Мощи святых

...relics were far more than mere aids to pious memory; they were the saints themselves, living already with God in the incorrupt and glorified bodies more ordinary mortals would attain only at the end of time.

Bynum C.W. The Female Body and Religious Practice in the Later Middle Ages // Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Part I. Ed. by M.Feher. – New York: Zone, 1990. – P. 161 - 219. - P. 163.