Triablogue

Do the Psalms support prayer to angels?

2026-09-08T05:18:53.750-04:00

I've sometimes brought up the hymn "Angels From The Realms Of Glory" in discussions of prayer to saints and angels. The first verse reads:

Angels from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight o'er all the earth;
Ye who sang creation's story
Now proclaim Messiah's birth.

With the refrain:

Come and worship, come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn king.

The verses that follow address humans who are now deceased (the shepherds of Luke 2, Simeon and Anna, etc.), who can be referred to as saints, in a similar manner.

Do we conclude that Protestants who sing the hymn believe in prayer to angels? And prayer to saints? And time travel, since the hymn uses the language of living at the time of Jesus' birth?

Of course not. We recognize that all three of those aspects of the hymn are rhetorical devices. On what basis?

We lack evidence that angels and saints would be able to hear our prayers, and there's evidence against it. And it seems unlikely upfront that so many people, the people composing and singing this hymn, would all be believers in both time travel and their own participation in it. Therefore, we'd need evidence to overcome the initial unlikelihood that people would be praying to angels and saints and believing in and thinking they're participating in time travel.

Additionally, we know there's a lot of precedent for people using rhetorical devices of a relevant nature in contexts like hymns. Interpreting the hymn under consideration that way wouldn't be something novel, an indication of desperation, or anything like that.

Furthermore, if Protestants believed in prayer to angels and saints and time travel, we'd expect those beliefs to show up in other contexts. And the nature of the beliefs is such that we'd expect the showing up I just referred to to be highly evidenced (how often Protestants would pray to angels and saints, how explicitly the beliefs and practices would be referred to, how much attention belief in time travel and participation in it would get, etc.). We'd expect such things to show up in theology books, apologetics videos, sermons, and so on. They don't show up in those other contexts.

To the contrary, we find evidence in other places that Protestants don't believe in the concepts in question. They oppose prayer to angels and saints, express skepticism of time travel, etc.

Because of such factors, we reach the conclusion that Protestants don't believe in praying to angels, praying to saints, or time travel, despite certain qualities of the hymn in question. It would be absurd to reach any other conclusion.

So, with such considerations in mind, what should we make of the citations of passages in the Psalms, like 103:20, to support prayer to angels? Other passages address inanimate objects and other people on earth, including enemies of the people of God, as if they can hear the psalmist and are expected to respond in some manner (97:1, 97:7, 97:10, 97:12, 103:22, 148:7-12, etc.). Should we conclude, on the basis of verses 10 and 12 in Psalm 97, that we can pray to fellow believers currently living on earth? If you live in Mexico, can you pray to another believer in Russia, without a telephone or any other such device, and expect him to hear you? Does Psalm 119:115 prove that we can pray to evildoers? Does Psalm 148:7-12 prove that we can pray to snow, unregenerate kings, etc.?

We evaluate such passages in the same way we evaluate the hymn I discussed earlier. If praying to angels (or saints) was a practice the relevant Biblical figures believed in, we'd expect it to show up explicitly and often. Prayers to God are explicit and are mentioned frequently from the book of Genesis onward. The absence of prayers to angels (and saints) in the historical narrative portions of scripture, didactic passages about prayer, and other such contexts is a major problem for advocates of such prayers. The fact that people have to resort to passages like the ones under consideration in the Psalms reflects the weakness of their position. The best explanation, by far, for the prominence of prayers to God accompanied by the absence of prayers to other entities in the relevant contexts is that the view held by the relevant Biblical figures (the Biblical authors, Jesus, etc.) was that we should pray only to God.

Did Origen advocate praying to saints and angels in his Song of Songs commentary?

2026-09-06T17:41:19.471-04:00

Gavin Ortlund recently released a video on prayer to saints. Some Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have responded. Origen's view of prayer has gotten a lot of attention. I'm going to address the subject again. I'll largely be reiterating what I've said before, but I'll be including some new evidence as well.

