Prayer to the Saints in the Time of Jesus

Is This PROOF of Prayer to Saints in Jesus' Time?
Sips with Serra | 12 Jan. 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7HtBmQwGLM

One could say:
if it was a) believed by Jews at the time of Jesus and b) nowhere condemned in the NT nor from Apostolic Tradition, it means it's OK, because the precursor of the Catholic Church was the Jewish Church.

I have made this argument about Purgatory. Or minimally, prayers for the dead.

Calvin understood the principle, that's why he pretends that Jews started praying for the dead in the time of Rabbi Akiba, and whether II Maccabees is canon or not is beside the point, simply by being history, it disproves Calvin.

7:06 I'm noting, Calvin uses the pretext of mockery in commenting on verse 47, but Calvin doesn't comment on verse 49.

Here is part of Calvin's comment on verse 47:

For Satan has no method more effectual for ruining the salvation of the godly, than by dissuading them from calling on God. For this reason, he employs his agents to drive off from us, as far as he can, the desire to pray. Thus he impelled the wicked enemies of Christ basely to turn his prayer into derision, intending by this stratagem to strip him of his chief armor. And certainly it is a very grievous temptation, when prayer appears to be so far from yielding any advantage to us, that God exposes his name to reproaches, instead of lending a gracious ear to our prayers. This ironical language, therefore — or rather this barking of dogs — amounts to saying that Christ has no access to God, because, by imploring Elijah, he seeks relief in another quarter.

Pretty obviously, seeing verse 49 is incompatible with the interpretation, that's arguably why Calvin didn't comment on it.

Nova Gazer

@Nova_Gazer

Just a careful (possibly not needed) clarification. Elijah was not bodily assumed into heaven in the sense that the Blessed Mother was. No one entered heaven (the Beatific Vision) until after Jesus' Crucifixion. According to my (scanty) research, Church Fathers and theologians liked to use the word "translated" into heaven or more properly the paradise which would likely be the same paradise Abraham and the Old Testament Saints were in before Jesus rescued them.

I

Kinghood of Mousekind

@kinghoodofmousekind2906

The "Bosom", right? It is interesting how in Italian and other Romance languages we say "Paradiso" for "Heaven", with "il seno di Abramo" for the Bosom of Abraham.

I answered

twice, A and B

A

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

Not really.

Henoch and Elias are translated into a lower Heaven than the Empyrean one, and that bodily, unlike the souls who were translated souls only into the Bosom of Abraham.

Jesus and Mary are in the Empyrean Heaven, above the fix stars.

Henoch and Elias are probably on one of the planets that God has made inhabitable for them.

TomasTomi

@TomasTomi30

@hglundahl what? What planets?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@TomasTomi30 Which one would be third from Earth?

Posito primo raptu, ponitur consequenter secundus raptus. Et duo facit: primo ponitur raptus, secundo raptus excellentia, ibi audivit arcana, et cetera. Sed notandum, quod Glossa dicit istum raptum esse alium a primo. Et si bene consideretur, bis legitur aliquid de apostolo, ad quod possunt isti duo raptus referri. Nam Act. IX, 9 legitur de eo quod stetit tribus diebus non videns et nihil manducans, neque bibens, et ad hoc potest referri primus raptus, ut scilicet tunc fuerit raptus usque ad tertium caelum. Sed Act. XXII, 17 legitur quod factus est in templo in stupore mentis, et ad hoc refertur iste secundus raptus. Sed hoc non videtur verisimile, quia quando in stupore mentis factus fuit, missus iam fuerat in carcerem apostolus; sed hanc epistolam scripsit apostolus diu ante, unde prius scripta fuit haec epistola, quam apostolus fuisset in stupore. Et ideo dicendum est, quod differt iste raptus a primo, quantum ad id in quod raptus est. Nam in primo raptus est in tertium caelum; in secundo vero in Paradisum Dei. Si vero aliquis tertium caelum acciperet corporaliter, secundum primam acceptionem caelorum superius positam, vel si fuerit visio imaginaria, posset similiter dicere Paradisum corporalem, ut diceretur quod fuerit raptus in Paradisum terrestrem. Sed hoc est contra intentionem Augustini, secundum quem dicimus, quod fuit raptus in tertium caelum, id est visionem intelligibilium, secundum quod in se ipsis et in propriis naturis videntur, ut supra dictum est. Unde secundum hoc oportet non aliud intelligere per caelum, et aliud per Paradisum, sed unum et idem per utrumque, scilicet gloriam sanctorum, sed secundum aliud et aliud. Caelum enim dicit altitudinem quamdam cum claritate, Paradisus vero quamdam iucundam suavitatem. In sanctis autem beatis et Angelis Deum videntibus sunt excellenter haec duo, quia est in eis excellentissima claritas, qua Deum vident, et summa suavitas, qua Deo fruuntur.

St. Thomas considers that St. Paul just might have been raptured to the Terrestrial Paradise in II Cor 12, but he cautions that St. Augustine thinks differently.

I don't think St. Thomas on II Cor is available in English translation.

TomasTomi

@hglundahl This speaks nothing to me, I will rather (ask and) listen to my bishop and priests he appointed in our local church which is in communion with the succesor of st. Peter. As is the tradition since year 33 A.D. God bless.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@TomasTomi30 You are obviously free to do so, but tell him, I'm pretty familiar with St. Thomas. The one from "Sicily." Aquino outside Naples.

I never claimed to be your bishop, I only claim to be a knowledgeable Catholic layman.

