ANSWER —
Protestant View:
Praying for the dead is not a biblical concept. Our prayers have no bearing on someone once he or she has died. The reality is that, at the point of death, one’s eternal destiny is confirmed. Either he is saved through faith in Christ and is in heaven where he is experiencing rest and joy in God’s presence, or he is in torment in hell. The story of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar provides us with a vivid illustration of this truth. Jesus plainly used this story to teach that after death the unrighteous are eternally separated from God, that they remember their rejection of the gospel, that they are in torment, and that their condition cannot be remedied (Luke 16:19-31).
Often, people who have lost a loved one are encouraged to pray for those who have passed away and for their families. Of course, we should pray for those grieving, but for the dead, no. No one should ever believe that someone may be able to pray for him, thereby effecting some kind of favorable outcome, after he has died. The Bible teaches that the eternal state of mankind is determined by our actions during our lives on earth. “The soul who sins is the one who will die. . . . The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him” (Ezekiel 18:20).
The writer to the Hebrews tells us, “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Here we understand that no change in one’s spiritual condition can be made following his death—either by himself or through the efforts of others. If it is useless to pray for the living, who are committing “a sin that leads to death” (1 John 5:16), i.e., continual sin without seeking God’s forgiveness, how could prayer for those who are already dead benefit them, since there is no post-mortem plan of salvation?
The point is that each of us has but one life, and we are responsible for how we live that life. Others may influence our choices, but ultimately we must give an account for the choices we make. Once life is over, there are no more choices to be made; we have no choice but to face judgment. The prayers of others may express their desires, but they won’t change the outcome. The time to pray for a person is while he or she lives and there is still the possibility of his or her heart, attitudes, and behavior being changed (Romans 2:3-9).
It is natural to have a desire to pray in times of pain, suffering, and loss of loved ones and friends, but we know the boundaries of valid prayer as revealed in the Bible. The Bible is the only official prayer manual, and it teaches that prayers for the dead are futile. Yet we find the practice of praying for the dead observed in certain areas of “Christendom.” Roman Catholic theology, for example, allows for prayers both to the dead and on behalf of them. But even Catholic authorities admit that there is no explicit authorization for prayers on behalf of the dead in the sixty-six books of canonical Scripture. Instead, they appeal to the Apocrypha (2 Maccabees 12:45), church tradition, the decree of the Council of Trent, etc., to defend the practice.
The Bible teaches that those who have yielded to the Savior’s will (Hebrews 5:8-9) enter directly and immediately into the presence of the Lord after death (Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:6, 8). What need, then, do they have for the prayers of people on the earth? While we sympathize with those who have lost dear ones, we must bear in mind that “now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). While the context refers to the gospel age as a whole, the verse is fitting for any individual who is unprepared to face the inevitable—death and the judgment that follows (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:26; Hebrews 9:27). Death is final, and after that, no amount of praying will avail a person of the salvation he has rejected in life.
(Source: What does the Bible say about praying for the dead? | GotQuestions.org)
ANSWER
Catholic View:
Hermeneutics: the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts.
Exegesis: The critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially of scripture.
Eisegesis isthe process or act of interpreting a text, especially of Scripture, by reading into it one’s own ideas, biases, or agendas, rather than the meaning of the text itself.
The above Protestant view of prayer for the dead is an excellent example of Eisegesis.
Praying for the dead is certainly a biblical as well as an historical concept. Our prayers have definite bearing on someone once he or she has died.
PRAYER FOR THE DEAD.
“One thing I have to beg of you, that you make remembrance of me at the altar of the Lord” —St. Augustine. Confessions 9:11.
It was in the spring of the year 387, that a party of travelers arrived at Ostia, a seaport, near the mouth of the Tiber, in expectation of meeting with a ship to convey them to the coast of Africa, on their way to Tagaste. They were, Augustine, afterwards the sainted bishop of Hippo, Monica, his mother, his brother Navigius, his son Adeodatus, and his friends Evodius and Alipius. While they stayed at Ostia, Monica fell sick, a fever ensued, and on the ninth day she expired.
Some short time before her death, she overheard from her bed, Navigius expressing his concern to Augustine, that their mother should die in a foreign land, and be buried among strangers. Checking him with a look of displeasure, she said to them, “Lay this body of mine anywhere. Do not trouble yourselves about that; one thing only I have to beg of you, that wheresoever you may be, you make remembrance of your mother at the altar of the Lord.” — S. Aug. Conf. 9:11.
