Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

NOTE 1. That the assistance and mediation of the Saints is assailed by those same heretics who persecute their veneration: for Vigilantius, in St. Jerome's libellus 1 Contra eundem, impiously said: Dum vivimus, nobis mutuo pro nobis orare possumus, postquam mortui fuerimus, nullius pro alio exaudienda est oratio. With no less impiety Copronymus prohibited by public edict the intercession of Saints, as Suidas testifies in Copronymo, and Glicas, book 4 of the Annals. The Waldenses followed the same heresy according to Guido, heresy 16; the Lollards according to Trithemius in his Chronicle at the year 1315; the Wycliffites; for, as Waldensis relates, Wyclif in part 3 of the Trialogus used to say that it is foolish to leave Christ the readier fountain and withdraw to turbulent and remote men (thus he calls the Saints). The Lutherans raised this heresy, like almost all the other ancient heresies long buried, even from hell; for Luther in his Postilla maior on the seventh Sunday after Trinity says: the merits of St. Peter could not redeem even themselves: how then will they help me, since they have not even brought aid to themselves? And to this impiety Calvin subscribed, book 1 of the Institutes, chapter 11, where he says that God alone is to be prayed to, and he calls the invocation of Angels Platonic philosophy.

NOTE 2. That the Saints are deservedly called our mediators with God; for intercession, that is, deprecation and conciliation, whereby someone is reduced into the favor of a more powerful one, especially when alienated and offended, is a proper mark of whatever sort of mediator: although Christ exercises this function primarily with the Father, and this office befits Him most excellently and in a certain peculiar manner, as was demonstrated in disputation 2; yet nothing in that matter stands in the way that after Him, and by His authority and power, others be advocates and mediators, through whom access to the principal one lies open. For toward perfect mediation a twofold office is desired: one which is seen in meriting well and assisting with deeds themselves: the other which consists in prayers and orations, which the patron pours forth to God as mediator for clients received into his protection, that he may elicit His aid and beneficence. From these things mutual love of the clients toward the patron and confidence are born; wherein they use it, so that both in arduous and difficult matters they may recur to his protection, and encompass him with supplications and vows, and in turn may testify toward him a grateful and benevolent mind by whatever services, honor, and cult they can. But all these things the Saints fulfill toward us, as will be clear in the course of this disputation.

NOTE 3. That from the Seraphic Doctor, book 1, dist. 45, art. 3, question 2, the Saints assist us and conciliate divine beneficence by a twofold means; namely merit and affection.

Merito quidem praecedenti, inquit, quo Deo facillime servierunt, et tantum locum suis meritis sunt adepti, ut non solum sibi beatitudinem et gloriam meruerint, sed etiam aliis suffragari. Multa etiam supererogaverunt affectu, quin amici Dei sunt facti, et amicitia est idem velle, et nolle: hinc cum Sancti aliquem speciali amore prosequuntur, illum stimulant, ac impellunt, ut Deum diligat, et ei impense in omnibus obsequatur.

These things thus premised, the Catholic dogma must be established, namely that by the constant and perpetual tradition of the Church the invocation and interpellation of the Saints has been used by the faithful in every age; which truth indeed

Only Conclusion. — THE INVOCATION AND INTERPELLATION OF THE SAINTS HAS ALWAYS BEEN FREQUENTLY USED AND PRACTICED RELIGIOUSLY BY THE FAITHFUL.

It is proved first from Sacred Scripture, especially those places in which Angels are interpellated and besought by Patriarchs and most holy men. Thus Genesis 48 Jacob prays the Angel to bless the sons of Joseph, and moreover admonishes that after his death his name be invoked over them with the name of his fathers Isaac and Abraham: Angelus, ait, qui eruit me de cunctis malis, benedicat pueris istis, et invocetur super eos nomen meum, nomina quoque patrum meorum Abraham, et Isaac. He judges therefore that the assistance and interpellation of holy Angels, and also of men departed this life, profits the living. The same is signified Job 5, where Eliphaz admonishes Job: Voca ergo si est, qui tibi respondeat, et turn to some one of the saints.* He supposes therefore that the interpellation of the Saints will not be fruitless. The same is signified Job 33, where Eliu, speaking of the sinner whose soul has drawn near to corruption, says: Si fuerit pro eo angelus loquens, unus de millibus, ut annuntiet hominis aequitatem, miserebitur eius, et dicet: libera eum, ut non descendat in corruptionem: inventa est enim ei propitiatio. By which words he plainly signifies that holy Angels sometimes assist men and pour forth prayers to God for them and elicit aid whereby sins may be declined. It is confirmed by that passage of Jeremias 15, where God addressing the Prophet says: Si steterit Moyses, et Samuel coram me, non est anima mea ad populum: he supposes therefore that Moses and Samuel, although then departed this life, could have prayed for the people.

