How Afterlife Issues Affect Claims About Prayer To Saints

People often overlook some of the evidence that's relevant to evaluating prayer to saints. After praying to saints became popular (with ongoing opposition), other issues continued to prevent some people from accepting it and led others to accept significantly different forms of it. In a book about the cult of the saints, Matthew Dal Santo discusses how differing views of the afterlife led to what he calls "radical" and "profound" differences in how people viewed prayer to saints (Debating The Saints' Cult In The Age Of Gregory The Great [United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2012], 308, 315). A belief in soul sleep could prevent one person from believing in prayer to saints and lead another person to believe in it, but in a significantly different form than what's advocated by, say, modern Roman Catholics or modern Eastern Orthodox. Or think of purgatory. There are connections between purgatory and Catholic views of prayer to saints, what saints are doing in heaven, and such. Think of prayers to saints that ask them to help those in purgatory or purgatorial apparitions that supposedly referred to the saints' intercession for those in purgatory, for example. But many pre-Reformation sources rejected purgatory. Go here for a post that quotes some of Dal Santo's comments on the diversity of afterlife views held by pre-Reformation sources, including for hundreds of years after prayer to saints became popular.

More Examples Of Medieval Opposition To Prayer To Saints

Concerning some of the opposition to prayer to saints around the time of the Second Council of Nicaea, Dirk Krausmuller writes:

The Reformation's Continuity With Earlier History

We've written a lot over the years about the Reformation's deepest roots, such as the Biblical and patristic ones. I want to quote John Davis concerning some examples of roots in the late medieval era, including among some individuals and groups who survived until the time of the Reformation.

His comments are relevant to a couple of controversies that have been getting a lot of attention in conservative Protestant circles in recent weeks. One of Joe Schmid's videos discussing his conversion to Roman Catholicism refers to how Protestantism supposedly "comes out of nowhere". Some of the responses to Gavin Ortlund's recent video on prayer to saints have suggested that nobody opposed the practice early on or that only Gnostics or similar sources did so. I've given many examples of church fathers and other pre-Reformation sources who were much more credible than Gnostics and agreed with Protestants in opposing prayer to saints and angels. See here. Since this post is focused on late medieval sources, see my discussions of the Waldensians here, the Lollards here, and the Hussites here. I'll be saying more about issues like these later this year, but, for now, here are some of Davis' comments:

"As more evidence comes to light, it appears that English Protestantism first flowered in areas having heterodox traditions [Lollards, etc.]. In the eighteenth century the Revd. John Lewis collected material for his Brief History of the English Anabaptists which included evidence of the Kentish and Norfolk sects, finding 'the Religion of the Protestants no Novelty'. Dr. Collinson has noted the Lollard antecedents underlying centres of Elizabethan Puritanism; the textile villages of the Stour Valley that sustained the Dedham Conference, and Cranbrook, the home of William Carder the weaver who had been the most important heretic of Archbishop Warham's persecution in 1511. In addition the Puritan leaders in London held cures in the part of the metropolis where the old Lollard conventicles had flourished, in particular St. Giles Cripplegate and All Hallows Honey Lane. Similarly, Dr. Thomson has summed up the legacy of later Lollardy as anti-sacerdotalism, anticlericalism, anti-papalism and puritanism....The Bohemian knights who waited upon Luther at Worms had behind them the influence of Hus, and the English reformers similarly had the tradition of Wyclif." (Heresy And Reformation In The South East Of England, 1520-1559 [Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press Inc., 1983], 2-3, 27)

Those are just some examples among many more that could be cited. And the connections involve more than just groups like the Lollards and Hussites. There were significant sympathies with the Reformation even among some of the people who remained Roman Catholic after the Reformation began. On issues where an anti-Protestant consensus eventually formed in support of Roman Catholic belief prior to the Reformation, there were other people who disagreed with that consensus earlier, centuries before the Reformation (e.g., opposition to prayer to saints and angels and the veneration of images leading up to the Second Council of Nicaea and afterward).

Did Hippolytus support prayer to saints?

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have been citing him in support of the practice for a long time, including in response to Gavin Ortlund's recent video on praying to saints. Few Protestants have addressed Hippolytus' view to any significant extent. I've been writing about it for many years, like here. You can go there for an overview of some relevant material in Hippolytus, some of the arguments involved, and so forth. For the purposes of this post, I'll just quote one passage, the one advocates of prayer to saints keep bringing up:

Do the Psalms support prayer to angels?

