What are patron saints?

A great and influential system arose out of these small beginnings, through the subtlety of the priesthood, which ultimately brought enormous wealth to the church. Pilgrimages with their atonement money and free-will offerings are parts of the system. At an early period it was customary to perform religious services with peculiar sanctity at the graves of the saints and martyrs. But as the darkness thickened and the spirit of superstition increased, this was not enough. In the fourth century splendid churches were built over their once humble burial-places; and even some supposed relic of the saint was enshrined in the building erected to his honour. It was usually affirmed that the body of the miracle-working saint was buried under the high altar; and that there was a special efficacy in the intercession of such saints. This drew myriads to their shrines; some to see wonders done, others to have miracles wrought in their favour, or receive good to their souls. Pilgrimages soon became the most popular kind of worship, and as the worshippers were lavish with their oblations — their hearts being warm and tender- it was greatly encouraged by a sordid priesthood. During the sixth century an incredible number of temples arose in honour of the saints, and numerous festivals were instituted to keep up the remembrance of these holy men.

According to Milman and others, so popular did saint-worship become, that they were in danger of being overlooked because of their multiplicity, or rather, infinity. "The crowded calendar knew not what day it could assign to the new saint without clashing with, or dispossessing, an old one. The East and the West vied with each other in their fertility. But of the countless saints of the East, few comparatively were received in the West; and the East as disdainfully rejected many of the most famous, whom the West worshipped with the most earnest devotion. Still the multiplicity of the saints bears witness to the universality of the idolatry." Rivalry of church with church, of town with town, of kingdom with kingdom, of order with order, kept up a state of excitement for centuries, in order to attract the concourse of worshippers to the shrine of their patron saint. The fame of some new celebrated saint, such as St. Thomas of Canterbury, drew away, for a time, the traffic and profit from other places. Hence the necessity of creating some fresh excitement by fresh discoveries of that which would turn the tide in favour of the new shrine. Even while we write — September, 1873, most sorrowful to say, nearly a thousand pilgrims from England are on their way, not with naked feet as of old, to Paray-le-monial, in France; there to bow down before the shrine of the "Sacred Heart," in honour of the blessed Mother, Margaret Mary Alacoque. This is a surprise to all, and awakens deep thoughts in many minds as to its real object in the mind of the papacy. Professedly of course it is for the good of the pilgrims' souls, the honour of the saint, and the triumph of the church. If we go as far back as the days of Origen, who was the first to inculcate saint-worship or to the shrine of Martin of Tours, which was the most popular in the fourth and fifth centuries; and come down to the present day, we have about fourteen hundred years of saint-worship and pilgrimages both in the Greek and Latin churches. No wonder that the Mahometans concluded that all Christians were idolaters.

Most of us have been familiar with the names of what may be called universal saints, such as the early fathers and the patron saints of kingdoms; but to discover on a closer search the extent of this idolatry is truly appalling. Throughout the extent of Roman Christendom there is to every country community, and individual, an intercessor with Christ, who is the One Great Intercessor between God and man. Many Catholics chose their patron saint from their birthday — the saint's day on which they were born. The saint is regarded as the peculiar protector of the individual, community, or country; so that scarcely less than divine power and divine will are assigned to the patron saints. The argument is that having been human, and still possessed of human sympathies, they are less awful, more accessible, than Christ, and may exercise their influence with Him for the benefit of the places and companions of their earthly sojourn. They are represented however as being changeable, and easily offended. Fruitful harvests, victory in war, deliverance in affliction, safety in travelling, and the like mercies, are attributed to their prayers; but, if there should be calamities, the saint is supposed to be offended, and must be appeased. More honour must be paid to his shrine, and more costly offerings must be laid upon his altar.

Saint-Worship

The origin of saint-worship may be considered as coeval with that of Mary-worship, and the fruit of the same soil. Indeed it is the same thing; only Mary is raised high above all the host of saints and martyrs because of her peculiar sanctity and her great influence in heaven.

