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Prayer to Saints: A Pagan Accretion (Reply 3)

Prayer to Saints: A Pagan Accretion (Reply 3)

Last updated on: January 16, 2025 at 10:42 am by Dennis Knapp

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Prayer to Saints: A Pagan Accretion (Reply 3) 2025-01-16T10:42:29-06:00 Dennis Knapp

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Guest writer: Matt Graham.

In this post, I’ll make a few comments in reply to Dennis’ last post and then begin to make my positive case for why praying to saints is not a legitimate Christian practice.

Reply To Dennis

Dennis mainly repeated his earlier claims and then added a few more examples to establish early attestation to the practice of praying to saints. It should be noted that adding a few more historical data points doesn’t amount to making a historical argument. It’s important to show how these data points contribute to your argument.

Dennis’s main premise is:

Through the Incarnation, the Saints share in a measure of God’s glory (dulia).

While that’s an interesting point, it’s unclear what this entails. The whole earth shares in a measure of God’s glory.

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory”. -Isaiah 6:3

Isaiah stated this before the Incarnation. What specifically does the Incarnation add to the glory of the saints? For your claim to be helpful it seems like you would need to establish that the Incarnation brought some sort of special glory to the saints. And for our discussion about prayer to saints, how does this special glory place the saints and Mary in an intercessory role for believers? Furthermore, (and most importantly) how does this establish the normative practice of praying to saints?

Even if I grant that the saints and Mary should get a special honor and that they play an intercessory role in heaven, it doesn’t follow that a normative practice of praying to saints has been established. But the establishment of this normative practice is precisely what we are discussing. I look forward to seeing an argument for this conclusion.

Towards the end of his post, Dennis has a section on how dulia and hyperdulia don’t contradict Scripture. I’m not sure what this is a response to. I already admitted that the notions of dulia and hyperdulia don’t contradict Scripture. Dennis made some other points, but I’ll attempt to address them in my positive case.

My Case Against the Normative Practice of Prayer to the Saints

Before I begin, I want to reiterate that my attempt to make this case is somewhat comical. I did go to seminary, so I’m probably in a better position to make a case than those without seminary training. But I’m not a scholar, and this issue is probably better left to scholars. That said, I need to come to a well-considered opinion on the matter and Dennis has asked me to engage in this discussion. So, to that end, I proceed.

Summary

To begin, I’ll give a high-level sketch of my starting points and overall argument.

I am working FROM the following claims:

The Bible is the word of God. What it teaches is true and authoritative. (Catholics agree)
The Bible is composed of the books found in the Protestant canon. (Catholics disagree)

My overall argument goes like this: (NPPS = normative practice of praying to saints)

NPPS is not taught in the Protestant canon.
NPPS is not taught in the first 200 years of the church.
There are reasons from the Protestant canon for thinking that NPPS is not a legitimate Christian practice.
There are reasons from the early church fathers to think that NPPS is not a legitimate Christian practice. (perhaps I’ll deal with this more in a later post)

Point 1

Dennis disagrees with point 1 above. In support of his denial, he cites Mary talking with the angel Gabriel. Without further elaboration, it’s not clear how this supports NPPS. The angel appears to Mary with a message, but Mary doesn’t invoke the angel. Mary didn’t ask the angel to pray for her. What about this encounter is parallel to NPPS? Protestants don’t have a problem with talking to an angel if one shows up.

He also cites Revelation 7:13-14 to show that John spoke with a deceased elder. No Protestant that I know of would have a problem talking with a deceased elder if God were to grant us an eschatological vision. Again, how does this establish NPPS?

Finally, he cites 2 Maccabees, which we don’t accept as part of the canon of Scripture. But even if we did, HOW does it establish NPPS? The passage he cites (2 Maccabees 15) is where Judas speaks of a vision of Onias and Jeremiah praying for the people and presenting a golden sword to Judas. Protestants don’t have a problem with beings in heaven praying for us (whether saints or angels). That is NOT the issue!

In short, Dennis has not offered genuine counterexamples to my claim that NPPS is not taught in Scripture.

Point 2

Regarding point 2, Even Catholic apologist Joe Heschmeyer admits that we don’t have solid evidence for NPPS in the first 200 years of the church. You can view that here:

I won’t belabor this point as most Catholic apologists (that I know of) agree with Joe. I’ll leave it to Dennis to explain if and or why he disagrees with his fellow Roman Catholic apologists.

Point 3

Regarding point 3, we have some reasons to suggest that the building blocks for NPPS are seen in a negative light by the authors of Scripture.

Hebrews and The Alexandrian School

In his book “The Gospel and the Greeks”, Dr. Ronald Nash argues that the author of the book of Hebrews “both knew and utilized language and concepts learned while he himself was an active participant in the thought world of Alexandrian Judaism prior to his conversion to Christianity.” Nash argues that the book of Hebrews is a polemic against this school of thought and that it was particularly aimed at rebutting Philonic teachings.

It should be noted that Philo of Alexandria was a Jewish philosopher and a contemporary of Christ. According to Dr. Henry Abramson, Philo was not very familiar with rabbinic teachings, but he was steeped in Greek philosophy. The author of Hebrews is familiar with both the rabbinic tradition and Philonic thought, and he leverages this knowledge to counter the latter.