I've sometimes brought up the hymn "Angels From The Realms Of Glory" in discussions of prayer to saints and angels. The first verse reads:

The Assumption Of Mary Isn't Just Absent In The Earliest Sources

People often underestimate the evidence against an assumption of Mary and the evidence against the idea that her assumption is an apostolic tradition always held by the church. While it's true that the concept of an assumption of Mary is absent in the earliest generations of church history, the evidence against the concept goes far beyond that. See my posts here and here about how often the Biblical and extrabiblical sources discuss a wide range of topics relevant to an assumption of Mary, mentioning many individuals other than Mary in the process, without saying anything about an assumption that Mary experienced. Here's a post that discusses other contexts, like ancient Christian artwork, in which an assumption of Mary or other relevant events (e.g., her being raised from the dead) could have been included, but weren't. Again, keep in mind that many people other than Mary are included in such contexts, even though Mary isn't. There's also the fact that some patristic and medieval sources either expressed agnosticism about whether Mary was assumed (see here and here) or denied that she was assumed (see here and here). And here's a post about a medieval Pope who referred to belief in Mary's assumption as optional. On the problems with appealing to doctrinal development in support of an assumption of Mary, see here.

You can find many other posts with relevant material in our archives. See the list of posts under the Assumption of Mary label here, for example.

Problems With Appealing To Doctrinal Development In Support Of The Assumption Of Mary

One approach advocates of her assumption could take is to argue that the earliest Christians weren't aware of Mary's assumption, but that an understanding of it developed over time. It wasn't a new revelation, but rather is an implication of one or more aspects of the apostolic faith, an implication that wasn't recognized until sometime after the apostles.

There are some problems with that sort of approach, some of which I've discussed before. I want to repeat some points I've brought up in other discussions and add some that I don't think I've mentioned in the past.

Late Medieval And Reformation Sources On The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

TurretinFan and Dan Chapa recently produced a video discussing the diversity of views of the perpetual virginity of Mary held by sources of the late medieval and Reformation eras. It draws on some of the material in my recent posts here, here, and here.

Catholics Contradicting Each Other About Eternal Security

I recently saw a Catholic claim that no Christian believed in eternal security before the Reformation. Supposedly, only Gnostics believed in it during that timeframe. See the comments section of the thread here. And Trent Horn repeatedly denied that there was any pre-Reformation support for eternal security in his debate with Ryan Hemelaar (of NeedGod.net). Go here to watch Trent say that no "notable" Christian held to eternal security before the Reformation. He goes on to refer to how the concept is "absent" before the Reformation. And here he refers to how "nobody" held the view during that timeframe. Later he asks Ryan to name "any individual" from the second to the fifteenth centuries. Near the end of the debate, Trent comments that even "named heretics" didn't hold to eternal security, and he refers to it as a "radical, novel" concept.

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 3)

One of the issues that sometimes comes up in discussions of Mary's perpetual virginity is the necessity of accepting the doctrine. Is acceptance of it a requirement for salvation? If somebody believes in the perpetual virginity of Mary, to what degree does he think opponents of the doctrine have erred? As my last post mentioned, a person could be agnostic about whether Mary was a perpetual virgin. And people who support the doctrine or oppose it can do so to a wide variety of degrees. Issues like these often get overlooked or underestimated, not just when considering the timeframes I'm focused on in these posts, but also more broadly.

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 2)

People have taken a lot of different positions on the perpetual virginity of Mary. A wide variety of views is found in the historical record during the timeframes I'm addressing. You could believe that Mary didn't have sexual intercourse, but reject her virginity in partu. You could believe in her perpetual virginity, yet not think that rejecting it makes somebody a non-Christian. You could affirm her perpetual virginity or oppose it to different degrees. You could be agnostic on the subject. And so on.

This post will discuss some examples of individuals who opposed the perpetual virginity of Mary. The next post will address sources who took other positions that are significant in one way or another.

The Diversity Of Views Of The Perpetual Virginity Of Mary In The Late Medieval And Reformation Eras (Part 1)

It's common for Roman Catholics and other critics of Protestantism to bring up support among the earliest Protestants for various Marian beliefs that are often rejected by Protestants today, like the perpetual virginity of Mary. Individuals like Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli will be cited in support of her perpetual virginity and other such beliefs about her. While it's true that the earliest Protestants were closer to groups like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy on Marian issues than modern Protestants are, even the earliest Protestants substantially disagreed with those groups on some Marian issues. See the examples discussed here. And the early Protestants who accepted Mary's perpetual virginity sometimes disagreed with Catholics and other modern advocates of the perpetual virginity of Mary on some issues related to the doctrine, like whether she took a vow of virginity. In the coming days, I'm going to be discussing some late medieval and Reformation sources who were more distant from a traditional Catholic view on the perpetual virginity of Mary. What I want to do in this post is discuss some background issues that I think are helpful in framing the discussion.

