Sect. 283PurgatoryPurgatory

Those who depart this life in a state of grace are not always fit to enter at once into the Beatific Vision. They may be burdened with venial sin; or, though entirely free from any kind of sin, they may still have not fully paid the debt of temporal punishment due for their forgiven sins. Such souls must be cleansed from their sins, or must undergo this temporal punishment. The abode or condition in which this takes place, is what is meant by Purgatory. It is therefore a sort of middle state between Heaven and Hell; but the souls who are there are really saved, and will infallibly enter Heaven as soon as they are fitted for that happy consummation. They can no longer merit or sin; they cannot properly satisfy God by meriting—they can only make some sort of satisfaction by suffering. On the other hand, the faithful who are still on earth can help them by their prayers and good works, and for this purpose nothing is so efficacious as the Mass. The Council of Trent, in dealing with the subject, confines itself to the definition of these two points: “that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls there detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but chiefly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar” (sess. xxv.; cf. sess. vi. can. 30; sess. xxii. chap. 2, can. 3; and also the decree of union in the Council of Florence, Denzinger’s Enchir., lxxiii.). The Council adds a warning which has not always been sufficiently borne in mind by spiritual writers and preachers: “Let the more difficult and subtle questions which tend not to edification, and from which, for the most part, there is no increase of piety, be excluded from popular discourses before the uninstructed people In like manner, such things as are uncertain, or which labour under an appearance of error, let them (the bishops) not allow to be made public and treated of; while those things which tend to a certain kind of curiosity or superstition, or which savour of filthy lucre, let them prohibit as scandals and stumbling-blocks of the faithful.” Before proceeding to the proof of the doctrine defined by the Council, we observe that the two points hang very much together; prayer for the dead implying that the souls could benefit thereby, and so implying the existence of a middle and temporary state.

I. The strongest proof of the existence of Purgatory is undoubtedly to be found in tradition and the general principles of theology; but Holy Scripture is not wanting in indications that there is a place of purgation after death.

1. “And making a gathering, (Judas) sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection (for if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead); and because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness had great grace laid up for them. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sin” (2 Machabees 13:23–26). In these words is clearly expressed the belief in a middle state, in which the departed can benefit by the prayers and good works of those who are still here on earth. The Jews here spoken of had been slain while fighting in God’s cause, but they had been guilty of taking and concealing the idols of the enemy, and had fallen with this sin upon their souls.

The Fathers also appeal to Tob. 4:18, Ecclus. 7:37, and Ps. 65:12, as indications of the doctrine of Purgatory. Our Lord tells us that the sin against the Holy Ghost “shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come (οὔτε ἐν τούτῳ τῷ αἰῶνι οὔτε ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι)” (Matt. 12:32); whence we infer that as some sins will be forgiven hereafter, there must be a state or place of purification for some souls which depart this life in sin. Again, His words concerning the prison, “Thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing” (Matt. 5:26), are taken by some of the Fathers as referring to Purgatory (St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, l. xxi. c. 24, n. 2; St. Gregory the Great, Dial., 1. iv. c. 39; St. Bernard, Hom. lxvi., In Cant.; Tertullian, De Anima, c. xxxv.; St. Cyprian, Epist., lv. al. lii., Ad Anton.; St. Jerome, In cap. v., Matt.; cf. Bellarmine, De Purgat., 1. i. c. 7; Suarez, In 3 Part., disp. 45, sect. 1). According to Bellarmine (l.c., cap. 5), the well-known passage of St. Paul (1 Cor. 3:13–15) is held by the common consent of the Fathers and theologians to refer to Purgatory. “Every man’s work shall be manifest: for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire (οὓτως δὲ ὡς διὰ πυρός).” For an adequate interpretation of this most obscure passage, we must refer the reader to Estius (in loc.) or Bellarmine (loc. cit.). Other New Testament texts sometimes appealed to are Matt. 5:22; Luke 16:9; 1 Cor. 15:29; Phil. 2:10.

