Intercession of the Departed Saints and Martyrs
Catholic and Orthodox Christians ask the departed Christians — who have died here on earth but are very much alive on the Other Side — to intercede for them. After all, a saint that is more directly in the presence of God and finds themselves purified of all sin will have a powerful prayer, will they not?
The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16
Let us look at the early church to see when this practice first arose and what the Church Fathers had to say about it.
The New Testament Instructions on Prayer
The disciples approached Christ and asked Him, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” Christ’s response — because of its balance of worship, petition, confession and dependence on God — is widely regarded as the clearest, most authoritative prayer formula taught in the Scriptures.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven…”
Matthew 6:5-13 and Luke 11:1-4 recount this formula and show Christ modelling prayer directly to the Father. In other gospel passages Christ asks us to pray to “the Father in My Name…” (John 16:23-24). Paul calls Christ the only “one mediator between God and men,” (1 Tim. 2:5), and he also clarifies the role of the Holy Spirit as an intercessor and the power source of our prayers (Rom. 8:26-27, Eph. 6:18).
The pattern is clear. The Holy Spirit powers, formulates and aims our prayers towards Christ who then purifies and authorizes them so they are fit to be received by the Father.
Revelation 5:8 shows the cherubim and elders holding golden bowls of incense “which are the prayers of the saints.” This occurs in the very Throne Room of Heaven with both the Father and the Son present. Human and powerful non-human creatures are involved in our prayers reaching the Father through Christ as brought by the Holy Spirit. God the Father does not require His creatures’ participation but He involves them nonetheless.
Although the earliest Church Fathers (i.e.: the Apostolic Fathers) taught that the departed believers actively pray — intercede — for earthly believers, please note that this scene from Revelation 5:8 does not show the elders or cherubim bringing their own prayers to the Throne but bringing ours. Conduits of our prayers are the only activity being described here.
Hebrews 12:1 states that earthly believers are “surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.” Orthodox and Catholic believers claim this means we are being watched, prayed for and therefore able to interact with our departed brothers and sisters in Christ. However, all of the Apostolic Fathers who commented on this passage — including later Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria — interpret Hebrews 12:1 as teaching that we are to be inspired by the lives of the believers in the “Hall of Faith” described in the previous chapter of Hebrews. Not that they watch us nor are able to hear us.
Nowhere in the Old Testament, the Deuterocanon (Apocrypha) or the New Testament are we shown directly that we can entreat the departed with prayer requests. When Saul reaches Samuel he has to do so through the witch of Endor, in violation of Deuteronomy 18:10-12’s warnings against sorcery and witchcraft.
The Ante-Nicene Fathers
The period between the Ascension of our Lord and the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD is known as the pre or ante Nicene period. The church’s theologians and leaders during this era are known as the Ante-Nicene or Nicaean Fathers. Sub-categories such as Apostolic Fathers (the direct students of the Apostles and their students), Greek Apologists (e.g.: Justin Martyr) and Ecclesiastical Fathers are based on their chronological appearance and their main written contributions on faith and doctrine.
Apostolic Fathers
Nowhere in the first century after Christ’s Ascension do we see any student of the Apostles present instructions on prayer other than a mirror of the New Testament’s formula. Everything is directly prayed to God through Christ. There are no exceptions. Neither Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch or Polycarp break this pattern. Prayers such as the following by Ignatius are the normative structure:
“Let us at all times give thanks to Christ Jesus, and to His Father, who has given us understanding, wisdom…”
Orthodox scholars such as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Catholic scholars such as Friar John A. Hardon, S.J. admit that the omission about invoking the departed is due to the absence of this practice during the first two centuries of Christendom.
Greek Apologists
Because they were presenting and defending Christendom to a Greco-Roman pagan world, these Church Fathers differentiated Christian practice from the paganism saturating Rome’s empire.
Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras of Athens and all other Fathers from this period criticized the Greco-Roman pagan practice of invoking the created spirits and warned against it.
“we may not pray to any begotten being, not even to Christ himself, but only to the Father of all.”
- Origen, On Prayer 15, circa 233 AD
“every prayer is sent up to the Supreme God through the High Priest; we do not pray to those who themselves pray to God.”
- Origen, Against Celsus, 5.4 circa 248 AD
This distinction by Origen is a clear example of Christian teachers continuing the straight line from the tradition of the Apostolic Fathers and the New Testament in reserving prayer as an act solely directed to God.
Some Orthodox and Catholic believers claim that this was an attempt to differentiate the Christian practice of invoking departed saints from the illicit pagan rituals for the dead. Yet if the Fathers were simply contrasting pagan parallels to Christian doctrine why would they not have simply done that. Such as Justin Martyr when he used the Greco-Roman myth of virgin-born Perseus to teach on the true virgin birth of Christ. Or Origen’s use of Hercules’ post-death ascension to god-hood as a pagan pseudo-resurrection story. Church fathers used any pagan beliefs that paralleled Christian truths to point to Christ as the true manifestation of their archetypes. But this is not the case with communication with the departed. They unanimously distance Christianity from such practices as they did when warning against astrology and fortune telling.
Another often cited counter is that the fathers were only warning against worshipping creatures other than God. Praying to pagan idols was a worship problem, not an invocation problem. But the word for prayer in the New Testament is the same one used in the patristic warnings:
| προσεύχομαι |
| pro-SYOO-kho-my |
If they were concerned with worship, they would have used the word for worship. Which is the same one used in the New Testament warnings to not worship anything other than God:
| λατρεύω |
| la-TREH-oo-oh |
“Well, invocation of the saints is not prayer. So the patristic warnings were never against invoking departed saints.”
Invocation is not a separate category than prayer, it is a subset. One must address a being from the Other World before they can invoke them for a request. But even if we take this line of reasoning, Greek translation of Augustine shows the word for invocation when he warns against it:
| ἐπικαλέω / ἐπικαλοῦμαι |
| eh-pee-ka-LEH-oh / eh-pee-ka-LOO-my |
Church Fathers in the second centuray (includes Greek Father era figures) were essentially silent on the prayers to departed Christian saints. This keeps the straight line of Scripture going through the Apostolic (first century) era as well as the second century. To impose a retroactive green light on invocation simply because it later became normalized is to reinterpret this earlier period through later theological categories rather than allowing the earlier evidence to speak on its own terms
Ecclesiastical,Theological and Anti-Gnostic Fathers
As the late third century unfolded, we begin to see evidence that believers practiced invocation. Aside from the Garden Tomb of Christ, the oldest and most famous burial site in Christendom is that of Peter the Apostle’s. Dating to 64-67 AD it is home to the most often cited invocation inscription:
“PETRE, ROGA.”
“Peter, ask on our behalf.”
Although the tomb of Peter is from the first century, Margherita Guarducci — one of the Vatican’s chief archaeologists — dates(1) this inscription to somewhere between 270-319 AD because the lettering style is of the early fourth century and the inscription’s location is not at the original grave but on an adjacent red plaster wall that was added in late third century.
Priscilla, wife of a Roman Senator, was buried around 180-200 AD. The original nucleus of this family site was later expanded into a catacomb network in the mid third century. It is in these later expanded regions that we see the following inscription:
“ORATE PRO NOBIS.”
“Pray for us.”
Due to the lettering and location of the tiles they are inscribed on, archaeological scholarship(2) dates this after 313 AD.
San Sebastiano was a converted Roman soldier who was martyred under Diocletian’s persecution between 288-300 AD. His original burial place (i.e.: catacomb) in Rome only bears standard inscriptions wishing him peace. After Constantine legalized Christianity with the 313 AD Edict of Milan, famous burial sites such as San Sebastino’s were expanded in size and had new epigraphs carved into their new walls. These newer inscriptions show a clear practice of invoking departed saints.
