II Maccabees 15:12
| Now the vision was in this manner: Onias, who had been high priest, a good and virtuous man, modest in his looks, gentle in his manners, and graceful in speech, and who from a child was exercised in virtues, holding up his hands, prayed for all the people of the Jews:
| Onias III, who had been slain (Calmet) at Daphne, 2 Machabees 4:34. (Haydock) --- The Jewish and Christian Churches never doubted that the saints interceded in the other world for the living, in whose concerns they take part. (Calmet) --- Protestants evade this text by denying the canonicity of the book. Yet the same is proved [in] Genesis xlviii., Exodus xxxii., Jeremias xv., Luke xvi., Apocalypse 5:6, 8., and 2 Peter i., and we have a right to produce the authority of this book, as Origen, (18 in Jo.) St. Bernard, (76 in Cant. et ser. 3. Nat., etc.) have done. Onias and Jeremias, in limbo, interested themselves for the faithful on earth, and no doubt the saints in glory will do as much. (Worthington)
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