In 2015 Scroll Publishing uploaded to YouTube the following lecture by David W. Bercot: ‘What the Early Christians Believed About Images and Prayers to Saints,’ which had previously only been available by direct purchase through their website, and which considers the questions of whether or not the pre-Nicene Christians venerated icons, practiced liturgical use of incense, or prayed through deceased saints:
The same year, Russian Orthodox priest Thomas Ridenour produced a response to this lecture which was likewise uploaded to YouTube:
As one can see, much of Bercot’s historical case against icon veneration wasn’t actually responded to by Ridenour, but I felt that there was enough material presented to warrant producing a rebuttal of his arguments. I recorded and uploaded my rebuttals in 2018, and just now for the occasion of this blog post added chapter sections to it for easier navigation:
Later that year Ridenour posted a non-response to my rebuttal. Another viewer and I chided him in the comments section for his neglect of the historical aspects of this subject matter upon which his truth-claims are based:
Initially I was going to do another video rebuttal addressing Ridenour’s arguments regarding incense and prayers through saints, but there isn’t quite enough material to warrant a video, so I’ll just cover it briefly here:
Bercot not only pointed out the utter lack of evidence for the use of incense in Christian services in the pre-Nicene period but provides citations from Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Lactantius, which necessarily preclude such a practice. Ridenour doesn’t respond to a single one of these witnesses, nor provide any pre-Nicene evidence to the contrary, but he nevertheless expresses how sure he is that they used incense. Quite the non-response.
Bercot likewise pointed out the lack of support for prayers through deceased saints and furthermore cites Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and Lactantius as making statements which would necessarily preclude their having engaged in such a practice. Ridenour makes a half-hearted effort to respond to a couple of these, but as we shall see the results prove to be quite disastrous to his case. First, let us review Ridenour’s mishandling of Tertullian, beginning with Bercot’s citation:
“we mention paradise, a place of supernatural beauty destined to receive the souls of the blessed, separated from knowledge of the ordinary world by the wall, as it were, of that fiery zone”1
From this Bercot quite effectively argues for the futility of even entertaining the thought of praying to the dead when the dead cannot hear our prayers. Ridenour’s attempt at a rebuttal at the 52:24 timestamp is such: “So what do we do with the quote by Tertullian which David cites, that the dead are cut off from the knowledge of this world? Well, it would help to view it in context. The most natural reading of what Tertullian is indicating is that the activities in Heaven are removed from our awareness, not the reverse.” One cannot imagine a conclusion any more divorced from the context than that. Tertullian, as with all of the rest of the pre-Nicene Christians, didn’t believe that deceased saints ascend into Heaven, but rather quite the contrary that their souls descend into an intermediate state of the dead which he elsewhere describes as, “a profound and vast space hidden away in the deepest interior of the world. For, we read that Christ spent three days in the heart of the earth, [Matthew 12:40] that is, in the hidden recess in the inner part of the earth, totally enclosed by the earth . . . . As long as the earth remains, Heaven is not open; in fact, the gates are barred. When the world shall have passed away, the portals of Paradise will be opened.”2 So how are we to imagine that the deceased saints who now reside not in Heaven but in the deepest interiors of the Earth and who are separated from knowledge of this world by a wall are any more aware of what goes on here above them than we are of what goes on above us in Heaven? No, the most natural reading of Tertullian is that he would never entertain such a notion as praying to deceased saints as they wouldn’t be able to hear him to begin with.
Ridenour then appeals to the anonymously composed Sub Tuum Praesidium which he boasts as dated to 250 and assures us that it, “is no doubt much older.” Except that there’s considerable doubt on this point as one of today’s premier sources on patristic scholarship notes: “Regarding the 3rd-c. dating of the prayer, some scholars have posed certain difficulties because of the presence of the term Theotokos, which became common after the Council of Ephesus.”3 And nor does one need access to volumes such as these to be aware of the dating controversy; even something as pedestrian as Wikipedia notes that it’s been, “dated between [the] 3rd to 9th centuries,” etc.
For Ridenour to cite Origen from the Ante-Nicene Fathers translation as referring to, “Mary, as those declare who with sound mind extol her,” while ignoring the explicit citations of Origen given by Bercot, is simply not an intellectually honest treatment of Origen’s views on the matter. And as for Ridenour’s “evidence” itself, a much more recent Roman Catholic translation simply renders it, “Mary . . . in accordance with those who hold a sound opinion of her.”4 Well so much for Origen as a witness of prayers to deceased saints.
Finally, Ridenour appeals to the Oration on Simeon and Anna as if it were a genuine 3rd century work of Methodius, which it absolutely is not: “Certainly Spurious works: (a) De Simeone et Anna (P[atrologia]G[raeca] 18.347-82), a sermon which may be as late as the ninth century.”5 Roman Catholic lay apologist Erick Ybarra had made the same appeal in an exchange I had with him on Facebook; apparently the Oration's lack of genuineness being one of the better kept secrets from those who advocate icon veneration in the pre-Nicene Church. And the very reason that motivates forgers to produce such counterfeit texts is due to the lack of authentic works that support their beliefs from those periods. Such it is with the idea that the pre-Nicene Christians practiced and taught rendering prayers through deceased saints.
Footnotes
1. Tertullian, ca. 197, Apology 47, in Fathers of the Church 10:117
2. Tertullian, ca. 205, On the Soul 55:1,3, in Fathers of the Church 10:298-299
3. Elio Peretto, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 3:644
4. Origen, ca. 230, Commentary on John 1:23, Fathers of the Church 80:38
5. Herbert Musurillo, Ancient Christian Writers 27:10
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