NOR DOES IT AVAIL TO REPLY WITH CALVIN, book 3, chapter 20, that thence is gathered the contrary of our Conclusion; for, he says, when God says: si steterit Moyses et Samuel, he supposes that they did not stand nor pray for the Israelitic people: therefore much less are the other Saints to be judged to intercede for the living, and if God did not hear Moses and Samuel praying, neither would He hear others. For I answer that Calvin seeks absurdities or evasions; for although Moses and Samuel then did not pray, it does not follow that they could not have deprecated for that people: nor do we assert that the Saints act immediately with prayers to God for discharging our sins or necessities: and certainly, if there were no prayers of the Saints departed this life for the living, God would mock, saying that even if Moses and Samuel poured forth prayers for the transgressing Israelitic people, He nevertheless was not going to hear them in this respect. To what end indeed this protestation, except to signify that He was accustomed to hear their prayers? Hence deservedly St. Chrysostom, Homily 1 on 1 Thess. (whom Plessaeus Mornaeus had translated mutilated and truncated with certain words suppressed, as is familiar to heretics), from those words of Jeremias infers that the prayers of the Saints are not to be despised; yet not that in them alone the security and certainty of our salvation is to be established. This is proved chiefly from 2 Machabees 15, where Judas Machabeus relates that he saw Onias and Jeremias departed this life in dreams and heard them praying for the Israelitic people: but that this book is Canonical stands established from the Second Council of Carthage, Can. 22; Augustine, book 18 De Civitate, chapter 36; and Jerome against Vigilantius.

It is confirmed also from the New Testament; for St. Peter, Epistle 2, chapter 1, pledges to the faithful that after death he will act with his prayers with God, that they might fulfill the works which he had taught, with divine grace favoring and spurring: for he says: Dabo autem operam, et frequenter habere vos post obitum meum, ut horum memoriam faciatis. Add that there is greater reason, indeed weightier, for interpellating the Saints departed this life joined far more intimately to God triumphing in the celestial fatherland, than those who exile and militate in this mortal life: but the Apostle teaches that the intercession of just men dwelling here profits us, and he himself often beseeches it: for he urges them to pour forth prayers to God for him. Thus 1 Thess. 5: Fratres, orate pro nobis. And in the same place Paul prays for them. And the Epistle to Philemon: Spero per orationes vestras donari me vobis. Hebrews, last chapter: Orate pro nobis.

Second, the same truth was defined in Councils, but chiefly in the Seventh Synod; for in its Action 1 there is approved the letter of Tarasius to John the Priest and Anchoret, in which among other things it has this: Poscimus intercessionem intemeratae Dominae nostrae sanctae Deiparae, sanctorum item Angelorum, omniumque Divorum. And at the end of the same letter: Salvos facias intercessione, et precibus Dominae nostrae sanctae Deiparae, and the confession of the same faith, in which it has this: Obsecrans intercessionem sanctissimae, intemerataeque Virginis Mariae, sanctorumque Angelorum, Prophetarum, et Martyrum, Confessorum, et Doctorum. And again at the end: Sanctamque suam Ecclesiam custodiat, quaeque huic imminent scandala, intercedente immaculata Deipara Virgine Maria, omnibusque Sanctis, avertat. Similarly the Council of Chalcedon, Act 11, past the middle, confirms this truth; for in it the Fathers cried out: Flavianus post mortem vixit, Martyr pro nobis oret. And the Council of Trent, Session 25, in the decree concerning the invocation, veneration, and relics of Saints, and sacred images, defines it to be good and useful to invoke the Saints, &c., and condemns those asserting the contrary.

