PURGATORY(^Purgatorium). The Roman Catholic Church has no more than two declarations of supreme authority on the subject of its distinctive doctrine of purgatory. The first is that of the council of Ferrara-Florence, in which it was defined, as regards the truly penitent who have departed this life in the love of God before they have made satisfaction for their sins of commission and omission by fruits meet for repentance, that their souls are cleansed by purgatorial pains after death, and for their relief from these the suffrages of the living —the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, alms, and other offices of piety—are helpful. The second is that of the council of Trent, which runs as follows:—“Since the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Spirit from the sacred writings and the ancient tradition of the fathers, hath taught in holy councils, and lastly in this oecumenical council, that there is a purgatory, and that the souls detained there are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful, but especially by the most acceptable sacrifice of the mass, this holy council commands all bishops to have a diligent care that the sound doctrine of purgatory delivered to us by venerable fathers and sacred councils be believed, maintained, taught, and everywhere preached.” This decree is to be read in the light of an earlier canon of the same council, by which it is condemned as heretical to say that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt of the penitent sinner is so remitted, and the penalty of eternal punishment so annulled, that no penalty of temporal punishment remains to be paid either in this world or in the future in purgatory before the kingdom of heaven can be opened. Thus the essential point of the doctrine is that Christian souls having any ...sin upon them at the moment of death pass into a state of expiatory suffering, in which they can be helped by the prayers and other good works of living believers. And this is all that modern Catholic theologians regard as being de fide. It is hardly necessary to say that the doctrine as popularly held and currently taught is generally much more detailed and explicit. In view of some of these developments, there is on all hands admitted to exist abundant room for the admonition of the council of Trent, when it proceeded to warn the clergy to exclude from popular addresses all the more difficult and subtle questions relating to the subject, and such as do not tend to edification or make for piety. “They must not allow uncertainties or things which have the appearance of falsity to be given forth or handled, and they are to prohibit as scandalous and offensive such things as minister to curiosity or superstition or savour of filthy lucre. Let the bishops see to it that the prayers of the living—to wit, the sacrifices, prayers, alms, and other works of piety which have been wont to be rendered by believers for the departed—are done piously and devoutly, according to the institutions of the church, and that those which are due by the wills of testators or otherwise be not rendered in a perfunctory manner but diligently and punctually, by priests and other ministers of the church who are bound to this service.”
Among the details of the doctrine, which have been the subject of much speculation among Catholics, may be specified the questions relating to the locality of purgatory and the nature and duration of its sufferings. On none of these points has anything authoritative been delivered. It is of course conceived of as having some position in space, and as being distinct from heaven, the place of eternal blessedness, on the one hand, and from hell, the place of eternal woe, on the other. But any theory as to its exact latitude and longitude (such, for example, as underlies Dante’s description) must be regarded as the effort merely of the individual imagination. As regards the nature of its pains, there has been a constant disposition to interpret with strict literality the expressions of Scripture as to the cleansing efficacy of fire, but the possibility of interpreting them metaphorically has never been wholly lost sight of. With respect to their duration, it must be inferred from the whole praxis of indulgences as at present authorized by the church that the pains of purgatory are measurable by years and days; but here also everything is left vague.
