These relics were endowed in popular apprehension with most miraculous powers. They emitted a delightful fragrance that ravished the senses. A fleshless skull declared the name and martyrdom of its owner. The bones of St. Lawrence moved in their grave to make room for those of another saint. The liquefaction of a martyr’s blood may still be witnessed by the faithful on the anniversary of St. Januarius at Naples.[241] If we may credit numerous traditions, these wonder-working human remains healed the sick,[242] raised the dead, and, more 140 difficult still, converted heretics to the true faith. Nay, the mere contact with the _brandea_ or handkerchief from the martyr’s tomb, the filings of his chains, or the oil from the lamp before his shrine, communicated spiritual as well as physical benefit. These sacred relics possessed a talismanic power to protect from evil. They were borne into battle to avert the hurtling death and to blunt the edge of the sword. They were affixed to towers as a safeguard against the thunderbolt.[243] They were inlaid in the crowns and regalia of kings,[244] and worn in rings and amulets as prophylactics against poison or disease, and they lent an awful sanctity to the oath taken upon the altar.[245] The slender historical evidence on which idolatrous homage is paid to 141 these relics is seen in the case of the so-called “Saint Theodosia of 142 Amiens.” Her epitaph, found in a Catacomb near the Salarian Way, reads as follows: AVRELIAE THEVDOSIAE BENIGNISSIMAE ET INCOMPARABILI FEMINAE AVRELIVS OPTATVS CONIVGI INNOCENTISSIMAE NAT · AMBIANA. Aurelius Optatus to his most innocent wife Aurelia Theudosia, a most gracious and incomparable woman, by nation an Ambian. The Congregation of Relics decided that Theudosia was both a saint and martyr, and a native of Amiens. Her remains were solemnly conveyed to that city, and on the 12th of October, 1833, they were received with the utmost magnificence by no less than twenty-eight mitred prelates and fifteen hundred other ecclesiastics, placed in a gorgeous shrine, and honoured as in ancient times they honoured a tutelar goddess. Cardinal Wiseman preached on the occasion, and compared the removal of her remains to her native place to that of the patriarch Joseph’s bones from Egypt to Canaan; and Bishop Salinis commended the homage of her relics “because the martyrs are, after Jesus Christ, also _Christs_ 143 to open heaven to mankind.”[246]