Part 7 (1/2)
do any thing by invocations of angels, nor by incantations, nor other depraved and curious means, but with cleanliness, purity, and openness, directing prayers to the Lord who made all things, and calling upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, it exercises its powers for the benefit, and not for the seducing, of mankind.” [Benedictine Ed. lib. ii. c. 32.
-- 5. p. 166.] It has been said that, by angelic invocations, Irenaeus means the addresses to evil angels and genii, such as the heathen superst.i.tiously made. Be it so; though that is a mere a.s.sumption, not warranted by the pa.s.sage or its context. But, surely, had Irenaeus known that Christians prayed to angels, as well as to their Maker and their Saviour, he would not have used such an unguarded expression; he would have cautioned his readers against so serious, but so natural, a misapprehension of his meaning.
With one more reference, we must bring our inquiry into the testimony of Irenaeus to a close. The pa.s.sage occurs in the fifth book, chapter 31.
[Benedict. lib. v. c. 32. -- 2. p, 331.] The princ.i.p.al and most important, though not the longest, part of {123} the pa.s.sage is happily still found in the original Greek, preserved in the ”Parallels” of Damascenus. In its plain, natural, and unforced sense, this pa.s.sage is so decidedly conclusive on the question at issue, that various attempts have been made to explain away its meaning, so as not to represent Irenaeus as believing that the souls of departed saints, between their death and the day of judgment, exist otherwise than in bliss and glory in heaven. But those attempts have been altogether unsuccessful. I believe the view here presented to us by the plain and obvious sense of the words of Irenaeus, is the view at present acquiesced in by a large proportion of our fellow-believers. The Anglican Church has made no article of faith whatever on the subject. The clause within brackets is found both in the Latin and the Greek.
”Since the Lord[45] in the midst of the shadow of death went where the souls of the dead were, and then afterwards rose bodily, and after his resurrection was taken up, it is evident that of his disciples also, for whom the Lord wrought these things, [the souls go into the unseen[46]
place a.s.signed to them by G.o.d, and there remain till the resurrection, waiting for the resurrection; afterwards receiving again their bodies and rising perfectly [[Greek: holoklaeros], perfecte], that is, bodily, even as the Lord also rose again, so will they come into the presence of G.o.d.] {124} For no disciple is above his master; but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. As, therefore, our Master did not immediately flee away and depart, but waited for the time of his resurrection appointed by his Father (which is evident, even by the case of Jonah); after the third day, rising again, he was taken up; so we too must wait for the time of our resurrection appointed by G.o.d, and fore-announced by the prophets; and thus rising again, be taken up, as many as the Lord shall have deemed worthy of this.”
[Footnote 45: Bellarmin, rather than allow the testimony of Irenaeus to weigh at all against the doctrine which he is defending, seems determined to combat and challenge that father himself. ”Non ausus est dicere,” ”He has not dared to say, that the souls go to the regions below,” &c.]
[Footnote 46: There is no word in the Greek copy corresponding with the Latin ”invisibilem.”]
SECTION III.--CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA--ABOUT THE YEAR 180.
Contemporary with Irenaeus, and probably less than twenty years his junior, was Clement, the celebrated Christian philosopher of Alexandria.
I am not aware that any Roman Catholic writer has appealed to the testimony of Clement in favour of the invocation of saints, nor have I found a single pa.s.sage which the defenders of that practice would be likely to quote; and yet there are many pa.s.sages which no one, anxious to trace the Catholic faith, would willingly neglect. The tendency of Clement's mind to blend with the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ the philosophy in which he so fully abounded, renders him far less valuable as a Christian teacher; but his evidence as to the matter of fact, is even rendered more cogent and pointed by this tendency of his mind. I would {125} willingly have transferred to these pages whole pa.s.sages of Clement, but the very nature of my address forbids it. Some sentences bearing on the subject immediately before us, we must not omit.
Clement has left on record many of his meditations upon the efficacy, the duty, and the blessed comfort of prayer. When he speaks of G.o.d, and of the Christian in prayer, (for prayer he defines to be ”communion or intercourse with G.o.d,”) his language becomes often exquisitely beautiful, and sometimes sublime. It is impossible by a few detached pa.s.sages to convey an adequate estimate of the original; and yet a few sentences may show that Clement is a man whose testimony should not be slighted.
”Therefore, keeping the whole of our life as a feast every where, and on every part persuaded that G.o.d is present, we praise him as we till our lands; we sing hymns as we are sailing. The Christian is persuaded that G.o.d hears every thing; not the voice only, but the thoughts.... Suppose any one should say, that the voice does not reach G.o.d, revolving as it does in the air below; yet the thoughts of the saints cut not only through the air, but the whole world. And the divine power like the light is beforehand in seeing through the soul.... He” (the Christian whom he speaks of throughout as the man of divine knowledge) ”prays for things essentially good.
