Friday, September 2, 2016

Papal Presumption:  The Assumption of Mary
 
In 1950 pope Pius XII (in Munificentissimus Deus) presumed to declare as a divinely revealed dogma, and require belief, in the Assumption of Mary,  that  the perpetual 'Virgin Mary,  was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." And equally audacious, he even claimed that such was "based upon the Sacred Writings as their ultimate foundation," and forbade any to  counter his declaration.
However, it is not simply the absence in Scripture of any record or prophesy for this alleged particular event, but also from early history, which is where it belongs, versus being a fable that developed into doctrine latter.  Instead of such needed testimony, we have the popes reasoning that "it seems impossible to think of her [Mary]... being apart from Him in body...after this earthly life. (Munificentissimus Deus)
Yet the Lord has no problem with the rest of the deceased believers for whom He died, being absent in body but present with the Lord, as Mary is  as well. And such await the Lord's return for their resurrected glorified bodies. (Mt. 24:31;   1Co. 15:52; 1Thes. 4:16,17) But the popes presumption is that of reading into Scripture and history  the reasoning of men, and is part of the hyper exaltation of the fabricated  Mary of Catholicism,  thinking of mortals "above that which is written," contra 1Co. 4:6).
Examining the evidence, let us first read what assumption supporter RC Lawrence P. Everett, C.Ss.R., S.T.D. confessed:

In the first three centuries there are absolutely no references in the authentic works of the Fathers or ecclesiastical writers to the death or bodily immortality of Mary. Nor is there any mention of a tomb of Mary in the first centuries of Christianity. The veneration of the tomb of the Blessed Virgin at Jerusalem began about the middle of the fifth century; and even here there is no agreement as to whether its locality was in the Garden of Olives or in the Valley of Josaphat. Nor is any mention made in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus (431) of the fact that the Council, convened to defend the Divine Maternity of the Mother of God, is being held in the very city selected by God for her final resting place. Only after the Council did the tradition begin which placed her tomb in that city.

The earliest known (non-Apocryphal) mention concerning the end of Mary's life appears in the writings of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia,.. in his Panarion or Medicine Chest (of remedies for all heresies), written in c. 377: "Whether she died or was buried we know not."

...And with the exception of a so-called contemporary of Epiphanius, Timothy of Jerusalem, who said: "Wherefore the Virgin is immortal up to now, because He who dwelt in her took her to the regions of the Ascension,"9(After a very thorough and scholarly investigation the author concludes that Timothy is an unknown author who lived between the sixth and seventh centuries (p. 23). no early writer ever doubted the fact of her death....

In the Munificentissimus Deus Pope Pius XII quotes but three Fathers of the Church, all Orientals. St. John Damascene (d. 749)...St. Germanus of Constantinople (d. 733) ...St. Modestus of Jerusalem (d. 634)...

Apart from the Apocrypha, there is no authentic witness to the Assumption among the Fathers of either the East or the West prior to the end of the fifth century.

The first remote testimony to which Pope Pius XII turns in order to indicate the fact that our present belief in the Assumption of the Blessed Mother was likewise the belief of the Church from the earliest times is the Sacred Liturgy...

...The feast of the Assumption began in the East as did many of the older Marian feasts... However, due to the fact that neither Sacred Scripture nor early Tradition speaks explicitly of the last days of our Blessed Mother on earth and of her Assumption into heaven, the liturgy of this feast did not mention them either. Later, when the apocryphal Transitus Mariae ” in which the death and Assumption of Mary are described in detail ” became popular among the faithful, the facts of her death and Assumption were inserted into the feast... - https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=469

And William Webster documents,
...the Roman Catholic writer Eamon Duffy concedes that, ˜there is, clearly, no historical evidence whatever for it ...' (Eamon Duffy, What Catholics Believe About Mary (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1989), p. 17).

