תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

LECTURE XVI.

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS ON THE FIRST OF THE TWO FINAL PRAYERS.

The question of Prayers for the Dead considered.

2 TIMOTHY i. 18.

"THE LORD GRANT UNTO HIM THAT HE MAY FIND MERCY OF THE LORD IN THAT DAY."

"CONCERNING prayers for the dead," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, "the Church hath received no commandment from the Lord; and, therefore, concerning it we can have no rules nor proportions, but from those imperfect revelations of the state of departed souls, and the measures of charity, which can relate only to the imperfection of their present condition, and the terrors of the Day of Judgment."

[ocr errors]

In prefixing, therefore, the text which has been just read to a discourse in which that subject is about to be considered, I would not be understood to assert more with respect to it, than that it is one of those passages which have been adduced by divines as having a probable connection with the practice in behalf of which they were looking for such sanction, direct or indirect, as might be found for it in the writings of the Apostles.1

The person alluded to in the text was Onesiphorus, an individual of whom S. Paul

1 It may be doubted, however, whether the notion of Onesiphorus being dead is not altogether modern. S. Chrysostom does not so understand S. Paul.

In answer to the inquiry why the household is saluted, and not the master, Pool (Synopsis V. p. 1108) gives the following replies from Grotius and others. "Resp. 1.-Videtur mihi hic Onesiphorus fuisse mortuus, cum hæc Paulus scriberet: cui quoque favet quod in Præterito dixit ȧvéve. Quod si ita est, validissime confirmatur oratio pro fidelibus defunctis. Sed longe aliud est aliquem felicitatis gradum, sanctis in die judicii tribuendum, illis precari; quam, precari illis liberationem e pœnis Purgatorii, quæ Ecclesiæ Romanæ praxis est. Resp. 2.Quia Onesiphori familia jam Ephesi erat, ubi et ipse residere solebat, ubi etiam Paulo ministravit. (v. 18.) Onesiphorus autem hoc tempore Romæ fuisse videtur, ut suadet vox yevóμevors (v. 17,) ubi etiam Paulum quæsivit atque invenit, eumque sine metu visitavit et sustentavit."

speaks to Timothy, as one who had "oft refreshed" him, who was not ashamed of “his chain," and who, writes the Apostle, "when he was in Rome, sought me out very diligently, and found me.

Now, considering how much it was S. Paul's habit, in all his epistles, to send affectionate words of greeting to individual members of any Church to which he was writing, and especially to those who had shewn him. personal kindness, it would be only natural to expect that (if there were any allusion to him at all) we should have found some direct messages to Onesiphorus, whom, from the expressions already quoted, we know to have had so high a place in his esteem; but instead of this, although in this short epistle S. Paul twice mentions his household,

Salute the household of Onesiphorus," and "The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus;" to himself the Apostle sends no salutation, but only utters the prayer that the Lord may "shew him mercy" in the day of final account.

Certainly, when we place these passages

1 2 Tim. i. 16, 17.

2 2 Tim. iv. 19.

side by side, the term of expression in the message to the household suggests the notion that they might have been in trouble, and needed comfort, while the language with respect to Onesiphorus himself might be taken to imply that his time of probation in this world was ended. And if this conjecture could be proved to be correct, of course we should have evidence that S. Paul used at least an imprecatory form of prayer for the dead.

The passage, however, will bear another construction, which is quite as probable as that just mentioned. If Onesiphorus (who

may have been an Ephesian merchant) was now absent from home, visiting, it may be, various ports on the business of his calling (and we know from this very chapter that he had lately been at Rome), there is at once an obvious reason why the Apostle's salutation was sent to the household only.'

It is clear, therefore, that we cannot speak positively as to the doctrine contained in the passage under consideration; and I am not aware of any other text in the Scriptures,

1 See Appendix A.

either of the Old or of the New Testament, on which we can build with any greater confidence. There is, indeed, a direct enunciation of the doctrine that it is not "superfluous and vain to pray for the dead” in the second Book of the Maccabees; but I need not remind you that that portion of the sacred volume which is called the Apocrypha, though read by the Church for example of life and instruction of manners, is never applied by her to establish any doctrine.

On the whole, then, we conclude that the practice of praying for the dead is nowhere inculcated upon us in the canonical Scriptures; but at the same time, I think that a careful and unprejudiced study of the subject will incline us to the belief that it is nowhere forbidden. We cannot prove it to be a duty; nor yet, so far as I know, is there any reason why those who look on it as a privilege, should be taught that they are in error, and that it would be wrong to avail themselves of it.

Nevertheless, whether following what a prelate of our Church calls "a dictate of

1 2 Maccabees xiii. 44.

Y

« הקודםהמשך »