PETRE ET PAULE MEMORES ESTOTE “Peter and Paul, be mindful of us”
“PETRE ET PAULE, PETITE PRO VICTORE.”
“Peter and Paul, pray for Victor.”
Both of these appear in the court in the catacombs of San Sebastiano. Catholic scholarship(3) sites the type of lettering used and the location of the inscriptions to determine they were made between 320 and 360 AD.
Church Fathers of the late ante-nicene period — corresponding with the appearance of invocation evidence — continue their silence on the practice or appear to contradict it:
“It is not our duty to pray to angels, nor to archangels, nor to any being created, but only to God, the Father of all, through our Saviour who is the High Priest.”
- Origen “On Prayer, Book IX v. 1” circa 233 AD
Hippolytus of Rome, author of the Apostolic Traditions (~215 AD) and others such as Commodianus and Arnobius of Sicca, condemned the pagan practice of contacting the departed, calling it sorcery.
In the early fourth century, Lactantius writes:
“…those who either make prayers to the dead, or venerate the earth, or make over their souls to unclean spirits, do not act as becomes men….”
- Lactantius, “Divine Institutes, Ch. 2 v. 18”
In the above writings, Lactantius is speaking about pagan worship of the dead, not directly warning against Christian invocation. At its weakest, this is continued silence about praying to departed saints, at its strongest it constitutes a broader rejection of the practice of praying to the dead. In either case, the passage provides no positive evidence that Christians of Lactantius’s period were invoking departed saints.
Again, the straight line of doctrine for prayer being to God alone continues all the way through to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
Post Nicene Period
Following Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in 313 AD, the construction of churches and shrines associated with martyrs expanded dramatically and became increasingly public and institutionalized. Around 370 AD, at a dedication to the shrine of Christian martyr St. Julitta, Basil of Caesarea stated:
“At the tombs of the martyrs the whole city gathers together;
we pray, and the martyrs intercede.
It is the day of the martyrs’ feast—
heaven and earth are joined,
men converse with angels.”
“Julitta is an ever-wakeful helper for those who call upon her.”
- Basil of Caesarea, “Homily on St. Julitta the Martyr” circa 370 AD
This is among the earliest clear and unambiguous statements from a major Church Father explicitly commending the martyrs as helpers of those who call upon them.Yet, instead of a wholesale acceptance of this new practice, a debate emerged among the ranks of the Fathers in this post-Nicene period. To Basil’s side flocked notable allies such as Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Jerusalem. And forming an opposition were heavy weights such as Aerius of Sebaste, Vigilantius of Calagurris, Eusebius and Augustine.
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, is known as the “Father of Church History” because he compiled the earliest and most comprehensive history of the first 300 years of Christendom. Although he wrote his doctrine of prayer decades before Basil’s homily, he echoed the Apostolic Fathers’ formula:
“after invoking the God of the universe through our Saviour, His own Word, as our High Priest.“
- Eusebius of Caesarea: Praeparatio Evangelica
Eusebius never instructs the church to address requests to the dead. What he does throughout the early fourth century is teach :
(a) worship and pray to the Father through the Word as High Priest
(b) love and celebrate the memory of martyrs
(c) honor of their bones and sites
(d) intercession is asked of living bishops only
Eusebius copies the celebration and veneration of martyrs’ bones and burial sites from the mid-2nd century text “Martyrdom of Polycarp. Yet, as was the case in the first, second and third centuries (and much of the fourth), Eusebius is silent on the invocation of even Christendom’s honored departed saints.