It is proved thirdly by the authority of the holy Fathers and ancient Theologians: above all Origen, book 8 Contra Celsum, shows that the Saints pray for us and placate God:

Habent enim, inquit, sensum eorum, qui Dei benevolentia digni sunt: nec solum erga eos, qui digni sunt, sic sunt affecti: sed et omnibus opitulantur, qui summum colere Deum cupiunt, quem et propitium reddunt, et cum iis communiter precantur, ac simul postulant.

Wherefore, book 2 on Job, he says: O beate Iob, ora pro nobis miseris, &c. and in the lamentation: O Sancti Dei, vos lacrymis, fletu, dolore pleno deprecor, ut procidatis misericordiae eius pro me misero. And afterward: Haec mihi Pater Abraham deprecare pro me.

St. Basil subscribes, Homily 20 on the forty Martyrs, where he says:

Quantum laborares, ut vel unum invenires, qui pro te Dominum rogaret? Ecce quadraginta sunt eandem effundentes orationem. Ubi duo, vel tres congregati sunt in nomine Domini, ibi in medio ipsorum est. Ubi ergo quadraginta sunt, quis de illius praesentia dubitabit? Qui affligitur, ad quadraginta confugit: qui laetatur, ad ipsos occurrit. Hic, ut malorum exitum inveniat: ille, ut in secundis rebus conservetur. Hic religiosa femina pro illis orans invenitur: ac peregre agenti viro reditum postulans: aut aegrotanti sanitatem. Tum Martyribus postulata nostra iunguntur.

Then, certain things being interposed: O communes, inquit, custodes humani generis, boni curarum participes, orationis adiutores, legati potentissimi!

St. Gregory Nazianzen concurs, in the funereal Oration on St. Basil, where near the end he thus beseeches him:

Tu vero, divinum, et sacratum caput e coelo nos aspice; et carnis stimulum a Deo nobis ad disciplinam datum, vel precibus tuis siste, vel persuade fortiter ferre: ac totum vitae nostrae curriculum ad id, quod maxime conducibile est, dirige. Postquam autem excesserimus e vita, illic nos etiam in tua tabernacula suscipe; ut simul viventes, et sanctam ac beatam Trinitatem intuentes, &c.

The same formula of praying addresses St. Athanasius at the end of Oration 21. And in Oration 21, speaking of Athanasius concerning the same: Here, he says, our affairs are to behold from heaven, and to stretch forth the hand to those laboring for the sake of virtue, and that the more because he is freed from the bonds of the body. St. Gregory Nyssenus accords,

in the Oration on St. Theodore, whose aid he thus most splendidly requests in these words: Intercede pro patria apud communem regem... Timemus vexationes, expectamus pericula. Non longe absunt nefandi Scythae, qui bellum contra nos meditantur. Tamquam miles pro nobis pugna: tamquam Martyr pro consortibus utere libertate. Quum e vita excesseris, qui nosti perpessas et necessitates humanae naturae: Parem postula. Then he proceeds thus:

Nos enim dum incolumes sumus servati, tibi acceptum referimus. Postulamus autem, et futuri securitatem temporis. Quod si maiori adrocatione et intercessione opus est, fratrum tuorum Martyrum chorum congrega; et cum omnibus deprecare. Multorum iustorum orationes populorum ac multitudinum peccata dissolvunt. Admone Petrum, excita Paulum, necnon Ioannem Theologum et dilectum Discipulum, ut pro fundatis a se Ecclesiis solliciti sint, pro quibus catenas gestarunt.

St. Ambrose commends the same truth in many places, chiefly Epist. 63, where he relates how he found the bodies of Saints Gervase and Protase, God revealing it to him, in whose sepulchre a libellus was also found, in which their origin and end were written, of which this was the closing sentence: Ego servus Christi Philippus sustuli cum filio meo furtim nocte sancta corpora: et in domo mea, Deo solo teste, in ista arca saxea sepelivi: credens me orationibus eorum consequi misericordiam Domini nostri Iesu Christi. But he explains this truth most clearly in the book De Viduis, where he demonstrates that the Saints dead, just as living, intercede for us: for when he had related the miracle of the mother-in-law of Simon healed by Christ at the intercession of Peter and Andrew, he adds: Ergo rogaverunt pro ea Petrus et Andreas. Exsistat aliquis, qui tam cito possit rogare pro nobis, vel certe isti, qui pro socru rogant, Petrus et Andreas frater eius. Tune enim pro affinitate poterant: nunc iam possunt pro nobis, et pro omnibus impetrare. He then continues:

