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ORIGINAL: Zhi


The idea that God knows what's happening to anyone, children included, is not terribly surprising, regardless of whether angels are involved. The fact that God is very, very fond of children and therefore pays special attention to them is also pretty evident in scripture. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here.

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Many of those years spent preventing people from being able to read scriptures for themselves and instead telling them what to do, on pain of a really horrible death? Many of those years spent killing anyone who disagreed with the RCC sanctioned practice? ... did you want me to cheer for that or something?

Prior to that, we have Scripture itself which never gives permission to pray to the saints or Mary, never indicates the first Christians doing so, etc.

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The point is that we know angels intercede for people. So why not ask angels to pray for us?

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The Church didn't try to prevent people from reading Scriptures for themselves. Most people were illiterate, not from any doings of the the Church. The Church did the only logical thing. It read the Scriptures to the people. And the Church had the Scriptures translated into the most widely spoken language of the day. If they're trying to hide the Scriptures from the people they have a funny way of showing it. Why wouldn't they just completely eliminate the Liturgy of the Word from Mass?

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And Plenty of people disagreed with the Church during that time. There were a lot of people running off to form Gnostic sects, follow Arian leaders or that agreed with Donatists. The "threat of death" claim is ridiculous. You mean to say that Gnostics, Arians, Donatists and others were willing to go against the Catholics but the proto-protestants were too scared?

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My sources differ, and none of what you've said indicates that the Septuagint was used in the synagogues of Israel

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ORIGINAL: kelman
You're not the only one who has quoted from dictionaries.

Prayer
1. a devout petition to God or an object of worship.
2. a spiritual communion with God or an object of worship, as in supplication, thanksgiving, adoration, or confession.
3. the act or practice of praying to God or an object of worship.
4. a formula or sequence of words used in or appointed for praying: the Lord's Prayer.
5. prayers, a religious observance, either public or private, consisting wholly or mainly of prayer.
6. that which is prayed for.
7. a petition; entreaty.

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Wonder no more....there are. Origen, Cyprian, Irenaeus condemned the practice. So, the early church condemned the practice of praying to the saints and Mary....regardless, modern Rome retains the practice even though it is called sinful by one of its most renowned "saints".

"But, conformably to our hypothesis, let this knowledge of them, which is something wonderful and mysterious, be obtained. Then this knowledge, making known to us their nature, and the offices to which they are severally appointed, will not permit us to pray with confidence to any other than to the supreme God, who is sufficient for all things, and that through our Saviour the Son of God, who is the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and everything else which the writings of God's prophets and the apostles of Jesus entitle Him...." Against Celsus

""Nor does she [the church] perform anything by means of angelic invocations, or by incantations, or by any other wicked curious art; but, directing her prayers to the Lord, who made all things, in a pure, sincere, and straightforward spirit, and calling upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, she has been accustomed to work miracles for the advantage of mankind, and not to lead them into error....The altar, then, is in heaven (for towards that place are our prayers and oblations directed)" Against Heresies

"Himself advised and instructed us what we should pray for...Already He had foretold that the hour was coming “when the true worshippers should worship the Father in spirit and in truth;”...may also by His teaching worship truly and spiritually. For what can be a more spiritual prayer than that which was given to us by Christ,...So that to pray otherwise than He taught is not ignorance alone, but also sin; since He Himself has established, and said, “Ye reject the commandments of God, that ye may keep your own traditions.” Treatise on The Lord's Prayer

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If you're referring to the non-inspired Apocrypha, there's no evidence it was even included in the Septuagint of the first century. Besides, it is a well-established fact these books were never considered canonical. They were simply added to the RC Bible at Trent.

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To provide support for your "interpretation" perhaps you might show even one prayer to anyone other than God that is found in Scripture? If you can't, and we all know you can't , then the earliest of Christian writings agree with me.

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ORIGINAL: Zhi

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The point is that we know angels intercede for people. So why not ask angels to pray for us?