TomasTomi

@hglundahl No you did not, but on my question you presented me only a latin text, you spoke of planets and did not defended your claims. I am sorry but you seem to me like an internet troll not a knowledgeable catholic. I do not say you are troll, but this way of argumentation is no good. Have a good day

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@TomasTomi30 "but on my question you presented me only a latin text,"

With a resumé of some highlights and a regret that I didn't have an English translation.

"you spoke of planets and did not defended your claims."

My best defense would arguably be, somewhere St. Thomas (or someone he cited) mentions earthly paradise being lifted up from Earth, not destroyed, and also not lifted up into Empyrean Heaven where God is in His throne room, but into one of the lower planets.

To those familiar with Medieval and Late Antiquity cosmology, that means a planetary heaven.

"you seem to me like an internet troll not a knowledgeable catholic."

The two are not exclusive. If the word troll had been used like that, pretty certainly Gilbert Keith Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc would have been called ink-and-print trolls, and probably (though I haven't read her) Flannery O'Connor as well.

"The truth will make you odd" she has been quoted as saying.

The two others were decorated by Pope Pius XI.

"this way of argumentation"

I didn't catch you were making an objection, so I didn't try to provide an argumentation. I was only quickly trying to respond to what I took as a question. My bad.

@TomasTomi30 I have now added, into the post with comments and dialogue, a translation of the passage:

[link to this post]

B

Hans-Georg Lundahl

To clarify:

• the Bosom of Abraham was in a sense Paradise,
• but is different from Earthly Paradise, from which Adam and Eve were expelled, and which was arguably translated upward, to one of the planets, at the latest in the Deluge.

Kinghood of Mousekind

@hglundahl good clarification!

II

Brutus Kelpamine

@BrutusKelpamine

Wrong ! The only person who went to heaven before Jesus was Enoch..

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@BrutusKelpamine Have you read this?

And as they went on, walking and talking together, behold a fiery chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder: and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
[4 Kings (2 Kings) 2:11]

Translation of the Thomas passage:

Posito primo raptu, ponitur consequenter secundus raptus.		Given the first rapture, the second rapture is consequently posited.
Et duo facit: primo ponitur raptus, secundo raptus excellentia, ibi audivit arcana, et cetera.		And he had two of them: first is stated "raptus", second, the excellence of the rapture, "there he heard secrets" and so on.
Sed notandum, quod Glossa dicit istum raptum esse alium a primo.		But note, the Gloss says that this rapture was other than the first one.
Et si bene consideretur, bis legitur aliquid de apostolo, ad quod possunt isti duo raptus referri.		And if we consider well, twice we read sth of the Apostle to which the two raptures could refer.
Nam Act. IX, 9 legitur de eo quod stetit tribus diebus non videns et nihil manducans, neque bibens, et ad hoc potest referri primus raptus, ut scilicet tunc fuerit raptus usque ad tertium caelum.		For in Acts 9:9 is read of him that he stood three days without seing and eating nor drinking nothing, and to this the first rapture can be referred, namely this was when he was raptured into the Third Heaven.
Sed Act. XXII, 17 legitur quod factus est in templo in stupore mentis, et ad hoc refertur iste secundus raptus.		But in Acts 22:17 is read that in the Temple he incurred a stupor of the mind, and to this that second rapture is referred.
Sed hoc non videtur verisimile, quia quando in stupore mentis factus fuit, missus iam fuerat in carcerem apostolus; sed hanc epistolam scripsit apostolus diu ante, unde prius scripta fuit haec epistola, quam apostolus fuisset in stupore.		But this does not seem likely, since when he was in a stupor of the mind, the Apostle had already been imprisoned; but this Epistle the Apostle wrote long before, so, this Epistle was written before the Apostle was in a stupor of mind.
Et ideo dicendum est, quod differt iste raptus a primo, quantum ad id in quod raptus est.		And hence we say, this rapture differs from the first, as to that into the rapture was.
Nam in primo raptus est in tertium caelum; in secundo vero in Paradisum Dei.		For in the first, the rapture is into the Third Heaven; but in the second into the Paradise of God.
Si vero aliquis tertium caelum acciperet corporaliter, secundum primam acceptionem caelorum superius positam, vel si fuerit visio imaginaria, posset similiter dicere Paradisum corporalem, ut diceretur quod fuerit raptus in Paradisum terrestrem.		But if someone accepts the Third Heaven in a corporeal manner, according to the first meaning of heavens posed above, or if the vision was imaginary, he could likewise say a bodily Paradise, so as to say that the rapture was into the Terrestrial Paradise.
Sed hoc est contra intentionem Augustini, secundum quem dicimus, quod fuit raptus in tertium caelum, id est visionem intelligibilium, secundum quod in se ipsis et in propriis naturis videntur, ut supra dictum est.		But this is against the understanding of St. Augustine, according to which we say, that the rapture was into the Third Heaven, that is into a vision of intelligiblesn according to how they are seen in themselves and in their own nature, as said above.
Unde secundum hoc oportet non aliud intelligere per caelum, et aliud per Paradisum, sed unum et idem per utrumque, scilicet gloriam sanctorum, sed secundum aliud et aliud.		Hence, according to this, one should not understand one thing by the Heaven and another by the Paradise, but one and the same by both, that is the glory of the saints, but according to different aspects.
Caelum enim dicit altitudinem quamdam cum claritate, Paradisus vero quamdam iucundam suavitatem.		For Heaven meansof a certain height with light, but Paradise a certain blissful sweetness.
In sanctis autem beatis et Angelis Deum videntibus sunt excellenter haec duo, quia est in eis excellentissima claritas, qua Deum vident, et summa suavitas, qua Deo fruuntur.		But in the blessed saints and Angels who see God, these two are foremost, since in them is a highest light, in which they see God, and a highest sweetness, in which they delight in God.