DEAD
655
DEAD
\-ivors address their petitions directly to God the
I'ather, or to Christ, or even to the angels, or to the
-;,iints and martyrs collectively, or to some one of
(ticm in particular. The benefits prayed for are those
alrcadj' mentioned, with the addition sometimes of
lilx-ration from sin. Some of the.so prayers read like
I \ccrpts from the liturgy: e. g.SET pateb omnipotens,
"Kn, MISERERE LABORUM TANTORITM, MISERE(re)
wiM^ NON Dia(na) ferentis (Dc Rossi, Inscript. ilirist., II a, p. ix). Sometimes the writers of the I jiituphs request visitors to pray for the deceased: !• g. QUI LECiis, or.v pro eo (Corpus In.script. Lat., \, n. 3312), and sometimes again tlu' dead themselves
- i~k for prayers, as in the well-known Greek epitaph
nf .\bercius (sec .\BERCirs, In.scription of), in two Miiiilar Roman epitaphs dating from the middle of the <i'(iind century (De Rossi, op. cit., II a, p. xxx, l\ir,=:ch, op. cit., p. 51), and in many later inscriptions. That pious people often visited the tombs to pray for the dead, and sometimes even inscribed a prayer on liic monument, is also clear from a variety of indica- t ions (see examples in De Rossi, "Roma Sotteranea", i I, p. 15). In a word, so overwhelming is the wit^ iM'^s of the ear!}' Christian monuments in favour of [ iia yer for the dead that no historian any longer denies 111 It the practice and the belief which the practice implies were universal in the primitive Church. I lure was no break of continuity in this respect be- lA.i'n Judaism and Christianity.
i 1 1) The testimony of the early liturgies is in har- innny with that of the monuments. Without touch- iiil; the subject of the origin, development, and rela- tionships of the various liturgies we po.s.se.ss, without IN in enumerating and citing tliom singly, it is enough 111 s;iy here that all without exception — Ncstorian and Mimophysite as well as Catholic, those in Syriac, Ar- iiiinian, and Coptic as well as those in Greek and latin — contain the commemoration of the faithful ili'parted in the Mass, with a prayer for peace, light, I- fii'.shment, and the like, and in many cases expressly t r the remi.ssion of sins and the effacement of sinful -1 lins. The following, from the Syriac Liturgy of St. .limes, may be quoted as a typical example: "We ' liinmemorate all the faithful dead who have died in till' true faith . . . We ask, we entreat, we pray t iirist our God, who took their souls and spirits to Himself, that by His many compassions He will make • 1 1 1 worthy of the pardon of their faults and the remis- I of their sins" (Syr. Lit. S. Jacobi, ed. Hammond,
I) Turning finally to early literary sources, we find
I viilence in the apocrj^ihal "Acta Joannis", composed iliiiut A. D. 160-170, that at that time anniversaries of till' dead were commemorated by the application of •■ Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Lipsius and Bonnet, " \fla Apost. Apocr.", I, 186). The same fact is wit-
-rd by the "Canons of Hippolytus" (ed. Achelis,
106), by Tertullian (De Cor. Mil., iii, P. L., II,
and by many later writers. Tertullian also testi-
II - to the regularitv of the practice of praving pri- V .tily for the dead'fDe Monogam., x, P. L.,'ll, 942); aiiij of the host of later authorities that may be cited, liilh for public and private prayers, we must be eon- trnt to refer to but a few. St. Cyprian writes to Cor- iii'lius that their mutual prayers and good offices ought til lie continued after either should be called away by .1. :ith rEp. Ivii, P. L.. III. 8.30 sq), and he tells us t'liat before his time (d. 258) the .\frican bishops had fiirliidden testators to nominate a priest as executor and guardian in their wills, and had decreed, as the penalty for \'iolating this law, deprivation after death of the Holy Sacrifice and the other offices of the Cliurch, which were regularly celebrated for the re- pii^i' of each of the faithful; hence, in the case of one > irtor who had broken the law. "no offering might be m.iile for his repose, nor any prayer offered in the Church in his name" (Ep. Ixvi, P. L., IV, 399). Ar-
nobius speaks of the Christian churches as "con-
venticles in which . . . peace and pardon is asked
for all men . . . for those still living and for those
already freed from the bondage of the bod}'" (Adv.
