AND PURGATORY
10. THE APPEAL TO THE EARLY CHURCH CANNOT HELP THE ROMANISTS
But, they say, this was a most ancient observance of the church. Paul answers this objection, while also embracing his own age in his judgment, when he declares that all must undergo loss of their work who in building the church lay any foundation unsuitable to it [<460311>
1 Corinthians 3:11- 15].
When my adversaries, therefore, raise against me the objection that prayers for the dead have been a custom for thirteen hundred years, F237 I ask them, in turn, by what word of God, by what revelation, by what example, is this done? Not only are testimonies of Scripture lacking on this point, but all examples of the saints that one may there read of show no such thing. Concerning mourning and the office of burial, one there finds many and sometimes detailed accounts; but concerning such prayers, you
can see not one tittle. Yet, the more important the matter is, the more it ought to have been expressly mentioned. And also, those ancient writers who poured out prayers for the dead saw that in this point they lacked both the command of God and lawful example. F238 Why, then, did they dare do it? On this ground, I say, that they yielded something to human nature; and for that reason, I contend that what they did ought not to be made an example to imitate. For since believers ought to undertake no task, except with an assured conscience, as Paul teaches [<451423>
Romans 14:23], this certainty is especially needed in prayer. Yet it is likely that they were impelled for another reason: namely, they were seeking comfort to relieve their sorrow, and it seemed inhuman to them not to show before God some evidence of their love toward the dead. All men know by experience how man’s nature is inclined to this feeling.
There was, also, an accepted custom that, like a brand, set men’s minds on fire. We know that among all the Gentiles and in all times rites have been held for the dead, and each year cleansing rites were held for their souls.
But even though Satan deluded stupid mortals with these tricks, he took occasion to deceive them from a correct principle: that death is not
destruction but a crossing over from this life to another. There is no doubt that this very superstition holds the Gentiles convicted before God’s judgment seat because they neglected to give thought to the life to come in which they professed to believe. Now Christians, in order not to be worse than profane men, were ashamed not to devote some rite to the dead, as if they had quite ceased to be. From this arose that ill-advised diligence. For if they had hesitated to attend to funeral rites, banquets, and offerings, they thought they would be exposed to great reproach. But that which derived from perverse emulation was so constantly increased by new additions that to help the dead in distress became the papacy’s principal mark of holiness. But Scripture supplies another far better and more perfect solace when it testifies: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord”
[<661413>Revelation 14:13]. And it adds the reason: “Henceforth they rest
from their labors.” Moreover, we ought not to indulge our affection to the extent of setting up a perverse mode of prayer in the church.
Surely, any man endowed with a modicum of wisdom easily recognizes that whatever he reads among the ancient writers concerning this matter was allowed because of public custom and common ignorance. I admit that
the fathers themselves were also carried off into error. For heedless credulity commonly deprives men’s minds of judgment. And yet, the reading of those authors shows how hesitantly they commended prayers for the dead. Augustine relates in his Confessions that his mother, Monica, emphatically requested that she be remembered in the celebration of rites at the altar. This was obviously an old woman’s request, which the son did not test by the norm of Scripture; but he wished to be approved by others for his natural affection. F239Moreover, the book The Care to Be Taken for the Dead, composed by him, contains so many doubts that by its coldness it ought rightly to extinguish the heat of foolish zeal on the part of anyone who desires to be an intercessor for the dead; with its cold conjectures, to be sure, this treatise will render careless those who
previously were careful. F240 Its only support for the practice is that this office of prayers for the dead is not to be despised, for the custom has been prevalent.
But, though I concede to the ancient writers of the church that it seemed a pious act to help the dead, we ought ever to keep the rule that cannot deceive: that it is not lawful to interject anything of our own in our
prayers. But our requests ought to be subjected to the Word of God; for it is within his decision to prescribe what he wills to be asked. Now, since the entire law and gospel do not furnish so much as a single syllable of leave to pray for the dead, it is to profane the invocation of God to attempt more than he has bidden us.
But, lest our adversaries boast that the ancient church is, as it were, their partner in error, I say that there is a wide difference. The ancients did it in memory of the dead, lest they should seem to have cast away all concern for them. But at the same time they confessed that they were in doubt regarding the state of the dead. About purgatory they were so
noncommittal that they considered it as a thing uncertain. Our present adversaries demand that what they have dreamed up concerning purgatory be held without question as an article of faith. The ancients rarely and only perfunctorily commended their dead to God in the communion of the Sacred Supper. The moderns zealously press the care of the dead, and with importunate preaching cause it to be preferred to all works of love.
F241
Indeed, it would be not at all difficult for us to bring forth some
testimonies of the ancient writers that clearly overthrow all those prayers for the dead then in use. Such a one is the statement of Augustine when he teaches that the resurrection of the flesh and everlasting glory are awaited by all, but that every man when he dies receives the rest that follows death if he is worthy of it. Therefore, he bears witness that all godly men, no less than prophets, apostles, and martyrs, immediately after death enjoy blessed repose. F242 If such is their condition, what, I beg of you, will our prayers confer upon them?
I pass over those grosser superstitions with which they have bewitched the simple-minded; although these are innumerable, and for the most part so monstrous that no color of decency can be given to them. I am also silent upon those utterly base traffickings which, in view of the world’s great ignorance, they have in their lust carried on. For there would never be an end; and without an enumeration of them my good readers will have enough to steady their consciences.