How then did this teaching come to have such prominence in the Church that eventually led it to be declared an issue of dogma in 1950? The first Church father to affirm explicitly the assumption of Mary in the West was Gregory of Tours in 590 A.D. But the basis for his teaching was not the tradition of the Church but his acceptance of an apocryphal Gospel known as the Transitus Beatae Mariae which we first hear of at the end of the fifth century and which was spuriously attributed to Melito of Sardis. There were many versions of this literature which developed over time and which were found throughout the East and West but they all originated from one source.

[The eminent Mariologist, Juniper Carol, O.F.M.] gives the following historical summary of the Transitus literature:

An intriguing corpus of literature on the final lot of Mary is formed by the apocryphal Transitus Mariae. The genesis of these accounts is shrouded in history's mist. They apparently originated before the close of the fifth century, perhaps in Egypt, perhaps in Syria, in consequence of the stimulus given Marian devotion by the definition of the divine Maternity at Ephesus. The period of proliferation is the sixth century. At least a score of Transitus accounts are extant, in Coptic, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Armenian. Not all are prototypes, for many are simply variations on more ancient models (Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. II (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 144).


The first express witness in the West to a genuine assumption comes to us in an apocryphal Gospel, the Transitus Beatae Mariae of Pseudo –Melito' (Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. l (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 149).
Also,

The account of Pseudo-Melito, like the rest of the Transitus literature, is admittedly valueless as history, as an historical report of Mary's death and corporeal assumption; under that aspect the historian is justified in dismissing it with a critical distaste (Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. l (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 150).
Also, Roman Catholic theologian, Ludwig Ott, states:

The idea of the bodily assumption of Mary is first expressed in certain transitus–narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. Even though these are apocryphal they bear witness to the faith of the generation in which they were written despite their legendary clothing. The first Church author to speak of the bodily ascension of Mary, in association with an apocryphal transitus B.M.V., is St. Gregory of Tours’ (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford: Tan, 1974), pp. 209–210).

William Webster further states,

Prior to the seventh and eighth centuries there is complete patristic silence on the doctrine of the Assumption. But gradually, through the influence of numerous forgeries which were believed to be genuine, coupled with the misguided enthusiasm of popular devotion, the doctrine gained a foothold in the Church. The Dictionary of Christian Antiquities gives the following history of the doctrine:...


1)The Liber de Transitu, though classed by Gelasius with the known productions of heretics came to be attributed by one...to Melito, an orthodox bishop of Sardis, in the 2nd century, and by another to St. John the Apostle.

2) A letter suggesting the possibility of the Assumption was written and attributed to St. Jerome (
ad Paulam et Eustochium de Assumptione B. Virginis, Op. tom. v. p. 82, Paris, 1706).

3) A treatise to prove it not impossible was composed and attributed to St. Augustine (
Op. tom. vi. p. 1142, ed. Migne).

4) Two sermons supporting the belief were written and attributed to St. Athanasius (
Op. tom. ii. pp. 393, 416, ed., Ben. Paris, 1698).

5) An insertion was made in Eusebius's Chronicle that ˜in the year 48 Mary the Virgin was taken up into heaven, as some wrote that they had had it revealed to them.' - https://christiantruth.com/articles/assumption


The church fathers of the earliest centuries repeatedly cite Enoch and Elijah as examples of people who didn't die, were translated to Heaven, etc. (Clement of Rome, First Clement, 9; Tertullian, A Treatise On The Soul, 50; Tertullian, On The Resurrection Of The Flesh, 58; Tertullian, Against Marcion, 5:12; Methodius, From The Discourse On The Resurrection, 14), yet they never say any such thing about Mary or include her as an example. Irenaeus, for instance, writes about the power of God to deliver people from death, and he cites Enoch, Elijah, and Paul (2 Corinthians 12:2) as illustrations of people who were "assumed" and "translated", but he says nothing of Mary (Against Heresies, 5:5). A group of some of the leading Roman Catholic and Lutheran scholars in the world concluded:

"Furthermore, the notion of Mary's assumption into heaven has left no trace in the literature of the third, much less of the second century. M. Jugie, the foremost authority on this question, concluded in his monumental study: 'The patristic tradition prior to the Council of Nicaea does not furnish us with any witness about the Assumption.'" (Raymond Brown, et al., Mary In The New Testament [Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1978], p. 266)

 Finally from Ratzinger we see the solution to such lack of evidential warrant for making belief in an event over 17000 years after it allegedly occurred. Which is that Rome can claim to "remember" what she wants.
Before Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers' answer was emphatically negative... Altaner, the patrologist from Wurzburg¦had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the 5C; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the "apostolic tradition. And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared.