Gent., IV, xxxvi, P. L., V, 1076). In his funeral
oration for his brother Satyrus St. Ambrose beseeches
God to accept propitiously his "brotherly service of
prie.stly sacrifice" (fraternum munus, sacrificium
sacerdotis) for the deceased ("DeExci'ssu Satvri fr.",
I, SO, P. L., XVI, 1315); and, aiMnsMn..;' Valen-
tinian and Theodosius, he assures tlnMu of happiness
if his prayers shall be of any avail ; he will let no day
or night go past without remembering them in his
prayers and at the altar ("De Obitu Valent.", 78,
ibid., 1381). As a further testimony from the West-
ern Church we may quote one of the many passages
in which St. Augustine speaks of prayers for the dead:
"The universal Church obsen'es this law, handed
down from the Fathers, that prayers should be offered
for those who have died in the communion of the Body
and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in
their proper place at the Sacrifice" (Serm. clxxii, 2,
P. L., XXXVIII, 936). As evidence of the faith of
the Eastern Church we may refer to what Eusebius
tells us, that at the tomb of Constantine "a vast
crowd of people together with the priests of God
offered their prayers to God for the Emperor's soul
with tears and great lamentation" (Vita Const., IV,
Ixxi, P. G., XX, 1226). Aerius, a priest of Pontus,
who flourished in the third quarter of the fourth cen-
tury, was branded as a heretic for denying the legiti-
macy and efficacy of prayers for the dead. St. Epi-
phaniiis, who records and refutes his views, represents
the custom of praying for the dead as a duty imposed
by tradition (Adv. Ha;r., Ill, Ixxx, P. G., XLII,
504 sq.), and St. Chrysostom does not hesitate to
speak of it as a "law laid down by the Apostles"
(Ilom., iii, in PhiHpp., i, 4, P. G., LXII, 20.3).
Objections alleged. — No rational difficulty can be urged against the Catholic doctrine of prayers for the dead; on the contrarj-, as we have seen, the rational presumption in its favour is strong enough to induce belief in it on the part of many whose rule of faith does not allow them to prove with entire certainty that it is a doctrine of Divine revelation. Old-time Protes- tant objections, based on certain texts of the Old Testament and on the parable of Dives and Lazarus in the New, are admitted by modern commentators to be either irrelevant or devoid of force. The saying of Ecclesiastes (xi, 3) for instance, "if the tree fall to the south, or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be", is probably intended merely to illustrate the general theme with which the writer is dealing in the context, viz. the inevitableness of nat- ural law in the present visible world. But even if it be understood of the fate of the soul after death, it can mean nothing more than what Catholic teaching affirms, that the final issue — salvation or damnation — is determined irrevocably at death ; which is not in- compatible with a temporary state of purgatorial puri- fication for the saved. The imagery of the parable of Lazarus is too uncertain to be made the basis of dog- matic inference, except as regards the general truth of rewards and punishments after death ; but in any case it teaches merely that one individual may be admitted to happiness immediately after death while another may be ca.st into hell, without hinting anything as to the proximate fate of the man who is neither a Lazanis nor a Dives.
II. Questions of Detail. — Admitting the general teaching that prayers for the dead are efficacious, we are naturally led on to inquire more particularly: (1) What prayers are efficacious? (2) For whom and how far are they efficacious? (3) How are we, theoreti- cally, to conceive and explain their efficacy? (4) What disciplinary laws has the Church imposed regarding her public offices for the dead? — We shall state