“Poor benighted woman!” some of my readers will exclaim, “why, she must surely have been aa papist, to have thought of prayers for her soul after her death.”
It is true, Monica was a papist; so were Augustine and his companions; and so were the inhabitants of Ostia. Hence it happened, that at her burial, she had no beautiful service, like that of the present Church of England, (a service so affecting her — the feelings of the living, but so utterly useless to the dead) read over her remains. The funeral, from the beginning to the end, was a popish ceremony. According to the custom of the country, the body was placed by the side of the grave; the mass, the sacrifice of man’s redemption, was offered to God for her, and all joined in earnest supplication for the soul of their departed sister. (Id. 9:12.) What can we think? Assuredly these men believed, as the Widow Woolfrey believed, maugre the Vicar of Carisbrooke, that “it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead!”
But the mere service of the day did not satisfy the piety of Augustine. He never forgot the request of his dying mother. He continued to pray for her himself: he solicited for her the prayers of others. Monica, indeed, had lived a pattern of Christian virtues, and by her example had drawn others to imitate her conduct. But her son was fully aware that no child of Adam is perfect in the sight of infinite Holiness; and therefore, setting aside the consideration of her virtues, which he acknowledged to have been the gift of God, and for which he rendered thanks to the Almighty Giver, he applied himself to implore pardon for those failings into which she might occasionally have been betrayed, through the frailty of human nature.
“Hear me,” he cried, “thou God of my heart, hear me through him who once hung upon the tree, a cure for our wounds, and who now sits at thy right hand to make intercession for us. She, I know, was merciful; from her heart she forgave the debts of others to her; do thou forgive her debts to thee, if it be that she has contracted any during the many years which she lived, after she had been washed with the water of salvation. Forgive her, O Lord, and enter not into judgment with her. Mercy thou hast promised to the merciful; and ‘mercy thou wilt have on those on whom thou wilt have mercy.’ I trust, indeed, that thou hast already granted that mercy which I ask; yet even so, these my petitions will not be unaccepted by thee.
“For she, when the hour of dissolution was at hand, thought not of sumptuous clothing for her corpse, nor of the manner in which it should be embalmed, nor of a goodly monument to her memory, nor of grave in her own country. These were not the objects of her commands to us, but only that we should be mindful of her at Thine altar — that altar at which she never failed to attend daily, and from which, she knew, was dispensed that holy victim, who has cancelled the handwriting that stood against us. The price of our redemption was paid by him, and to the sacrament of that price did thy handmaid make fast her soul with the blood of faith.
“Let no one then separate her from thy protection. Let not the lion and the dragon interpose between her and Thee. She will not plead that she owes no debt, for then she might be convicted: but she will plead that her debts have been discharged by him, who, being no debtor himself, laid down for us that which no one can repay. May she then rest in peace, in company with her husband, before whom, and after whom, she was known to no man: and whom she served with dutifulness, bringing forth fruit in patience, that she might thereby bring him to thee.
“Inspire, moreover, O Lord my God, thy ministers, who are my brethren, thy children who are my masters, to whose service I devote my voice, and heart, and pen, those among them at least who may read these lines, to be mindful at thine altar of Monica, thy handmaid, and of Patric, her husband, through whom it pleased Thee to bring me into life. They were my parents, inasmuch as they introduced me into this transitory life; my brethren, inasmuch as they had the same Catholic mother, under Thee, our common father; and my fellow-citizens, inasmuch as they were of that everlasting Jerusalem, to which thy whole people here aspire from the beginning to the end of their pilgrimage. May then the piety of my readers lead them to be mindful of these two, so that the last request of my mother may be more abundantly fulfilled, by the supplications of others procured through these my confessions and prayers.” — Id. ix 13.
If the reader has been taught to consider death as removing the parent whom we venerate, the friend whom we love, far beyond the reach of all human agency, as irrevocably consigning them to a state of endless happiness or endless misery, in which no interference on our part can be of avail — if such be the cold and cheerless creed in which he has been educated, he will probably look upon this impassioned prayer of Augustine for his mother as an idle and superstitious effusion. But if he hath been in the habit of commending, with the Christians of ancient days, the souls of those whom he loved in life to the mercy of God after death, he will be able, from his own recollection, to appreciate the consolatory emotions with which the son of Monica discharged this filial and most Christian duty. For the Catholic knows the value of prayer for the dead, even to the survivor, particularly in those dark and dreary moments, when the heart is plunged in grief for the recent loss of some beloved object torn away by death. When every other resource fails, this comes to the relief of the mourner. By it we interest ourselves for the welfare of the deceased in his new state of existence; we are mindful of him at the altar of the Lord; we implore in his favor the mercy of our common father and God; and the very consciousness that we are thus employing ourselves for his service, tends to sooth the bitterness of our grief, and to support us under the weight of our loss.