The veneration that was paid in the early ages of Christianity to those who had faithfully witnessed and suffered for Christ, no doubt led to the practice of invoking the saints, and imploring the benefit of their intercession. A pardonable affection became a superstitious veneration, and ended in a positive adoration. The step between veneration and adoration is easy and natural, though not always observable. Hence the importance of the apostle's warning, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." According to this word it would appear, that all who have not the Person of Christ before them, as the one all-governing object of the heart have an idol. The apostle has just been speaking of our wondrous place and blessing in Him; as he says, "We are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." Having eternal life in Him, and being identified with Him as to our position before God, surely He ought to be our one object. Any other is an idol. And the best of Christians are in danger of paying too much homage to some favourite teacher or leader. How will all this compare with John's epistle in the last great day? The Lord keep us from undue veneration for the creature, whether living or dead!

Lastly, no passage has been even attempted to be quoted of addressing saints or angels. But I will here also give the history of this matter. The first commemoration of the saints was praying for them, that they might speedily see the face of God. Gradually, between rhetoric and Jewish and heathen practices, the saints took the place of the heathen demi-gods. But Romish practice goes farther, because they found prayers on the merits of the saints, as may be seen in the Roman Missal (as on Patrick's day, for example, March 17). As to praying one for another on earth, it is clear and simple, and the New Testament teaches it, and shews it practised — never to saints absent. As to the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ghost, who knew what would come in, has recorded for us that she never asked anything of the Lord, without being rejected in her request, the Lord saying, What have I to do with thee?

122 The great and dreadful evil of this doctrine is this: the grace of the gospel shews us two great things: first, that Christ has wrought so great and glorious a work, that I can go directly to the Father, in His name, certain that He hears me, and have boldness to enter into the holiest by His blood; secondly, that Christ in His rich grace came down here, was tempted in all points as we are, without sin — that He is touched with the feeling of my infirmities, and knows, having learned here below, how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He has shrunk from no suffering, no humiliation, that I may have confidence in His love, and readiness to help. The invocation of saints and angels comes to deny all this. He is too high, too exalted; His heart not tender enough! Saints who never shared our place are to be more trusted; the tender mercies of the Virgin Mary, who never shed her blood for me, is to be more trusted. It is all shameful dishonour put upon Christ's grace and tenderness. I know no one so kind, so condescending, who is come down to the poor sinner, as He. I trust His love more than I do Mary's, or any saint's; not merely His power as God, but the tenderness of His heart as man — none ever shewed such, or had such, or proved it so well. None entered into my sorrows, none took a part in them, as He; none understands my heart so well; none has inspired me with such confidence in His. Let others go to saints and angels, if they like; I trust Jesus' kindness more. If it is said, He is too high, I answer, He became a man that we might know His tenderness; and He is not changed. And why go to them? Why, in Jesus' name, not go straight to the Father? The need of all this troop of mediators only shews that men do not believe the gospel. They cannot go to God Himself. Now Christ has brought us to God; suffering, the just for the unjust, He has brought us to a God of love, our Father, having put away our sins. Rome would turn us out again, to leave us trembling at the doors of the saints. I would rather go to God Himself. He, I know, loves me; He has given His Son for me. Which of the saints has done that? As to angels, they are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation. Looking to them is treated as apostasy in scripture.

123 If you will have Fathers, here is a quotation for you — Ambrose, on Romans 1: "Men are accustomed, when feeling shame for having neglected God, to use a miserable excuse, saying that by them (the saints, etc.) they can go to God, as by counts (officers of the court) people go to the king. Away then! Is any one so mad, or so unmindful of his salvation, as that he should give the honour of the king to a count, when, if any should be found to treat of such a matter, they would rightly be condemned of high treason? And so they think they are not guilty who defer the honour of the name of God to a creature, as if anything more could be kept for God. For therefore men go to the king by tribunes or counts, because the king, after all, is but a man, and is ignorant to whom he ought to trust the common weal; but to find favour with God, before whom nothing is hid, for He knows the merits of all — there is not need of one to plead for us (suffragator), but of a devout mind." I might quote many more from Origen, using not latria, but honour and do homage to. So Eusebius from Dionysius I reverence the true God alone, and none else. So continually in the early conflicts with the heathen; and the well-known passage of the epistle on Polycarp's martyrdom, when the Gentiles refused his body, lest they should do homage to him; "Not knowing," they say, "that we could neither abandon Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of the saved, nor reverence any other. For to Him, being indeed Son of God, we do homage; but martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, we love deservedly, because of the great love they have shewn to their own king and leader, with whom we would be partakers and fellow-disciples."