Since some of the advocates of praying to saints and angels in the recent discussions have been making derogatory comments about Origen, see here regarding why he's important. One of the reasons why Origen is significant in this context is that much of his material on prayer is in a response he wrote to a pagan, Celsus, who also discussed prayer and Christian views of it. For reasons I've explained before, like here, Celsus' comments make more sense if the Christians of his day didn't practice prayer to angels. So, Origen's response to Celsus gives us a large amount of information about both Origen's view of prayer and the views and practices of Christians more broadly.

Advocates of praying to saints and angels often bring up the fact that Origen distinguished between different types of prayer, then read their own distinctions into the text. And they've done it again in their responses to Gavin's recent video. However, Origen's belief in multiple types of prayer doesn't imply that praying to saints (of the relevant sort, saints in heaven) or praying to angels was one of them. In fact, neither praying to saints nor praying to angels was one of the types of prayer Origen advocated. It's misleading to cite the fact that Origen believed in multiple types of prayer, then cite your own view of different kinds of prayer, even though Origen defined the types of prayer differently than you do.

There have been some citations of section 8:64 in Against Celsus as well, particularly his reference to how angels pray with us "even when not asked". Supposedly, Origen is saying that we can ask angels to pray with us, though they'll do so regardless of whether we ask. There are a lot of problems with that interpretation. First, the term "even" isn't in Henry Chadwick's translation. Rather, he has "when they [men on earth] pray to God, there are praying with them countless sacred powers who have not been invoked" (Origen: Contra Celsum [New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003], 501). How would advocates of prayer to angels who are appealing to the "even" language explain a translation like Chadwick's, which doesn't use that term? Secondly, the "even" language doesn't imply the acceptability of praying to angels, even if we were to go with that translation. The term "even" is ambiguous. It could allow an alternative (in this case, asking something of angels) to be done, but it could also not allow it, depending on the context. And the context tells us that we're to pray only to God. You have to ask why a scenario in which angels aren't asked to do something is being brought up to begin with. If the advocate of prayer to angels is going to say that the scenario is brought up because the asking in question involves something that can only appropriately be directed to God, then how can the "even" language allow that sort of asking of angels? On the other hand, if the asking can be acceptably directed to angels, then why is a scenario in which they're not asked brought up to begin with? The interpretation that advocates of praying to angels are putting forward here doesn't make sense either way. If you look up "even" in a dictionary, it has many potential meanings. It can convey the sense of "indeed", for example, to reflect the intensity of something, without implying support for prayer to angels. The term "even" can be read in a way that favors praying to angels, but it can easily be read otherwise as well, and we have to reconcile our interpretation of the term with the surrounding context. The context favors a rejection of prayer to angels.

The recent responses to Gavin have sometimes brought up Origen's comments in his treatise On Prayer. His comments about supplicating somebody like Peter or Paul have been abused in the usual way. But Origen is referring to how we should interact with people like Peter and Paul if we come across such individuals on earth. It's also about how we should respond "not only to saintly men but also to others" (section 10 here, though different versions of the document have different section numbers). The passage goes on to refer to asking for the forgiveness of non-saints against whom you've sinned. It's not about praying to saints in heaven. To the contrary, this passage and others in On Prayer go against praying to saints and angels.

You can read more about Origen's view of prayer in other posts I've written over the years. Here's a relevant one. Go there and either read the whole thing or do a Ctrl F search for whatever you're interested in ("type" to find discussions of types of prayer, "64" to find discussions of section 8:64 in Against Celsus, "On Prayer" to find discussions of Origen's treatise On Prayer, etc.). And you can run a search of this blog on Google, Blogger, or wherever else to find more. You can also click on the relevant post labels to get listings of some of the relevant posts, such as the Origen label or the Prayer label. Keep clicking Older Posts in the bottom right to see more. If a post is lengthy, like the first one linked in this paragraph, you can do a Ctrl F search for the relevant information.

People sometimes bring up some comments Origen made in his Homilies On Ezekiel as evidence that he believed in prayer to angels. Here's a response.