Observandi sunt Angeli pro nobis, qui nobis ut praesidium dati sunt: Martyres observandi, quorum videmus nobis quodam corporis pignore patrocinium vindicare. Possunt pro peccatis rogare nostris, qui proprio sanguine, etiam si qua habuerint peccata, laverunt. Isti enim sunt Dei Martyres, nostri praesules, speculatores vitae, actuumque nostrorum. Non erubescimus eos intercessores nostrae infirmitatis adhibere: qui et ipsi infirmitatem corporis, etiam cum viverent, cognoscebunt.

St. Chrysostom commends this very thing in various places, but chiefly in the panegyrical Homily on the Egyptian Martyrs. And on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 1, 12; and in the Homily on the Saints Berenice, &c., where he says:

Not on this feast day alone, but also on other days let us cling to them, let us beseech them; let us pray that they be our patrons, for they obtain great confidence with God, not only while living, but also dead: nay rather, dead far more. For now they bear the stigmata of Christ; and pointing out these stigmata they can persuade the King of nothing whatever, &c.

S. Jerome most clearly preaches this truth everywhere, especially in Epistles

1. 25. and 27, but at greatest length in the book Contra Vigilantium, where among other things he has this:

You say in your little book that, while we live, we can pray for one another mutually; but after we have died, the prayer of no one is to be heard for another, especially since the Martyrs, beseeching vengeance for their blood, did not cease until they obtained it. If the Apostles and Martyrs, while still constituted in the body, can > pray for others, when they ought now to be solicitous for themselves, how much more after their crowns, victories, and triumphs? One man, Moses, obtains from God pardon for seventy thousand souls: and Stephen, the imitator of his Lord and the first Martyr in Christ, beseeches life for his persecutors: and after they have begun to be with Christ, will they avail less, &c. Finally, the Saints are not called dead, but living.

By this same argument we Catholics are accustomed to use it against the followers of Vigilantius, the haters of the saints, to dispel these same calumnies.

S. Augustine commends the invocation and succour of the Saints best of all by almost countless testimonies; but most splendidly in Sermon 51 De diversis, ch. on S. Stephen, whose relics had recently been discovered:

He triumphed, he says, he was crowned; his body lay hidden for so long a time; it came forth as God willed, it illumined the earth, it wrought such great miracles, and died — died again mightily, because not even dead. Therefore I commend this to your charity, that you may know that his prayers obtain much, yet not all things. For you will find even in the little books which are given out, that there were difficulties in obtaining, yet afterwards he received a benefit, the faith of the suppliant not being refused. There was no ceasing, prayer was made: and afterwards God gave through Stephen. These are the words of Stephen praying: and the answer was made to him: For whom you pray is not worthy, he did this and that. And light pressed upon him, he asked, he received.

He has similar things in Sermons 91, 96, and 99, and also in the book De cura pro mortuis gerenda, ch. 16, where he asks how the Martyrs can be present to those who invoke them; and he judges this done either by the ministry of Angels or by a special grace of God. God Almighty, he says, who is present everywhere, neither conjoined to us nor remote from us, hearing the prayers of the Martyrs diffused everywhere through angelic ministries, grants men these consolations. But also in book 1 De baptismo contra Donatistas, near the beginning, speaking of S. Cyprian, he says: Let him bind us, then, in prayers amid the mortality of this flesh, as labouring in a darkened cloud, that with the Lord granting we may imitate his good works as much as we can.

I dismiss all the other celebrated later assertors of the same truth, who handed down to us the rite of invoking the Saints received from the Fathers by constant tradition; for it suffices to have shown those most holy Doctors of the Church, in whose time the heretics do not deny that the faith still flourished unspotted and the doctrine of the Gospel pure, that hence it may be evident that those others are held by a wicked error, while they esteem the invocation of the Saints a great impiety.