Ambrose thought, then, though saints were used only to go to God by, it was high treason against Him; and the saints round Polycarp's martyr-pile, that it was abandoning Christ to reverence them (sebein). Alas! ere long the high treason was committed, and Christ indeed abandoned; while Fathers condemned, Fathers sanctioned, and scripture was forgotten. As to the latter, the statement that it is clearly set forth in it is totally without foundation. Invoking saints is not found even in the passages the author has quoted. In genuine scripture the case is found of a saint in his confession going to do homage to an angel; but the angel positively forbids it, ordering him to offer it to God, for he was his fellow-servant. But what says Rome? — Heed.

The word of God teaches us that the blessed Son of God came down to earth, and got, as scripture beautifully speaks, the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to him that is weary (Isa. 50:4). We are told that He was in all points tempted like as we are without sin; that we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but that, having suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted (Heb. 2:17-18; chap. 4:15-16): so that I can come boldly to a throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need; that if I sin, which I can never excuse, still I have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2). Here then God teaches me I have a throne of grace to which I can come boldly, and a high priest who understands all my weakness and sorrows, and feels for me in them, and, if I have sinned, One who has made propitiation for the sin. Now that is all I want. It is holy ground to go on, for no sin is allowed at all, but it suits my heart and my wants. On the other hand, what does the intercession of the saints and Mary tell me? It says to me, No, you cannot come boldly to the throne of grace. Christ is too high, too glorious. He does not, and either will not or cannot feel for my wants and sorrows as others do. Mary has a more tender heart. The saints can enter better into my wants — are nearer to me. In vain has the Son of God become a man on purpose to know and to bear my sorrows, to assure me that He feels for me in tender love and compassion: others (if I am to believe the Romanist doctrine) are more suited to me. I must get them to go and move Him to love me and enter into my sorrows, and get what I want from Him for me. And if I have sinned, instead of trusting to His intercession who has made propitiation for me, I must get saints to do it, who never could nor ever have done it. Did they ever, when in the form of God, become a poor man for me? Did Mary ever do so, or shed her blood for me? — And see how it denies the grace of God. Is this getting saints to go because I dare not go, coming boldly to the throne of grace because it is a throne of grace? I had rather have the heart of Him who became a man of sorrows for me, and shed His blood for me, and is the one only high priest, than all the Marys and all the saints (blessed as they may be in their place) that ever were.

M. Olier, the founder of the Seminary of S. Sulpice (quoted by Dr. Pusey in his "Eirenicon," vol 1, p. 104), said, "We are very unworthy to draw near unto Jesus; and He has a right to repulse [rebuter] us, because of His justice, since, having entered into all the feelings of His Father from the time of His blessed resurrection, He finds Himself in the same disposition with the Father towards sinners, that is, to reject them; so that the difficulty is to induce Him to exchange the office of judge for that of advocate; and of a judge to make Him a suppliant. Now this is what the saints effect, and especially the most blessed Virgin!"

When our Lord was on earth, did not the sinful and distressed, the sick and the diseased, come direct to Him? Never one was rebuffed. Never once do we read of their asking His mother to intercede for them. The Lord never refused any supplicant. “And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them ALL” (Mark 12:15). Does not 1 Timothy 2:5, at one stroke sweep away the intercessor and saints of the Romish system, when it says definitely, “There is… ONE Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5-6). The Virgin Mary did not give herself a ransom, but our Lord did, and He, who did that, may well be trusted in the matter of approach to Him, and not to any intermediary. Such an attitude puts more honour on the Virgin than approaching her, as if her qualities of tenderness and compassion were superior to His, and that He needed intercession to soften His heart and persuade Him to be compassionate.