*sigh* No we don't. The verse says nothing about intercession. Also, we're talking about praying to the saints and Mary, who are not angels, though I would point out that Kelman has already shown that the early church fathers considered praying to angels an invalid practice.

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The Church didn't try to prevent people from reading Scriptures for themselves. Most people were illiterate, not from any doings of the the Church. The Church did the only logical thing. It read the Scriptures to the people. And the Church had the Scriptures translated into the most widely spoken language of the day. If they're trying to hide the Scriptures from the people they have a funny way of showing it. Why wouldn't they just completely eliminate the Liturgy of the Word from Mass?

Hmm. Can you explain, then, why exactly Hus was burned at the stake? Why was Tyndale strangled then burned at the stake? The path the RCC took into corruption (both in terms of praying to the saints and Mary, and in terms of keeping Scripture out of the hands of common people) was long, yes, but it *did* happen. As Kelman has pointed out, early church leaders apparently did not consider praying to the saints and Mary to be a valid practice. Besides, the original Gospels and much of the NT was written in Greek, the "dogmatic definitions" of the first seven General Councils were in Greek (up until 787), and Latin only really became the "official" church language after the RCC split.

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And Plenty of people disagreed with the Church during that time. There were a lot of people running off to form Gnostic sects, follow Arian leaders or that agreed with Donatists. The "threat of death" claim is ridiculous. You mean to say that Gnostics, Arians, Donatists and others were willing to go against the Catholics but the proto-protestants were too scared?

Proto-protestants *did* defy the RCC and many were killed for it. Incidentally, while gnosticism has pretty much spanned a very long period (even pre-Christ) so it's hard to pin down, the specific Arian heresy, and Donatist heresy, were both well prior to the schism that resulted in the RCC/Orthodox split.

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The verse says nothing about intercession?!?! What do you assume the angels are doing then? And angels are given the title "Saint" as in "Saint Micheal the Archangel", etc. and we do ask for their protection and intercession. And as for the Early Church Fathers agreeing with the protestant position,

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Goodgrief, your knowledge of history is tainted. Were protestants killed by Catholics? Sure. Were Catholics killed by protestants? Yup. Were Catholics trying to keep Scripture out of the hands of the laypeople? No. As I've already said, Catholics were the first to translate the Scriptures into Latin, the most widely known language of the day. This was not done after the East-West Schism but about 800 years prior (St. Jeromes Vulgate, completed around 400 AD, wasn't the first btw).

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And contrary to what you might have heard, Wycliffe's was not the first english translation of Scripture. A Roman Catholic beat him to it by almost 700 years.

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You misunderstand. Where are the writings of these "proto protestants?" They're not there because there weren't any. We can find writings of Arianists, Donatists, etc. but nothing a card carrying protestant would hang their hat on. The reason why is obvious.

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ORIGINAL: Zhi

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Goodgrief, your knowledge of history is tainted. Were protestants killed by Catholics? Sure. Were Catholics killed by protestants? Yup. Were Catholics trying to keep Scripture out of the hands of the laypeople? No. As I've already said, Catholics were the first to translate the Scriptures into Latin, the most widely known language of the day. This was not done after the East-West Schism but about 800 years prior (St. Jeromes Vulgate, completed around 400 AD, wasn't the first btw).

The important thing is *why* they were killed, in the context of this discussion. Wycliffe and Hus were killed because they translated Scripture into the common language, making it obvious to laypeople where the RCC was failing to follow Scripture. Period.

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The second part is inconsequential, as it has to do with something that was not the RCC. Yes, the scripture was translated to Latin before the schism, but Latin was not the official language of the church (the church didn't have an official language at that point).

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But, you have yet to show any translation in which praying to the saints and Mary is stated to be an allowed practice.

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And contrary to what you might have heard, Wycliffe's was not the first english translation of Scripture. A Roman Catholic beat him to it by almost 700 years.

