Whether the Gospel of John is to be worn about the neck.
Whether the Gospel of John is to be worn about the neck.
§ 48. Therefore it is superstitious and worthy of just censure that in the papacy some miraculous kind of antidotal power to escape devils, ward off lightning, and heal sicknesses is attributed to the Gospel account, [that is,] to the letters on the page, and especially to the first chapter of John. This is beyond—and, indeed, contrary to—the legitimate and divinely established use of the Gospel. Because of this, people wear suspended from their neck the first chapter of John written in very small letters. Salmeron (Commentar., vol. 4, p. 614) writes thus about this matter:
It is the custom for Christians to wear the Gospel or other holy things or relics about the neck. This is not wrong if they carry these things out of reverence for the saints with the hope that God will perhaps have mercy on them. Hence we read in praise of St. Cecilia that she always wore the Gospel on her bosom, that Emperor Constantine built his crown around a nail of Christ, that the apostle Barnabas healed sick people with a touch of the written Gospel, etc.
Yet the word of life was given and revealed to us for the healing of the soul and not for that of the body.
In this matter, some of the ancients were indulgent to the common people in order that they might free them from heathen amulets. Augustine (on John, tract. 7):
If your head aches, we praise you for putting the Gospel to your head and for not running for an amulet. For the infirmity of mankind has come to such a state, and men who run to amulets are so lamentable, that we might rejoice when we see a man lying on his bed, tossed with fever and pain, place his hope nowhere else but that he puts the Gospel to his head, not because such was done but because the Gospel is preferred to amulets. Therefore if it is put to the head to ease a headache, why not place it in the heart that it may be healed from sins? Therefore do that! Why do it? Let it be placed on the heart that the heart may be healed. That is good. It is good that you not be satisfied about the health of your body unless you seek that from God. If He knows that this is good for you, He will give it to you. If He does not give you it, having it will not be good for you, etc.
Chrysostom (in ch. 22 of Matth. imperf. oper., homily 43) censures this superstition more sharply:
Is not the Gospel read in church every day and heard by all? Therefore how will the Gospel placed about the neck save him whom the Gospel, placed in the ears, profits nothing? So where is the power of the Gospel? In the form of its letters or in the understanding of their meaning? If it is in the forms, then it is good for it to be hung about the neck. If it is in understanding, its words are better placed in the heart than hung about the neck.
Chrysostom (on 1 Corinthians, homily 43) finds the practice of hanging the written Gospels near beds reprehensible.