THE LAST PRAYER OF POLYCAPR

 

You to whom you pray?

“I have a sports friend I talked to about Christ, and at the end he asked me if it was good that he was praying to his father. He told me that his father died without seeing who came and every time he enters the field he says, "Dad, please be with me!" Then he dedicates any victory to him.
Although he had to shatter an illusion that seemed to do him good, although I brought him a state of thought that initially saddened him, yet I brought him to the truth. That the dead, whoever they are, can no longer help us. We cannot ask who we want, whom we loved most on earth, and who went to the eternal ones.” Tony

 

Saint Mary is one of the many dead. She is not alive, so she could not help us. She is not in Heaven, nobody is in Heaven till the resurrection and the rapture of the church in heaven (John 3:13). This is precisely why Jesus does not allow us to ask anyone else but the Father.

 

This is from a sermon from the third century:

If you have understood what is meant by "prayer", let us not pray to any creature, nor to Christ, only to the only God and Father of the universe, to whom our Savior also prayed, as we explained, what he taught us and he. In fact, when they asked him to "Teach us to pray" (Luke 11:11), he showed them a prayer not to himself, but to the Father: "Our Father who is in heaven ... " and so on. (Matthew 6.9). Because, as I have shown elsewhere, in the person and subject the Son is not the Father, and so we should pray either to the Son and not to the Father, or to both, or only to the Father. It would seem impossible or even meaningless to pray to the Son and not to the Father, which would obviously be contrary to all views. If we pray to both, we should do it in the plural: "give us", "welcome", "fulfill", "save", and the like. From here it is seen that they are inadequate, because it cannot be proven from the Scriptures that they have prayed in this way. So it only remains to pray to God, the Father of all, but not without the High Priest who was sworn in by the Father, in the sense of these words: "He has sworn and he will not be sorry, you are an eternal priest after the order of Melchizedek "(Psalm 110: 4; Hebrews 2:17, etc.).
Note: The high priest prayed for the people of God, thus mediating and praying to the One to whom the people were praying.

 

The best prayer formula should include both the Father and the Son, but in this order of dignity:

Father and Son not Son only or the father only, or Son and Father. The Father always be the First and the Son always be the second.

Bishop Polycarp’s last prayer

 

Bishop Polycarp’s last prayer (II century, Smyrna) without allusion to the "trinity", with subordinationist view about the celestial son, named as “servant” and with the concept of the mortal soul “unto resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and of body”

“O Lord God Almighty, the Father of thy beloved and blessed servant* Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge of thee, the God of angels and of powers and of the whole creation and of the entire race of the righteous who live in thy presence, I bless thee that thou hast deemed me worthy of this day and hour, that I might receive a portion in the number of the martyrs, in the cup of the anointed, unto resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and of body, in the immortality of the holy spirit.

Among these may I be received before thee this day, in a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as thou, the faithful and true God, hast beforehand prepared and revealed, and hast fulfilled.

Wherefore I praise thee also for everything; I bless thee, I glorify thee, through the eternal, high priest, Jesus Christ (means „the anointed”), thy beloved son**, through whom, with him, in the holy spirit, be glory unto thee, both now and for the ages to come, Amen.”

From Eusebius “Historia Ecclesia”

* παιδός “servant” in the Greek text

** υiοs “son” in the Greek text