PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. Wherever there is a belief in continued existence through and after death, religion naturally concerns itself with the relations between the living and the dead. This was especially the case in Egypt, and of ten dominates both primitive and developed systems of thought and practice. Prayers for the dead are mentioned in 2 Maccabees, xii. where the writer is uncertain whether to regard the sacrifice offered by Judas as a propitiatory sin-offering or as a memorial thank-offering. Prayers for the dead form part of the authorized Jewish services. The form in use in England contains the following passage : "Have mercy upon him; pardon all his transgressions. . . . Shelter his soul in the shadow of Thy wings. Make known to him the path of life." The only passage in the New Testament which is held to bear directly on the subject is II. Timothy, i. 18, where, however, it is not certain that Onesiphorus, for whom St. Paul prayed, was dead. Outside the Bible, early use of prayers for the dead is found in the inscription on the tomb of Abercius of Hieropolis in Phrygia (see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, vol. i.) : "Let every friend who observeth this pray for me," i.e., Abercius, who died in the latter part of the second century. The inscriptions in the Roman catacombs bear similar witness to the practice, by the oc currence of such phrases as "Mayest thou live amongst the saints" (third century) ; "May God refresh the soul of . . ."; "Peace be with them." Among Church writers Tertullian is the first to men tion prayers for the dead : "The widow who does not pray for her dead husband has as good as divorced him" (beginning of the third century). Subsequent writers similarly make incidental mention of the practice as prevalent, but not as unlawful or even as disputed (until Aerius challenged it towards the end of the fourth century). The most famous instance is St. Augustine's prayer for his mother, Monnica, Confessions (Bk. ix.).
An important element in the liturgies of the various Churches consisted of the diptychs or lists of names of living and dead who were to be commemorated at the Eucharist. To be inserted in
these lists was an honour, and it was out of this practice that the canonization of saints grew. In the third century we find Cyprian enjoining that there should be no oblation or public prayer made for a deceased layman who had broken a Church rule by appoint ing a cleric trustee under his will : "He ought not to be named in the priest's prayer who has done his best to detain the clergy from the altar." The universal occurrence of these diptychs and of definite prayers for the dead in all parts of the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries tend to show how primitive such prayers were. The language used in the prayers for the departed is very reserved, and contains no suggestion of a place or state of pain. We may cite the following from the so-called liturgy of St. James : "Remember, 0 Lord, the God of spirits and of all flesh, those whom we have remembered and those whom we have not remembered, men of the true faith, from righteous Abel unto to-day; do thou thyself give them rest there in the land of the living, in thy kingdom, in the delight of Paradise, in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our holy fathers, from whence pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away, where the light of thy countenance visiteth them and always shineth upon them." Public prayers were only offered for those who were believed to have died as faithful members of Christ. But Perpetua, who was martyred in 202, believed herself to have been encouraged by a vision to pray for her brother, who had died in his eighth year, almost certainly unbaptized ; and a later vision assured her that her prayer had been answered and he translated from pun ishment. St. Augustine thought it needful to point out that the narrative was not canonical Scripture, and contended that the child had perhaps been baptized.