There were a few translations done, but they were primarily commentary and were certainly not the full Scripture. And, the third synod of Oxford banned possession of all English translations, without express approval of diocese authorities. The third council of Tolouse and the Council of Tarragona banned laity from possessing French translations. There are similar bans for other countries and languages. But, you're missing the point here. There is no support for praying to the saints and Mary in the Apocrypha either, so which set of books you use is relatively inconsequential to this discussion.

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You misunderstand. Where are the writings of these "proto protestants?" They're not there because there weren't any. We can find writings of Arianists, Donatists, etc. but nothing a card carrying protestant would hang their hat on. The reason why is obvious.

Well, let's see. Early writings that protestants "hang their hat on". That would be... Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans... I think you get the point. Unless you can find something in Scripture that states praying to the saints and Mary is a valid practice, a Protestant is not going to accept it. It's a very big deal, theology-wise. If God wanted us to do it, He would have put it in Scripture. Instead, the only examples in Scripture of prayer to anyone other than God Himself are the prayers of pagans.

There was no need for proto-Protestants at the time of the Arian and Donatist heresies, because the early church, as evidenced by Scripture itself, did not disagree with the basic tenants that Protestants hold dear.

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Nope, they weren't killed for trying to give the Bible back to the people. They were killed for dissent. They openly defied Church authority. Not a pretty picture, no doubt, but it was the method used by both protestants and Catholics at the time. You'll get no argument from me that there were Catholics that killed protestants but to make the claim that it was because they were trying to translate the Bible into English ignores history and common sense. As I've already said, major portions of Scripture (not commentary) were already translated into English and the Church never burned St. Bebe or St. Aldhelm at the stake for it.

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It didn't need an official declaration. The Church began celebrating Latin Mass under Pope Victor in the second century. The Church began celebrating the Mass universally in Latin in the fourth.

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I'm gonna ask the common sense question that keeps getting pushed to the back burner. Just examine the structure and timeline of the NT. Where are the deaths of the apostles in the NT? Where is the death of Mary? How do you expect Christians to ask our departed brothers in Christ to pray for us before they have departed? Secondly, even if an apostles death was recorded, the NT is not all encompassing description of Christian worship and fellowship.

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I think your judgement is clouded. Catholics banned and forbid the use of heretical translations of Scripture done by non-Catholics. Do you think your demonination would allow a preacher to use The New World translation as his Bible of choice? Are you aware protestants in the US had forbid the use of the Douay Rheims in the classroom in many cities? What's the difference?

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Those would also be the books Catholics hang their hat on. And just looking at the quotes I and others have already posted, Papal authority, apostollic succession, the True Presence, Marian devotions, Intercession of the Saints and much more are clearly evident during the time you mentioned. Where are the proto-protestant commentaries, the proto-protestant defenses of the faith, the proto-protestant objections to the practices of Catholics?

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ORIGINAL: Zhi


Mostly because they never suggested mass distribution, I'd guess. But, they openly defied Church authority specifically in their desire to... translate the Bible. And, doing so was expressly stated as the primary reason for the executions.

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It didn't need an official declaration. The Church began celebrating Latin Mass under Pope Victor in the second century. The Church began celebrating the Mass universally in Latin in the fourth.

The difference being that initially it was a matter of where you were and what the primary language was at that geographical location. So, of course the church in Rome was going to use the language people spoke in Rome. You're going to need to state sources for a universal Latin mass in the 4th century, as I'm pretty sure the Greeks were still having divine liturgy (they don't call it mass) in Greek, in fact they do to this day.

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The oddity is that unlike other orthodox churches who specifically make the effort to train all laypeople in the language of their religious services and texts, the RCC has never seemed to really have any desire to make sure that their laypeople have a clue what's going on. Nobody speaks Latin as a primary language these days. Nobody has for centuries. But, rather than teaching their laypeople enough Latin to actually understand the mass, or translating it into the local language so they can understand the mass, the RCC instead decided to keep things from the people, both in terms of the written scripture and the service itself.Why? Well, I imagine so that no one could look into the actual scripture and find out that things like papal dispensations and praying to the saints and Mary are not actually "in there". "You can't talk to God without asking me first, and you can't have a clue of what God says without me telling you" is a pretty secure power base.