But...subsequent "remembering" (cf. Jn 16:4, for instance) can come to recognize what it has not caught sight of previously ["caught sight of?" Because there was nothing to see in the earliest period where it should have been, before a fable developed] .." (Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones (Ignatius, n.d.), pp. 58-59; emp. mine).
For history, tradition and Scripture is only what Rome says it is in any conflict, which reasoning no less than Manning resorted to:
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine... I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity....Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves...The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. . — Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation, , pp. 227-228.

Also, here is some material on the Protoevangelium of James and the Bible, which Catholicism cites for support of the perpetual virginity of Mary which is related to her hyper-exaltation in Catholicism, contrary to the admonition of 1 Corinthians 4:6 "not to think of men above that which is written" and which one of the many issues that divide faithful Christianity from Catholicism.

Monday, June 13, 2016

What Christians Can Do in the Wake of Orlando (in response to what the Left says we must do).

Time magazine was quick to employ a homosexual Christian — a contradiction in terms — to tell us "What Christians Must Do in the Wake of Orlando" (http://time.com/4366465/christians-after-orlando), and true to form, it was quick to blame Christians for causing "deep, lasting pain in LGBT people’s lives," even asserting that "Unless you’ve long been a vocal advocate for LGBT people, you’ve likely contributed to that suffering—intentionally or not." (In contrast "gay clubs" were described as providing "a unique place of refuge, comfort and solidarity for LGBT people.") Therefore the first unGodly demand is that Christians are to see themselves guilty of causing justified LGBT anger.

In response we should point out that while the Left portrays the like of Fred Phelps as Christians, yet in contrast those who most strongly oppose homosexual relations typically condemn the likes of Phelps, and instead support deliverance from the destructive homosexual lifestyle. For indeed, for decades the primary agent of premature death of homosexuals has been and is other homosexuals due to their practices.

Meanwhile, if anything, most others who call themselves Christians are too intimidated by the psychological tactics used by the homosexual activists (such as labeling all non-supporters injurious, irrational "homophobic" "haters") to express disapproval of homosexuality, while homosexual activists are even angry at them for not manifestly supporting their agenda.

Secondly, the Time editorialist asks that we remember that the Orlando massacre was not simply gun violence, but was fueled by homophobic hatred, like as anti-Christian animus should be stated as the cause of Christians are being murdered by ISIS. However, we may point out that the author refuses to say that both are fueled by Islamic hatred which resorts to violence. In contrast to which, Christians are to wage war after the Spirit, by prayer, preaching and outreach.

Moreover, if simply opposing a group is that of irrational, iniquitous hatred then homosexuals themselves are guilty of such, as their apparent loathing and hatred of those who oppose their consistent demands for acceptance and affirmation is abundantly manifest. And which includes their wanton unwarranted and provocative use of the term "homophobic." If homosexual activists really believed that all who oppose their agenda or even fail to support it are driven by some irrational fear of them, or that they may be homosexual themselves, then it is they who are possessed by an irrational delusion.

Yet here it should be asked what reaction should be expected if another consensual practice, perhaps taking part in the Lord's Supper, resulted in a greatly increased incidence of infectious diseases and premature death — even well over 600,000 Americans alone — primarily due to male with male sexual relations?

Of course, homosexual relations are wrong even apart from the deleterious physical effects, and its consequences, as with all sin, extended beyond this life and into eternity Thus the Christian response should be, "how can I love by neighbor as myself if I do not warn them of, and help deliver them from, impenitently practicing that which will likely send them to an early grave and certainly an eternal Hell?

However, the author lastly says that we are not to express disagreement with same-sex marriage as part of our condemnation of murdered LGBT persons, but that instead we are only to say God loves lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people unconditionally and be committed to making the church the sanctuary it always should have been for them.