One I hadn't seen before the recent controversy surrounding Gavin's video, as far as I recall, is a citation of some of Origen's material in his commentary on the Song of Solomon. Go here to watch a few Roman Catholics discussing the material. And here's what I wrote in response in the comments section below the video:

Your citation of Origen in his commentary on the Song of Songs seems to be incorrect. I looked up pages 194-95 in R.P. Lawson's translation, and the text there is different than the text you cited. It's mostly the same, but doesn't have the sentence you quoted about the bride. In some material in the commentary you didn't quote, Origen does refer to the bride speaking to angels, the Old Testament prophets, etc., but he also refers to how they speak back to her, instruct her, and so on. The bride is likewise referred to as going into the king's chamber and house of wine, wanting to recline upon an apple tree, etc. The commentary is highly metaphorical. It's doubtful that Origen is advocating praying to angels and deceased saints, just as it's doubtful that he's advocating the concept that we hear back from angels and the deceased after praying to them, as if they verbally instruct us and do other such things in response to prayer. He's discussing individual believers and the church as a whole down through the ages as the bride, with a focus on the earthly component of the church. We collectively interact with angels, Old Testament prophets, the apostles, other people on earth with us, Jesus, etc. That could involve praying to one or more of those individuals and groups, but it need not. We know from experience that if we're to interact with other believers on earth, one of the groups of the bridegroom's friends Origen refers to in the surrounding context, it can't be done through prayer. A Christian who lives in Canada can't pray to a Christian living in Brazil. Yet, Origen refers to how we speak to believers on earth, just as he refers to interacting with angels, Jesus, and others. Similarly, on pages 91-92 of Lawson's translation (book 2, section 1 of the commentary), Origen has the bride speaking to "enemies" of the church, specifically the unregenerate Jews who have lived down through the ages. It doesn't follow that we can pray to those unbelieving Jews.

The most that can be said in favor of praying to saints and angels from that material in Origen's Song of Solomon commentary is that he might have had the practice in mind as one of the ways of interacting with saints and angels. But if you look at the larger context of the remainder of his writings (and what seems to have been the majority view of his Christian contemporaries), it's unlikely that he was advocating that sort of prayer.

Later in the video, they cite section 30 in Origen's Exhortation To Martyrdom, which you can read here. But the passage refers to prayer without saying who the prayer is directed to. So, it's ambiguous. It's likely another reference to the intercessory work of saints in heaven. He's alluding to the martyrs of Revelation 6, and chapter 5 of Revelation (verse 8) refers to the intercessory role of heavenly saints in the context of prayer. Origen could, and I suspect does, have the material in chapter 5 in mind when discussing the martyrs of Revelation 6 (mentioned again in Revelation 20:4). The question, then, is who he thought the prayers of chapter 5 were directed to. I've argued elsewhere that the prayers are to God, much like the angels are intermediaries in the context of God's wrath, carrying the bowls of wrath, even though the wrath isn't directed at them. See my post linked above for a lot of other relevant information. And I've documented that Origen agreed with me that the prayers in Revelation 5 are prayers to God (Against Celsus 8:17, and see my discussion of some other material likely from him here). So, the passage in Exhortation To Martyrdom likely is a variation of Origen's view of Revelation 5:8, meaning that it's another example of the saints' intercessory role in prayer without being the recipients of the prayers.

The Catholics I'm responding to said earlier in the video that prayer to saints is prayer to God. But Catholicism does sometimes refer to praying to saints and angels. For example, Pope Pius IX's Ineffabilis Deus refers to how Catholics "invoke and pray to the most Blessed Virgin Mary". Pope Leo XIII's Octobri Mense refers to Catholics "invoking Mary". Etc. And the simplest interpretation of Origen, when he refers to praying to God, is that he has prayer directly to God in mind, not the more complicated scenario in which a prayer is said to a saint or angel, but is considered a prayer to God in a more complicated manner than what people typically have in mind when they refer to praying to God. The fact that a Catholic could read Origen with the qualifiers in mind that the Catholics in question are advocating doesn't prove that reading Origen in such a manner is the best explanation of what he said.