Proof moreover by this reasoning: If imploring the aid of the Saints were not superstitious or illicit, especially either because this would redound to the injury of Christ, or because they themselves cannot hear us praying and interceding, or because they cannot bring aid and succour, or because they will not: but none of these is true: therefore to intercede with and invoke the Saints is not illicit. The heretics admit the major, for it is chiefly on these four heads that they impugn the intercession of the Saints. The minor is proved as to each part: First, it is certain that the invocation of the Saints is not injurious to Christ, both because without injury to Christ we ask the Saints and just men living that they beseech Christ for us; why then shall it not be permitted even without injury to Christ to intercede with those who have departed this life? seeing that we would invoke them in no other way than as living among us, that is, not as Gods, nor as Christs, but as friends of God and Christ. Then because we do not invoke the Saints that they may bestow grace, or confer remission of sins, or impart other benefits, but that by their prayers with God they may act so that He Himself, the author and bestower of all goods, may deign to grant what we ask and seek. Then because we intercede with them not as mediators of redemption — for Christ alone is the one mediator of redemption — but as mediators of intercession, indeed not primary and principal (for Christ alone claims this dignity for Himself), but as secondary and less principal intercessors, whose prayers derive all their force and efficacy from the merits of Christ: therefore since the intercession of holy men detracts nothing from the dignity of the glory and ministry of Christ, their invocation must not be judged to derogate either, from those who although they have departed this corporeal life nevertheless live with God, with whom is the fountain of life. Nor would the invocation of the Saints be illicit and vain because they could not hear our prayers, as Calvin belched forth with fetid mouth against this religious observance, lib. 3 Institutionum, ch. 20, n. 21: Who will grant them ears so long as reach to our ears: eyes also so keen as to attend to our necessities? For I say that although the Saints in heaven, their bodies laid aside, have not ears and eyes (except the blessed Virgin, and those who rose again with Christ), yet they have spiritual eyes and ears, such as are in the Angels, who rejoice at Luke 16 over the conversion of a sinner; such as Samuel had, who in 1 Kings 9 told Saul that the asses he sought had been found; such as Eliseus had, while in 1 Kings 6 he penetrated the secret counsels of the king of the Assyrians and announced them to the king of Israel. For since the Saints are illumined by the clear vision of God, they behold and hear all things that pertain to their state. Hence S. Ambrose, in the book De Viduis, calls the Martyrs spectators of our life and acts. Whence S. Gregory the Great, lib. 1 Dialog., ch. 8: Because, he says, in that eternal felicity all behold with the common clarity of God, what is it that they know not there, where they know Him who knows all things?

S. Augustine proves the same thing, lib. 2 De Civitat. Dei, ch. 29, adducing the example of Eliseus.

Nor does it matter that the same Augustine, in the book De cura pro mortuis gerenda, seems to assert that the Saints do not know what is being done, but can hear it from the Angels, or by the revelation of the Spirit of God; for in ch. 16, after saying that the Martyrs themselves are sometimes present to suppliants, that they may bestow their aid, by the example of S. Felix, who appeared visibly to the citizens of Nola that he might deliver them from the siege of the barbarians: presently doubting he proposes whether the Martyrs are present of themselves at one time in places so diverse, and aid those whom it is certain they are invoked for, or whether God, hearing the prayers of the Martyrs, provides men these solaces generally to those praying, through angelic ministries diffused everywhere, &c. This matter, he says, is higher than that I can attain it, and more abstruse than that I am able to search it out: and therefore whatever of these be true, or whether perhaps both be so, that sometimes these things come to pass through the very presence of the Martyrs, sometimes through Angels taking the person of the Martyrs, I dare not define; it must be much sought out by those who know.

But that very thing which Augustine brought forward hesitatingly, and thought probable, Jerome taught more assuredly: that the Saints are by no means fixed to certain abodes so that they cannot fly hither and thither to bring aid; and piercing Vigilantius arguing against this with keener speech, he rouses him from his torpor. You say, he says,

that the souls of the Apostles and Martyrs have settled either in the bosom of Abraham, or in the place of refreshment, or under the altar of God: nor can they be present at their tombs, and where they will; being, as it were, of senatorial dignity, that they be not held in foulest prison among murderers, but in free and honourable custody be confined in the Fortunate Isles and in the Elysian fields. You will impose laws upon God! You will put fetters upon the Apostles, that they be held in custody until the day of judgment and not be with their Lord, of whom it is written: They follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth? If the Lamb is everywhere, then those who are with the Lamb must also be believed to be everywhere. And while the devil and the demons wander through the whole world, and with exceeding swiftness are present everywhere: shall the Martyrs, after the shedding of their blood, be shut up in a chest, and not be able to go forth from it?