So Quickly Drifting To A Different Gospel

Paul told the Galatians, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel" (Galatians 1:6). He expressed a similar sentiment to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 11:4).

If churches as early as these Pauline ones were in such danger and sometimes erred while under Paul's supervision, there's even more potential in some ways for later individuals and churches to err in that manner. My post earlier this week provides many examples of how that sort of thing happened a lot in later church history, regardless of which side of those later disputes you take. The disputes happened, and both sides (or more than two in some contexts) couldn't be right, given the nature of their claims.

I'm not suggesting that every or almost every post-apostolic source before the Reformation wasn't a Christian or anything like that. As I've argued in many previous posts and elsewhere, there was far more belief in justification through faith alone among the pre-Reformation sources than people often suggest. And I allow for the salvation of people who hold false soteriological views. People are often inconsistent, as we see with Peter and the Galatians, for example. In some ways, later individuals and groups who have contradicted Paul's soteriology have been better than the Judaizers. They've accepted the authority of the apostles, have often read documents like Paul's letters in their church services, etc. So, when Cyprian sees two sacraments (baptism and the laying on of hands) as a means of justification in John 3:5 or a medieval Roman Catholic believes that you have to obey the Pope in order to be saved, for example, I allow for the possibility or probability of their salvation. I make a judgment based on the totality of the evidence, including their access to the gospel and their affirmations of it in some places, even if they were inconsistent with it at times.

My main point here, though, is that departing from the gospel isn't as difficult as some people make it out to be. It was a prominent concern in Paul's day, and it sometimes happened even with people under the apostles' supervision. People often underestimate the soteriological inconsistencies we see in post-apostolic church history. Supposedly, none or few of the soteriological contradictions we see among the church fathers, medieval theologians, and other sources rise to the level of a false gospel. But it makes more sense to acknowledge that the soteriological errors are more significant than that and allow for the salvation of the individuals involved, despite their false soteriology.

More Soteriological Disagreement Before The Reformation

In the context of discussing baptismal regeneration, I've mentioned that there was widespread disagreement among the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation regarding initiatory rites. Things like regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit would sometimes be placed at the time of baptism, but often would be placed in some other context instead (faith prior to baptism, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal laying on of hands, etc.). The extrabiblical sources before the Reformation widely disagreed about baptismal efficacy, despite how popular it is to falsely claim that everybody before the Reformation believed in baptismal regeneration, that almost everybody did, or some such thing. What modern advocates of baptismal regeneration attribute to baptism was often attributed to prebaptismal faith, anointing with oil, foot washing, or something else by many pre-Reformation sources. For a discussion of some patristic examples, see here. On medieval sources, see here. And I've provided other examples in other posts.

Habakkuk's Assumption Mentioned While Mary's Isn't

I've often discussed how much attention figures like Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, and Paul get in scripture and in the early extrabiblical sources because of being bodily assumed to heaven or carried up in a supernatural manner in some other context. See here, for example, among many other relevant posts in our archives.

One of the most striking examples I've cited is the account of Habakkuk being supernaturally transported from Israel to Babylon in an Apocryphal addition to the book of Daniel, Daniel 14:32-38. In an earlier post, I noted how significant it is that Cyril of Jerusalem, for example, wrote about the assumptions or assumption-like experiences of so many figures, even an example as insignificant as the passage about Habakkuk in an Apocryphal document, yet said nothing of an assumption of Mary.

There's another example of this kind of thing in Chromatius of Aquileia. As far as I know, he never advocated the assumption of Mary anywhere in his writings. Yet, he does discuss the transporting of Habakkuk to Babylon (Thomas Scheck, trans., Chromatius Of Aquileia: Sermons And Tractates On Matthew [Mahwah, New Jersey: The Newman Press, 2018], approximate Kindle location 4741). The context Chromatius is addressing is God's provision of food for his people, such as God's provision for Daniel through Habakkuk. I wouldn't expect Mary to be mentioned in that context, even if Chromatius believed in her assumption. My point isn't that Mary should have been mentioned by Chromatius in that passage if he believed in her assumption. Rather, my point is that even something as insignificant as the material on Habakkuk in the Apocrypha gets mentioned sometimes, whereas the assumption of Mary keeps going conspicuously unmentioned, even when people are addressing issues that are highly relevant (assumptions, resurrections, people who are currently in heaven in an embodied state, etc.).

Prayer to saints and angels in Revelation 5:8 and 8:4?

