Beatification and Canonization

HISTORY

According to some writers the origin of beatification and 
canonization in the Catholic Church is to be traced back to the 
ancient pagan apotheosis. (See APOTHEOSIS.) In his classic work on 
the subject (De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et Beatorum 
Canonizatione) Benedict XIV examines and at the very outset 
refutes this view. He shows so well the substantial differences 
between them that no right-thinking person need henceforth 
confound the two institutions or derive one from the other. It is 
a matter of history who were elevated to the honour of apotheosis, 
on what grounds, and by whose authority; no less clear is the 
meaning that was attached to it. Often the decree was due to the 
statement of a single person (possibly bribed or enticed by 
promises, and with a view to fix the fraud more securely in the 
minds of an already superstitious people) that while the body of 
the new god was being burned, an eagle, in the case of the 
emperors, or a peacock (Juno's sacred bird), in the case of their 
consorts, was seen to carry heavenward the spirit of the departed 
(Livy, Hist. Rome, I, xvi; Herodian, Hist. Rome, IV, ii, iii). 
Apotheosis was awarded to most members of the imperial family, of 
which family it was the exclusive privilege. No regard was had to 
virtues or remarkable achievements. Recourse was frequently had to 
this form of deification to escape popular hatred by distracting 
attention from the cruelty of imperial rulers. It is said that 
Romulus was deified by the senators who slew him; Poppaea owed her 
apotheosis to her imperial paramour, Nero, after he had kicked her 
to death; Geta had the honour from his brother Caracalla, who had 
got rid of him through jealousy. Canonization in the Catholic 
Church is quite another thing. The Catholic Church canonizes or 
beatifies only those whose lives have been marked by the exercise 
of heroic virtue, and only after this has been proved by common 
repute for sanctity and by conclusive arguments. The chief 
difference, however, lies in the meaning of the term canonization, 
the Church seeing in the saints nothing more than friends and 
servants of God whose holy lives have made them worthy of His 
special love. She does not pretend to make gods (cf. Eusebius 
Emisenus, Serm. de S. Rom. M.; Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XXII, 
x; Cyrill. Alexandr., Contra Jul., lib. VI; Cyprian, De Exhortat. 
martyr.; Conc. Nic., II, act. 3).

The true origin of canonization and beatification must be sought 
in the Catholic doctrine of the worship (cultus), invocation, and 
intercession of the saints. As was taught by St. Augustine 
(Quaest. in Heptateuch., lib. II, n. 94; contra Faustum, lib. XX, 
xxi), Catholics, while giving to God alone adoration strictly so-
called, honour the saints because of the Divine supernatural gifts 
which have earned them eternal life, and through which they reign 
with God in the heavenly fatherland as His chosen friends and 
faithful servants. In other words, Catholics honour God in His 
saints as the loving distributor of supernatural gifts. The 
worship of latria (latreia), or strict adoration, is given to God 
alone; the worship of dulia (douleia), or honour and humble 
reverence, is paid the saints; the worship of hyperdulia 
(hyperdouleia), a higher form of dulia, belongs, on account of her 
greater excellence, to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church (Aug., 
Contra Faustum, XX, xxi, 21; cf. De Civit. Dei, XXII, x) erects 
her altars to God alone, though in honour and memory of the saints 
and martyrs. There is Scriptural warrant for such worship in the 
passages where we are bidden to venerate angels (Ex., xxiii, 20 
sqq.; Jos., v, 13 sqq.; Dan., viii, 15 sqq.; x, 4 sqq.; Luke, ii, 
9 sqq.; Acts, xii, 7 sqq.; Apoc., v, 11 sqq.; vii, 1 sqq.' Matt., 
xviii, 10; etc.), whom holy men are not unlike, as sharers of the 
friendship of God. And if St. Paul beseeches the brethren (Rom., 
xv, 30; II Cor., i, 11; Col., iv, 3; Ephes., vi, 18, 19) to help 
him by their prayers for him to God, we must with even greater 
reason maintain that we can be helped by the prayers of the 
saints, and ask their intercession with humility. If we may 
beseech those who still live on earth, why not those who live in 
heaven? It is objected that the invocation of saints is opposed to 
the unique mediatorship of Christ Jesus. There is indeed "one 
mediator of God and man, the man Christ Jesus". But He is our 
mediator in His quality of our common Redeemer; He is not our sole 
intercessor nor advocate, nor our sole mediator by way of 
supplication. In the eleventh session of the Council of Chalcedon 
(451 we find the Fathers exclaiming, "Flavianus lives after death! 
May the Martyr pray for us!" If we accept this doctrine of the 
worship of the saints, of which there are innumerable evidences in 
the writings of the Fathers and the liturgies of the Eastern and 
Western Churches, we shall not wonder t the loving care with which 
the Church committed to writing the sufferings of the early 
martyrs, sent these accounts from one gathering of the faithful to 
another, and promoted the veneration of the martyrs. Let one 
instance suffice. In the circular epistle of the Church of Smyrna 
(Eus., Hist. Eccl., IV, xxiii) we find mention of the religious 
celebration of the day on which St. Polycarp suffered martyrdom 
(23 February, 155); and the words of the passage exactly express 
the main purpose which the Church has in the celebration of such 
anniversaries: "We have at last gathered his bones, which are 
dearer to us than priceless gems and purer than gold, and laid 
them to rest where it was befitting they should lie. And if it be 
possible for us to assemble again, may God grant us to celebrate 
the birthday of his martyrdom with gladness, thus to recall the 
memory of those who fought in the glorious combat, and to teach 
and strengthen by his example, those who shall come after us." 
This anniversary celebration and veneration of the martyrs was a 
service of thanksgiving and congratulation, a token and an 
evidence of the joy of those who engaged in it (Muratori, de 
Paradiso, x), and its general diffusion explains why Tertullian, 
though asserting with the Chiliasts that the departed just would 
obtain eternal glory only after the general resurrection of the 
body, admitted an exception for the martyrs (de Resurrectione 
Carnis, xliii).

