"--Irenaei liber i. cap. x. p.
48. Interpretatio Vetus.]
Another expression of Irenaeus is appealed to by Bellarmin, and continues
to be cited at the present day in defence of the invocation of saints;
the precise bearing of which upon the subject I confess myself unable to
see, whilst I am very far from understanding the passage from which it
is an extract. Bellarmin cites the passage not to show that the saints
in glory pray for us,--that argument he had dismissed before,--but to
prove that they are to be invoked by us. The insulated passage as quoted
by him is this: "And as she (Eve) was induced to fly from God, so she
(Mary) was persuaded to obey God, that of the Virgin Eve the Virgin Mary
might become the advocate." After the quotation he says, "What can be
clearer?" [Benedict, lib. v. cap. xix. p. 316.]
In whatever sense we may suppose Irenaeus to have employed the word here
translated "advocata," it is difficult to see how the circumstance of
Mary becoming the advocate of Eve, who lived so many generations before
her, can bear upon the question, Is it lawful and right for us, now
dwelling on the earth, to invoke those saints whom we believe to be in
heaven? I will not dwell on the argument urged very cogently by some
critics on this passage, that the word "advocata," found {121} in the
Latin version of Irenaeus, is the translation of the original word, now
lost [[Greek: paraklaetos]--paraclete], which, by the early writers, was
used for "comforter and consoler," or "restorer;" because, as I have
above intimated, whatever may have been the word employed by Irenaeus,
the passage proves nothing as to the lawfulness of our praying to the
saints.
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