Nor yet the third, namely that they have not that power that by their prayers they obtain anything from God for us: for, as S. Augustine says in Sermon 1 on Saint Stephen:

Let us commend ourselves to his prayers; for far more will he now be heard for his venerators, who was so heard for his stoners.

The same thing holy Jerome urged above against Vigilantius. Wherefore S. Bernard in the Sermon for the Vigil of the Saints says: You ought to consider three things in the feasts of the Saints: the aid of the Saint, his example, our confusion. His aid, because powerful on earth, he is mightier in heaven before the face of the Lord his God, &c.

Finally, not because they will not: for indeed, while they lived as mortals they burned with such charity toward their neighbour that each of them could say with the Apostle: I desire to be anathema from Christ for my brethren; how much more fervent and constant will their love for their neighbour be, excited not only by sanctifying grace but perfected by glory? Whence S. Bernard in the place just praised:

If the saint, while he lived here, had pity on sinners and prayed for them: now much more, inasmuch as he more surely knows our miseries, does the brother pray for us, whom that blessed fatherland has not altered but augmented in charity: for he is not therefore made altogether impassible that he is also made incapable of compassion, but now rather has clothed himself with the bowels of mercy, since he stands before the fountain of mercy.

To these add what, as the Seraphic Doctor says in 1 dist. 15, last question,

God decreed and willed that we should ask the Saints for a threefold cause, namely on account of our poverty, the glory of the Saints, and the reverence of God. On account of poverty in meriting, that where our merits do not suffice, the merits of others may patronize us. On account of poverty in contemplating, that we who cannot behold the highest light in itself may behold it in the Saints. On account of poverty in loving, because wretched man feels himself more affected toward one Saint than even toward God. Therefore having compassion on our poverty He willed us to ask the Saints; and hereby the first is plain; because he who before was unworthy of himself becomes worthy by asking the Saints, through their patronage. The second cause is the glory of the Saints, because God wills to glorify His Saints, wills to work miracles through them in bodies and salvation in souls, that we may praise them: and this not only through the supreme Saints but also the lowest; whence as one is healed corporally by invoking Peter, another conversely, so also spiritually. And thus the second is plain, because God wills the honour of dulia to be given to all the Saints. The third cause is the reverence of God, that the sinner, because he has offended God, should as if not dare to approach God in his own person, but implore the patronage of friends. And thus the third observance is plain, because it is good sometimes to turn aside from God out of reverence.

They object 1. That heretics bring forward various texts of Scripture: first indeed that of Isaiah 63: Abraham hath not known us, and Israel hath been ignorant of us. Second, that of the Apostle to the Romans: How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Since therefore we believe not in the Saints but in God, we ought to invoke not them but God alone. Third, that of 1 Timothy 2: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And 1 John 2: If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just: therefore we ought to intercede with none other than Christ.

I answer to the first, that although at that time Abraham and Jacob did not know what was being done among the Israelites, it does not follow that the Saints now dwelling in heaven know not what is done among us; since those Patriarchs then were with the other just in limbo, where they were not illumined by the clear vision of God. I say second, that the Prophet by these words only signifies that those Patriarchs did not know the Israelites with a knowledge and acknowledgment of approbation, in that they did not hold them for legitimate sons, because the Jews, deviating through sins from the virtue of their Patriarchs, were degenerate and unworthy to be named sons by the virtue of the Prophets. To the second I say, that the Apostle does not assert that God alone is to be invoked with every kind whatsoever of invocation, otherwise it would not be permitted to intercede with just men living, nor with princes or other men for any grace whatever; but he speaks only of that supreme invocation which has the cult of latria annexed, and which tends to God, threefold in His being the most mighty and most abundant bestower and fountain of all goods. To the third I say, that the Apostle asserts Christ to be one mediator, yet does not say Him to be the only one, which two things are far distinct; for the word "one" includes the association of another, "only" excludes it. Next I say that the Apostle speaks of the mediator of redemption, for he adds: Who gave himself redemption for all. S. John means the same, for he adds: He is the propitiation for our sins. But of this kind of mediation we do not deny that Christ is the only mediator. But the Saints, as we said above, are called mediators not of redemption but of intercession. Yet this kind of mediation the Apostles do not deny can belong to another besides Christ, seeing that while they themselves lived they were entreated to pour forth prayers to God for others.

