Posted on 12/06/2006 6:18:21 AM PST by NYer
Vatican archaeologists have unearthed a sarcophagus believed to contain the remains of the Apostle Paul that had been buried beneath Rome's second largest basilica. The sarcophagus, which dates back to at least 390 A.D., has been the subject of an extended excavation that began in 2002 and was completed last month, the project's head said this week.
"Our objective was to bring the remains of the tomb back to light for devotional reasons, so that it could be venerated and be visible," said Giorgio Filippi, the Vatican archaeologist who headed the project at St. Paul Outside the Walls basilica.
The interior of the sarcophagus has not yet been explored, but Filippi didn't rule out the possibility of doing so in the future.
Two ancient churches that once stood at the site of the current basilica were successively built over the spot where tradition said the saint had been buried. The second church, built by the Roman emperor Theodosius in the fourth century, left the tomb visible, first above ground and later in a crypt.
When a fire destroyed the church in 1823, the current basilica was built and the ancient crypt was filled with earth and covered by a new altar.
"We were always certain that the tomb had to be there beneath the papal altar," Filippi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Filippi said that the decision to make the sarcophagus visible again was taken after many pilgrims who came to Rome during the Catholic Church's 2000 Jubilee year expressed disappointment at finding that the saint's tomb could not be visited or touched.
The findings of the project will be officially presented during a news conference at the Vatican on Monday.
The Borgia family was without question one of the most corrupt that ever lived. Rodrigo Borgia's personal life was reprehensible, but that only goes to show that he was a human sinner. What doctrines did he issue on behalf of the Church that you would have issue with?
Some of these arguments are downright comical when you really look at them. They sound an awful lot like the arguments of the leftists here in America who feel that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are meaningless because they were written by wealthy white men, some of whom owned slaves.
Why haven't these tombs and statues been ripped down? Why were they even built? What sort of "goofy cultist" is putting flowers at the tomb of someone who has been dead for nearly 500 years?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/1749237/posts?page=411#411
The article isn't about tombs. It's about going beneath the tombs and routing around in the bones underneath.
The interior of the sarcophagus has not yet been explored, but Filippi didn't rule out the possibility of doing so in the future.
They are talking about displaying the sarcophagus, not the bones. They only person talking about displaying bones is you. How is this any different than the sarcophagus I posted a picture of? Better yet do you realize whose sarcophagus it even is?
Noting that St Paul did not preach from written gospels and that Timothy was eduated by word of mouth from his Grandmother.
The reason scripture was written was to stop the gnostics from perverting it NOT to represent the whole of Christian theology.
Think the gnostics were the only ones who needed to be stopped from perverting Christian theology?
Think that your belief is immmune from that risk?
I would call any religion that encourages its adherants to go touch Luther's tomb a goofy cult.
"What manuscripts? Where did that come from?"
Don't you wish we had that!
Something like that may be discovered someday. And it would be a great day for all Christians.
I agree.
The gnostics were the primary group putting out false gospels.
Also unlike Christian bishops they didn't attend the councils for the most part, which is where the heresies that manifested within the church were typically shut down.
And yes, I beleive that Christ followed through in sending us the Holy Spirit, and that the gathering of the entire church in the Eccumenical Councils has preserved the Word of God, and not perverted it.
And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Re: post #431...By definition, folks in heaven would be alive, but you make several assumptions.
(a) That folks ("saints") people pray to are necessarily in heaven. Likely? Probably. Definitely? No. Jesus said "wide is the road that leads to destruction" and "narrow is the way that leads to life." With that and Matthew 25, where half of the virgins expecting to enter with Jesus are denied, we don't hard numbers here, but we have indicators that the bulk of humanity is NOT headed to heaven; and that even half of the expectant "religious" folk may not make it.
(b) Re: Other-dimension saints may indeed be able to hear us, but that's mere conjecture. It's a folktale. It might be true; it might not be. We have no Scriptural guidance.
(c) You assume that other-dimension saints have a form of omniscience--a character attribute that belongs to God alone. Are you telling me that if a million earthly saints simultaneously prayed to this saint, he could hear all of them? Bible teachers commonly point out that we often make this same mistake about the devil, ascribing to him omniscience when he has none.
