Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Do dead saints interact with us? Message-ID: Date: 8 Feb 91 08:11:58 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 85 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In reply to Joe Buehler's posting about miracles attributed to dead saints, I'd like to ask him and the other netters who believe in praying to the saints if they know of any such miracles reported in the Bible. 4 Kings 13:21: "And some that were burying a man, saw the rovers, and cast the body into the sepulchre of Eliseus. And when it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man came to life, and stood upon his feet." I don't place much stock in the witness of people already predisposed to believe in the operations of the dead saints, including Augustine. Instead, Instead, we should try to determine what Jesus or His apostles had to say about this. He saw the miracles with his own eyes, in some cases!!!!! What has predisposition to do with it? Were the bystanders predisposed to believe in the resurrection of Lazarus? When you see God work a miracle before your very eyes in confimation of the holiness of His saints, you don't tend to doubt! What my quotation of Augustine was intended to point out was historical evidence of the Christian belief in the invocation of the saints. It's not opinion, but FACT that this practice was widespread in the early Church. How many early Christian writers am I supposed to quote? It's just a well-known part of history that many are unaware of. I believe that Matthew chapter 17 shows clearly that we should not venerate the saints. Here we see that, after the Lord was transfigured and had spoken to Moses and Elijah, Peter wanted to make three tents (tabernacles) to honor Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But God the Father corrected Peter and told the apostles to pay attention to Jesus alone: We've gone through the proof from Scripture before. It's quite simple. If St. Paul can ask his fellow Christians to pray for him, why can't I ask the faithful departed? The only difference is that they happen to be dead. So? Can they not hear us? Do they not care about us? What about the joy of the angels upon one sinner being converted? Here's a prayer from a work of St. Ephrem the Syrian. He flourished around the middle of the 4th century. "Ye victorious martyrs who endured torments gladly for the sake of the God and Saviour; ye who have boldness of speech towards the Lord Himself; ye saints, intercede for us who are timid and sinful men, full of sloth, that the grace of Christ may come upon us, and enlighten the hearts of all of us so that we may love Him." (St. Ephrem, In Praise of Martyrdom, or something of the sort. I only have Latin abbreviations to go by.) Why question the legitimacy of something so well established by Divine miracles in the early Church, and witnessed by so many men whom later ages have called the pillars of the Church in their time? I'm just pointing at the evidence, and saying "look". Here's what a Protestant historian has to say on a related subject, the veneration of relics. (Well, maybe Protestant. He was pretty radical.) Most offensive was the veneration of relics. It flourished to its greatest extent as early as the fourth century and no Church doctor of repute restricted it. All of them, rather, even the Cappadocians, countenanced it. The numerous miracles which were wrought by bones and relics seemed to confirm their veneration. The Church, therefore, would not give up the practice, although a violent attack was made upon it by a few cultured heathens and besides by the Manichaeans. Hmmm. Heathens and Manichaens? It can all be reduced to this: Did God work miracles in the early ages of the Church through departed Saints, or did He not? That's essentially a historical question, not a Scriptural one. Joe Buehler [I have a continual language gap between Joe's Bible and mine. Since I suspect others are in the same position, I typically try to translate his references into the normal English ones. However I find 4 Kings 13:21 quite mysterious. The passage he quotes is in fact the normal 2 Kings 13:21, once you make the translation Eliseus -> Elisha. As far as I know, Catholic and Protestant Bibles agree on the names of 1 and 2 Kings. So I conclude that this was a typo, and not a reference to some apocyphal book I've never heard of. --clh]