The passage has been brought up by some advocates of praying to saints. I discussed the passage in a post a few years ago.
Keep in mind that Jesus' opponents often accused him of things they and he disapproved of (Matthew 11:19, 12:24). They heard him say "Eli, Eli" (Matthew 27:46), so they had to come up with an explanation. The idea that Jesus' enemies, in the process of misinterpreting what he said, would only attribute to him something that they thought was an acceptable practice, thought was accepted to some significant extent among the Jewish people, or thought Jesus had approved of in the past is ridiculous. It would be like taking 11:19, in the same gospel, as evidence for Jewish and/or Christian support of gluttony and the abuse of alcohol. And the absence of any condemnation of prayer to saints in Matthew 27:47 doesn't tell us that the individuals who made the comment held a positive view of the practice. A lack of condemnation could be a result of agnosticism about the practice or a result of expecting the audience to recognize the problematic nature of the practice without having it explained to them (as in 11:19 and 12:24). Besides, if the individuals who made the comment about Elijah were Romans, what's the relevance of whether they approved of praying to people who are in the afterlife? What Matthew 27:47 tells us is that the concept of prayer to saints was known at the time, but it doesn't tell us whether the concept was viewed positively, neutrally, or negatively or who viewed it that way.
If the passage reflects some degree of Jewish acceptance of prayer to saints, something I see no way to argue for from the passage itself, it falls into the category I discussed in a post earlier this year. Ancient Jewish support for praying to beings other than God was accompanied by Jewish opposition to the practice. That opposition seems to be older, Biblical, and the view that was the dominant one among Christians during the earliest generations of Christianity.
In the recent YouTube videos Catholics and Orthodox have been putting out on prayer to saints and angels, one of the points that's been made is that Matthew would have had a reason for including the incident in Matthew 27:47 and the verses that follow. The implication seems to be that Matthew must have wanted to promote prayer to saints. Why else would he include the account, given the limited space he had on his scroll, how much else about Jesus' crucifixion goes unmentioned, etc.?
ReplyDeleteBut it's easy to see another reason why Matthew would include the account, a reason that has nothing to do with wanting to promote prayer to saints. There are four other accounts in Matthew's gospel about Elijah (11:14, 16:14, 17:3, 17:10), including specifically the coming of Elijah. Two of them mention Elijah's coming to earth, and two mention John the Baptist as an Elijah who was to come. The other gospels bring up other occasions when Elijah was discussed during Jesus' lifetime and in the immediate context surrounding his life. So, it's a prominent theme in Matthew, in the gospels in general, and in Jesus' life in general. And the gospel authors often bring up the theme of irony, such as how Jesus' opponents overlook or underestimate how something they're asking for has already been given. They wait to see if Elijah will come, based on a misunderstanding of what Jesus said, when Elijah has already come on multiple occasions and in multiple ways.
If Matthew wanted to promote prayer to saints or angels, he had many opportunities, including better ones, to do so elsewhere in his gospel. He often discusses prayer, ranging from lengthier passages to briefer and more incidental ones. There are frequent references to the Father as the recipient of the prayers, the one who answers the prayers, etc. Even when angels are involved in a prayer context, Jesus refers to going to the Father about them rather than praying to them (26:53). There's nothing that's supportive of prayer to saints or angels.
The cumulative effect of the absence of support for prayer to saints and angels in the Biblical record as a whole is much more significant than the absence in Matthew alone. But if the passage in Matthew 27 is going to be brought up as alleged evidence of Matthew's support for the practice, we should notice that nothing in the passage implies support for prayer to saints by Matthew or any other significant source, and we should notice that Matthew and the relevant figures he reports about (such as Jesus) so frequently passed by opportunities to promote such prayers elsewhere in the gospel, even though they so often offer support for prayer to God.
It would seem that the original great burst of saint-worshipping spiritual energy came after the great persecutions of Decius and Diocletian, around 300 AD (that is when the most classical RC/EO "martyr celebrities" came along, like St. Barbara, St. Lawrence etc.).
ReplyDeleteThis happened just on the eve of the Christian takeover of the Roman Empire, after Constantine's conversion, and the consequent EXPLOSIVE growth of the Christian community. Suddenly, hordes of spiritually immature converts, whose full sincerity was not always above suspicion, rushed into the church, and unscrupulous churchmen, who were now already a quarter of a millennium away from the times of apostles, began to pander to semi-polytheistic superstitious sentiments and basically giving the newly converted Greco-Roman masses (now already culturally far removed from the original Jewish, or Old Testament Israelite, background of Christianity), the cult of saints as a REPLACEMENT, or "consolation prize," of their old faith.
Charles Spurgeon expressed things with polemical exaggeration in this fiery sermon, but I think he was basically correct in the "big picture":
https://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/mongrel-religion
""The greatest curse, perhaps, that ever visited the world came upon it in this way. Certain vain-glorious preachers desired to convert the world at a stroke, and to make converts without the work of the Spirit. They saw the people worshipping their gods, and they thought that if they could call these by the names of saints and martyrs the people would not mind the change, and so they would be converted. The idea was to Christianize heathenism. They virtually said to idolaters, “Now, good people, you may keep on with your worship, and yet you can be Christians at the same time. This image of the Queen of heaven at your door need not be moved. Light the lamp still; only call the image ‘our Lady,’ and ‘the Blessed Virgin.’ Here is another image; don’t pull it down, but change its name from Jupiter to Peter.”
Btw, the modern Orthodox Jews, or Haredim/Hasidim, have a flourishing cult of the saints of their own - they, too, have betrayed the Old Testament legacy in this regard. The Hasidic Jews are doing yearly massive medieval-style pilgrimages to the tombs of their "wonder-working rabbis."
