When I studied hagiography, miracles and relics,  the fact that there were numerous foreskins of Christ and gallons of the Virgin Mary’s breast milk kicking around Christendom amused me. 

  This over-supply of demands is one of those matters you can always refer to when a sanctimonious orthodox Christian type is getting on your nerves*. Blinkered by their blind unquestioning faith they are the perfect victims, waiting to happen, for one iffy cult leader or another and somewhere to sell dodgy relics. Such othodox types simply cannot see that the development of the Church (particularly that with its headquarters in the Vatican) goes against that which their Christ (their God on earth) envisaged. These types don’t think for themselves.  

• Fifty Foreskins and Gallons of Breast Milk

  The reason why there are so many foreskins and breast milk relics is that both Christ and Mary are said to have had a bodily assumption.  (A "bodily assumption" being that their physical bodies were raised up into heaven). Thus, there were only these bits (foreskin and breast milk) which remained on Earth and which could be exploited by unscrupulous dealers in the lucrative and fraudulent relics' market.  

• The Christian Relics' Market

  Relic crime was the easiest crime to commit.    DIRECTIONS   1) Take a foreskin (available to steal after any bar mitzvah) or some of any mammal's breast milk (available everywhere).    2) Put either the foreskin or the milk into a suitably ornate container; and hey presto!    3) The container miraculously becomes a reliquary and its contents multiply in value.    4) Now all you needed was a gullible, wealthy person... for example the Italian author Boccaccio bought relics... and you'll have made your own miracle!  

• Boccaccio Protested Too Much

  Boccaccio, the author of the Decameron written in the mid-fourteenth century, spoke out against pilgrims to and collectors of relics - such behaviour was ridiculous, wasn't it?  Perhaps Boccaccio thought he'd better be safe than sorry because he definitely protested too much.  After he died a huge collection of relics was found beneath his bed.    The bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary as depicted by Fra Angelico in his painting Death of a Virgin (1432 AD).    Image courtesy of museumsyndicate.com  

• Relics Today

  There are currently numerous examples of relics housed in museums and places of pilgrimage throughout the world. Their number and geographical spread point to their popularity and the success of the conmen who aquired, stole, traded and sold them. Of course, nowadays, we have developed the means to test some of them to ascertain beyond all doubt that they are not what they profess to be.    One such example of a bone relic is housed in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, England. Sold in the past as the bone from the arm of a saint, tests revealed it was in fact the leg bone of a dog.  

• WARNING

  *Since 1900 talking about and writing about the numerous foreskins of Christ has (according to a report on Radio 4 this morning) been an offence punishable by excommunication.     AndAnotherThing2 writes COMEDYand is Xomba's first featured HISTORIAN  

• Other Articles by AndAnotherThing2
• Popular History Articles include: A Black African Slave Child in the Seventeenth Century; The First Married Gay Bishops; The Stolen Relics of Jesus Christ and Mary; and His Stories of Her Part 1
• Popular Histories for Children include the Weird Histories series, see for example: Number 8 The History of Bum Wiping  and Number 6 Medieval Toilet Behaviour 
• AAT2's most popular Comedy Articles are Wobble Your Fat Away  Codpieces for Sale; Penis Tattoos,and the charming Are Farts Funny?