Thus once again the homosexual author insists upon only affirmation of homosexuals, with "an openness to learn and grow," while decrying the intolerance of others.

The overall message behind this demonic seduction is that Christians are the ones who are guilty of causing LGBT people to suffer due to their opposition to the homosexual agenda, or even by failing to provide long term support of it, and thus in restitution they must cease from the former and engage in the latter. Failure to do so means one can be condemned with the "homophobic hater" who took it upon himself to slay 50 homosexuals. Which event we can expect will be officially made an annual day of observance.

What then should the Christian Response be in the Wake of Orlando? That of condemning the lawless murder of people by a fundamental Islamist, yet emphasizing that we seek the deliverance of all souls, and who are all called to repentance and faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ to save them by His sinless shed blood. Including LGBT people, as homosexual relations are wrong, and are also actually the cause of the most premature deaths to homosexuals overall.

A final word is that any reproof often is met with the assertion that love and forgiveness and "love thy enemy" is contrary to opposing those who impenitently practice sin, and even promote it. And note that the reason the issue of homosexuality attracts so much attention by evangelical types is because it is heavily promoted. If heroin use was also promoted likewise as healthy and normative and on the same scope then it would also attract holy lightening.

And Scripture states:

He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous; him shall the people curse, nations shall abhor him: But to them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them. (Proverbs 24:24-25)

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Ephesians 5:11)

And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. (Acts 24:25)

Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. (Acts 7:53-54)

What is censured is impenitent, self-righteous hypocritical judging and censorious spirit:

And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? (Romans 2:3)

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?...Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. (Matthew 7:1,2,5)

Those who invoke Mt. 7:1 to disallow the censure of others are actually being hypocritical, as they are engaging in the very thing they condemn.

I myself would be wrong if i were intent of finding fault with others, and was looking down at others as if i "arrived," as i certainly know i sin in heart and in deed, though i do not want to and am repentant, and I oppose condemning those who are repentant. But that does not mean i cannot condemn something as wrong, as long as I would condemn it if i myself were impenitently engaging in such, and esp. promoting it.

And it is one thing to strive and struggle to live according to God's standards, and another thing to misconstrue the word of God to accommodate your own standards.

Moreover, Scripture also teaches that some sins are worse than others, as can be the degree of guilt of the transgressor.

Therefore not all sins are capital offenses. A thief must make restitution for his theft, and a consensual fornication btwn a unmarried male and female couple required marriage, while a murderer or adulterer must pay with his life,

Another example:

And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; (Genesis 18:20)

The "very great" dominant sin here was not something like failing to build a fence around their flat roofs, (cf. Dt. 22:8) but was manifestly that of the "vile" thing that the men in the parallel account of Judges 19 sought to engage in, that of sexually knowing the strangers, in addition to the accompanying "pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness," and neglect of the needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

Likewise it is not mere childish strifes that the Lord strongly condemned in His critiques of the churches, (Rv. 2,3) but things such as fornication and idolatry.

Moreover, there are sins of the flesh that a person of otherwise relative good character can struggle with, while the worse sins are those that flow from a evil character in heart:

A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. (Proverbs 6:17-19)

In addition to the above, the degree of guilt is determined relative to the light and grace one has. The son of a good preacher who engages in premeditated murder is more accountable than one who is raised in a gang.

But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. (Luke 12:48)

And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. (Matthew 10:14-15)

Thus the most accountable souls are actually Christians who terminally fall away"

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26-29)

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:38-39)

More reproof of prohomosexual polemics can be seen here , by the grace of God.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Refutation of "Can The Saints Hear Us?l " http://www.aggiecatholicblog.org


Just came across this, and the assertion that "based on the overwhelming evidence from Scripture...we can be assured that the Saints in heaven can hear our prayers and are praying for us" is absurd, while it offers no support for praying to created beings in Heaven.

