I've no idea what the historical basis is of this illustration, which you can find all over the interweb, but I think its quite an affecting story:
Charlemagne, Charles the Great, the King of the Franks,
the first Holy Roman Emperor, died in A.D. 814 at the age of 72.
It’s said that he was buried in a vault in a Cathedral in
splendid style: dressed in imperial purple, seated on a throne, a crown on his
head, a sceptre in his hand, and a sword by his side.
Many years later, when Charlemagne’s tomb was opened, there
the skeletal Emperor still sat on his throne.
He had a Bible open on his lap and his bony finger
pointed to a verse:
“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”
“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”
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3 comments:
That is a nice legend, but it is not true. Charlemagne was buried in a sarcophagus that depicts the rape of the Sabine women on its side. Later, after he was canonized, his bones were transferred to a large golden reliquary that sits currently in the Aachen cathedral. They also then dismembered him so that his body could be placed in other reliquaries. One of his arms is in the Louvre Museum in Paris, another arm as well as his skull is in the treasury in Aachen near the cathedral.
I visited Aachen last summer and saw those reliquaries with my own eyes.
Ah, shame. Thanks for that, Linda.
Our pastor used the same story in his sermon today. My ears always perk up when he references historical people or events because he's almost always wrong. Ah well, if pastors had to rely on the truth they'd run out of sermons.
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