Monday, June 17, 2024

Fernand Prat (RC) on 1 Corinthians 15:29

  

A curious usage existed in Corinth and probably also in other Christian communities. When a catechumen died before being so far advanced as to be baptized one for his relatives or friends received for him the ceremonies of the sacraments. What precise signification was attached to this act? It is difficult to say. St. Paul neither approves nor blames it; he sees in it only a procession of faith in the resurrection of the dead. In fact, baptism, symbolized by the tree of life, deposits in the body a germ of immortality; it completes, by the external rite of incorporation into Christ, the regeneration produced inwardly in the soul by invisible grace; it imprints upon the Christian in indelible seal which will cause him to be recognized at the last day as a member of Christ. That is the distinctive sign which the Corinthians wanted to supply as far as possible in the catechumens who had died without baptism. Their practice was not, in itself, superstitious; it was a solemn protestation that the deceased belonged to Jesus Christ and that he had lacked the requisite time, but not the desire, to become an effective member of the visible Church. Nor were they mistaken in thinking that through the communion of saints an act of faith and piety on their part could be profitable to the deceased. But there was danger of believing that in having themselves baptized for the dead (υπερ των νεκρων)—that is to say, for their advantage—they had had themselves baptized in the place of the dead (αντι των νεκρων), so as to procure for them the effects of baptism; as if death were not the terminus of the test, and as if the dead could be aided otherwise than by means of prayers. Some heretics, the Cerinthians, Montanists, and Marcionites, fell subsequently into this error and thereby came even to the point of baptizing corpses, though not without incurring the general condemnation of the Church. (Fernand Prat, The Theology of Saint Paul, 2 vols. [trans. John L. Stoddard; Westminster, Md.: The Newman Bookshop, 1926], 1:136-37)

 

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