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I'm gonna ask the common sense question that keeps getting pushed to the back burner. Just examine the structure and timeline of the NT. Where are the deaths of the apostles in the NT? Where is the death of Mary? How do you expect Christians to ask our departed brothers in Christ to pray for us before they have departed? Secondly, even if an apostles death was recorded, the NT is not all encompassing description of Christian worship and fellowship.

Well, Joseph is a very popular saint and he died well before Jesus did, for instance. So, he would have been an excellent candidate. Michael, being an angel and all, never died, so there's another good candidate, if you wanted to cover whether or not angels can be considered also saints and whether or not they can be prayed to. Stephen definitely died in the right time period, as his death is recorded in Acts, but in spite of recording his death Paul never mentions any prayers to him. I'm sure I can find others if you'd like, is 3 enough?

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For things to be evident they would have to be in scripture. They're not. So they're not evident, because there's no evidence.

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Well, Joseph is a very popular saint and he died well before Jesus did, for instance.

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I think your judgement is clouded. Catholics banned and forbid the use of heretical translations of Scripture done by non-Catholics. Do you think your demonination would allow a preacher to use The New World translation as his Bible of choice? Are you aware protestants in the US had forbid the use of the Douay Rheims in the classroom in many cities? What's the difference?

There's a pretty big difference in the whole "on pain of death" part, for starters. But, the sources I noted really don't seem to specify who made the translation, merely that translations in the vernacular were forbidden.

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Those would also be the books Catholics hang their hat on. And just looking at the quotes I and others have already posted, Papal authority, apostollic succession, the True Presence, Marian devotions, Intercession of the Saints and much more are clearly evident during the time you mentioned. Where are the proto-protestant commentaries, the proto-protestant defenses of the faith, the proto-protestant objections to the practices of Catholics?

For things to be evident they would have to be in scripture. They're not. So they're not evident, because there's no evidence. There weren't first-centry proto-protestant objections to praying to the saints and Mary, because nobody was praying to the saints and Mary.

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ORIGINAL: ukfan

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ORIGINAL: kelman
You're not the only one who has quoted from dictionaries.

Prayer
1. a devout petition to God or an object of worship.
2. a spiritual communion with God or an object of worship, as in supplication, thanksgiving, adoration, or confession.
3. the act or practice of praying to God or an object of worship.
4. a formula or sequence of words used in or appointed for praying: the Lord's Prayer.
5. prayers, a religious observance, either public or private, consisting wholly or mainly of prayer.
6. that which is prayed for.
7. a petition; entreaty.

I've highlighted the appropriate one. So when a Catholic says "pray for us sinners..." you can plainly see we are petitioning or asking Mary to pray for us.

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I can tell you're not really familiar with Origen, Cyprian, and Irenaeus, although you should be.

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So what you’re trying to get me to believe is that Origen, the man that said,

"But not the high priest [Christ] alone prays for those who pray sincerely, but also the angels . . . as also the souls of the saints who have already fallen asleep" (Prayer 11 [A.D. 233]).

is against the intercession of the saints?

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What’s really funny is that in the exact work you’re quoting from he wrote,

“For we indeed acknowledge that angels are "ministering spirits," and we say that "they are sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation;" and that they ascend, bearing the supplications of men, to the purest of the heavenly places in the universe, or even to supercelestial regions purer still; and that they come down from these, conveying to each one, according to his deserts, something enjoined by God to be conferred by them upon those who are to be the recipients of His benefits. Having thus learned to call these beings "angels" from their employments, we find that because they are divine they are sometimes termed "god" in the sacred Scriptures, but not so that we are commanded to honour and worship in place of God those who minister to us, and bear to us His blessings.”

