Relic of the right arm of Saint John the Baptist

The translation of saints’ relics from the East to the West was a common phenomenon in the Middle Ages. It is more surprising to find a Christian relic in a sultan’s possession. And yet this was the case of a relic supposed to be the right arm of John the Baptist, now kept in the Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi in Istanbul, a fact explained by the role occupied by John the Baptist in the Islamic religion. He is Yahyā, the prophet preceding ‘Isā (Jesus).

There are several relics identified as one of the arms of John the Baptist[1]. Several historical sources from different eras mention a relic of a right arm considered to be that of the Forerunner[2]. It is tempting to establish a link between one of them, a relic mentioned in Byzantine sources, and the relic in the Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi, even though this link if far from certain.

According to the chronicle of John Scylitzes[3], a relic of the right arm of John the Baptist was transferred from Antioch to Constantinople in 956 by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–59), to one of the chapels of the Great Palace, probably in the Church of the Virgin of the Lighthouse[4]. In the late twelfth century, Anthony of Novgorod, a monk and archbishop, noted in his writings while on pilgrimage to Constantinople the entire contents of this church’s treasury, including the relic of the right arm of John the Baptist.

According to Du Cange, in 1263, Othon de Cicon, lord of Karistos in Euboea, made a gift of the right arm of John the Baptist to the abbey of Cîteaux in France. Othon had given refuge to Baldwin II, Latin emperor of Constantinople, in 1261. In exchange for a sum paid in Byzantine hyperperons[5], the fugitive emperor gave him the relic. It was kept in a silver gilt reliquary. An inscription mentioned that it was the arm of the Forerunner, snatched from the hands of the Barbarians by Emperor Constantine[6] and deposited in a treasury to protect the empire and reinforce its power.

According to certain defters[7] in the archives of Topkapı and the Turkish authorities, we know that in 1484 Sultan Bayezid II (1481–1512) sent a relic to the Hospitallers of Rhodes, who had had a presence on the island since the first quarter of the fourteenth century. The sultan had paid the knights an allowance to keep his brother Cem prisoner. Therefore, it seems that the relic had come back into the hands of the Ottomans during the last decade of the sixteenth century. It is hard to say whether there is any connection between the relic mentioned by Byzantine authors, the one that went from Euboea to Cîteaux, and the relic that apparently made a return journey between Istanbul and Rhodes. To make matters more complex, a Spanish ambassador, Clavijo, saw a relic of the right arm of Saint John the Baptist in the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos in Constantinople on 1404.

The relic we see today is protected by a metal Western-style medieval reliquary, which recreates the shape of the arm and the hand in a realistic manner. This reliquary is clearly an Italian work, more precisely Venetian, executed during the period when the relic was in the hands of the Hospitallers in Rhodes. A continuous motif of vine foliage forming medallions, simulates a silk sleeve covering the arm. There are two silver cachets on the reliquary representing the Venetian lion and the Maltese Cross of the sixteenth century, when the Hospitallers became the Knights of Malta.

The position of the fingers is well-known. It is a gesture found in Byzantine art as a sign of blessing and as the gesture John the Baptist makes when he points out Christ as the Lamb of God.

[2] The Forerunner or the Prodromos is what the Byzantines called John the Baptist.

[3] Eleventh-century Byzantine historian.

[4] Relics considered particularly important, notably those of the Passion, were kept in the treasury of this church.

[5] The hyperperon was a Byzantine gold coin created in 1092 during the monetary reform of Alexius I Comnenus (1081–1118). It was mainly used for foreign trade.

[6] Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–59).

[7] Turkish fiscal registers.