medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

I apologize for having misunderstood the thrust of John Wickstrom's question and thus led the thread in the wrong direction.

Regarding the first historical evidence for invoking the intercession of saints, I do not have a clear prooftext and do not at the moment have Brown's _Cult_ at hand.   But all the pieces are in place already by the time of Polycarp:

Ch. 19 of the Martyrdom of Polycarp:

For, having through patience overcome the unjust governor, and thus acquired the crown of immortality, he now, with the apostles and all the righteous[in heaven], rejoicingly glorifies God, even the Father, and blesses our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of our souls, the Governor of our bodies, and the Shepherd of the Catholic Church throughout the world.

Another chapter describes how Polycarp's relics were, with some diffiulty, obtained by the Christians and put in a "place of honor."  In response to criticism, the author of the account explains that these relics are not worshiped as God but treated with the greatest honor, veneration.

This clearly places the martyr immediately in heaven in the presence of Christ and the apostles and all other "righteous".  The vision of heaven in the Apocalypse, in which the martyrs and others are portrayed as present,active, worshiping Goc and Christ, was interpreted by the Fathers as showing the simultaneity, real interconnection between Eucharistic liturgy on earth and in heaven.  Given this understanding of the communion of saints, which is asserted in the ancient baptismal creeds, all the pieces are in place for invoking the intercession of those who have died and are in God's presence.  This would seem to be the common heritage of both East and West, pace whatever divergence in the doctrine of particular and general judgment might have emerged over time.

I do not have the details at hand, but as I recall, burial inscriptions from the first three centuries also give evidence that Christians were invoking the intercession of deceased fellow Christians.  Others may have chapter and verse on the dates of these inscriptions.

But it would seem to me that the practice is in place by the mid-2nd century, pointing to even earlier, probably unbroken practice dating back to apostolic times.  For a religion whose very origins lie in the most unlikely claims about the resurrection from the dead and the bodily ascension to the "Right hand of the Father" (combined with Christ's promise to the dying criminal, "Today you shall be with me in paradise"--it would actually be quite surprising if the practice does not date to the very first martyrs.  But prooftexts for that have I none.


Dennis Martin

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