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You’re trying to pass of Cyprian as agreeing with you when he said,

"Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides [of death] always pray for one another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father’s mercy" (Letters 56[60]:5 [A.D. 253]).

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And to simultaneously invoke Irenaeus against the Intercession of the Saints and condemn him in the same post takes a lot of gumption.

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And even a cursory examination of Against Heresies will show that the “angelic invocation” Irenaeus is speaking of is of fallen angels.

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To provide support for your "interpretation" perhaps you might show even one prayer to anyone other than God that is found in Scripture? If you can't, and we all know you can't , then the earliest of Christian writings agree with me.

Genesis 12:13

Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee. (KJV)

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How can you have mass distribution without a printing press? This was centuries before the printing press. And the man that invented the printing press, Gutenberg, was a Catholic and the Bible he printed was a Catholic Bible. And he had no death threat from the Church.

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This opinion just isn't based in fact. Nearly every baby boomer and older Catholic I know was taught Latin in Catholic school. In the late 60's-70's there was a shift from teaching it because the Mass was being celebrated in the vernacular but it is still taught in a lot of Catholic schools.
You also have a very modern view of the ancient Christian world. Latin was the English of it's day. Secondly, and most importantly, most people were illiterate. In the 1500's, the literacy rate has been estimated at 10% in England. With education as it was, the protestant idea you hold on to that the laypeople could or even should just pick up a bible and forego historic Church commentary is just silly and I think this mindset is the reason we now have current groups like the Mormons, JW's and Seventh Day Adventists.

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Well, first I'm gonna have to point out, you said,

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For things to be evident they would have to be in scripture. They're not. So they're not evident, because there's no evidence.


Then you say,

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Well, Joseph is a very popular saint and he died well before Jesus did, for instance.


Uh, were is that in Scripture? Why do you consider it acceptable to make inferences from implicit ideas in Scripture but hold Catholic practices to a higher standard? Why can you look at Scripture and say "well, Joseph isn't mentioned anymore, he must be dead" and that's fine but when I look at Scripture that tells me that God is the God of the living, that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, the prayers of the righteous are powerful and the Saints offer prayers to God and I think "I'm gonna ask those Saints to pray for me" and that's a major faux pas? (wow that's a run-on and a half )

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But setting that aside, are 3 enough? No. Scripture is explicitly silent on many things, some much more central to the faith than the Intercession of Saints, so the matter that such a small number of Christian Saints are in Heaven before the completion of the NT and there are no recorded intercessions to them really proves nothing. But again think critically for a second, do you really think that requests for intercessions to the Saints would be recorded in the NT when the NT itself records so few Christian deaths and so few specifics of collective Christian worship?

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I know I didn't elaborate before, but Catholics were killed by protestants in the good ole US of A because they refused to use the KJV in school. And as I've already pointed out, when Catholics translated Scripture, they weren't given death threats. I'm more than willing to admit that there were Catholics that murdered protestants but you seem to have rose colored glasses when looking the other way.

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I'm not being clear on the timeline. At the time of the heresies we mentioned, there are clear evidence for Papal authority, apostollic succession, the True Presence, Marian devotions, Intercession of the Saints, etc being written about by Catholics. If there were proto-protestants, where are their objections? Where are their commentaries and condemnations on these practices? Why do we have to wait well over 1000 years before we get to anything even close to resembling protestantism? It's not because of the threat of death because plenty of protestants spoke out under that threat during the reformation. So where are they?

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This opinion just isn't based in fact. Nearly every baby boomer and older Catholic I know was taught Latin in Catholic school. In the late 60's-70's there was a shift from teaching it because the Mass was being celebrated in the vernacular but it is still taught in a lot of Catholic schools.

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In the 1500's, the literacy rate has been estimated at 10% in England.

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With education as it was, the protestant idea you hold on to that the laypeople could or even should just pick up a bible and forego historic Church commentary is just silly....