ReplyDeleteYour comments about post-Biblical Judaism reminded me of a book I want to mention, Jacob Bazak's Judaism And Psychical Phenomena (New York: Garrett Publications, 1972). It provides many examples of the diversity of views of paranormal issues in Judaism. Part of what it discusses is the use of mediums by some Jews, sometimes with apparently paranormal results.
DeleteCatholics and Orthodox often cite extrabiblical Jewish sources in support of their beliefs, including prayer to saints and angels. But they often ignore or underestimate the fact that other extrabiblical Jewish sources opposed such practices and that the opposition to the practices seems to be older and Biblical. And we find many extrabiblical Jews supporting practices these Catholics and Orthodox disagree with, like going to mediums. Furthermore, the Catholic and Orthodox appeal to paranormal phenomena associated with their cult of saints has significant parallels in Judaism and other non-Christian contexts.
I do not want to be like some sort of "pigheaded Protestant" type who just throws out hostile generalizations, but since it is impossible to be frankly truthful about certain delicate matters and be entirely polite, I think I should specify the accusation that I made. I mentioned "unscrupulous churchmen" who began to connive with polytheistic tendencies in order to gain as many converts as possible as quickly as possible.
ReplyDeleteTherefore I point the finger at the so-called Gregory the Wonderworker, who flourished in the third quarter of the 3rd century AD. The 19th century Protestant polemicist Isaac Taylor, relying on the church historian Neander, saw him as pioneering pernicious new practices:
https://archive.org/details/ancientchristia02taylgoog/page/376/mode/2up
"Too much reason is there to believe that a fatal ambition, on the part of the bishops of the THIRD century, had given the first impulse to this infatuation.—Men like Gregory of Neo-Cassarea, too eager to grasp the people, on any terms, within the arms of the church, allowed a yet pagan populace to cling to their inveterate habits, under the thin disguise of new appellations. The church had been used 'fondly' to pray FOR the dead:—these nominal converts, might they not therefore be allowed to pray TO them?—and then to celebrate their Parentalia, and other ancient rites, with every customary excess! Such, as it seems, was the origin of the invocation of saints, and veneration of relics; and how 'vain,' how pernicious, how presumptuous an invention let all history declare! *"
And it would seem that the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia agreed with this basic notion - you can often find intriguing information in official RC sources if you just know how to read between the lines! Namely, the implication here is that this thing Gregory Thaumaturgus sanctioned was an INNOVATION (that is, not an age-old apostolic practice), which involved at least some amount of unprincipled pandering to sensual tastes:
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07015a.htm
"From an ancient source we learn a fact that is at once a curious coincidence, and throws light on his missionary zeal; whereas he began with only seventeen Christians, at his death there remained but seventeen pagans in the whole town of Caesarea. The many miracles which won for his the title of Thaumaturgus were doubtless performed during these years. The Oriental mind revels so naturally in the marvellous that a serious historian cannot accept unconditionally all its product; yet if ever the title of "wonder-worker" was deserved, Gregory had a right to it.
...
To attract the people to the festivals in honour of the martyrs, we learn that Gregory organized profane amusements as an attraction for the pagans who could not understand a solemnity without some pleasures of a less serious nature than the religious ceremony."
We really should not give too much credit for all the pious claims, or excuses, of saint-worshippers, or their defenders. For it seems obvious that these cults of martyr-saints came along as SOCIAL (that is, by no means just entirely theological) successors of the ancient heathen festivals, which, frankly speaking, often involved plenty of booze & barbecue!
ReplyDeleteFor the ordinary ancient pagans, their religious festivals were often the only time they could indulge in wine and meat, and that was the salt of their drab lives, something they would not willingly give up! They loved their festivals even more than their actual gods, and that is why pragmatic-minded clerical leaders decided to give a at least some respectable Christian coat-painting to such jovial social practices.
And for centuries to come, the "saintly" festivals were often quite literally happy holidays in RC and EO cultures, not really overly devout, and even gaining openly immoral connotations (like the Latin American carnivals still today have).
I recall reading in one academic book that medieval Muslims, who lived near Levantine Christian populations, knew that saint-festivals were a propitious time to flirt with Christian girls. While other Muslims knew well that Russian EOs were in a habit of getting drunk in honor of their saints - this was written by a British traveller to the Russian Empire in the Victorian era:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1349/pg1349-images.html#link2HCH0010
"Proud of his superior knowledge, [the Tatar Muslim] regards you as a benighted polytheist, and may perhaps tell you that the Orthodox Christians with whom he comes in contact have three Gods and a host of lesser deities called saints, that they pray to idols called Icons, and that they keep their holy days by getting drunk. In vain you endeavour to explain to him that saints and Icons are not essential parts of Christianity, and that habits of intoxication have no religious significance."
This quote from Augustine shows that more conscientious church leaders felt around 400 AD some apologetic embarrassment at what the cult of the saints had turned out to be in real life - it had become functionally like the successor of the pagan cult of the ancestors, or the "smaller gods" that guarded the households. This kind of syncretism lives on in places like Mexico, with celebrations like "The Day of the Dead."
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104/npnf104.iv.iv.xxxvi.html
"75. Do not summon against me professors of the Christian name, who neither know nor give evidence of the power of their profession.152 Do not hunt up the numbers of ignorant people, who even in the true religion are superstitious, or are so given up to evil passions as to forget what they have promised to God. I know that there are many worshippers of tombs and pictures. I know that there are many who drink to great excess over the dead, and who, in the feasts which they make for corpses, bury themselves over the buried, and give to their gluttony and drunkenness the name of religion."