Intercession of the saints in the early church

Asking martyrs and saints to pray for us, and their intercession. Part of Worship.

Commentary on John 13.403Origen · ca. 230–248 · Departed saints care for the people, as Jeremiah is said to pray for them in 2 Maccabees.
On Prayer 11.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · Christ is not alone in praying with us: the angels, as Raphael shows in Tobit, and the departed saints, as Jeremiah shows in 2 Maccabees, pray for us too.
On Prayer 11.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · The departed saints, perfected in love of neighbor, care for those still struggling on earth even more than they did in this life, as Christ counts believers' sufferings as his own.
On Prayer 14.6Origen · ca. 233–234 · Supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving may be offered to people too, especially to saints; still more should we thank Christ and intercede with him, as Stephen did.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 30Origen · 235 · Since baptism cannot be repeated, martyrdom is a second baptism; the souls of martyrs at the heavenly altar minister forgiveness to those who pray, as priests offering themselves.
Homilies on Ezekiel 4.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · No one is saved by the righteousness of parents or saints; Noah, Daniel, and Job are named, following a Jewish interpreter, because each saw times of joy, sorrow, and joy restored.
Homilies on Joshua 16.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The fathers who received their inheritance through Moses still fight for Christians, helping them by their prayers, and the church’s weapons are prayer, Scripture, faith, and good works.
Homilies on Numbers 24.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The various festival victims figure the saints, apostles, and angels whose intercession contributes to the purification of the human race, as Christ the Lamb takes away the sin of the whole world; the decreasing number of bulls at Tabernacles shows sins diminishing through purification, until the one perfect victim ends the others.
Homilies on Numbers 26.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · As the eastern tribes crossed the Jordan to help their brothers, so the holy fathers of old, not made perfect without us, help the church by their prayers, examples, and writings in the spiritual war that wins the heavenly inheritance under Jesus.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.191Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Those asked to set love in order may be angels, prophets, departed saints who pray for the living, or apostles; the Greek of Song 2:5 names a tree, not ointments.
To Vigilius, on Jewish Unbelief 10Anonymous · 3rd century (disputed) · The author asks Vigilius, as a future martyr, to remember him and pray for his sins before Christ.
In Praise of Martyrdom 30Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The writer asks the future martyrs to remember him, and pictures them beneath the heavenly altar, robed in white, following Christ in glory.
Church History 6.5.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Basilides protected her from the crowd, and she promised to pray for him after her death.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.3.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · 2 Maccabees shows Jeremiah praying for the people after death.
Letter 5.1Antony the Great · before 356 · Antony urges his children, sons of Israel in spirit, to cry to God day and night, and tells them that their negligence grieves the saints while their progress gladdens them and God.
Catechetical Lecture 23.9Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The liturgy commemorates the saints, asking their intercession, and prays for the departed faithful.
Letter 360Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · A confession of faith in the Trinity and the incarnation, with the invocation of saints and the veneration of their images, presented as an extract from a letter of Basil to Julian.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.24Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian argues that the saints’ intercession fails only for the unrepentant, cites Noah, Job, Daniel, Lot, and Paul, and appeals to Cyprian and to Tertullian’s catholic writing on repentance.
Oration 18.4Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory asks Basil to assure the flock that Christ, the good Shepherd, still guards it and that the departed bishop now intercedes for it, and offers an outline of his father’s life.
Oration 24.4Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory urges his hearers to guard their senses and stand firm as the martyrs did, offers his speech to Cyprian as a prize, and asks his intercession for the flock.
Oration 43.59Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory describes Basil's death, with his last words from the Psalm, his vast funeral attended by Christians, pagans and Jews, his burial among the martyrs, and his intercession in heaven; he offers his life as a living law.
Oration 43.60Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory calls every class of Basil's people to join his praise, offers the oration to Basil, and asks his intercession and to be received with him into the contemplation of the Trinity.
Homilies 19.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · The forty are burned and their ashes thrown into the river; their relics, though divided among many places, remain forty and help all who pray with them; the mother of the youngest lifts him onto the cart herself.
Homilies 23.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · On the feast of the martyr Mamas, Basil asks the congregation to praise him themselves by recalling the dreams, prayers, healings and other benefits they have received through him.
Homilies on Matthew 5.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · James and the Lord's kinsmen gained nothing from kinship until they showed virtue; the prayers of saints avail only if we repent, as Scripture's examples show (Moses, Samuel, Jeremiah, Noah, Job, Daniel, Abraham); God prefers to give grace to us directly.
Sermon 159.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Our justification in this life is imperfect, but the martyrs attained perfection; so at the altar the Church prays for the other departed but not for the martyrs, whose prayers we seek.
Sermon 280.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We honor the martyrs by rejoicing in their virtue and following them as far as we can, as members of the one body in which they pray for us.
Sermon 284.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Church prays for the other dead but not for the martyrs, who fought to the point of blood; Christ, tempted first by allurements and then by cruelty, taught them to conquer both.
Sermon 285.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The martyrs are not prayed for but are our advocates in Christ, the one advocate, just as Peter is a shepherd only in the body of Christ, the one shepherd whose sheep he feeds.
Sermon 316.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A painting in the church shows Stephen stoned and Saul keeping the clothes; Saul, made Paul by God's will, now reigns with Stephen, and Augustine asks both to pray for the Church.
Letters 2.16Sulpicius Severus · ca. 397–406 · Martin will remain with them in prayer and will bless them.
Letters 2.18Sulpicius Severus · ca. 397–406 · His one hope is Martin’s intercession.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 84.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The ruler's table of Proverbs is the Lord's table, where Christ's body and blood are received; the martyrs repaid in kind by laying down their lives, and at the altar they are asked to pray for us, not prayed for.
Against Vigilantius 6Jerome · 406 · Jerome argues that the martyrs are with Christ and can pray for others, and rejects Vigilantius's appeal to an apocryphal Ezra.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 1.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · John humbly counts himself among sinners who need Christ as advocate; those who claim to sanctify others make schisms, but Christ's propitiation and his Church extend to the whole world.
City of God 21.18Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine reports the view of some that at the judgment the saints' intercession will obtain mercy for all human beings, with their arguments from Psalm 77, Nineveh, Psalm 31, and Romans 11, and notes that they are pleading their own case.
City of God 21.24Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The saints will not pray for the damned at the judgment, as the church does not pray for the devil or for the ungodly dead; some of the regenerate dead are helped by prayer, but the threat of eternal punishment is true, and Psalm 77, Nineveh, Psalm 31, and Romans 11 do not teach otherwise.
On Care for the Dead 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–422 · Burial at a martyr's shrine helps the dead only by moving the living to commend them in prayer to the martyr, and the church's general prayer for all the faithful departed matters more than the place of burial.
On Care for the Dead 20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–422 · Augustine does not know whether the martyrs help people by their own presence or whether God, hearing their prayers, helps through angels, and leaves the question to those with the gift of discerning spirits.
Sermon on the Life of Honoratus 39Hilary of Arles · ca. 430 · Hilary closes by asking Honoratus, now with the Lamb, to intercede for his church.