[] "Jesus is telling us that those in heaven are alive" simply does not translate into believers (there is no Scriptural distinction btwn believers and "saints") having the power and privilege of constantly hearing prayers from earth, mental or oral, which only God is shown to possess, to His glory.

[]"Jesus talks to Moses and Elijah, who are very aware of what has been happening on earth," but as with all other instances of tow-way communication btwn beings from Heaven (except God) and earth, this required created beings to be in the same realm, versus them constantly hearing prayers from Heaven, as only God is shown able to do.

Moreover, the only evidence of them knowing what was happening on earth was that they "spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem," (Luke 9:31) which was prophesied, and thus does not even require them to know what was occurring on earth, except that this was the mission of Christ.

Regardless, it remains that believers in Heaven knowing what is occurring on earth, or even them praying for the elect, or even hearing prayer, does not translate into evidence of anyone praying to them or support for this.

[] "The Book of Hebrews echoes this when it teaches that those who have gone before us into heaven still witness what happens on earth."

No, contextually the "great cloud of witnesses" does not speak of being watched by believers in Heaven, but is rhetorically speaking about being in the memorial company of those whose testimonies of faith preceded them. These souls are memorials to faith, akin to the stones that were in the midst of the river of Jordan being a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever. (Joshua 4:7)


[] "What I believe is the most amazing evidence from the Bible of the Saints in heaven hearing our prayers is from the book of Revelation".

That you find this amazing is a problem, since neither Revelations 5:8 or 8:3-5 teaches that the entities hear prayers, but only that they offer them up as a memorial before the finals judgments, like as in Lv. 2:2,15,16; 24:7; Num. 5:15, "an offering of memorial," versus regularly hearing such and being a delivery service.

[] "Those in heaven could not rejoice over a sinner repenting on earth unless they knew about it."

This does testify to angels knowing of conversions, which could simply be by knowing another souls was added to the Lamb's book of life, yet in any case this simply fails to support praying to created beings, nor that they actually constantly hear prayers to them.

Rather than an overwhelming evidence from Scripture supporting prayer to created beings in glory, there are appox. 200 prayers to Heaven in Scripture, and absolutely none of them are to anyone else in Heaven but the Lord God - except by pagans. And if such was talking then the utter absence of even one example of such is even more inexplicable in the light of prayer being a most basic practice. Instead it is simply a tradition of men, for which Catholics abuse Scripture in trying to extrapolate some support.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Refutation of Dave Armstrong: Prayer to Saints: “New” [?] Biblical Argument

Once again we have a RC apologist who deletes what refutes him and does not even mention it. By the grace of God I spent some time refuting yet another attempt to provide support from Scripture for what is purely a tradition of men, but which Rome holds to be from God.

Moreover, the validity of such teaching is based upon the novel premise of the presumed ensured veracity of the Roman church, which is  yet another tradition of men. However,   seeing as RCs attempt (often in condescension to evangelicals) to provide some sort of Scriptural support for such traditions, thus we need to examine her claims in the light of Scripture. In this case  it is that of alleged support for a most basic Catholic practice which is utterly absent in Scripture, either in example or exhortation, that of  praying to created beings in Heaven.

The following, with a couple or so grammatical corrections,  was posted on May 25, 2016 on Armstrong's blog entry (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2016/05/prayer-to-saints-new-biblical-argument.html), and which I found silently deleted the next day.

I absolutely love discovering things like this. 

Which is not a new polemic but a refuted desperate attempt to finally find some Scriptural support for praying to created beings in Heaven which is as specious as all others.

This is the same sort of argument as the rich man’s prayer to Abraham in Luke 16 

Which is btwn beings in the same realm, as is always the case with such, not hearing mental prayers in Heaven addressed to them from those on earth, an ability only God is said and shown as possessing, as a Divine power and privilege.

Nor will angels and elders offering up prayers as a memorial to God before the final judgments provide testimony to prayer to created beings in Heaven, which is utterly absent in Scripture, even though prayer is a basic practice, and the Spirit records approx. 200 prayers to Heaven in Scripture. Which are all directly to God, except by pagans.