Keep in mind that Gavin has cited some scholars in support of his conclusions about Origen. So have I. If some of Gavin's critics are going to keep calling him a liar, grifter, etc. (as some Eastern Orthodox recently did, for example), will they say the same about the scholars we've cited, including Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ones?

Were the earliest Christians united under a papacy?

2026-09-03T05:52:43.742-04:00

In a recent video discussing his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Joe Schmid said:

"And then, totally unsurprisingly, given their defective courtless system for church governance, Protestantism turns into a schism fest....You know, Christ wanted people to remain united while preserving the whole truth full and inviolate. Any sensible guy, much less the omniscient Creator of the universe, could foresee that the Protestant system was not going to work for that....Commonsensically, if Christ intended to establish a unified worldwide church that would preserve one faith across nations and centuries, a continuing teaching office is exactly the sort of institution we should expect him to provide. And then when we turn to history, we discover that this is exactly what the earliest Christians adopted."

In the second century, Celsus wrote:

"Christians at first were few in number, and held the same opinions; but when they grew to be a great multitude, they were divided and separated, each wishing to have his own individual party: for this was their object from the beginning....being thus separated through their numbers, they confute one another, still having, so to speak, one name in common, if indeed they still retain it. And this is the only thing which they are yet ashamed to abandon, while other matters are determined in different ways by the various sects." (cited in Origen's Against Celsus 3:10, 3:12)

And see here regarding Origen's response to Celsus, which further illustrates the absence of a papacy in early church history. Or see here regarding the anti-papal ecclesiology of Ignatius of Antioch, among many other examples that could be cited.

Underestimated Sins

2026-09-01T06:41:07.878-04:00

I've sometimes talked about the harm done by flattery. It's a common theme in Proverbs (e.g., 29:5), but Christians and others who should know better often succumb to flattery anyway. I've written here and here about how much of a problem it is in modern America.

I think part of what's gone wrong is that it doesn't get discussed much. It's easier to overlook or underestimate something if it doesn't get much attention. I mentioned what Proverbs says about flattery. I doubt that it would rank high as one of the issues people think about or talk about when Proverbs comes up.

It seems like flattery is also one of those things people think of as doing little or no harm, sort of like how they'll often ask what harm is done by something like fornication or homosexuality or same-sex marriage. They haven't given the subject much thought, and their (false) initial impression is that not much is at stake.

And many people are involved in flattery and enjoy it, in terms of giving it or receiving it. They have a lot to lose if they acknowledge that it's a problem and how much of a problem it is. Politicians, pastors, radio hosts, businesses, and YouTube hosts, for example, are highly dependent on flattery to get and keep their jobs. Their audiences frequently don't want to be told the truth. They want to be flattered. It makes them feel better in the short term, they like blame shifting, they like playing the victim card (my problems are somebody else's fault), and so on.

Neglecting Or Cultivating Your Soul

2026-08-30T07:32:24.876-04:00

"We know that some merchants who are illiterate look for literate mercenaries; although they themselves do not know letters, they acquire immense profits by having others write their ideas. Now, if those who are unlearned hire literate mercenaries in order to obtain earthly wealth, why do not you, whoever you are that is illiterate, seek with the price of reward someone to read over the sacred Scriptures for you, so that you may be able to acquire eternal rewards through them?...Someone may may: I am a farmer and continually engaged in earthly matters; I can neither listen to nor read the divine lessons. How many men and women in the country remember and repeatedly sing diabolical, shameful love songs! These things which the Devil teaches they can remember and say; are they unable to keep in mind what Christ shows them? How much more quickly and to better advantage, how much more profitably could these men and women from the farm learn the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, a few antiphons or the fiftieth and ninetieth Psalms? By getting and remembering these and saying them rather frequently they might have a means of uniting their soul to God and freeing it from the Devil....Therefore, let no one say: I cannot remember anything of what is read in church. Doubtless, if you really wanted to, you could; begin to wish it, and you will understand at once....The care of our soul, dearly beloved, is very much like earthly cultivation....Vices should be uprooted and virtues planted...I beseech you to tell me, whoever you are who said a little while ago that you could not fulfill God's precepts because you did not know how to read - tell me, who showed you how to provide for your vineyard, at what time to plant new shoots? Who taught you this, unless you saw or heard or questioned the best cultivators as to how you should work your farm? Why, then, are you not as solicitous for your soul as you are for your estate?...If you till your land and do not till your soul, you are willing to settle your farm and to leave God's deserted. Is this just, brethren?...Why do you not attend to your neglected soul and bewail it, just as you take care of your cultivated farm and rejoice over it?...Therefore, with God's help let us labor with all our strength, so that when God wishes to come to his field, that is, to our soul, He may find it cultivated, arranged, and all in order. May He find a harvest, not thorns; wine, not vinegar; wheat, rather than cockle." (Caesarius of Arles, Mary Magdeleine Mueller, trans., St. Caesarius: Sermons, Volume I [1-80] [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], Sermon 6:2-5, pp. 39-42)

So That We Might Keep Watch

2026-08-27T05:37:00.270-04:00

Ephrem the Syrian, writing in the fourth century, made some of the same points I've made about early Christian eschatology. He doesn't limit the units of time that aren't known in Mark 13:32 to smaller ones, but takes them to include larger ones, like the generational timeframe, as well. He cites Acts 1:7 in the process, as I've often done. He refers to how Jesus is communicating the fact that all generations are to be on watch. He refers to how there are some general signs of the times that are in place in every generation, a point I've often made:

He also said, But, of that hour no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son [Matthew 24:36], lest they question him as to the moment of his coming. It is not your business to know the days and the times. [Acts 1:7] He has hidden that [from us] so that we might keep watch, and that each of us might think that this coming would take place during our life. For, if the time of his coming were to be revealed, his coming would be in vain, and it would not have been desired by the nations and the ages in which it was to take place. He has indeed said that he will come [cf. Matthew 24:30], but he did not define when, and [thus] all generations and ages thirst for him. For, although he has given [an indication of] the signs of his coming, their end cannot be understood, since they have come and gone in a constant flux and yet they remain always....

Or perhaps he knew the time but the moment was hidden from him? But the time is a moment, and a moment is part of time....

He highlighted his signs so that, from the first day, all peoples and ages would think that his coming would take place in their day.

(Carmel McCarthy, trans., Saint Ephrem's Commentary On Tatian's Diatessaron [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000], 18:15-16; pp. 278-80)

The Many Biblical References To Baptism With No Baptismal Regeneration

2026-08-25T05:30:55.867-04:00

When advocates of baptismal regeneration try to misframe discussions of the doctrine in the manner I discussed in my last post, they sometimes suggest that their opponents can't cite baptismal passages in support of their view. Supposedly, there aren't any Biblical passages about baptism that support justification apart from baptism. But the argumentation used elsewhere by advocates of baptismal regeneration suggests otherwise.

After claiming that no Biblical passages about baptism support justification apart from baptism, they'll often turn around and claim that all of the passages about baptism in the gospels other than the alleged references in John 3:5 and the post-resurrection context are irrelevant, since baptismal regeneration hadn't gone into effect yet. They'll say something along the lines of what Tertullian wrote against opponents of baptismal regeneration in his day: "Grant that, in days gone by, there was salvation by means of bare faith, before the passion and resurrection of the Lord. But now that faith has been enlarged, and has become a faith which believes in His nativity, passion, and resurrection, there has been an amplification added to the sacrament, viz., the sealing act of baptism; the clothing, in some sense, of the faith which before was bare, and which cannot exist now without its proper law. For the law of baptizing has been imposed" (On Baptism 13). Here's Jordan Cooper arguing for a late start to baptismal regeneration in some sense, in the context of addressing the thief on the cross. For a discussion of some of the evidence that leads advocates of baptismal regeneration to resort to that sort of argumentation, evidence that goes far beyond the thief on the cross, see here. It's the non-regenerative nature of baptism in the gospels that leads even many advocates of baptismal regeneration to concede that ground.

And when we get to Acts, there's a lot more of the sort of anti-baptismal-regeneration material we see in the gospels. See here, for example. The double healing phenomenon discussed in one of my posts linked above continues into the book of Acts, which makes more sense if there wasn't a change in the means of justification from the time of the gospels to the time of Acts. And advocates of baptismal regeneration will often dismiss Cornelius in Acts 10 as an exception to the rule. They also have difficulty explaining why Paul makes no reference to baptism when discussing how justification is normally received in Acts 19:2.

Likewise, 1 Peter 3:21 is a baptismal passage, and it provides evidence against baptismal regeneration rather than for it. Go here for a discussion of the passage.

The large majority of passages on baptism aren't even claimed as references to baptismal regeneration by advocates of the doctrine. And some of the passages advocates of justification apart from baptism appeal to the most are baptismal ones. I've frequently appealed to passages like Acts 10, Acts 19, and 1 Peter 3 over the years. The earliest discussion of baptism we know of in the New Testament era refers to being baptized for repentance (Matthew 3:11), which makes the most sense if regeneration occurs before baptism, thereby leading repentant individuals to participate in baptism and other acts of repentance. John the Baptist told people to repent (Matthew 3:2), which makes the most sense as something that was expected immediately, meaning that it was prebaptismal. He wanted repentance and its fruits to already be present among those coming to him for baptism (Matthew 3:7-8). The earliest discussion of baptism in the New Testament era, that one in Matthew 3, is anti-baptismal-regeneration. It's followed by other New Testament discussions of baptism that are opposed to baptismal regeneration as well. So, it isn't just non-baptismal passages that go against the idea that we're regenerated through baptism.

How Discussions Of Baptismal Regeneration Are Often Misframed

2026-08-23T07:03:46.262-04:00

Advocates of baptismal regeneration often frame discussions of the subject with a small handful of Biblical passages that allegedly teach the doctrine. Supposedly, we should judge the issue primarily or solely on the basis of passages that discuss baptism.

Imagine an advocate of justification through foot washing telling us that we should do the same with foot washing. Judge the doctrine by John 13:3-17 and 1 Timothy 5:9-10, perhaps adding the same ridiculous appeals to passages about water, washing, and such that advocates of baptismal regeneration abuse in favor of their doctrine (John 3:5, Titus 3:5, etc.). They could argue that foot washing is a sacrament rather than a work and so on.

Though a passage like John 13:8 could be taken as a reference to how foot washing is a means of justification, the disadvantages of taking such a view far outweigh the advantages. There are dozens of passages that mention faith without mentioning foot washing, passages that are far more efficiently explained without assuming that foot washing is being included without being mentioned. There's a double-digit number of New Testament passages that refer to people being justified apart from foot washing, including in contexts that are described as normal rather than exceptional, whereas there isn't a single one that refers to somebody being justified at the time of foot washing. Justification through foot washing seems to violate many Biblical principles (the exclusion of works from the means of justification, the immediacy of access we have to the means of justification, the chronological immediacy of justification, the setting of justification, etc.). For more about the problems with justification through foot washing, see my post here discussing more than a dozen problems with baptismal regeneration.

If justification were obtained through baptism or foot washing, it's not as though those two things would be all that would be relevant. If baptism (or foot washing) is accompanied by faith, then passages about faith are relevant as well. If baptism supposedly is the means of receiving things like regeneration, forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life, then passages about those are relevant. And when you take all of the relevant passages into account, not just the ones about baptism in particular (or foot washing in particular), the best way to explain the evidence as a whole is justification through faith alone, without baptism (or foot washing) being involved.

If justification actually were obtained by something like baptism or foot washing, it would be unlikely that so few passages would allegedly refer to that means of justification. And as small as the number of passages is that advocates of baptismal regeneration cite, the number is even smaller if you remove the absurd appeals to passages that mention water, washing, and such with no good evidence that baptism is actually in view. In John 3, for example, the reference to water is followed shortly after by a reference to wind, which nobody takes as a reference to physical wind. Jesus is clearly appealing to Ezekiel 36-37, and the water there clearly isn't baptism. That's why Jesus goes on in his discussion with Nicodemus to refer to faith a few times without mentioning baptism at all. See here for a further discussion of these issues. See here on Titus 3:5. For a discussion of the language of water, cleansing, and such more broadly, see here. Once you remove the passages people are falsely reading baptism into, the material on which baptismal regeneration is being based is even smaller, and the smallness of that alleged evidence is a significant problem for the doctrine. How much evidence we should expect for something varies, depending on a variety of factors involved. Given factors like how often justification and related concepts are discussed in scripture and how important it would be to explain to people that baptism is part of the process if it is involved, the smallness of the alleged references to baptismal regeneration makes more sense under the doctrine's falsity than under its truthfulness.

Does the background to First Clement support a papacy?

2026-08-20T05:59:37.939-04:00

First Clement opens with a reference to how the Corinthians had requested help from the Romans, how the document was being written to address "the points respecting which you consulted us" (1). It's sometimes suggested that papal authority is implied. Why did the Corinthians consult the Romans? Since there's a good chance that the apostle John was still alive, why didn't they consult him instead?

People frequently consult a lesser source rather than a greater one for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, the lesser source is consulted because he's lesser. Why burden somebody as important as John when a lesser source, like the Roman church, could assist you instead? That sort of thing is a common practice. Or the lesser source might be more familiar. If the Romans and the Corinthians had been in frequent contact before the problem in question arose in Corinth, the Corinthians might have turned to the Romans for help due to familiarity, much as you'd often turn to a friend for help rather than turn to a stranger, even in contexts in which the stranger has more to offer in some significant ways. There's also the possibility that John was unavailable due to his not being alive at the time, his being in too weak a condition to warrant consulting him, or his being unavailable for some other reason or too occupied with something else at the moment, such as traveling.

Then there's the fact that we have many other circumstances like the ones behind First Clement that don't lead us to think a papacy is involved. We even have that in another context involving the Corinthians around the same time. Why did they consult Paul to ask him questions rather than consulting Peter (1 Corinthians 7:1)? Polycarp wrote of how the Philippians had "invited" his counsel (Letter To The Philippians 3). Why didn't they contact the Pope instead? Maybe Paul and Polycarp were Popes. Of course, it would be ridiculous to reach that conclusion. It's also ridiculous to reach the conclusion of a Roman papacy based on the similar situation with First Clement.

In reality, First Clement is evidence against the papacy and Roman Catholicism more broadly. The document makes many and explicit appeals to various authorities (the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, scripture, the apostles, elders and deacons, etc.), but never makes any appeal to a papacy. It's written in the name of the church of Rome rather than the bishop of Rome. And it's most naturally interpreted as contradicting Roman Catholicism on a range of issues, such as justification.

Other early extrabiblical sources are likewise problematic for Catholicism: Josephus, Ignatius of Antioch, Aristides, etc. We're often told that scripture is unclear, how we need to look to extrabiblical sources to interpret scripture for us, and so forth. When we get to the extrabiblical sources, they also provide evidence against Catholicism rather than providing evidence for it.

Loving God Whom You Don't See

2026-08-18T05:03:19.905-04:00

"There is nothing finer, nothing sweeter, than God. Now you are going to tell me: I do not see Him; how am I to love one whom I do not see? Behold how you may learn to love one whom you do not see. I will show you how you may try to see what you cannot behold with these eyes. See, now, you love a friend; what do you love in him? You love him without any return. Perhaps that friend of yours, to omit other facts, is an old man; for you can have an old man as a friend. What do you love in the old man? A crooked body, a white head, the wrinkles on his forehead, his drawn jaw? If it is the body which you see, compared with old age nothing is so ugly; yet you love something, even if you do not love the body which you see because it is ugly. How do you see what you love? For if I were to ask you: Why do you love? you would answer me: The man is faithful. Therefore, you love fidelity. If you love fidelity, God is seen with the same eyes with which fidelity is perceived." (unknown source, in Mary Magdeleine Mueller, trans., St. Caesarius: Sermons, Volume I [1-80] [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], Sermon 21:4, p. 109)