The thesis of all Protestants, as against the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, is that “the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory.” Scripture authority is claimed on both sides, but the argument, which is a somewhat complicated one and depends mainly on the view arrived at as to the Scriptural doctrine of sin and satisfaction, cannot be entered upon here. When the two doctrines are compared in the light of ecclesiastical tradition it will be found that neither fully coincides with the opinions somewhat vaguely held by the early fathers, whose view of the intermediate state between death and the resurrection was largely affected by the pre-Christian doctrine of Hades or Sheol. On the one hand, Irenaeus (Haer., v. 31) regards as heretical the opinion that the souls of the departed do immediately pass into glory; he argues that, as Christ tarried for three days “in the lower parts of the earth,” so must the souls of His disciples also go away into the invisible place allotted them by God, and there remain until the resurrection, when, receiving their bodies and rising as their Lord arose, they shall come into heaven and into the presence of God. On the other hand, it is impossible to point out in any writing of the first four centuries any passage which describes the state of any of the faithful departed as one of acute suffering, although Tertullian’s belief that martyrs had the exceptional privilege of being taken to “paradise” at once clearly shows that for ordinary Christians the state after death was regarded rather as one of expectancy than of enjoyment. Still less would it be possible to show that the intermediate state was regarded by them as one in which satisfaction was made for sin. Origen’s doctrine of πυρ καθάρσων is intimately connected with his doctrine of apokatastasis ; in his view the application of purgatorial fire was not to take place until the last judgment, nor was its efficacy to be limited to those who had closed their life on earth as believers in Christ. In a different connexion Augustine, expounding 1 Cor. iii. 15 as referring more immediately to the purification of Christians by means of the trials of the present life, goes on to speak of it as a supposable thing that the process might be continued after death, but without committing himself to the belief (“incredibile non est, et utrum ita sit quaeri potest”). Gregory the Great was the first to formulate in express terms the doctrine which afterwards became that of the whole Roman obedience “de quibusdam levibus culpis esse ante judicium purgatorius ignis credendus est.” Such utterances as this were never accepted by the Greek Church, which in its doctrine of the intermediate state still occupies as nearly as possible the standpoint of the ante-Nicene fathers.
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a place in which, according to the church of Rome, the just, who depart out of this life, are supposed to expiate certain offences which do not merit eternal damnation. Broughton has endeavoured to prove that this notion has been held by Pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans, as well as by Christians; and that in the days of the Maccabees, the Jews believed that sin might be expiated by sacrifice after the death of the sinner. The arguments advanced for purgatory by the papists are these: Every sin, how slight soever, though no more than an idle word, as it is an offence to God, deserves punishment from him, and will be punished by him hereafter, if not cancelled by repentance here. 2. Such small sins do not deserve eternal punishment. 3. Few depart this life so pure as to be totally exempt from spots of this nature, and from every kind of debt due to God’s justice. 4. Therefore, few will escape without suffering something from his justice for such debts as they have carried with them out of this world, according to the rule of divine justice, by which he treats every soul hereafter according to his works, and according to the state in which he finds it in death. From these positions, which the papist considers as so many self-evident truths, he infers that there must be some third place of punishment; for since the infinite holiness of God can admit nothing into heaven that is not clean and pure from all sin, both great and small, and his infinite justice can permit none to receive the reward of bliss, who as yet are not out of debt, but have something in justice to suffer, there must, of necessity, be some place or state, where souls departing this life, pardoned as to the eternal guilt of sin, yet obnoxious to some temporal penalty, or with the guilt of some venial faults, ...are purged and purified before their admittance into heaven. And this is what he is taught concerning purgatory; though he know not where it is, of what nature the pains are, or how long each soul is detained there, yet he believes that those who are in this place are relieved by the prayers of their fellow members here on earth, as also by alms and masses offered up to God for their souls. And as for such as have no relations or friends to pray for them, or give alms to procure masses for their relief, they are not neglected by the church, which makes a general commemoration of all the faithful departed, in every mass, and in every one of the canonical hours of the divine office. Beside the above arguments, the following passages are alleged as proofs: 2 Macc. xii, 43–45; Matt. xii, 31, 32; 1 Cor. iii, 15; 1 Peter iii, 19. But it may be observed, 1. That the books of Maccabees have no evidence of inspiration, therefore quotations from them are not to be regarded. 2. If they were, the texts referred to would rather prove that there is no such place as purgatory, since Judas did not expect the souls departed to reap any benefit from the sin-offering till the resurrection. The texts quoted from the Scriptures have no reference to the doctrine, as may be seen by consulting the context, and any just commentator upon it. 3. The Scriptures, in general, speak of departed souls going immediately, at death, to a fixed state of happiness or misery, and give us no idea of purgatory, Isaiah lvii, 2; Rev. xiv, 13; Luke xvi, 22; 2 Cor. v, 8. 4. It is derogatory from the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ. If Christ died for us, and redeemed us from sin and hell, as the Scripture speaks, then the idea of farther meritorious suffering detracts from the perfection of his sacrifice, and places merit still in the creature; a doctrine exactly opposite to the Scriptures.
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