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.... and I think this mindset is the reason we now have current groups like the Mormons, JW's and Seventh Day Adventists.

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But setting that aside, are 3 enough? No. Scripture is explicitly silent on many things, some much more central to the faith than the Intercession of Saints, so the matter that such a small number of Christian Saints are in Heaven before the completion of the NT and there are no recorded intercessions to them really proves nothing. But again think critically for a second, do you really think that requests for intercessions to the Saints would be recorded in the NT when the NT itself records so few Christian deaths and so few specifics of collective Christian worship?

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ORIGINAL: kelman

Nope, it would simply be a petition or entreaty if you were asking a "live" person. Since you are entreating spirits in heaven it is a spiritual act of worship...you're not ordering a Whopper here, although some have maintained it's the same thing.

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Yep, sure am. Perhaps you might include your source since it employs some different wording not to mention the "arrangement" and "replacement" of some of those words. It doesn't help when you add little dots instead of the actual sequence of words. It might give the impression of being a deliberate attempt to change the intent of the author. Here is the full sentence and in it we see Origen saying nothing about praying to spirits in heaven simply that they pray.....good try, though.

"But these pray along with those who genuinely pray—not only the high priest but also the angels who “rejoice in heaven over one repenting sinner more than over ninety-nine righteous that need not repentance,.” and also the souls of the saints already at rest."

BTW, here is my source for Origen on Prayer. It might be helpful if you read it, then, you'd see he gives no support for RC doctrine of praying to saints.

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What's so funny about it? Actually, what it is is embarrassing for anyone to use this as evidence that Origen supports praying to saints. The above quotation you used says no such thing...read it again. In fact, he says they are not to be "honored" like God. Also, read his entire treatise on prayer and you will find no support for praying to a saint or even to an angel just as you will find no support for this practice in his other writings.

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In fact, we can be fully assured of Origen's commitment, and his agreement with the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles, that prayer is reserved only for God, this can be clearly seen in the following:

"But, conformably to our hypothesis, let this knowledge of them, which is something wonderful and mysterious, be obtained. Then this knowledge, making known to us their nature, and the offices to which they are severally appointed, will not permit us to pray with confidence to any other than to the supreme God, who is sufficient for all things, and that through our Saviour the Son of God, who is the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and everything else which the writings of God's prophets and the apostles of Jesus entitle Him...." Against Celsus

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You’re trying to pass of Cyprian as agreeing with you when he said,

"Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides [of death] always pray for one another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father’s mercy" (Letters 56[60]:5 [A.D. 253]).

"Trying to pass...".....lol Your quotation says nothing about praying to saints so who's trying to pass something off?....that would be you, not me. Whereas the following quote of Cyprian's is exceeding clear how he views praying to anyone other than God - sinful.

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And to simultaneously invoke Irenaeus against the Intercession of the Saints and condemn him in the same post takes a lot of gumption.

Present where I "condemned" Irenaeus in the same post...you can't because I didn't. So, if it's gumption you're looking for, I'd suggest a mirror.

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I said you ascribe the titles and attributes of God to Mary; also true of the saints, though to a lesser degree.

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And even a cursory examination of Against Heresies will show that the “angelic invocation” Irenaeus is speaking of is of fallen angels.

So what? I never commented on either good or bad angels...even a cursory examination would have shown that. The fact remains, he still said the following - that prayers are to be directed to God:

"Nor does she [the church] perform anything by means of angelic invocations, or by incantations, or by any other wicked curious art; but, directing her prayers to the Lord,"

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To provide support for your "interpretation" perhaps you might show even one prayer to anyone other than God that is found in Scripture? If you can't, and we all know you can't , then the earliest of Christian writings agree with me.

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Genesis 12:13

Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee. (KJV)

LOL....first praying to spirits in heaven was just like ordering a Whopper....now, it's just like asking someone to lie for you - the equivalent of praying to a spirit in heaven....go figure.

Just as I said, and proven, the earliest of Christian writings agree with me.