It must be obvious, however, that while private moral certainty of 
their sanctity and possession of heavenly glory may suffice for 
private veneration of the saints, it cannot suffice for public and 
common acts of that kind. No member of a social body may, 
independently of its authority, perform an act proper to that 
body. It follows naturally that for the public veneration of the 
saints the ecclesiastical authority of the pastors and rulers of 
the Church was constantly required. The Church had at heart, 
indeed, the honour of the martyrs, but she did not therefore grant 
liturgical honours indiscriminately to all those who had died for 
the Faith. St. Optatus of Mileve, writing at the end of the fourth 
century, tells us (De Schism, Donat., I, xvi, in P. L., XI, 916-
917) of a certain noble lady, Lucilla, who was reprehended by 
Caecilianus, Archdeacon of Carthage, for having kissed before Holy 
Communion the bones of one who was either not a martyr or whose 
right to the title was unproved. The decision as to the martyr 
having died for his faith in Christ, and the consequent permission 
of worship, lay originally with the bishop of the place in which 
he had borne his testimony. The bishop inquired into the motive of 
his death and, finding he had died a martyr, sent his name with an 
account of his martyrdom to other churches, especially neighboring 
ones, so that, in event of approval by their respective bishops, 
the cultus of the martyr might extend to their churches also, and 
that the faithful, as we read of St. Ignatius in the "Acts" of his 
martyrdom (Ruinart, Acta Sincera Martyrum, 19) "might hold 
communion with the generous martyr of Christ (generoso Christi 
martyri communicarent). Martyrs whose cause, so to speak, had been 
discussed, and the fame of whose martyrdom had been confirmed, 
were known as proved (vindicati) martyrs. As far as the word is 
concerned it may probably not antedate the fourth century, when it 
was introduced in the Church at Carthage; but the fact is 
certainly older. In the earlier ages, therefore, this worship of 
the saints was entirely local and passed from one church to 
another with the permission of their bishops. This is clear from 
the fact that in none of the ancient Christian cemeteries are 
there found paintings of martyrs other than those who had suffered 
in that neighborhood. It explains, also, almost the universal 
veneration very quickly paid to some martyrs, e.g., St. Lawrence, 
St. Cyprian of Carthage, Pope St. Sixtus of Rome [Duchesne,