Such we find to have been the feelings with which our fathers prayed for the dead. Of the two Emperors Valentinian, St. Ambrose says, at their death—
“Blessed shall both of you be, if my prayers may be of avail. No day shall pass in which you shall be forgotten: no prayer shall escape my lips in which mention shall not be made of you: no night shall come in which you shall not have a part in my supplications: no sacrifice will I offer without remembering you.”
And of the Emperor Theodosius, —
“Give, O Lord, rest, perfect rest, to thy servant Theodosius. May his soul go to that place whence it came; where it cannot feel the sting of death, and where it will learn that death is the termination, not of nature, but of sin. I loved him; therefore, will I follow him into the land of the living; nor will I leave him, till by my prayers and lamentations he shall be admitted to the holy mount of God, to which his deserts call him.” — S. Am. in obit. agent, v. 116; Theo. 1 17.
II
“Not in vain did the Apostles order that remembrance should be made of the dead in the dreadful Mysteries. They know that great gain resulteth to them, great benefit; for when the whole people stand with uplifted hands, a priestly assembly, and that awful Sacrifice lies displayed, how shall we not prevail with God by our entreaties for them?” (St. Chrys. Homily 3 on Philippians).
In the preceding section we have seen that Monica requested that in remembrance should be made of her at the altar of the Lord, from which she knew that the holy victim was dispensed, and that at her burial the sacrifice of our redemption was offered for her soul.’
To some readers these modes of expression will undoubtedly sound new and extraordinary, inasmuch as they are modes of expression never to be heard from the mouths, nor to be found in the writings, of Protestant divines. But it should be borne in mind, that Monica and Augustine lived more than a thousand years before the Reformation, and cannot be supposed to have any notion of the doctrinal improvements which would be introduced at that period : of course they were necessitated to speak on religious subjects in the customary language of their Christian contemporaries, and, therefore, believing with them that at the celebration of the Eucharist the body and blood of Christ, actually present on the altar, were offered in sacrifice to God, they described that form of religious worship in terms according with their belief. Hence it will be easy to discover the object of Monica’s request, that the sacrifice of the mass should be offered for her soul, and that her name should be remembered in that part of the service, called the commemoration of the dead. She expired at Ostia, where the Roman liturgy was in use; and in that liturgy the commemoration of the dead ran then, as it runs now, in the following words:
“Be mindful, O Lord, of thy servants, and of thy handmaids who have gone before us with the sign of faith, and sleep in the sleep of peace, — (Here the priest recites the name or names of those for whom he offers the sacrifice, and then proceeds: To these, O Lord, and to all that repose in Christ, grant, we beseech thee, a place of refreshment, light and peace, through the same Christ our Lord.
Had Monica died in Africa, her own country, or in any other part of the Latin Church, the like commemoration of her would have been made. For such it is found in all the liturgies of the West, the same in substance, if not exactly in words, in the Roman, Ambrosian, Gallican, African, and Mozarabic forms of offering the Eucharistic sacrifice.
But how would it have been, had her lot been cast in the East? Exactly the same. Of this we may be assured from the testimony of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who about forty years before the death of Monies, composed his catechetical instructions, and in his explanation of the canon of the mass after the consecration, says:
“Then we make remembrance of those who have died before us; first of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and martyrs, that God through their prayers and intercession may receive our supplication ; and next of the holy fathers and bishops who are dead, and in short of all the departed among us, believing that very great will be the benefit to the souls of those for .whom supplication is offered, while the holy and most awful victim lies present Thus we make supplication for the dead, though they may be sinners, offering Christ sacrificed for our sins, and rendering that God, who is the lover of man, propitious to them and to ourselves.”— Catechu. My stag, v. No. vi.
