INVOCATION OF ANGELS AND SAINTS, the act of addressing prayers to the blessed spirits who are with God, whether the angels or the souls of the just who have been admitted to the happiness of heaven. The practice of addressing prayers to angels, especially to the angel-guardian, to the Virgin Mary, and to other saints, prevails in the Roman, the Greek, the Russo-Greek, and the eastern churches of all the various rites. In the Christian religion, the principle of the unity of God excludes all idea of subor dinate Sharers of the divine nature, such as is to be found in paganism, and all alike, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, agree that its very first principles exclude the idea of rendering divine worship, no matter how it may be modified, to any other than the One Infinite Being. But while Protestants carry this principle so far as to exclude every species of religious worship and every form of invocation addressed to angels or saints, as trenching upon God's honor, and irreconcilable with the Scriptures, which hold him forth as the sole object of worship and the only fountain of mercy, the Roman Catholic religion permits and sanctions a worship (called douleia) of the saints, inferior to the supreme worship (latretia) offered to God, and an invocation of the saints, not for the purpose of obtaining mercy or grace from themselves directly, but in order to ask their prayers or intercession with God on our behalf. For this doctrine and the analo gous practice, they do not advance the direct authority of Scripture (except a few pas sages which seem to them to imply the intercommunion of the two worlds, as Matt. xiii. 3, Luke xiv. 17. Exod. xxxii. 13), but rely on what to them is equally decisive tes timony, viz., the unwritten word of God conveyed by tradition. Origen (Opp. ii. p. 273) speaks of the belief that " the saints assist its by their prayers" as a doctrine which is "doubted by no one." St. Cyprian, addressing the confessors going to martyrdom, engages by anticipation their prayers in his behalf when they shall have received their heavenly crown (Ep, Dodwell's edition). To the same effect are cited the testimo nies of Basil (Opp. II. 155), Gregory Nazianzen (Opp. i. 288), Gregory of Nyssa (ii. 1017), Ambrose (ii. 200), Chrysostom (iv. 449), and many other fathers, ns well as the liturgies of the various ancient churches, whether of the Roman, the Greek, the Syrian, or the Egyptian rite.
On the other hand, Protestant historians, even admitting the full force of these testi monies to the existence of the practice,. allege that the practice is au early but unscrip tura] addition, dating only from the infusion into the church system of Alexandrian neoplatonism and oriental magianism, which they believe to have left traces even in the so-called orthodox Christianity of the 4th and 5th centuries. But leaving aside the doctrinal controversy, the fact at least is certain that in the 4th, and still more in the bth and centuries, the usage was universal; and a curious evidence of its prevalence is furnished by the fact that the very excess to which it was carried was con demned as a heresy (that of the Collyridians) by those who themselves confessed the lawfulness of the practice when confined within its legitimate limits. That similar
excesses in the practice and similar abuses as to tile nature and limits of the legitimate invocation of the saints continued through the mediaeval period, Roman Catholics them selves admit, although they allege that such abuses were at all times reprobated by the authentic teaching of the church; and the multiplied devotions to the saints, especially to the Blessed Virgin, the efficacy claimed for them, and the extraordinary legends con nected with them, and the prominence which the worship had assumed in the church, were among the most fertile themes of invective with the first reformers. Time council of Trent (25th Sess., On the Invocation of Saints) defines very precisely what is the doc trine of the Catholic church on, this subject. It declares "that the saints who reign with God offer up their prayers to Gial for men: that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to resort to their prayers, aid, and help, for the purpose of obtain ing benefits of God through his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is our Redeemer and Savior." From this decree it is inferred that the Catholic doctrine on the saints does not prescribe the practice of invoking them as necessary or essential, but only as "good and useful," and that what is to be asked of them is not the direct bestowal of grace and mercy, as from' thdm4dvesi but Ouly.thOiharaY4d,‘,theira4sistailee, and their help in obtaining benefits from God; and although many forms of prayer which are in use among Catholics bear, especially to a Protestant reader, all the appearance of direct appeals to the saints themselves for the benefits which are implored, yet all Catholic authorities are unanimous in declaring that these forms of words are to be interpreted, and that, from habitual use, they are so interpreted, even by the most superficially instructed Catholics, with the understood explanation that all the power of the saints to assist us consists exclusively in their prayers for us, and seconding our prayers by their own. ,See Bellarmine, Controversice de Sanctorum Beatitudine, lib. i. cap. XVIL Protestants object to the invocation of saints and of angels, tliat it is without evi dence of divine authority, contrary to the whole tenor of Scripture, and derogatory to the mediatorship of Christ. They ask what reason can be adduced for believing that prayers addressed to saints are even heard by them, or that they have always a knowl edge of the worship addressed to them? They further deny that the prayers addressed to saints—and particularly to the Virgin Mary—are always capable of explanation as merely an asking of their prayers on behalf of those who invoke them, and quote many instances in proof.