Irenaeus
of Lyons:
They also hold, like Carpocrates, that
men cannot be saved until they have gone through all kinds of experience. An
angel, they maintain, attends them in every one of their sinful and abominable
actions, and urges them to venture on audacity and incur pollution. Whatever may
be the nature of the action, they declare that they do it in the name of the
angel, saying, ‘O thou angel, I use they work; O thou power, I accomplish thy
operation!’ And they maintain that this is ‘perfect knowledge,’ without
shrinking to rush into such actions as it is not lawful even to name. (Against
Heresies 1.31.2 [ANF 1:358])
Nor does she [the church] perform
anything by means of angelic invocations, or by incantations, or by any other
wicked curious art; but, directing her prayers to the Lord, who made all
things, in a pure, sincere, and straightforward spirit, and calling upon the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, she has been accustomed to work miracles for the
advantage of mankind, and not to lead them into error. If, therefore, the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ even now confers benefits [upon men], and cures
thoroughly and effectively all who anywhere believe in Him, but not that of
Simon, or Meander, or Carpocrates, or of any other man whatever, it is manifest
that, when He was made man, He held fellowship with His own creation, and did
all things; truly; through the power of; God, according to the will; of the
Father of all, as the; prophets; had foretold. (Against Heresies 2.32.5
[ANF 1:409])
Origen
of Alexandria:
Having thus learned to call these
beings “angels” from their employments, we find that because they are divine
they are sometimes termed “god” in the sacred Scriptures, but not so that we
are commanded to honour and worship in place of God those who minister to us,
and bear to us His blessings. For every prayer, and supplication, and intercession,
and thanksgiving, is to be sent up to the Supreme God through the High Priest,
who is above all the angels, the living Word of God. And to the Word Himself
shall we also pray and make intercessions, and offer thanksgivings and supplications
to Him, if we have the capacity of distinguishing between the proper use and
abuse of prayer.
For to invoke angels without having
obtained a knowledge of their nature greater than is possessed by men, would be
contrary to reason. But, conformably to our hypothesis, let this knowledge of
them, which is something wonderful and mysterious be obtained. Then this
knowledge, making known to us their nature, and the offices to which they are
severally appointed, will not permit us to pray with confidence to any other than
to the Supreme God, who is sufficient for all things, and that through our
Saviour the Son of God, who is the Word, and Wisdom, and Truth, and everything else
which the writings of God’s prophets and the apostles of Jesus entitle Him. And
it is enough to secure that the holy angels of God be propitious to us, and
that they do all things on our behalf, that our disposition of mind towards God
should imitate as far as it is within the power of human nature the example of
these holy angels, who again follow the example of their God; and that the conceptions
which we entertain of His Son, the Word, so far as attainable by us, should not
be opposed to the clearer conceptions of Him which the holy angel possess, but
should daily approach these in clearness and distinctness . . .
And being persuaded that the sun
himself, and the moon, and the stars pray to the Supreme God through His
only-begotten Son, we judge it improper to pray to those beings who themselves offer
up prayers (to God), seeing even they themselves would prefer that we should
sent up our requests to the God to whom
they pray, rather than send them downwards to themselves, or apportion our power
of prayer between God and them . . .
It was for these and similar mysterious
reasons, with which Moses and the prophets were acquainted, that they forbade
the name of other gods to be pronounced by him who bethought himself of praying
to the one Supreme God alone, or to be remembered by a heart which had been
taught to be pure form all foolish thoughts and words. (Against Celsus 5.4-5,
1, 11, 56 [ANF 4:544-45, 548, 564])
Origen explicitly condemns invocation
of angels and also states that their nature is greater than that of men, so
surely this rules out invocation of saints too; furthermore, he states that we
are not permitted to pray to any other
than God: (Seth Kasten, Against the Invocation of Saints: An Apology for the
Protestant Doctrine of Prayer Over and Against the Doctrine of the Eastern Orthodox
Church [Royal Oak, Mich.: Scholastic Lutherans, 2023], 66)
Lactantius:
For if Jupiter holds the first place,
both among the gods and in religious rites, if no gods were worshipped by the
people before him, because they who are worshipped were not yet born; it appears
that the Curetes, on the contrary, were the first who did not understand the
worship of the deity, since all error was introduced by them, and the memory of
the true God was taken away. They ought therefore to have understood from the
mysteries and ceremonies themselves, that they were offering prayers to dead
men. I do not then require that any one should believe the fictions of the
poets. If any one imagines that these speak falsely, let him consider the
writings of the pontiffs themselves, and weigh whatever there is of literature pertaining
to sacred rites: he will perhaps find more things than we being forward, from
which he may understand that all things which are esteemed sacred are empty,
vain, and fictitious. But if any one, having discovered wisdom, shall lay aside
his error, he will assuredly laugh at the flies of men who are almost without
understanding. (The Divine Institutes 1.21 [ANF 7:37])
But if it appears that these religious
rites are vain in so many ways as I have shown, it is manifest that those who
either make prayers to the dead, or venerate the earth, or make over their souls
to unclean spirits, do not act as becomes men, and that they will suffer
punishment for their impiety and guilt, who, rebelling against God, the Father
of the human race, have undertaken inexplicable rites, and violated every
sacred law. (The Divine Institutes 2.18 [ANF 7:67])