This testimony of St. Cyril is fully borne out by all the ancient liturgies of the East, which are still extant. Thus, in the liturgy of Constantinople, the priest, having offered “this reasonable worship for the first fathers, patriarchs, etc.” proceeds:
“And for the repose and deliverance of the soul of thy servant”. — here he mentions the name — “that he may dwell in that place of light, where there is no suffering nor wailing, and that thou, O Lord our God, mayest grant to him rest there, where he may see around him the light of thy countenance.”
Thus, also in the liturgy of St. James, after the commemoration of the saints:
“Be mindful, O Lord our God, of all those souls, of whom we have made or have not made remembrance, of all who have departed in the true faith since the righteous Abel to the present day: grant to them rest in the land of the living, in the happiness of Paradise, in the bosom of our holy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where there is no pain, nor wailing, nor sorrow, and where the light of thine all-seeing countenance shines throughout.”[1] Thus also in the liturgy preserved among the Apostolical institutions, an authority of great antiquity, we read:
“Let us pray for our brethren who repose in Christ, that God the lover of man, who has received the soul of the dead, may forgive (name) all his sins voluntary or involuntary, and of his pity and mercy may place him in the abode of the pious, who rest in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with all who from the beginning have pleased God, and have done his will; from which abode are banished pain, and sorrow, and wailing.” Then the bishop shall say: ” O God, immortal and eternal, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with whom the souls of all men live, and in whose hand the souls of the just are, pardon him if he has sinned voluntarily or involuntarily; send to him thy friendly angels, and conduct him to the bosom of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, where there is no pain, nor sorrow, nor wailing, ** etc. — Cosell. ii. 418.
Out of the several other liturgies two instances may suffice; one from that of the Armenians, the other from that of the Nestorians. From the first:
“Be mindful, O Lord, and have mercy, and be propitious to the souls of the dead, and particularly of him for whom we offer this sacrifice.”
From the liturgy of the Nestorians:
“Be mindful, O Lord, of all our brethren in Christ, who have departed this life in the true faith, whose names thou know, loosing and forgiving to them whatever they may have sinned, and all that in which they may have offended thee.”
Thus, it is in every ancient liturgy of the West and the East, of the orthodox and the heterodox everywhere, and in every tongue, we meet with prayer for the dead. There is no trace in Christian antiquity of the existence of a Church without it. There can then be no reason to wonder why Monica was so desirous that remembrance should be made of her at the altar of the Lord, but, on the other hand, there is great reason to wonder that the Widow Woolery should be brought as a criminal before an ecclesiastical court, because she had solicited prayers for the soul of her husband.
It may, indeed, be said, that the Vicar of Carisbrooke, the prosecutor, has no concern with the practices of ancient Christianity: he is a presbyter of the new Church of England, and it is his duty to maintain her doctrines, and to enforce her prohibitions, without regard to the creed or customs of former ages. But is it certain that she has prohibited prayer for the dead? There was at least a time, when, robed in the purity of recent reform, she not only did not prohibit, she even enjoined it. In the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer, a book compiled under the eyes of Archbishop Cranmer, sanctioned by Kings, Lords, and Commons, and “concluded and set forth,” if we may believe the act of Parliament (2 3 Ed. VI. c. \.)9
“With the aid of the Holy Ghost,” even in that book, besides several other prayers for the dead in the service of burial, we read as follows, after the second lesson, “Lord, have mercy upon us,” etc.
Pr. Enter not, O Lord, into judgment with thy servant.
Ans. For in thy sight no living creature shall be justified.
Pr. From the gates of hell,
Ans. Deliver their souls, O Lord.
Pr. I believe to see the goodness of the Lord,
Ans. In the land of the living.
Fr. O Lord, graciously hear my prayer.
Arts, and let my cry come to thee.
“The Prayer.