Matthew 27:46-50.The “bystanders” are presented as allies of Jesus, since one of them gave Him a drink, in the next verse (Matthew 27:48). 

Which conclusion is hardly warranted, as the bystanders are not said to be friend or foe, but are in the context of those who mocked the Lord, saying "Save thyself, and come down from the cross." (Mark 15:30)

Moreover, what one who offered the Lord to drink was vinegar (and which was also what the cruel soldiers offered Him, and which He would not drink after tasting it: Mt. 27:34; Lk. 23:36) and who also (likely in mocking) was one of those who called for Christ to come down off the cross. (Mk. 15;36)

The next verse (27:49) again shows that this was common belief at the time 

No, that simply does show that praying to Elijah was a common practice, or even one at all, and for which you have no evidence at all in Scripture, and here this is most likely part of the mocking of Christ which the context shows was going on, in contrast to the centurion, or they were superstitious.

It shows (in the most plausible interpretation, though not absolutely so) that the Jews of that time accepted such petitions as altogether proper and permissible. 

Which insults the Spirit of God, who nowhere records the Jews praying to anyone else in Heaven but God, leaving Caths to try to extrapolate it of mere personal exchanges while being in the same realm, not invisible angels or saints hearing multitudinous mental or oral prayers from earth in Heaven. As God alone does.

it’s not presented as if they are wrong, and in light of other related Scriptures it is more likely that they are correct in thinking that this was a permitted scenario. 

Actually, it is far from being presented as if they were right, which is what you need, and for which there is no precedent in Scripture. No "other related Scriptures" show any believers at all ever praying to someone in Heaven besides God, mentally or out loud, which is what you propose Jews held as a common belief at the time.

Elijah and Moses appeared with Jesus 

Which again required the respective parties from both realms to be in the same realm, communicating face to face.

It’s not required. Once or a few times in Scripture is enough, just as the virgin birth and original sin are based on just a few passages. 

Wrong, as you simply have zero examples of any believers ever praying to anyone in Heaven but the Lord, or any teaching that they are to be addressed in prayer to Heaven ("our Mother, who art in Heaven") .

And which conspicuous absence is all the more inexplicable in light of prayer being a most basic common practice. Catholics basically infer the Spirit did not see even one mention of this as warranted, and so Catholicism must supply what He would not.

Scripture does have quite a bit about praying to angels 

Wrong: Scripture says absolutely nothing about those on earth praying to angels in Heaven, and with the Divine ability to hear all such supplications addressed to them, and instead your examples show both parties being in the same realm and engaging in personal, visible communications.

Since the dead saints are said to judge the angels (1 Cor 6:3) and be higher than they are in a sense, then a deductive argument can be made for praying to saints 

But since no one on earth ever prayed to angels in Heaven, nor are they shown as able to hear all prayer from Heaven, you are left with no argument, and having to explain why the Holy Spirit would utterly leave out this basic, purportedly helpful practice.

The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 (“Elijah”) provides an extraordinary summary of Jewish beliefs regarding Elijah 

Which also fails to document praying to him, or to any created being, which was a later, post Biblical and unscriptural development.

The canon of Scripture is nowhere in the Bible at all, yet believed anyway based on tradition. 

Which is not analogous, as while we have zero testimony of any believer (versus pagans) praying to anyone in Heaven but the Lord, despite the abundance of examples of this basic practice, we do have clear testimony that common souls correctly discerned both men and writings of God as being so, and which thus leads to a canon.

Sola Scriptura (in its full epistemological / theological meaning) is never ever taught, 

Who knows how you would define this, but unlike prayer to created beings in Heaven, we abundantly see the written word of God becoming the supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing Truth claims, and as providing what is necessary for salvation and growth in grace, in its formal and material aspects combined. More grace was given under the New Cov, and more will be revealed at the resurrection, thanks be to God.

Finally, you may absolutely love to discover such egregious extrapolation for support for traditions of men as this, but it simply reveals the manner of desperation some   Caths will sink to, while in reality the basis for the veracity of Cath teaching does not rest upon the weight of Scriptural warrant anyway, but the the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility.