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Steelfish...

It is certainly an interesting post of historical references.

What you don’t have is anything in the Bible - God’s Inspired Words - that:

Teaches us to pray to departed people
Teaches us to pray to angels
Commands us to pray to departed people or angels
Demonstrates a Christian praying to departed people or angels
Encourages us to pray to departed people or angels.
Heck, there is no evidence that a departed person can even hear you address them, assuming they are in heaven.

Against that we have all the commands to pray to the Father. To approach Him BOLDLY.

Hermes is from the Second Century. It was never included in the Canon because it is not inspired.

From there, your non-inspired selections get farther from the truth.

No one disputes that after centuries all kinds of things were added to what the Church taught. Your quotes progressively demonstrate that.

The truth is that praying to departed saints is completely made up and not part of the Apostles Tradition. There is no evidence that an Apostle every did such a thing.

Yes, your denomination teaches it and encourages it and individuals like [presumably] yourself like it, but it isn’t from God.

Thank you for the inquiry.

There is scriptural reference for inter-cessionary prayer. For example, John sees that “the twenty-four elders [the leaders of the people of God in heaven] fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8). Thus the saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.

In Acts of the Apostles 3: 6 we have the account of Peter in healing the lame beggar

“And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene— walk!” And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened.…”

Peter here was an intercessor.

Further, you cannot discount John 21:25 “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they were written one by one, I suppose that not even the world itself would contain the books written.”

These unwritten words and acts of Christ did not disappear into the ether. They were part of the received oral tradition of the Church. Thus one should not with a wave of the hand dismiss the works of Hermes etc whose writings are a part of serious theological and historical scholarship.

St. Paul in his letters also warns the faithful to hold fast to the tradition they received: “We command you, brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to avoid any brother who wanders from the straight path and does not follow the tradition you received from us” (2 Th 3, 6)

Jesus said his Church would be “the light of the world.” He then noted that “a city set on a hill cannot be hid” (Matt. 5:14).

This means his Church is a visible organization. It must have characteristics that clearly identify it and that distinguish it from other churches. Jesus promised, “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). This means that his Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from him. His Church will survive until his return.

Among the Christian churches, only the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Jesus. Every other Christian church is an offshoot of the Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox churches broke away from unity with the pope in 1054.

The Protestant churches were established during the Reformation, which began in 1517. (Most of today’s Protestant churches are actually offshoots of the original Protestant offshoots.)

Only the Catholic Church existed in the tenth century, in the fifth century, and in the first century, faithfully teaching the doctrines given by Christ to the apostles, omitting nothing. The line of popes can be traced back, in unbroken succession, to Peter himself. This is unequaled by any institution in history.

Finally, one must also have to engage in a willing suspension of disbelief of the numerous scientifically documented miracles (some of them still living) attributed to inter-cessionary prayer.