Posted on 01/21/2015 4:47:04 PM PST by RnMomof7
As a church history professor, I am sometimes asked how certain practices developed in church history. For example: When did the Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) emphasis on praying to saints and venerating relics and icons begin?
A somewhat obscure, but extremely helpful, book by John Calvin answers that question directly.
In his work, A Treatise on Relics, Calvin utilizes his extensive knowledge of church history to demonstrate that prayers to the saints, prayers for the dead, the veneration of relics, the lighting of candles (in homage to the saints), and the veneration of icons are all rooted in Roman paganism. Such practices infiltrated the Christian church after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Here is an excerpt from Calvin’s work that summarizes his thesis:
Hero-worship is innate to human nature, and it is founded on some of our noblest feelings, — gratitude, love, and admiration, — but which, like all other feelings, when uncontrolled by principle and reason, may easily degenerate into the wildest exaggerations, and lead to most dangerous consequences. It was by such an exaggeration of these noble feelings that [Roman] Paganism filled the Olympus with gods and demigods, — elevating to this rank men who have often deserved the gratitude of their fellow-creatures, by some signal services rendered to the community, or their admiration, by having performed some deeds which required a more than usual degree of mental and physical powers.
The same cause obtained for the Christian martyrs the gratitude and admiration of their fellow-Christians, and finally converted them into a kind of demigods. This was more particularly the case when the church began to be corrupted by her compromise with Paganism [during the fourth and fifth-centuries], which having been baptized without being converted, rapidly introduced into the Christian church, not only many of its rites and ceremonies, but even its polytheism, with this difference, that the divinities of Greece and Rome were replaced by Christian saints, many of whom received the offices of their Pagan predecessors.
The church in the beginning tolerated these abuses, as a temporary evil, but was afterwards unable to remove them; and they became so strong, particularly during the prevailing ignorance of the middle ages, that the church ended up legalizing, through her decrees, that at which she did nothing but wink at first.
In a footnote, Calvin gives specific examples of how Christians saints simply became substitutes for pagan deities.
Thus St. Anthony of Padua restores, like Mercury, stolen property; St. Hubert, like Diana, is the patron of sportsmen; St. Cosmas, like Esculapius, that of physicians, etc. In fact, almost every profession and trade, as well as every place, have their especial patron saint, who, like the tutelary divinity of the Pagans, receives particular hours from his or her protégés.
You can read the entire work on Google Books.
Calvin’s treatment includes a historical overview, quotes from the church fathers, and even citations from sixteenth-century Roman Catholic scholars. The result is an air-tight case for the true origin of many Catholic practices.
Calvin’s conclusion is that these practices are nothing more than idolatrous superstitions, rooted in ancient Roman paganism. Even today, five centuries later, his work still serves as a necessary warning to those who persist in such idolatry. Hence his concluding sentence: “Now, those who fall into this error must do so willingly, as no one can from henceforth plead ignorance on the subject as their excuse.”
Generally, folks, Catholics focus on the crucified Christ and could stand to remember that he was raised from the dead. Protestants focus on the risen Christ and tend to forget that he was crucified. Not a one of us have it right — we just don’t know which details are wrong. We would do well to remember that. As Paul said, I am determined to know this only: Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” He also said that if Christ be not raised, our faith is in vain.
Amen. If people do not pray to Jesus, they are in trouble.
I have never seen any with Calvin in the name in the states I have been in.
How does she hear it if she is not a goddess?
Enough already. We know y’all pray to the dead It is not Biblical.
Yucky.
She was taken to heaven in the Presumption of Mary, RCs fervently believe...until they don’t and are no longer RCs.
(She still be dead, Doc.)
I was wondering that too. Why?
It may not be Biblical but sometimes it works.
Appears he’s having a need for anger management right now. You’ll need to post the question to that poster.
In response to the posting of John Calvin’s statements about the papal sect, I submit the following:
“When I was in sixth grade, going to the elementary school on the airbase, it was demandeed by the school officials that I ‘stay after school’ (You all know how that went over.), to attend religious catechism classes, since my mother had listed herself as a Catholic. During one of these, I thought, punitive measures, I asked the guy in black, “Why do I have to learn anything is THIS book, when you don’t tell me anything about the bible? Don’t YOU believe in it?” I was ‘removed and excused from any further religious education, due to my actions’, the letter my Dad read. He asked me what I did. I told him, and he guffawed, while my mother grabbed another Scotch.”
That’s a sensible lad, alright!
If these practices are "rooted in ancient Roman paganism"...then why are they found in every ancient Church, even the ones that, geographically, had zip zero nada to do with Rome? For instance, we have the St. Thomas Christians of the Malabar Coast of India. Nowhere near Rome. Do they invoke the saints? Why yes they do. We have the Ethiopian Christians way down in Africa evangelized from Egypt in the 4th century--again, not much contact with Rome. They also invoke the saints.
If the ancient, pure religion was corrupted by Roman paganism...and "syncretistic" practices were introduced, then why in Sam Hill did none of the ancient writers complain about it? We have Christian authors from the 90s on, minutely dissecting every heresy from Gnosticism to Nestorianism. Did any of them see firsthand this "corruption" and call it out? Fight it? Show me where. Give me chapter and verse.
Calvin was a devotee of St. Augustine....did he not read St. Augustine's homilies on the feast days of the saints?
Wait, wait, wait. That can't be. Catholics tell us over and over that there were no "churches" other than the Catholic Church until after Luther.
Furthermore....God clearly says In Jeremiah 10...
"The practices of the peoples are worthless;...they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel...... They adorn it with silver and gold;....they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk....The images he makes are a fraud; they have no breath in them....They are worthless, the objects of mockery.
Oh yeah? When? Where? Who did it and how?
Oh we can all bask in these vague conspiracy theories, but it's quite another matter to cite a primary source to back it up.
Go find a writer from the 4th century who saw this happening and said something about it. Go ahead. I'll wait.
“Calvin was a devotee of St. Augustine....did he not read St. Augustine’s homilies on the feast days of the saints?”
Augustine of Hippo November 354 – 28 August 430
Augustine was born after syncretic paganism was incorporated into catholicism.
Thanks for the link. I see the evolution of the nun habit compared to Sister Bertrile.
Have a Bassett-Shepherd mix. She has huge ears. He official long name is “Sister Penny Bertrile” aka the flying puppy.
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