The Epistle to the Hebrews elaborately draws out His perfection, both in sacrificial work and in priestly office, from the glory of His person as Son of God, and Son of man, exalted above all men and angels, and seated on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Highly favoured as Mary was in that the Son deigned to be born of her, so that all generations call her blessed, it is merely natural religion, as it is the deepest offence against Him and the word and the glory of God, to claim for her more accessible grace, or a more compassionate heart. He only is the merciful and faithful High Priest. What would it have been to have sought Miriam to interpose with weak and failing Aaron? How much more intolerable to have recourse to Mary with Him that has passed through the heavens, the Son of God! Herein we have known and do know love, because He laid down His life for us — for us, when we were enemies and ungodly. This, neither Mary, nor any saint, ever did for us; nor if they had, would it have availed in the least for us or even for themselves. His death alone was or could be efficacious for our sins. His love is the same now that He is risen, and appears in heaven, interceding, for us, before the God of all grace, Whose love to us is as perfect as His own. The Romanist dream may not openly oppose this, which is the certain truth of God, but saps it all effectually. So that Mariolatry and guardian angels and patron saints really displace the worship of the Father and the Son to the infinite grief of the Holy Spirit.

So inveterate is the idolatry of the heart that it was with difficulty the crowds were kept from sacrificing to the Lord's servants (ver. 18). How awful to think that Christendom over its largest part pays divine honours to men of like affections as themselves! It is admitted that apotheosis goes beyond canonization; but the dishonour to God and the injury to man can scarcely be said to be less. For the distinctive truth now is the unity, not of the Godhead only, but of the true Mediator; and consequently the peculiar assault of the enemy is not by honouring more gods than the living God, but by setting up other mediators or intercessors, as the Virgin, angels, and saints, no less than nullifying the full and intimate knowledge of God as the Father and the Son by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Here Romanism is the chief offender, though others are not free from the taint, as indeed the tendency is common to the natural man.

Again, take Christ's intercessional mediatorship. Christianity presents to me that blessed One, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; a man tempted in all points as we are, without sin; one who also can be touched with the feeling of my infirmities, who has suffered being tempted, and thus is able to succour them that are tempted. In a word, the Son of God Himself has descended into our sorrows and trials, and passed through them in tender gracious love, that I might confide in His sympathy and love, and know He could feel for and with me. Do they deny His priesthood and intercession? No. But in fact there are a crowd of mediators; above all, Mary His mother. And why? He is too high and glorious. Any poor man would seek a friend at court to have the king's ear; it is the heart of Mary I am to trust, and get the saints' intercession, and reach His heart through Mary's. The whole truth and value of Christ's intercessory love is destroyed and denied in practice. The saints' and Mary's intercession is trusted, their tenderness and nearness believed in, not Christ's. Heathenism denied the one true God the Creator (though in a certain sense owning Him as a dogma) by a multiplicity of gods in practice. God intervenes by a Mediator in the most perfect system of blessing, and Romanism, while admitting the mediatorship of Christ as a dogma, has denied the one true mediatorship in practice by a multiplicity of mediators. It is the heathenism of Christianity, that is, of the blessed truth of a redeeming Mediator.

But if this is so, what of the practice of the invocation of saints? To bring in the saints in heaven as go-betweens, as is done by the Romish church and by some prominent Anglicans, also, is to becloud and belittle the gospel. Not a single line of Scripture is there to support such a horrible idea. It savours of “the depths of Satan.” It is the very essence of worldly religion, for it puts God at a distance, and that is what the world has done from the beginning.

It has been said that pagan Greece or Rome never had so many "Gods" and "Goddesses" as had the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages. Wycliffe had learned much when he boldly announced that "Whosoever entreats a 'saint' should direct his prayer to Christ as God, not to the saint but to Christ. Nor does the celebration or festival of a saint avail anything, except so far as it may tend to the magnifying of Christ. Hence not a few think that it would be well for the Church if all festivals of that nature were abolished. For the Scriptures assure us that Christ is the mediator between God and man. Hence many are of opinion that when prayer was directed only to Him for spiritual help the Church was more flourishing than it is now, when many new intercessors have been found out and introduced."