and others which had no hope. Then doth Epiphanius proceed further in answering the same objection, after this manner:
"The prayer also which is made for them doth profit, although it do not cut ofF all their sins; yet forasmuch as whilst we are in this world, we oftentimes slip both unwillingly and with our will, it serveth to signify that which is more perfect. For we make a memorial both for the just and for sinners; (for sinners, entreating the mercy of God; for the just, both the fathers, and patriarchs, the prophets, and apostles, and evangelists, and martyrs, and confessors, bishops also and anchorites, and the whole order,) that we may sever our Lord Jesus Christ from the rank of all other men by the honour that we do unto him, and that we may yield worship unto him."
Which, as far as I apprehend him, is no more than if he had thus replied unto Aerius: Although the prayer that is made for the dead do not cut off all their sins, which is the only thing that thou goest about to prove, yet doth it profit notwithstanding for another purpose; namely, to signify the supereminent perfection of our Saviour Christ above the rest of the sons of men, who are subject to manifold slips and falls as long as they live in this world.
For as well the righteous with their involuntary slips, as sinners with their voluntary falls, do come within the compass of these commemorations; wherein prayers are made both for sinners that repent, and for righteous persons that have no such need of repentance: for sinners, that being by their repentance recovered out of the snare of the devil, they may find mercy of the Lord at the last day, and be freed from the fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for the righteous, that they may be recompensed in the resurrection of the just, and received into the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. Which kind of prayer being made for the best men that ever lived, even the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, and martyrs themselves, Christ only excepted, showeth, that the profit which the Church intended should be reaped therefrom, was not so much the taking away the sins of the parties that were prayed for, as the honouring of their Lord above them; it being hereby declared,
"that our Lord is not to be compared unto any man, though a man live in righteousness a thousand times and more. For how should that be possible, considering that the one is God, the other man?"
as the praying to the one, and for the other, doth discover;