Often, Augustine of Hippo is cited as being in favour of invocation because he believed the martyrs and departed saints prayed for us and that we could pray for our departed family members. Yet, when I searched his writings on prayer, I did not find the practice of the earthly asking the departed for intercession. Augustine clearly teaches that we should not pray for martyrs, as they are already perfected “in love” but that the do pray for us. He keeps the honor and commemoration of the departed saints. He does not teach prayer or sacrifice addressed to them. Where he speaks of “commending ourselves to their prayers,” the petition still runs to God; they are not made the addressees of latria or of the priest’s invocation.
“[martyrs] are not invoked by the sacrificing priest.”
- Augustine, “City of God” 22.10
Despite this period of mostly silence on invocation, by the end of the 5th century, some churches in both the east and western Roman empire begin including invocation in their sermons and liturgical formulas. Festive sermons in both empires more often address the martyr. That is not yet a statistical “most congregations,” and Western sacramentaries of the late fifth and sixth century still vary. Direct “___ hear us on ___” as a fixed public formula spreads slowly and unevenly.
By the end of the 8th century, invocation had become normalized. By 787 the Second Council of Nicaea treats the saints’ intercession as the teaching of the Fathers and hears bishops ask the saints to pray to God for them.
Icon depicting the second Council of Nicaea (787). Paris. France
In the hundred and fifty years before the Reformation officially kicked off in 1517 AD, men within the Latin church — such as catholic priests John Wyclif (1328-1384 AD) and Jan Hus (1372-1415 AD) — began to revisit and question the theological legitimacy of invocation. Augustinian fryar Martin Luther followed in the growing catholic dissent against certain matters of dogma. This disagreement combined with many other grievances eventually leading to the catholic schism that birthed the Reformed tradition in the West.
IN CONCLUSION
The Ante-Nicene Church displays a consistent and unanimous pattern: prayer is directed to God alone, the departed are honored but not addressed, and no Christian source before the late fourth century approves or models invocation of saints.
After Basil’s proclamation, the Fathers differ for nearly a century over invocation. Then, nearly a half millennia after Christ, it began its climb to normative practice. Is this God giving His bishops continued illumination on the inner workings of Heaven or was it a slow development without apostolic warrant?
Considering the Lord’s own words—prayer to the Father in his name—and the same direction in the Ante-Nicene writers and in many after Nicaea, it is safe to keep what is most sacred, our prayers, addressed to the Creator and to no one else.
Even God-ordained systems like the Levitical Priesthood and Sacrificial System were corrupted over time. Should we be surprised that yet another God-Willed earthbound institution can also be vulnerable to the machinations of human reasoning? However well intended.
Although I will say that I have very few points of disagreement with the original Seven Ecumenical Councils, I do not view these as equivalent to Scripture. And herein is the main difference between the Orthodox and Catholic view of Christendom’s history and that of non-denominational or Reformed Christians. To Catholics and Orthodox believers, the Holy Spirit inspired the authoring of Scripture and later its official Canonization. Which is a belief shared by myself and any Reformed theologian. Yet the Catholic and Orthodox theologians extend the ministry of the Holy Spirit to beyond this and all the way to, at least, the first seven Ecumenical Councils. This is known as the Holy Tradition.
My reflex against extra-biblical traditions being viewed as on par with Scripture comes from warnings from ecclesiastical history. It was the supposed oral traditions of Moses (not included in the Old Testament) that were embraced by the Pharisees and lead to a myriad of theological errors by the time of Christ. Throughout the Old Testament the prophets sent by God to reform Israel emphasized the written word of God as the bedrock of His teachings.
When the Scriptures and the nearly 4 centuries that followed Christ give specific instructions on a matter of faith and doctrine, I will make this my orthodoxy.
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footnotes:
1. Margherita Guarducci, I graffiti sotto la confessione di San Pietro in Vaticano (Vatican City: Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, 1958)
2. Antonio Ferrua, Le iscrizioni dei cimiteri cristiani antichi di Roma (1953)
3. De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea, vol. II [1867], pp. 211–220; Ferrua, Le iscrizioni dei cimiteri cristiani antichi di Roma, 1953.
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