Is there support for prayer to saints in the Acts Of Paul?

The Acts Of Paul is an apocryphal document typically dated to the second half of the second century. There's a passage there that's come up in disputes over prayer to saints. It's a passage that's been rendered in a wide variety of ways in the manuscript record and has been diversely translated and interpreted.

Earlier this year, an article was published arguing for a particular form of the passage and interpreting it as an instance of prayer to the dead. You can click the link just provided to read the article. It concludes with the following translation of section 5:3 of the portion of the document referred to as the Martyrdom Of Paul:

"And Paul standing opposite prayed for a long time and ending the prayer he communed with the fathers in Hebrew, he then stretched out his neck speaking no longer." (p. 7)

Supposedly, Paul's "communing with the fathers" involves praying to the deceased, since "the fathers" are taken as righteous dead individuals.

You can see some examples of how differently the passage has been rendered by others on page 4 of the article. Or go here for a version that has:

"Then Paul stood with his face to the east and lifted up his hands unto heaven and prayed a long time, and in his prayer he conversed in the Hebrew tongue with the fathers, and then stretched forth his neck without speaking."

Unlike the first version I quoted, this one has the interaction with the fathers occurring in the prayer. But advocates of prayer to saints sometimes tell us that the term in question used for prayer is a type reserved for God, whereas lesser types of prayer can be used to contact other beings, including saints. So, why would Acts Of Paul have Paul addressing saints in the context of that form of prayer reserved for God?

Or go to page 13 here for a translation that doesn't involve any addressing of the fathers.

I'm just bringing up a few examples here. You can see the article linked above and search the internet for other translations to get more examples.

I don't know Greek, and I don't know much about the Acts Of Paul manuscript record. I'm not in much of a position to judge those issues. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the first translation quoted above, from the article I cited, is correct. Let's also assume that the term "the fathers" usually refers to righteous deceased individuals. Would it follow that Acts Of Paul is offering support for prayer to saints?

It depends on how you judge some other issues involved. There are other terms and other contextual factors to take into account.

The context surrounding Acts Of Paul is one in which prayer to saints was at least generally opposed among Christians, as I've argued elsewhere. Even advocates of the practice reflect the lack of support for it in the early years of Christianity when they resort to Biblical passages like the Mount of Transfiguration and Matthew 27:47 to support it and find so little alleged support for it in the earliest extrabiblical sources. It's possible that Acts Of Paul would support prayer to saints in spite of its unpopularity elsewhere, but that unpopularity adds some weight to interpreting the document in a way that doesn't involve such prayer.

And some of the details of the passage are problematic for a reading involving praying to saints. Even if the phrase "the fathers" is taken to likely refer to some deceased righteous individuals, the likelihood of that reading could be outweighed by other factors involved. It's possible for "fathers" to refer to people on earth who are of an older age. Paul himself is referred to as addressing "fathers" on earth in Acts 22:1. In fact, like the Acts Of Paul passage, Acts 22 goes on to mention that Paul was speaking to those fathers in Hebrew (verse 2). So, what details am I referring to that lean against taking "the fathers" in Acts Of Paul to refer to saints in heaven? Prayer can involve addressing a group, but it seems that addressing a group occurs more often outside of prayer, like in the Acts 22 context. Even singling out prayer to saints rather than thinking of prayer more broadly, addressing a group seems more common outside that sort of prayer than it is within that type of prayer. And addressing "the fathers" in particular in prayer seems at least highly unusual. Furthermore, why change to the Hebrew language to do it? That makes more sense in an earthly context, where people sometimes need a change in language to understand what's being said or to understand it better. Saints in heaven presumably don't need a change in language. You could argue that in Acts Of Paul, Paul doesn't need to change his language, but just chooses to do so, without needing to, for whatever reason. But a context in which language changes are more needed and more common, an earthly context, makes more sense of Paul's language change. The reference to "communing" with the fathers also makes more sense in an earthly context, since it seems to imply two-way communication. An earthly context would allow for a two-way interaction, not just Paul speaking to people in prayer without any speaking back. So, even if the phrase "the fathers" favors prayer to saints when considered in isolation, other characteristics of the passage and its context make more sense if the people being addressed are on earth, perhaps a group of Jewish elders witnessing Paul's martyrdom. The fathers appear abruptly in any understanding of the passage that includes the fathers, so objecting that they aren't referred to elsewhere is an inadequate response if you're going to propose an interpretation that also involves an abrupt mention of fathers of whatever type. In the sources leading up to the time of Acts Of Paul, there's a lot of precedent for speaking to father figures on earth as a group (Mark 11:27-33, Acts 4:8, 24:1, 1 John 2:13-14, etc.), including instances involving Paul in particular (e.g., Acts 24:1) and speaking in Hebrew in particular (Acts 22:1-2). I'm not aware of any comparable or greater precedent for praying to the fathers collectively, much less changing your language to do it.

However much the phrase "the fathers" favors an interpretation of Acts Of Paul involving prayer to the deceased, the other factors involved in interpreting the passage favor a different interpretation. Those other factors are more numerous and more varied, and I think they carry more weight overall.

You could propose a third option, in which there are one or more elements of the interpretation I've proposed above combined with one or more elements of the interpretation of an advocate of prayer to saints. Maybe Paul is seeing a vision of the fathers in Acts Of Paul, for example, which would allow the fathers to speak back to him (unlike in prayer to saints, at least as that sort of prayer is typically conceived). But if a vision is involved, then that's comparable to Samuel returning to earth in 1 Samuel 28, the Mount of Transfiguration, Gabriel visiting Zechariah and Mary in Luke 1, etc. That's not prayer as the term is usually defined. If you're brought into the presence of the fathers (whoever they are in the Acts Of Paul context) or they enter the earthly realm, then prayer, as it's defined in the dispute over prayer under consideration here, is no longer involved.