BibChr made this point in post #286, which I did not see anyone respond to. I had to read it a few times to comprehend his point, which is a good one: Let me know when thousands of fellow-Christians close their eyes and beam out their prayer requests to me simultaneously, thus tacitly attributing omniscience to me. I'll beam back that they're all idolaters."
May I supply a few reasons as to "why anyone wouldn't want to embrace such a belief?"
(1) Please explain to me the exact difference between a John Edwards speaking to a deceased spirit in his "Crossing Over" program and a Christian speaking to a deceased saint?
(2) I've been taught, and scriptural examples apply, that prayer--although often perceived by us as a one-way form of communication--is two ways. God answers prayer. Not always right away. Not usually in the way we expect. Sometimes with a still, small voice. But prayer can be a two-way street. So, tell me, what is your position when these saints "talk back" to you in prayer after you have prayed to them? And since it's possible that when a John Edwards or a medium or psychic is talking to a "dead spirit" is in reality being fooled by a demon masquerading as that "dead spirit," how does a discerning person distinguish the two?
If it's no big deal in God's eyes for folks to talk to deceased spirits, do you want to explain why OT writers were so down on necromancy? (see 2 Kings 21:6; Dt. 18:10-12; Lev. 20:6,7)
(3) Christians are called to be fully dependent upon God, and to fully glorify him alone. What is the fruit we offer before the world of us doing that?
It really helps those days when you feel you just don't have a friend in the world. And yes, God is our Friend. But it's nice to have a connection, a communion, with actual people who are NOT a supreme being, who have lived the life we have before, and have persevered. If that's idolotry, I am guilty as charged.
If you want a model of both perseverence and perfect intercession, Jesus is Him: "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered..." (Hebrews 5:7-8)
Listen, if we want an intercessor whose soul knows how to pass on "loud cries and tears" and will be "heard"--Jesus is your go-to "Guy." If we want one who persevered by learning obedience from what he suffered--one who asked that the cup be taken from Him--Jesus is our God-man of understanding.
See also Heb. 4:15-16
Where does this article talk about people touching Paul's tomb? Why are people leaving flowers at Luther's tomb?
Just a few questions, if you're willing:
What is your understanding of the Communion of Saints as found in the Apostle's Creed? Is the Communion of Saints part of your or your church's doctrine? If so, how is it defined?
What is your understanding of what a 'saint' is? What is the difference between a saint who has died and is in heaven and one who has died and is not?
Are saints in heaven part of the body of Christ? Are saints on earth part of the body of Christ?
What are these "Other-dimension saints" you speak of? Where did you get this category? What is the difference between "Other-dimension saints" and saints in heaven?
Eph. 3:14-15- we are all one family ("Catholic") in heaven and on earth, united together, as children of the Father, through Jesus Christ. Our brothers and sisters who have gone to heaven before us are not a different family. We are one and the same family. This is why, in the Apostles Creed, we profess a belief in the "communion of saints." There cannot be a "communion" if there is no union. Loving beings, whether on earth or in heaven, are concerned for other beings, and this concern is reflected spiritually through prayers for one another.
Eph. 1:22-23; 5:23-32; Col. 1:18,24 - this family is in Jesus Christ, the head of the body, which is the Church.
1 Cor. 12:12,27; Rom. 12:5; Col. 3:15; Eph. 4:4 - we are the members of the one body of Christ, supernaturally linked together by our partaking of the Eucharist.
Rom. 8:35-39 - therefore, death does not separate the family of God and the love of Christ. We are still united with each other, even beyond death.
Matt. 17:3; Mark 9:4; Luke 9:30 - Jesus converses with "deceased" Moses and Elijah. They are more alive than the saints on earth.
Matt. 22:32; Mark 12:27; Luke 20:38 - God is the God of the living not the dead. The living on earth and in heaven are one family.
Luke 15:7,10 if the angels and saints experience joy in heaven over our repentance, then they are still connected to us and are aware of our behavior.
John 15:1-6 - Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. The good branches are not cut off at death. They are alive in heaven.
1 Cor. 4:9 because we can become a spectacle not only to men, but to angels as well, this indicates that angels are aware of our earthly activity. Those in heaven are connected to those on earth.
1 Cor. 12:26 - when one member suffers, all suffer. When one is honored, all rejoice. We are in this together as one family.
1 Cor 13:12; 1 John 3:2 - now we see in a mirror dimly, but in heaven we see face to face. The saints are more alive than we are!
