When one gets enough experience from looking at pictures Egyptian mummies to see family resemblances between members of the same dynasty, so that one may recognise a member of the 18th dynasty without being told, then one loses the gut reaction to bones and skulls in churches.

Final analysis: throw Lenin into a garbage dump somewhere and let the strays have him like old Dandolo. Keeping the corpse of a murderer on display is truly grotesque, especially when he is now nothing but a tourist attraction and cash cow. Keep the old relics in the Churches, as they do perform a worthy function by pointing us toward the divine, and there is no reason to be critical of the practice. Besides, it's wonderful to have such relics of the early fathers around. Now, if we could just find the true cross.........

Trent is neither the beginning nor the end of the Church, but an attempt to redefine terms and reform practices in the face of division and dissolution. It is entirely irrelevant to the discussion here, which I am deliberately not front-loading with later controversies.

Mr. Wolf, what is "Protestant Dogma" and who has authority to define it?

If I or any other Protestant is to answer the question posed ("So we are all agreed? Veneration of martyrs and relics is part of the early Church and should be encouraged?"), then it makes every difference. What does a Roman Catholic mean when he refers to the "veneration of martyrs and relics"? The Council of Trent is a natural place to turn, since it "precisely" marks the cleavage between Catholic and Protestant dogma (not to mention the fact that it bears a certain weight of authority for Roman Catholics). The 25th Session of said council refers to the veneration of martyrs and relics as an activity whose end is (at least in part) "to obtain favors from God." This is based on the claim that this very teaching has been "received from the primitive times of the Christian religion."

We cannot use theological terms such as "veneration" without reference to their current usage. Otherwise, in a hasty attempt to formulate agreement, we run the risk of following in the footsteps of the recent Catholic-Protestant "dialogues" on justification. As in We all believe in justification [veneration]—we just define the term differently.

[P]hrases like “Tridentine Soteriology” strike me as coded language belonging more to the realm of demonology than to theology.

For Christians, demonology is a subset of theology. (So is soteriology.)

That said, "veneration of martyrs and relics" has (to Protestant minds, anyway) evolved over the centuries. Thus, while we can and should admit that Rome draws a dogmatic line between worship and veneration, we cannot participate in an activity that is conditioned by a Tridentine soteriology.

The letter does not seem to regard the veneration of these relics as a novel event, suggesting that some time before 155 it had become the practice to pay respect to the bones or possessions of saints and martyrs. Roughly 90 years earlier, Peter had been martyred at Rome in a race course across the Tiber. According to tradition, a shrine was built at the site of his burial, and this was transformed into the Basilica of St. Peter's built by Constantine. Modern archaeological research, done mostly by non-Catholics, has established that the site right under the main altar has been a place of worship since early Christian times. Indeed, the cemetery-church is a well-known phenomenon.

That a place or piece of bone or scrap of clothing should possess some special power seems, to many Christians today, merely superstitious, but not to our Lord, who felt some power or virtue go out of him when the woman touched his garment.

There is no confusion between the worship of God and the respect paid to a martyr's relics. In 17.3, the letter declares "For Him, being the Son of God, we adore, but the martyrs as disciples and imitators of the Lord we cherish as they deserve for their matchless affection towards their own King and Teacher. May it be our lot also to be found partakers and fellow-disciples with them."

Tomorrow, let us take up the matter of Polycarp's relics, which became an object of reverence.

As with respect to sin, there is the sin by individuals, and a sin by community or political leadership represented by the "state". They are, I think, different, and God treats them differently.

When political leadership is corrupted, their corruption rots the whole. It is a curse upon a nation that permits and condones political leadership, in church government or in civil government, to become corrupt. I would say throughout history, when church government and civil government corrupt in parallel, calamity falls onto it's people with a vengeance. Polycarp's story is as old as mankind, and it as true for his day as it is today.

It is not an act of betrayal to be tortured and "turned" against a friend or a master. Betrayel speaks to personal gain, filthy lucre, or pieces of silver. Jesus was betrayed. Polycarp was not betrayed by his slave. Could he have played a role in his own death to become a martyr? The Bible teaches to be wise as a serpent when picking your fights, and Polycarp was not, in my opinion. I'll honor the man nonetheless.