The Mediators of The Platonist

The relevant beliefs held by Philo are those related to mediatorial beings and their functions. Their beliefs about mediators are not the same as those held by Roman Catholics. I am not claiming that NPPS is directly or strongly dependent on the views of the Hellenistic Judaism of the 1st century. What I am claiming is that these Hellenistic views might have been building blocks that provided some key conceptual components for what eventually developed into NPPS. If they were building blocks for NPPS and the Book of Hebrews is a polemic against these building blocks, then we have some reason to question some of the building blocks of NPPS based on the arguments advanced by the Book of Hebrews.

Some building Blocks

Hellenistic Judaism developed as a convergence of neo-platonic thought and Jewish religion. They developed their ideas regarding the cosmos accordingly. In their cosmos, God was utterly transcendent – which necessitated the existence of mediators between God and man. According to Nash, “The Hellenistic mediators were postulated primarily because of the ontological gap between God and the world.” As such they served to make a transcendent God known to man.

Mediators of the Alexandrian school included “Logos, Sophia, the angels, Moses, Melchizedek, and the high priest.” They didn’t think these names applied to physical concrete people, rather they were names of immaterial Platonic forms and or “powers of God”. Philo applies these names to these principles and those in this school of thought did venerate them.

It’s important to realize that even though the ancient philosophers held unconventional religious beliefs, their philosophical speculations were still imbued with religious connotations. The Pythagorean school in Italy, which probably influenced the thought of Plato, was as much a religious cult as it was a community of philosophy. The Hellenists didn’t just affirm that these mediators or principles existed. These entities possessed a religious quality that evoked reverence, even worship in some cases.

Hebrews as a Response

The author of Hebrews is making a case against this school of thought. He offends them by claiming that the logos is a physical being (Jesus Christ). In so doing, he exposes the false ontology of the Alexandrian school. Regarding the epistemological role of mediators, the author of Hebrews might have some sympathies. God spoke to us and revealed Himself to us in various ways. God used prophets and angels to make Himself known (Hebrews 1).

However, the author’s primary focus is on the soteriological role of mediators. According to Nash, “Philo frequently referred to the Logos in priestly terms. He did this, apparently, because the Logos was the mediator by which men approach God. When the High Priest performed his priestly work, he stood between man and God and, indeed became something greater than man, but less than God.” Philo applied the term “logos” to all the aforementioned mediators, so all of these mediators played a priestly role between God and man.

The book of Hebrews argues that Jesus Christ is superior to these mediators. Part of the reason we know that the author is familiar with the Alexandrian school is because of his use of the term “effulgence”. In Hebrews 1:3 he refers to Christ as the “effulgence” of God’s glory. This term is used in the Wisdom of Solomon and by the Alexandrian school more broadly to refer to the personification of divine wisdom.

The author of Hebrews replaces the Philonic “effulgences” with Christ. But he takes this notion further by showing that in addition to the Son’s status as the effulgence of God’s glory, He is the representation of God’s essence who sustains all things by His powerful word and the one who accomplished the cleansing of sins. He is thus superior, in every way, to the mediators of Philo.

Rejection of the Alexandrian School

So far, you could be Roman Catholic and still agree with all that I have said regarding the Book of Hebrews and the Alexandrian School. A Roman Catholic can easily affirm that Christ is superior to all other mediators. So, it is not enough for a Protestant to say, “The book of Hebrews affirms that Jesus is superior”. For our purposes, the question must be asked – Why does the author of Hebrew make so much of the superiority of Christ over angels and prophets?

I contend that he does so to emphasize that under the new covenant, God saw it fitting to reveal Himself via His Son and NOT by means of these Hellenistic mediators. Christ is the true “effulgence”. He is not just superior to the Alexandrian principles; He is the real deal! Showing the superiority of Christ just IS to refute the need for Alexandrian mediators.

The author never advises his readers to follow the practices of the Alexandrian school. And if he wanted to set forth an NPPS doctrine, this would have been an excellent opportunity. He spends a good deal of time comparing and contrasting the old and new covenants. It would certainly be in keeping with his overall approach to compare and contrast the Alexandrian mediators with an orthodox view.

Presenting Christ as the high priest who is sufficient as a mediator in contrast with the need for the variety of mediators of Philo and that school of thought at least sets a frame of mind that rejects unnecessary mediators. The rejection of these mediators is a rejection of the Alexandrian ontology, but it is also a rejection of their soteriological notions, and the practices associated with them.

The beliefs and practices of the Hellenistic Jews may be what is referenced and condemned in Colossians 2:18. The Roman Catholic here may be tempted to say “I agree that the book of Hebrews condemns these problematic views of the Alexandrian school of thought, but that does nothing to refute the doctrine of praying to saints. These are not the same beliefs or practices.

If you were thinking that, you are missing what I am attempting to do. My claim is that you don’t see a positive case for praying to saints in our canonical literature. You don’t see it in the first 200 years of the church. So, the natural question should be: Where does it come from?

My Attempt

What I’ve attempted to do in this article is to point out a possible set of conceptual building blocks that could have (along with other conceptual building blocks [i.e. Roman hero worship, queen of heaven cults]) contributed to a doctrine of praying to the saints. The New Testament doesn’t admonish us to pray to saints, but Hellenistic Jews did have a framework for thinking about mediators who were venerated and aided us in our journey of salvation. We see the New Testament condemning these beliefs and practices.

If there is a “leaning” in the New Testament, it would be a leaning away from petitioning beings that are not God. I contend that the argument against prayer to saints is not rock solid, but it is not an argument from silence either. We have at least some reasons to think that it is not an accepted practice by the early church. I have taken a small stab at showing that in this article. A case for this should be a book-length argument by a scholar.