patron of cooks, of comedians, and of the courageous.

The wheel of St Catherine of Alexandria. St Catherine, by tradition a noblewoman of Alexandria martyred under Maximinus around 305, was sentenced to be broken on a spiked wheel; the wheel shattered at her invocation and she was instead beheaded. Fragments of the wheel are claimed at multiple sites; the most secure provenance is at the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai (where her body was, in tradition, carried by angels and where the monastery has stood as her custodian since the 6th century). The Catherine wheel became a heraldic symbol of her victory and a regular medieval iconographic attribute.

St Lucy’s eyes. St Lucy of Syracuse (283–304), virgin martyr under Diocletian, is depicted in iconography carrying her eyes on a plate. The tradition divides: in some accounts she plucked out her own eyes to discourage a suitor who praised them; in others her eyes were torn out by her tormentors during her martyrdom. In both, the eyes were miraculously restored. The eyes are preserved as a relic, kept with her body at the Church of San Geremia in Venice. She is the patron of the blind, of the eye-afflicted, and of writers.

St Agatha’s breasts. St Agatha of Catania (231–251) had her breasts cut off during her torture under Decius; St Peter appeared to her in prison and restored them. The breasts are venerated as relics at the Cathedral of Catania, and the Sicilian pastry minne di Sant’Agata (small breast-shaped cakes covered in white icing) is eaten on her feast (February 5). She is the patron of breast cancer patients and of nurses.

St Bartholomew’s skin. St Bartholomew the Apostle was, by tradition, flayed alive in Armenia for converting King Polymius to Christianity. His skin is venerated as a relic at the Basilica of San Bartolomeo all’Isola in Rome; his bones are venerated at the Cathedral of Benevento. Michelangelo painted Bartholomew in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement (1541) holding his own flayed skin; the face on the skin is a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself, who included his own image as the flayed skin held by the apostle to whom suffering had been the means of triumph.

The Holy Helmet, the Iron Crown, the Mantle of St Joseph, and other instruments. Many other instruments are preserved across Catholic Europe with smaller or more contested provenances: the helmet associated with St Wenceslas in Prague; the iron crown of the Lombards at Monza (containing, by tradition, a nail of the True Cross beaten into a circlet); various lesser martyrs’ instruments at smaller shrines. The site does not catalogue them exhaustively; the principle is the same in each.

The editors’ position

The instruments of martyrdom are venerated by the editors not as records of cruelty but as the visible proof that the cruelty failed. The Roman state, the persecuting empire, the local mob — each used these instruments to extinguish the saint and each failed: the saint went to God, and the instrument remained as the trophy of the contest. The reader who venerates the gridiron of Lawrence is honouring the moment at which the empire lost. The reader who venerates Lucy’s eyes is honouring the moment at which the violation became the gift. The reader who venerates the chains of Peter is honouring the angel who opened the prison.

This is correct Catholic theology, not edgy theology. The instruments are venerated within the Mass, within the liturgical calendar, within the standing devotional practice of the Church. The editors recommend them as objects of prayer and pilgrimage with the same seriousness with which the older Catholic generations did. The site holds with the tradition: the instrument of the saint’s martyrdom is the relic of the saint’s victory.

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