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.

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]