You will object 2. Canon 35 of the Council of Laodicea, by which, according to the interpretation of Theodoret, those are condemned in Colossians ch. 2 who taught that Angels are to be adored. This Canon has: It is not fitting that Christians, forsaking the Church of God, should go and make congregations of idolatrous admiration of Angels, &c.

I answer, that this Canon was an edict against the angelic heretics, so called, from this that, as Epiphanius testifies, Haer. 60, and Augustine, Haer. 39, they taught that Angels were to be adored with the cult of latria due to God alone; but that the Canon condemns no pious veneration whatsoever of Angels, nor even does Theodoret, is evident from this that in the preceding Canon 31 the religious cult of a true martyr is received, while the superstitious veneration of false Martyrs is prohibited. But who would believe that the holy synod in the immediately following Canon cut away the pious cult of Angels, who in the gifts of nature and grace excel almost all the Saints? Theodoret moreover not only venerates Angels, but constantly affirms them to be ministers of our salvation and our intercessors and patrons with God, as may be seen lib. Divin. Decret. 5, De Angelis, and on Daniel, ch. 1.

I answer secondly with Baronius, at the year of Christ 60, n. 20 and seq., that just as in the preceding Canon the cult of false Martyrs is prohibited, so here is prohibited the cult of false Angels. Now Baronius says that the false Angels, whom the gentiles and magi religiously venerated, were genii, in whose honor celebrating the birthday feast they summoned their relatives and friends; and this is what he notes in these words: to make gatherings for the Angels of abominable idolatry (that is, adored by idolaters). More probable, however, he judges that by false Angels should be understood demons, whom when they invoked to accomplish their magic arts, the Fathers of this council named idolaters. But since, to veil their impostures under an honorable name, they professed themselves to invoke Angels, as Tertullian says in the Apologeticus, cap. 28, they were called hidden idolaters. This response is confirmed by the following words of the same Canon: Whosoever shall be found secretly favoring this idolatry, let him be anathema: because abandoning the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, he has gone over to idols. But the honor we show to the Angels, since it is not latria, cannot be called idolatry, nor can the Angels themselves be called idols. Therefore the aforesaid council condemns a cult far other than ours.

They object 3. The various authorities of the holy Fathers of the first three centuries: especially of Ignatius, Epistle to the Philadelphians; Irenaeus, book 2, cap. 27; Tertullian, in the Apologeticus, cap. 30; Clement of Alexandria, in the Stromata, cap. 8; Origen, Contra Celsum, book 8, by which the aforesaid Doctors signify that no one is to be invoked besides God.