”Wherefore it best becomes those to pray who have an adequate knowledge of G.o.d, and possess virtue in accordance with Him--who know what are real goods, and what we should pet.i.tion for, and when, and how in each case. But it is the extreme of ignorance to ask {126} from those who are not G.o.ds as though they were G.o.ds.... Whence since there is one only good G.o.d, both we ourselves and the angels supplicate from Him alone, that some good things might be given to us, and others might remain with us. In this way he (the Christian) is always in a state of purity fit for prayer. He prays with angels, as being himself equal with angels; and as one who is never beyond the holy protecting guard. And if he pray alone he has the whole choir of angels with him.” [Stromata, lib. vii. -- 7. p. 851, &c.; Section xii. p. 879.]
Clement has alluded to instances alleged by the Greeks of the effects of prayer, and he adds, ”Our whole Scripture is full of instances of G.o.d hearing and granting every request according to the prayers of the just.” [Lib. vi. -- iii. p. 753.]
Having in the same section referred to the opinion of some Greeks as to the power of demons over the affairs of mortals, he adds, ”But they think it matters nothing whether we speak of these as G.o.ds or as angels, calling the spirits of such 'demons,' and teaching that they should be wors.h.i.+pped by men, as having, by divine providence, on account of the purity of their lives, received authority to be conversant about earthly places, in order that they may minister to mortals.” [Lib. vi. -- iii. p.
755.]
Is it possible to suppose that this teacher in Christ's school had any idea of a Christian praying to saints or angels? In the last pa.s.sage, the language in which he quotes the errors of heathen superst.i.tion to refute them, so nearly approaches the language of the Church of Rome when speaking of the powers of saints and angels to a.s.sist the suppliant, that if Clement had entertained {127} any thought whatever of a Christian praying for aid and intercession to saint or angel, he must have mentioned it, especially after the previous pa.s.sage on the absurdity and gross ignorance of praying for any good at the hands of any other than the one true G.o.d.
In common with his contemporaries, Clement considered the angels to be, as we mortals are, in a state requiring all the protection and help to be obtained by prayer; he believed that the angels pray with us, and carry our prayers to G.o.d: but the thought of addressing them by invocation does not appear to have occurred to his mind. At the close of his Paedagogus he has left on record a form of prayer to G.o.d alone very peculiar and interesting. He closes it by an ascription of glory to the blessed Trinity. But there is no allusion to saint, or angel, or virgin mother.
SECTION IV.--TERTULLIAN.
Tertullian, of Carthage, was a contemporary of Clement of Alexandria, and so nearly of the same age, that doubts have existed, which of the two should take priority in point of time. There is a very wide difference in the character and tone of their works, as there was in the frame and const.i.tution of their minds. The lenient and liberal views of the erudite and accomplished master of the school of Alexandria, stand out in prominent and broad contrast with the harsh and austere doctrines of Tertullian.
Tertullian fell into errors of a very serious kind by joining himself to the heretic Monta.n.u.s; still on his {128} mind is discoverable the working of that spirit which animated the early converts of Christianity; and his whole soul seems to have been filled with a desire to promote the practical influence of the Gospel.
Jerome, the oracle on such subjects, from whom the Roman Catholic Church is unwilling to allow any appeal, expressly tells us that Cyprian[47], who called Tertullian the Master, never pa.s.sed a single day without studying his works; and that after Tertullian had remained a presbyter of the Church to middle age, he was driven, by the envy and revilings of the members of the Roman Church, to fall from its unity, and espouse Montanism. Bellarmin calls him a heretic, and says he is the first heretic who denied that the saints went at once and forthwith to glory.
[Hieron. edit. 1684. tom. i. p. 183.]
[Footnote 47: The words of Jerome, who refers to the circ.u.mstance more than once, are very striking: ”I saw one Paulus, who said that he had seen the secretary (notarium) of Cyprian at Rome, who used to tell him that Cyprian never pa.s.sed a single day without reading Tertullian; and that he often said to him, 'Give me the Master,' meaning Tertullian.”--Hieron. vol.
iv. part ii. p. 115.]
A decided line of distinction is drawn by Roman Catholic writers between the works of Tertullian written before he espoused the errors of Monta.n.u.s, and his works written after that unhappy step. The former they hold in great estimation, the latter are by many considered of far less authority. I do not see how such a distinction ought to affect his testimony on the historical point immediately before us. If indeed he had held the doctrine of the invocation of saints whilst he continued in the full communion of the Church, and rejected it afterwards, no honest and sensible writer would quote his later opinions against the practice.