Heb. 12:1 - we are surrounded by a great glory cloud (shekinah) of witnesses, our family in heaven. We are not separated. The cloud of witnesses (nephos marturon) refers to a great amphitheatre with the arena for the runners (us on earth), and many tiers of seats occupied by the saints (in heaven) rising up like a cloud. The martures are not mere spectators (theatai), but testifiers (witnesses) who testify from their own experience to Gods promises and cheer us on in our race to heaven. They are no less than our family in heaven.
1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 20:6 - we are a royal family of priests by virtue of baptism. We as priests intercede on behalf of each other.
2 Peter 1:4 - since God is the eternal family and we are His children, we are partakers of His divine nature as a united family.
1 Cor. 1:2; Rom. 1:7 - we are called to be saints. Saints refer to both those on earth and in heaven who are in Christ. Proof:
Acts 9:13,32,41; 26:10; 1 Cor. 6:1-2; 14:33; 2 Cor. 1:1; 8:4; 9:1-2; 13:13; Rom. 8:27; 12:23; 15:25,26, 31; 16:2,15; Eph. 1:1,15,18; 3:8; 5:3; 6:18; Phil. 1:1; 4:22; Col 1:2,4,26; 1 Tm 5:10; Philemon 1:5,7; Heb. 6:10; 13:24; Jude 1:3; Rev. 11:18; 13:7; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6;18:20,24; Rev 19:8; 20:9 - in these verses, we see that Christians still living on earth are called "saints."
Matt. 27:52; Eph. 2:19; 3:18; Col. 1:12; 2 Thess. 1:10; Rev. 5:8; 8:3-4; 11:18; 13:10 - in these verses, we also see that "saints" also refer to those in heaven who united with us.
Dan. 4:13,23; 8:23 we also see that the angels in heaven are also called saints. The same Hebrew word qaddiysh (holy one) is applied to both humans and angels in heaven. Hence, there are angel saints in heaven and human saints in heaven and on earth. Loving beings (whether angels or saints) are concerned for other beings, and prayer is the spiritual way of expressing that love.
I'll start w/your last Q first. If you go back to post #268, RobbyS gently chided me: "Dead" saints? I thought all saints were alive? And, of course, he's right. So as I was distinguishing between earthly saints and those above, I simply used the phrase "other-dimensionly" saints. So this is a mere semantical issue & not one to focus on.
Are saints in heaven part of the body of Christ? Are saints on earth part of the body of Christ?
Yes and yes. One distinction would be that the saints on earth are the temple of the Holy Spirit--in other words, a temple God dwells in and works through. In heaven, "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple" (Rev. 21:22). So temple-wise, there will be a reversal--He in us now and us abiding in Him then--just a greater manifestation of the way we are to spiritually abide in Him now.
I wrote the following even before checking your follow-up post (in which I see you cited this same verse): I think it's important to let the Bible speak for itself on this: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses..." (Heb 12:1, which is a reference to the description of many great biblical saints in Heb. 11).
I think how you unpack the Apostles Creed and Heb 11->12:1 could include a lot of aspects that I can't begin to be comprehensive about. But, for example, even though C.S. "Jack" Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge and G.K. Chesterton and Charles Spurgeon are all beyond us, their writings and the "afterglow" of their lives still makes waves. God created music to reverberate ever so slightly; I believe He created people's lifetimes to reverberate much longer, so that their legacies serve as a "surround sound" experience for the following generations.
For the Jews, their God was the God of Abraham and Isaac and Moses. The covenant Abraham left them and the Law Moses left them were the daily reverberations of their lives.
Now I figure your next question would be what about the "communion" aspects of these saints? Let me explain it this way.
You cite 1 Cor 12 in your follow-up post, but you left out 1 Cor 10 and the whole context for why Paul was discussing "oneness" of the body of Christ. In 1 Cor 10 & 11, Paul discusses communion--the eucharist. Paul says we are "one body." (1 Cor. 10:17; 12:12): "Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf." (10:17).
In other words, communion with God and our fellow believers is never simply a "me and God" thing. It's especially a corporate experience--corporate another word for "body." As Paul stresses in 1 Cor 12:12ff, we are not simply dismembered members. We are not only directed by the Head; but we belong to the body.
My point here? I'll never likely commune alongside you or anyone else in this thread. But, we still commune together as part of the one body. Geographically, the body of Christ is separated around the world. Denominationally, the body of Christ is separated around the world. But as the organism of the body of Christ (vs. organizations), the communion of all the saints exist. We are one.
