"knew many who said thus: What profit doth the soul get that goeth out of this world, either with sins or not with sins if you make mention of it in prayer?"
And by Anastasius Sinaita, or Nicænus:
"Some do doubt, saying that the dead are not profited by the oblations that are made for them."
And long after them by Petrus Cluniacensis, in his treatise against the followers of Peter Bruse, in France:
"That the good deeds of the living may profit the dead, both these heretics do deny, and some Catholics also do seem to doubt."
Nay, in the West, not the profit only, but the lawfulness also of these doings for the dead was called in question; as partly may be collected by Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz's consulting with Pope Gregory, about 730 years after the birth of our Saviour,
"whether it were lawful to offer oblations for the dead,"
(which he should have no reason to do if no question had been made thereof among the Germans); and is plainly delivered by Hugo Etherianus, about 1170 years after Christ, in these words:
"I know that many are deformed with vain opinions, thinking that the dead are not to be prayed for, because that neither Christ, nor the Apostles that succeeded him have intimated these things in the Scriptures. But they are ignorant that there be many things, and those exceeding necessary, frequented by the Holy Church, the tradition whereof is not had in the Scriptures; and yet they pertain nevertheless to the worship of God, and obtain great strength."
Whereby it may appear that this practice wanted not opposition even then, when in the Papacy it was advanced unto its greatest height.
