I have already stated my inability to discover a single word in Justin Martyr which could be brought to sanction the invocation of saints; but his testimony is far from being merely negative.  He admonishes us strongly against our looking to any other being for help or assistance, than to God only.  Even when speaking of those who confide in their own strength, and fortune, and other sources of good, he says, in perfect unison with the pervading principles and associations of his whole mind, as far as we can read them in his works, without any modification or any exception in favour of saint or angel:  “In that Christ {115} said, ’Thou art my God, go not far from me,’ He at the same time taught, that all persons ought to hope in God, who made all things, and seek for safety and health from Him alone” [Trypho, Sec. 102, p. 197.]

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SECTION II.—­IRENAEUS.

Justin sealed his faith by his blood about the year 165; and next to him, in the noble army of martyrs, we must examine the evidence of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons.  Of this writer’s works a very small proportion survives in the original Greek; but that little is such as might well make every scholar and divine lament the calamity which theology and literature have sustained by the loss of the author’s own language.  It is not perhaps beyond the range of hope that future researches may yet recover at least some part of the treasure.  Meanwhile we must avail ourselves with thankfulness of the nervous though inelegant copy of that original, which the Latin translation affords; imperfect and corrupt in many parts, as that copy evidently is.  This, however, is not the place for recommending a study of the remains of Irenaeus; and every one at all acquainted with the literature of the early Church, knows well how valuable a store of ancient Christian learning is preserved even in the wreck of his works.

On the subject of the invocation of saints, an appeal {116} has been made only to a few passages in Irenaeus.  With regard, indeed, to one section, I would gladly have been spared the duty of commenting upon the unjustifiable mode of citing his evidence adopted by Bellarmin.  It forces upon our notice an example either of such inaccuracy of quotation as would shake our confidence in him as an author, or of such misrepresentation as must lower him in our estimation as a man of integrity.

Bellarmin asserts, building upon it as the very foundation-stone of his argument for the invocation of saints, that the souls of the saints are removed immediately on their dissolution by death, without waiting for the day of judgment, into the presence of God, and the enjoyment of him in heaven.  This point, he says, must first be established; for if they are not already in the presence of God, they cannot pray for us, and prayer to them would be preposterous. [Bell. lib. i. c. 4. vol. ii. p. 851.] Among the authorities