"In the Book of the Maccabees we read of sacrifice offered for the dead. Howbeit, even if it were nowhere at all read in the Old Scriptures, not small is the authority, which in this usage is clear, of the whole Church, namely, that in the prayers of the priest which are offered to the Lord God at the altar, the commendation of the dead hath also its place. . . If we cared not for the dead, we should not, as we do, supplicate God on their behalf.”— ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO.

XI.

Prayer for the Departed in the Primitive Church

To pray seems to be an instinct of human nature,

and prayer for the welfare of others has always held a place among the petitions offered to the Supreme Being. In all ages those who believed that there is a life after death, and that the soul survives its separation from the body, have, as far as we know, always continued to pray or perform sacred rites for their friends who had passed through death into the life of the unseen world. Thus we find that what are called "prayers for the dead" are by no means found only among Christians, but that, like much else, they came to the Church of Christ through the Jewish Church, and were in common use among all the religions of antiquity. Christianity, it must be remembered, is not an entirely new religion dating from the day of Pentecost -nine days after the Ascension of Jesus Christ. Pentecost was the birthday of the Christian Church as a distinct organism, but the Christian faith was only in a comparatively few points a new revelation. Without denying that God was in some sense the Author of all

religions in so far as they contained truth, there can be no question among those who look upon the Bible as enshrining the Word of God that Judaism was as truly the Church of God before Pentecost as the Christian Church was after that day. We cannot, therefore, expect to find an explicit revelation given to Christianity on points that were already familiar to the Jews. As there was nothing in prayer for the souls of the departed that could in any way offend the Christian conscience, we find no suggestion in any of the Fathers of the sub-apostolic Church that such prayers were forbidden; but, on the contrary, we find that from the very first they were continued in the Church of Christ. The only objection that was ever made in early times to such prayers came from one who was confessedly a heretic.1 Hence prayers for the departed are found. in every Liturgy of the early Church, and every reference to such petitions in the Fathers takes for granted that prayer for the souls of the dead is as much a Christian duty as prayer for those living on earth.

Tertullian-who was born in 160, about thirty years after the death of St. John the Evangelist 2-speaks of the custom of praying for the dead as well known and long established in his day. He says in his defence of Christian usages: "We offer, on one day every

1 The Arian heretic Erius. See St. Aug. De Hares., n. 53, t. viii. P. 55.

2 Dr. Newman speaks of "St. John dying within thirty or forty years of St. Justin's conversion and Tertullian's birth."—A Letter to Dr. Pusey on his recent "Eirenicon," p. 40 (1866).

year, oblations [ie. the Eucharist] for the dead as birthday honours.” 1 Again, Tertullian speaks of a

widow praying for the soul of her husband, and asking that until the resurrection he may be in a place of cool refreshment.2 The same prayer occurs in the inscriptions found in the catacombs.

It would, then, require a volume instead of a chapter to consider the references in the writings of the Fathers that touch upon the duty of the living to pray for the dead. All that is possible here is to find out for whom among the departed prayer was offered—whether for all, or only for those who were thought of as having died in the grace and favour of God; what were the benefits to the departed sought for in these prayers; and lastly, where was it supposed that the souls were abiding for whom the prayers of the Church were asked-were they in Heaven or in Hades?

I. In trying to answer the question, "For whom among the departed were the prayers of the Church desired in the early centuries?" we have to remember that God alone can know the real spiritual condition of any soul when it passes out of this world.

"He that judgeth 3 is the Lord," wrote St. Paul, and the same Apostle forbids any man to judge his brother in things spiritual, until such time as he can form a correct estimate. This will only become possible

1 De Cor. v. 3. This most probably, however, refers to commemoration of the martyrs on their feasts.

2

Refrigerium is the word used.

3

I Cor. iv. 4.

when in the final judgment all things shall be made manifest. Here on earth we can only form an opinion from what we see and hear. We cannot see the heart; we cannot always be sure that what we hear is true, and still less can we tell how far heredity, environment, and a multitude of other circumstances may hinder an action, that is in itself wrong, from involving the soul in guilt in the sight of God. Hence the value of bearing in mind the apostolic injunction: “Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God."1

With this apostolic warning in her mind we find that the early Church prayed at first for all the faithful departed—that is, for all those who had been baptized.2 Whether she prayed for those who were not Christians we do not know. It seems probable that such were not prayed for in the public prayers of the Church, but were no doubt remembered in the intercessions of their friends and relations who belonged to the Church of Christ.

1 I Cor. iv. 5.

2 This thought-that because God alone knows the state of the soul so He alone knows whither it passes at death-is beautifully expressed in a prayer of the Syro-Jacobite Liturgy of St. Maruthas: "Remember, O Lord, through Thy grace, all those who are departed out of this miserable life, and are gone where Thou only knowest; and give them rest among those delights which thou hast promised to them that love Thee, not calling to mind their sins and ours, for no man is without sin." Hence, as St. Augustine said, "sacrifices either of the altar or of alms are offered on behalf of all the baptized dead; they are thank-offerings for the very good, they are propitiatory offerings for the not very bad."