Truly I answer from all those authorities, which Molinaeus collected and objected in cap. 7 of the book entitled The Novelty of Papism, that nothing against the Catholic dogma can legitimately be inferred, nor against the invocation of Saints. For first, as to the authority of Ignatius, which he sets forth conceived in these words: Virgins to have only Christ before their eyes, and his Father to be illuminated in your souls by the Holy Spirit: I say that this sentence does not occur in the genuine edition of those letters, lately set forth in print from the Florentine codex, just as not in the old Latin edition. Then, even if the aforesaid words are Ignatius's, thence no aid shines forth for the heretics; for Ignatius merely counsels, when praying, to hold God present: which certainly takes place also when through the intercessions of the Saints we direct ourselves to Him: nor does the particle "only" there have the force of exclusion, otherwise when praying it would not be fitting to think at all about the Holy Spirit; seeing that Ignatius counsels holding only Christ and his Father before our eyes. As to St. Irenaeus I say, that he there assails the Valentinian heretics, who invoked their Aeons and false Angels and devoted themselves to incantations, which the Church execrates: She, he says, who directs pure, and chaste, and manifest prayers to God, who makes all things, and invokes the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing similar, surely, does he admit who venerates and invokes the Saints or Angels. As to Tertullian, I say that he there rebukes the gentiles accusing Christians because they did not supplicate the Gods for the safety of the Emperors, and mocks them because they ask that safety from Gods who cannot give it. Then he subjoins this: I cannot pray for this from another than from him from whom I know I shall obtain it: since he himself is he who alone bestows it. Therefore Tertullian there opposes to the daemons, empty of all goods, the chief bestower of all honors; but he does not exclude the intercession of Saints, Angels, or men. To Origen, who says that supplication is to be made to the supreme God alone, I say that he excludes only supplication made to idols and daemons; for whereas Celsus had said: That we ought to believe not in one God alone, but also in daemons, precisely because they are Gods, so that we may sacrifice. Origen answers: Away with that counsel of Celsus, saying that supplication is to be made to daemons. For by no means is he to be listened to. Indeed the supreme God alone is to be prayed to: but also his Only-begotten is to be prayed to, and first-born of every creature, that is, the Word of God: him we must beseech that he himself, as Pontiff, may wish to carry our prayer, which has reached him, up to God his own, and our God. It is evident therefore that Origen asserted that the supreme honor, which Celsus wished to be shown to daemons, must be rendered to God alone. He does not exclude therefore the intercession of Saints, who exist as mediators inferior to Christ.

Finally, as to Clement of Alexandria, I say that he censures the gentiles, because they ask something from those who are not Gods as if from Gods. Extreme, he says, is the ignorance, to ask from those who are not Gods as if from Gods, or to ask those things which do not conduce: while under the appearance of goods we seek evils. Whence deservedly, since one alone is the good God, from him alone do we ask, both we and the angels, that some good things be given, others consecrated. He blames therefore only those who thought they could obtain something from another than from God, the bestower of all goods: but when we entreat the Saints, we await the effect of our petition from none other than from God himself, whom we approach and implore with the benefit of the Saints interceding: therefore it is not the case that heretics should boast that they have so open a patronage of their error in the aforesaid testimonies.

They object 4. Christ has merited for us not only by his death, but also by his prayers, all graces and all gifts to be conferred on us by God: and moreover he always lives to make intercession for us: therefore the prayers of the Saints are superfluous, and their intercession vain.

I deny the consequence, for just as Christ, although he merited every grace for us by his death, nonetheless willed it to be conferred on us chiefly through the sacraments, so likewise although by his prayers he merited all gifts necessary for us, yet he decreed to confer very many on us only at the instance and prayers of the Saints, both living and dead.

Add that if by this reasoning the prayers and invocations of the Saints were illicit, it would follow that even our petitions to God would be blameworthy, nor could we ask anything of God without injury inflicted upon the merit of Christ's prayer.

They object 5. From that invocation of the Saints it follows that we venerate them as Patrons and protectors: but that derogates from the glory of God, whom we are bound to invoke as our unique protector and helper: therefore, &c.

I distinguish the major: as Patrons and protectors, who guard us by their absolute authority and power, I deny: who by their prayers obtain for us the protection and help of God, I concede. And likewise, the minor thus distinguished, I deny the consequence. For no injury is thence inflicted on God, that we should have before him as intercessors those whom he has gifted with eternal felicity as most loving sons. Hence all the holy Fathers praised above do not hesitate to entreat the Saints as protectors and patrons. Thus especially St. Basil in Oration 10, On the Martyrs, says: O sacred choir! o holy order! o unassailable band! o common guardians of humankind! best companions of our cares, mutual advocates of prayers and vows, most powerful legates with God!

They object 6. The Saints cannot attend to so many prayers, which everywhere on earth are directed to them simultaneously: therefore very many of them are futile.

I distinguish the antecedent: if you regard only the natural force of their intellect, let it pass: if you attend to the divine illumination, which comes about through the light of glory advancing and exalting their intellect to the clear and intuitive vision of God, I deny it. For just as, notwithstanding that natural weakness of the human mind, the intellective faculty can be so strengthened that it rises to the intuitive vision of God, so will it be able with far greater facility to perceive all things whatsoever human that pertain to their state.