“ O, Lord, with whom do live the spirits of them that are dead, and in whom the souls of them that be elected, after they be delivered from the burden of the flesh, be in joy and felicity, grant unto this thy servant that the sins which he committed in this world be not imputed unto him, but that he, escaping the gates of hell, and the pains of eternal darkness, may ever dwell in the regions of light, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the place where is no weeping, sorrow, nor heaviness ; and, when that dreadful day of the resurrection shall come, make him to rise also with the just and righteous, and receive this body again to glory, then made pure and incorruptible. Set him on the right hand of thy son Jesus Christ, among thy holy and elect, that there he may hear with them these most sweet and comfortable words, come to me, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world. Grant this, we beseech thee, O merciful Father, through Jesus Christ, our mediator and redeemer. Amen.[2]*’ *
Thus did the present Church of England originally pray for her dead. But this, prayer^ so redolent of Christian antiquity, suited not the reformed taste of two foreign schoolmasters, Bucer and Peter Martyr. They lectured, so we are told, the archbishop, who suffered himself to be persuaded or overruled. But did then the new Church acknowledge herself to have been in error, and forbid the use of prayer for the dead? No: the case was disposed of in a more ingenious manner. A new edition of the book was published, and the obnoxious prayers were allowed to slip unnoticed out of the text. They disappeared, and left not a wreck behind. Not a vestige remained to shew that they had ever existed; the people were not told that prayer for the dead was unlawful, but they were deprived of the means of practicing such prayer, or of knowing that it ever had been practiced.
It is the opinion of some writers, that the reason which moved the archbishop to consent to the suppression of prayer for the dead, was this: that he found it impossible — and that was no great wonder — to persuade the laity that there could be any use in such prayer, if it were true that there is no purgatory, no place of temporary suffering after death. Now it was a doctrine of the Reformed creed, that there is not: it looked extremely awkward that the liturgy should prescribe that which the twenty- second article seemed to proscribe; and therefore, it became expedient, since purgatory had been swept out of the next world, to sweep also prayer for the dead out of this.
However, that may be, it seemed good to Cranmer, Bucer, and Peter Martyr, that the one should follow the fate of the other. Prayer for the dead was very adroitly smuggled out of the Service Book; and from that moment it has ceased in the Reformed Church of England to be a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead.
III.
t {Tim has been handed down by the Fathers, and is observed by the whole Church.” — St. Aug. Serum. xxxii. de Verb. Apos.
This suppression of prayer for the dead in the liturgy of the Church of England, has not escaped censure from many among her ministers, eminent for their learning, and talents, and piety. Believing that the earlier Christians had as good opportunities of becoming acquainted with the real doctrine of the Apostles as any men who live now, or have lived in the three last centuries, they lament that they are not allowed, like their brethren of former times, to recommend in prayer the souls of their relatives and friends to the mercy of the Almighty. Comparatively, however, they form but an inconsiderable number* The great majority of Church-of-England divines condemn the practice, as unlawful and superstitious; and several of them have come boldly forward, to support that condemnation by argument— with what success, it remains for the reader to investigate and determine.
1st. They object that it has no warrant from Scripture.
The Catholic will reply that it has such warrant; and will appeal, in the first place, to that passage in the 12th chapter of the second book of Maccabees which so deeply offended the orthodoxy of the Vicar of Carisbrooke, when he read it engrave on a tombstone in his church-yard: It is a holy and wholesome. thought to pray for the dead> that they may be loosed from their sins; and will maintain that the book from which it is taken is canonical Scripture; though in the Reformed Bibles — perhaps to get rid of this very text— it has been removed to the Apocrypha. In the second place he will appeal to the prayer of St. Paul for Nicephorus (2 Tim. 1:18.) For that Nicephorus was no longer living at Ephesus, though his family still lived there, is plain from the salutation of the Apostle to that family, without any notice of the master (2 Tim .4:19); and that he was actually dead, would seem to follow from the difference of the language adopted by the Apostle, ^when he prays for them, and when he prays for him. For them his prayer is: The Lord give mercy unto the house of Nicephorus (ib. 1:16); but for him: The Lord grant unto him that he finds mercy of the Lord on that day (if. 1:18); a form so appropriate, in the opinion or the ancient Christians, to the souls of the departed, that they took it for a model in many of their prayers for the dead.
But even in the supposition that this practice has no warrant from Scripture, does^ it therefore follows that it must be rejected as unlawful or superstitious? Most certainly not. Such a conclusion can be drawn only by men who have persuaded them- selves that on every occasion we must resort for information to the Scriptures; that they, particularly the Christian Scriptures for Christian practices, are a complete code of doctrine and discipline, embodying in themselves all that Christ and his apostles taught and commanded. But this is an opinion so groundless, an illusion so gross, that it seems difficult to account for its adoption by any thinking mind. The Christian Scriptures are a collection of unconnected and occasional tracts, written, indeed, by men under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and therefore entitled to our veneration and submission; but written by them without previous concert, without any common object, and on different subjects suggested at the moment by local or personal occurrences. Who can pretend to say that such a collection contains all that was taught by our Lord and his apostles; or that nothing can be lawful or truly Christian, unless it be inculcated or commanded in them? Look only at the conduct of those who condemn prayer for the dead, and you will be convinced that they hold no such opinion.
They inculcate the obligation of keeping the Sunday, yet the obligation of keeping the Sunday is nowhere to be found in Scripture.
They are in the habit of baptizing infants, yet the baptism of infants has no warrant from Scripture.
They read the office of burial at the interment of the dead, yet there is no trace of any such office in Scripture.
They celebrate the Lord’s Supper before dinner, without any warrant from Scripture.
If then they will be consistent with themselves, let them cease to condemn prayer for the dead on the irrelevant plea that it has no warrant from Scripture.
2. Their next objection, is, the absence of all direct evidence that it is of Apostolical institution.
But it should be remembered, that the absence of such evidence equally applies to the baptism of infants, and to several other ecclesiastical institutions, which are not rejected on that account. The fact is, that we have but very few documents written immediately after the death of the apostles, none in which we could expect to meet with mention of the subject. But where direct evidence is not in existence, we must be content with the best secondary evidence, and it fortunately happens, that in the present instance, the secondary evidence is most cogent and satisfactory.
1st. The reader has already seen that the ancient liturgies bear testimony to the practice of praying for the dead, as often as the eucharistic sacrifice was offered. Had such testimony been supplied by only one or two of these liturgies, it might have been inferred, that the practice itself was a novelty, introduced, we know not when or how, into some particular Churches. But it is found in all. There is no exception. The Greek and Roman Christians, the Syrian and Egyptian, the sects that anathematized each other as heretics, and therefore can- not have borrowed religious observances from one another, all equally prayed for the dead. Whence could have arisen this wonderful uniformity, if it were not that they all derived the practice from one common source? And what can that common source be, but the doctrine of the Apostles, or the immediate disciples of the Apostles, the founders of the principal Churches?
2d. The testimony of the Liturgies is fully borne out by the concurrent testimony of ecclesiastical writers, in the fourth, the third, and even the second century, not so very long after the Apostles themselves. That prayer for the dead prevailed in the fourth century, is so evident from the history of Monica, the prayers of St. Ambrose, and the catechetical instruction of St. Cyril, all of which have been already recited in these pages, that one more passage from St. Chrysostom may suffice. In his third homily on the Epistle to the Philippians, (11:217) he says, —
“It was not without reason ordained by the Apostles, that during the awful mysteries remembrance should be made of the departed. They know that great to them is the gain, great the benefit. Will not God be propitious when he looks down on the whole assembly of the people raising their hands to him, on the venerable choir of the priests, and on the sacred victim lying on the altar.”
Thus, it was in the fourth, how was it in the third century? St. Cyprian, in a letter written by him about the year °57, describes to us a singular regulation, which at his succession to the see of Carthage he found established in his Church. It appears that lay Christians had formerly been wont to appoint clergymen the executors to their wills; who, by accepting the office, were with- drawn from the service of the altar, and employed in the administration of secular affairs. This by some of Cyprian’s predecessors was considered an evil; and, to prevent it for the future, a regulation was made, that if any brother appointed a clergyman his executor, “there should be no offering for him — no sacrifice celebrated at his departure — no meeting in the Church to pray on his account/* Now this is a most valuable testimony. The regulation was not St. Cyprian’s, but more ancient, for it was made by the bishops his predecessors; and it was made by them as a punishment, the fear of which might enforce obedience to their prohibition. But where would have been the punishment, had not prayer for the dead been at that early age an ancient institution, and highly prized by the people? It is plain from this, that it must have existed in the Church of Carthage long before St. Cyprian became bishop, and probably from the very first preaching of Christianity in that city. — St. Cuyp. Ep. 66.
From the third we may go back to the second century, to Tertullian, who was born about the year 182, and consequently not so very long after the decease of St. John the Evangelist. It may perhaps be doubted, whether the Widow Woolery was conversant with the writings of Tertullian; but it must be ad- mitted, that she practiced diligently the lessons which he inculcated. * For he informs us, that in his time it was considered the duty of a Christian widow “to pray for her husband, to beg from time to time for comfort for him, and on the anniversaries of his death to offer,” that is, in the language of Monica, to have remembrance of him made at the altar of the Lord. {De Moong. 581.) In another place {De Corona, 102) he tells us that this custom of “offering on the anniversaries of the dead,” was de- rived by tradition from the Apostles. As others kept the birthdays, so Christians kept the death days of their friends.[3]* There was, he adds, no warrant for it from Scripture; but it was known to be of apostolic institution. “Tradition avouched it, custom sanctioned it, and faith observed it.”
It is confidently submitted to the judgment of the reader, whether these ancient testimonies, coupled with the additional testimony of every ancient liturgy, do not satisfactorily prove that prayer for the dead has been practiced among Christians from the time of the Apostles, and must have been taught and sanctioned by them?
IV.
“God will render to every man according to his work” —Rom. 2:6.
We now proceed to an objection of a different kind, that prayer for the dead necessarily implies the existence of Purgatory. Hence, it was, that the tombstone erected by the Widow Woolery assumed so formidable an appearance. The churchyard was desecrated; the vicar was alarmed; the whole Isle of Wight Was frightened from its propriety.
If in the other world there be no pardon of sin, or of the punishment of sin; no state of temporary suffering from which relief can be obtained; no kind of benefit which may be granted to the deceased at the request of the living, it will be difficult to dis- cover any reasonable object in prayer for the dead. Hence, it will readily be admitted, that such prayer necessarily implies a belief in the existence of purgatory; and the question will be asked, what harm can there be in that?
It is answered, that a belief in purgatory is anti-scriptural, because the Scriptures acknowledge but two places only, Heaven and Hell, for the dead.
That the Scriptures acknowledge the existence only of Heaven and Hell after the last judgment, is true: but the question regards the state of souls, not during the eternity which will follow, but during the time which will precede, the Last Judgment. If you confine the souls of the dead to those two places before that day, you must fix a certain point in the scale of human morality, and say, that all who ascend above it, are admitted to the happiness of Heaven, and all who descend below it, are condemned to the misery of Hell. But this would be to outrage the clearest principles of justice, and to contradict the numerous testimonies of Scripture, that God will render to every man, good or evil, according to his works in the body. (Matt, xvi. 27: Rom. ii. 6.) For it is evident that there can be but a very slight difference between the moral and Christian work of the man, who rises just above, and of the man who falls just below, that point; and yet you make an immense difference in the doom allotted to them by God; happiness without end to the one, misery without end to the other. Can this be retributive justice? Is this to render to everyone according to his works? Most certainly it is not. Reason requires, that if enormous offences lead to everlasting punishment, lesser offences should only subject to temporary punishment: and if every man is to receive according to his works, both rewards and punishments must vary in degree, in proportion to the merits and demerits of such works
It was this belief, that God would render to every man according to his works, which induced the Christians of former days to Abide the dead into three classes ; the very good, already in pos- session of the happiness of Heaven, and consequently in no want of prayer; the very evil, already condemned to everlasting punishment, and therefore beyond the reach of human intercession; and the great multitude of those who occupied the inter- mediate station between the other two classes, neither so good as the one, nor so evil as the other; and for these they were accustomed to pray, and offer sacrifice, and give alms, in the hope that the Lord would be induced “ to deal with them more mercifully than their sins deserved .” (S. Aug. Enchir. ad Laura. et de Verb. Apos. xxxii.) They prayed, indeed, for all the faithful departed, without exception, for they could have no knowledge of the par- titular doom of individuals, and consequently were aware, that with respect to many, their prayers could be of no avail; still it was a consolation to them, and would not, they believed, be displeasing to God, that they had done all that Christian charity could suggest. — Id. Enchi rid. ad Lauren.
But where, it is asked, in the writings of the more ancient Fathers, do you find any mention of purgatory coupled with the mention of prayers for the dead?
It is true that the word purgatory is not to be found there. How, in fact, can it be, in writings composed before it was admitted into the Latin vocabulary? But what alone is of consequence, the thing signified by the word is to be found there. We meet in those writings with mention of sufferings in the next life which are only temporary, and may be mitigated or abridged at the prayer of the living ; we meet with mention of souls in a middle state between everlasting happiness and everlasting misery, and whose admission to the former depends on the good pleasure of the Almighty ; we meet with figurative descriptions of the state of such souls, descriptions allusive to passages of holy writ, which can apply to nothing else but that which has since been called purgatory.
Thus Origen, in the third century, tells us, that when we quit this life, we shall be both punished for our sin3 and rewarded for our virtues; that the light materials of our building, the wood, hay, and stubble, shall be consumed with fire: but the gold, and silver, and precious stones, shall remain, and receive their reward. Orogeny Horn. vi. in Jereme. In the writings of the next age, may be observed a nearer approach to the word purgatory. St. Gregory of Nyssa says, that the soul, after it is separated from the /, cannot approach the Divinity till the stains with which it is infected, have been taken away by purgatorial fire, {prat de Defunct ii. 1068.) St. Ambrose, or Haries, distinguishes the pain of purgatorial fire from the punishment of everlasting fire. (Tom. ii. Ip App. 122.) St. Augustine frequently speaks of the emendatory fire, the purgatorial fire, and the purgatorial sufferings. {In Psalm 37: et de Civ. Dei xx. 25.) From these phrase 4ie next step was the formation of the word purgatory. For so it always happens in the progress of language; men, for the sake of brevity and convenience, substitute, in the course of time, a single word to express that which they had previously been accustomed to express with the aid of metaphor or circumlocution.
It has been already observed, that there is a certain class of English divines, who disapprove the abolition of prayer for the dead, and still recommend its restoration. This they maintain that they have a right to do, without incurring the reproach of disobedience; because, though prayer for the dead was so mysteriously conjured out of the Service Book, still it was never expressly condemned by their Church. But, say their opponents, purgatory was expressly condemned, and you cannot advocate the one without admitting the other. But this inference they deny, and it was also denied by Sir H. Jenner, when he gave judgment in the cause between the Vicar of Carisbrooke ana the Widow Woolery. Prayer for the dead, he tells us, is not contrary to the Articles or Canons of the Church of England; and was generally practiced by the Christians of the earlier ages; but they had no idea of purgatory; they prayed that the souls of the dead “may have rest and quiet in the interval between death and the resurrection, and that at the last day they may receive the perfect consummation of bliss.” This is in exact conformity with the opinion of the divines before-mentioned. But is it possible that such an explanation can satisfy any thinking being? Is it not manifestly a covert admission of the very thing which it pretends to deny? To pray for a place of rest, implies that there is a place without rest; a place of suffering. You certainly would not pray that these souls might be at rest, unless you thought it also possible that they might be where they could not enjoy rest. They cannot be in hell, for they are sure, though waiting for it, “of the perfect consummation of bliss.” There remains then but one other place in which you may suppose them to be, and that is what is generally called purgatory, or a middle state, in which the less perfect Christian may suffer a temporary punishment for the failings of his past life. It can be no other than freedom from this punishment that you pray for, when you pray that they may be at rest.
Reader, you are now in possession of the real state of the case. Say, then, was the Widow Woolery so much in the wrong, when, with the inspired author of the book of Maccabees, she maintained, that it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, and to pray for them “that they may be loosed from their sins?”
[1] The reader will observe in the language of this prayer strong indications of its origin, and of the Church for which it was composed. The author must have been a Jew, or of Jewish extraction, and probably have composed it for the Christian Church of Judea.
[2] This prayer was taken from two prayers in the old English ritual, beginning, “Deus cui omnia vaunt,”’ and “Deus, apud queen spiritus moratorium Vivint,” with a few alterations suggested by the spirit of reform. The parallel passages in the Catholic prayers run thus : 44 0 God, with whom do live the spirits of the dead, and in whom the souls of the elect, when they have depo- sited the burden of the flesh, do rejoice in perfect happiness, we humbly beseech thee, that whatever old vice contrary to thy will this thy servant may have contracted, through the wiles of the devil and his own wickedness and frailty, thou of thy pity and mercy wouldst indulgently wash away ; [altered, according to the new doctrine, into 4 not to be imputed to him’] and wouldst order his soul to be taken in the hands of thy holy angels, and conveyed into the bosom of thy patriarchs, of Abraham thy friend, and Isaac thy chosen one, and Jacob thy beloved; from which are banished pain, and sadness, and wailing, and where the souls of the faithful possess joy and felicity: and wouldst command, in the last day of the great judgment, that he inherit a portion of that everlasting glory which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, which thou hast prepared for those that love thee, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” If the reader compares this prayer with the extract from the liturgy in the apostolical institutions in a preceding page, he will be surprised at the conformity of the language in both.
[3] Pro natalities. Some understand by these words, that the day of death was looked upon as a birth-day to another life. But in whatever way they may be understood, the reasoning is the same.