The Foreskin of Jesus

The Calcata church in Italy

The foreskin of Jesus, removed when he was ritually circumcised some 2000 plus years ago, was preserved as a holy relic in the small parish church of Calcata in Italy till 1983. The Pope had long ago banned the worship of the foreskin which was known among the Catholic devotees as the Holy Prepuce. Despite the ban, the villagers of Calcata continued their annual procession with the foreskin until 1983. Fed up with the silliness of the people, the parish priest made an announcement in 1983: that the relic had been stolen from a shoe box in his home.

Many theories were born about the theft. It was incredible that a priest would keep such a holy object in a shoe box under his bed, however much he feared thieves. The dominant speculation was that the Vatican confiscated it to end centuries of mockery and theological embarrassment surrounding the relic. Some people argued that it was stolen by black-market antique collectors who were interested in the gem-studded medieval reliquary more than the foreskin. Local rumours at the time tended to blame an occult group though there was little evidence for it.

I read about this foreskin yesterday in Jose Saramago’s novel, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.

During one of my holidays from Delhi in the early 2000s, I saw a Malayalam translation of Saramago’s novel in a bookstore in my hometown. I was fascinated for two reasons: (1) the author was a Nobel laureate and (2) the novel was about Jesus, a person who has dominated my fancy ever since I was a little kid whose innocence had not been snatched yet.

When I read it back then, I didn’t like it much because I couldn’t accept the supernatural elements like God, devil, and angels who wandered in and out all the time. Now, a quarter of a century later, I picked up the novel once again from my bookshelf. It seems more interesting now. I’m ready to accept the supernatural as an inextricable part of human narratives.  

As I move on in that fictional world Saramago creates in Judea of two millennia ago, I hope to bring you a lot of interesting peeps here. Like Jesus’ foreskin.

The Catholic Church may find it embarrassing. But the simple truth is that the ordinary folk love such objects of worship. I live in a state of India that has some six million Christians including my relatives. That’s about one-fifth of the state’s population. There are hundreds of churches in Kerala dedicated to Saint George. There are thousands of men named after the saint. Yet the simple fact is that the saint never existed. He was just a legend, as imaginary as the unicorn. Nevertheless hundreds of thousands of Christians seek his blessings through prayers and rituals. Many receive them too.

That’s how religious faith works. It can create reality out of nothing.  

There was a time when I used to wonder how people could worship gods who looked half elephant or full monkey. Now I know. Faith doesn’t need reasons, facts, evidence. Faith is a hunger quite analogous to the craving of the ocean to embrace the land: an instinctual, restless longing to surrender to something vastly greater than itself, where logic yields to the quiet majesty of the wave.