I don't have to talk/pray to with another member of the earthly body of Christ in order for your "communion of saints" idea to kick in. If that was the requirement, then the worldwide body of Christ doesn't exist, because we don't communicate with millions of Christians around the world.
Anyway, I find it odd that folks who are part of a church body that stresses communion/the eucharist/Lord's Supper attempt to primarily define "communion of the saints" as communication with one another or praying to one another, when historically and traditionally, "communion" is rather primarily defined by the Lord's Supper.
A few points that D-fendr didn't address I'll address here:
Your 1): The exact difference is that we do not expect to hear a response from the Saints. It's NOT two-way communication. They can hear us, but we can't hear them.
Your 2): As stated in the response to 1), it's not a two way communication between us and the Saints, but yes, eventually God may answer the prayer we ask the Saints to pray for us. So think of it this way: We pray to the Saints to ask them to pray for us to God, and then God answers that prayer at His own discretion. Now of course, we Catholics also pray to God directly, we don't only ask Saints to pray for us. But when we do, it's NOT the Saint that does the "work" for us, it's NOT the Saint that answers our prayers, it's God and God alone. This entire concept is based on the Scriptural advice to have the righteous pray for those in need, as "the prayers of a righteous man availeth much".
The point about 2 Kings 21:6, Dt. 18:10-12, and Lev. 20:6,7: These passages deal, basically, with necromancy, that is, the powers of Satan, not God, and the people that serve as a "go between" between the two. Catholics are, in fact, commanded not to seek the services of such people (like John Edwards, Tarot card readers, palm readers, etc), and in fact, it's a sin to do so. Also, please note, there are no Church sanctioned "mediums", that is, people who claim to speak to the Saints for us, and then relay messages back and forth from them to us. That's the important distinction to remember here. It is us who are speaking to the Saints. Everyone can speak to a Saint. You don't need to be a "medium" or preform any incantations or spells. It's talking to them, as if they were present before you, just as anyone here on Earth. Also, again, there aren't any responses from the Saints.
Your 3): I respectfully disagree. Yes, God is our ultimate source of salvation and protection, but again, Scripture tells us "Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." (cf. James 5:16) This passage clearly implies that we are to rely on the community of believers for support as well as God. If not, then all the prayer threads on FR would be "idolotry".
One final point, that I believe you brought up in another post. About "hearing all those prayers addressed to the Saints", doesn't that imply ominiscience on the Saint's part?
It's a fair and good question; I believe the following points are worth considering:
The Saints, being in Heaven with God, are indeed separate, outside of time, that is, they do not have temporal constraints that we do here on Earth. This does not mean that they are necessarily completely separated from us. It simply means that they are not bound to the constraints of time, so they, in effect, have an "eternity" to answer request for prayer.
This is not equal to omnicience either, as they are not able to see everything that goes on Earth, especially things that don't concern them. Also, no one claims that they can see into the hearts of men; we must pray to them to request prayer. Simply wanting them to pray for us is not enough. You may find this article useful, Praying to the Saints. Pay particular attention to the paragraph titled, "Overlooking the Obvious".
A "saint" is a "set apart" one. "Saint" is linked to the words "holy" and "sanctification." In Scripture, "holy" means pure, for certain. But it means more than that. It also means unique, and sanctified ones--saints--are set apart for a holy purpose.
The biggest rift between Protestants and Catholics in this area has traditionally been that Catholics and their tradition have tended to define "saints" as "super-Christians" in history; whereas Protestants and the Bible define "saints" as all true Christians--all who have been set apart in Christ, the Pure and Holy One.
By contextual usage, there is no such thing as a solitary saint. Every usage in the Bible is a corporate reference. So, of course, it's a term closely linked to the Body and the communion of these set-apart ones.
As for the difference between earthly and heavenly saints, just as time & space boundaries exist on earth--and I cannot communicate directly with most earthly saints--so, too, a time and space boundary exists between us and heavenly saints. Even though I leave the door open to the possibility that heavenly saints may be able to hear some of what is said on earth, they are not omniscient. They do not have a divine ear. The Bible gives us no precedents or guidance to focus on praying to them. (We have enough trouble keeping up our prayer lives with God, let alone w/out further sidetracking conversations with Him).
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