Because prayer to angels and saints is so absent from and contradicted by the Biblical sources and the earliest extrabiblical ones, advocates of the practice resort to unverifiable appeals to passages like Revelation 5:8 and 8:4. Neither passage suggests prayer to angels or saints, just as the angels' carrying bowls of wrath elsewhere in Revelation doesn't lead us to conclude that the angels are the recipients of that wrath. And the earliest interpreters of those passages in Revelation refer to how the prayers are directed to God. There's no mention of praying to angels or saints. For some documentation of that fact, as well as a discussion of the Biblical evidence against the abuse of Revelation 5:8 and 8:4 to support prayer to angels and saints, see here.

I came across another example while reading Tom Schmidt's translation of Anonymous Greek Scholia On The Apocalypse. In a passage about Revelation 5:8 that seems to have come from Origen, we read:

"Somewhere it is said, 'Let my prayer be directed as incense before you [God].' [Psalm 141:2] Bowls full of these incenses are the guides of those who genuinely pray to Christ." (Francis Gumerlock, et al., translators, Cassiodorus, St, Gregory The Great, And Anonymous Greek Scholia: Writings On The Apocalypse [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022], 131)

Psalm 141:2, which is about praying to God, is cited, followed by a reference to those who "pray to Christ". Origen makes similar comments, including the citation of Psalm 141:2, in section 8:17 of Against Celsus.

For a collection of resources on the evidence against prayer to saints and angels, see here.

Advocates Of Baptismal Regeneration Rely On Implicit Arguments

In a post last year, I discussed several implicit lines of evidence for belief in justification apart from baptism among the early extrabiblical sources. As I mentioned there, all of us rely on implicit reasoning across many contexts in life, including when making judgments about Biblical and patristic issues. You wouldn't be able to function for a single day in your life without relying on implicit reasoning at some point. I gave some examples of how advocates of baptismal regeneration use some implicit arguments to support their own position. Yet, people often reject implicit arguments because of their implicit rather than explicit nature, or they assign implicit arguments less significance than those arguments actually have. Even many opponents of baptismal regeneration seem to get taken in by that sort of bad reasoning, to the point that they won't cite any extrabiblical sources who seem to support their view in an implicit way, since the evidence isn't explicit. Whether that's due to peer pressure, confusing a preference for explicit evidence with a need for it, or whatever else, it's a mistake.

More Pre-Reformation Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Lollards

I've discussed their support for Reformation views in other posts, like here and here. And here's one about a book on Lollard heresy trials in the first half of the fifteenth century.

How Often The Church Fathers "Demeaned" Mary

Boniface Ramsey, in his translation of the sermons of Maximus of Turin, refers to passages in which Maximus "demeans" Mary (The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], n. 1 on p. 365). Given Roman Catholicism's history of claiming that Mary is God's greatest creation, that she was sinless throughout her life, that she cooperated with Jesus' work in the world at every moment of her life, and so on, it doesn't take much to say something that demeans Mary from a Catholic perspective. For example:

Implicit Exclusions Of Baptismal Regeneration In Early Christian Literature

As I discussed in another post, we find baptismal regeneration contradicted in a large number and variety of ways in the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation. Sometimes an exclusion of baptism as a means of justification is implicit rather than explicit.

And people will often object to the use of implicit evidence. But we all rely on it. For example, we depend on implicit evidence when deciding how to translate a word in a document, basing our conclusion on what the surrounding context seems to imply. Christians have often said, rightly, that it's unreasonable for a Muslim to ask us for a passage in the gospels in which Jesus says "I am God. Worship me." or some equivalent. A term like "Trinity" doesn't have to appear in the Bible for Trinitarianism to be Biblical. Roman Catholics often use arguments from typology that aren't explicit. And so on. Advocates of baptismal regeneration rely on implicit argumentation in the context of supporting that doctrine. The appeal to alleged references to baptism in terms like "water" in John 3:5 and "washing" in Titus 3:5 relies on implicit argumentation, so does their reasoning that baptismal regeneration has been in effect during certain circumstances and not in others (e.g., not being applicable during the Old Testament era and some portion or all of Jesus' public ministry), etc. Since proponents of baptismal regeneration rely on implicit argumentation in their reasoning about the subject, they're not in a position to object to their opponents' use of implicit argumentation. The fact that we prefer explicit evidence doesn't mean that implicit evidence has no value. Something can be less valuable, yet still have value to some extent. The nature of life is such that evidence comes in both implicit and explicit forms, with people sometimes disagreeing about whether something is implicit or explicit, and we have to take all of the evidence into account.