2. If we turn to tradition, the proofs both from Eastern as well as Western Fathers and Liturgies are overwhelming. “We make on one day every year oblations for the dead, as for their birthdays (oblationes pro defunctis, pro natalitiis annua die facimus)” (Tertullian, De Corona Milit., cap. 3). “The faithful widow,” he also says, “prays for the soul of her husband, and begs for him in the interim refreshment, and in the first resurrection companionship, and offers on the anniversary days of his death (et pro anima ejus orat, et refrigerium interim adpostulat ei, et in prima resurrectione consortium, et offert annuis diebus dormitionis ejus)” (De Monogam., n. 10). St. Cyprian says that if a priest disobeys certain laws of the Church (which he mentions), “there should be no oblation for him, nor sacrifice be celebrated on his falling asleep (nec sacrificium pro ejus dormitione celebraretur)” (Ep., lxvi., ad Clerum et Plebem Furnis; cf. Ep., xxxiv., De Celerino; Ep., xxxvii., ad Clerum; Ep., lii., ad Antonianum). “Give perfect rest to Thy servant Theodosius, that rest which Thou hast prepared for Thy saints (Da requiem perfectam servo tuo Theodosio, requiem illam quam prœparasti sanctis tuis); may his soul return thither whence it descended … I loved him, and therefore will I follow him, even unto the land of the living; nor will I leave him until by tears and prayers I shall lead him whither his merits summon him, unto the holy mountain of the Lord” (St. Ambrose, De Obitu Theodosii, 36, 37). “They who come not,” he says elsewhere (Enarr., in Ps. i. n. 54), “unto the first resurrection, but are reserved unto the second, these shall burn until they shall complete the time between the first and the second resurrection; or if they shall not have completed it, they shall remain longer in punishment.” In a letter of consolation to Pammachius, on the death of his wife Paulina, St. Jerome says, “Other husbands strew violets, roses … on the graves of their wives, and soothe with these offices the sorrow of their hearts; our Pammachius bedews the hallowed dust and venerable remains of Paulina with balsams of alms. With these pigments and sweet odours does he refresh her slumbering ashes, knowing that it is written, that as water quencheth fire, so do alms extinguish sin” (Ep., lxvi.). Many extracts might be given from St. Augustine’s writings bearing on this subject. “ ‘Lay,’ she says [his dying mother, St. Monica], ‘this body anywhere; let not the care of it anyway disturb you; this only I ask of you, that you would remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you be (tantum illud vos rogo, ut ad Domini altare memineritis mei ubi fueritis).’ … Neither in those prayers which we poured forth unto thee, when the sacrifice of our ransom was offered for her (cum offerretur pro ea sacrificium pretii nostri), the corpse being placed by the graveside before being deposited therein, as the custom there is, not even in those prayers did I weep” (Confess., lib. ix. 27, 32). Writing against those who taught that God would in the end, at the request of His Saints, pardon all men; and having stated that the Church never prays for the lost souls and evil spirits, he adds, “For either the prayer of the Church or of some pious persons is heard in behalf of certain of the departed, but it is in behalf of those whose life, after they had been regenerated in Christ, was not so bad whilst they were in the body as to be accounted not worthy of such a mercy, nor so good as to be found not to need such mercy. So also, after the resurrection of the dead has taken place, there will not be wanting those to whom, after the pains which the spirits of the dead endure, will be granted the mercy that they be not cast into everlasting fire. For it would not be said with truth of some, that it shall not be forgiven them, neither in this world nor in the world to come, unless there were some to whom, though not in this, yet in the (world) to come, remission shall be granted” (De Civ. Dei, xxi. c. 24; cf. xx. cc. 9, 25, 26; xxi. cc. 13, 16; De Hæresibus, n. 53).

In the Eastern Church, we find Clement of Alexandria speaking of the fire which sanctifies the sinful souls (ἁγιάζειν τὸ πῦρ … τὰς ἁμαρτωλοὺς ψυχὰς πῦρ), and distinguishing between “the all-devouring fire” and “the discriminating fire which pervades the soul which passes through the fire (τὸ φρόνιμον λέγοντες, τὸ διϊκνούμενον διὰ ψυχῆς τῆς διερχομένης τὸ πῦρ)” (Strom., vii. n. 6; ibid., n. 12; vi. n. 14). “We also,” says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “commemorate those who have fallen asleep before us, first patriarchs, prophets, apostles, that God by their prayers and intercessions would receive our petition; then also on behalf of the holy Fathers and bishops who have fallen asleep before us, and of all, in short, who have already fallen asleep from amongst us, believing that it will be a very great assistance to the souls for which the supplication is put up, while the holy and most awful sacrifice lies to open view (μεγίστην ὄνησιν πιστεύοντες ἔσεσθαι ταῖς ψυχαῖς, ὑπὲρ ὡν ἡ δέησις ἀναφέρεται, τῆς ἁγίας καὶ φρικοδεστάτης προκειμένης θυσίας)” (Catech. Mystag., v. n. 9). “I now wish, brethren,” says St. Ephræm in his Testament (tom. ii. Gr., p. 231), “to forewarn and exhort you that after my departure you make a commemoration of me, according to custom in your prayers … Do not, I beseech you, bury me with perfumes … Give them not to me, but to God; but me that was conceived in sorrows, bury with lamentations; and instead of a sweet odour and perfumes, assist me, I entreat you with your prayers, always remembering me in them.… And in your prayers vouchsafe to make the customary oblations for my shortcomings; and when I shall have completed the thirtieth day, make a commemoration of me; for the dead are benefited in oblations of commemoration by the living saints.” “It is not fitting that he who has lived to so great an extent in forbidden evils, and he who has been engaged in moderate transgressions should be equally afflicted in the sentence passed on their evil state; but that, according to the quantity of that matter, the painful fire be either for a longer or a shorter time enkindled, according as there may be wherewith to feed it” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, De Anim. et Resurr.). St. Epiphanius, writing against the heretic Aerius, maintains that prayer benefits the departed, and that the practice of praying for them has been handed down to the Church by the ancient Fathers (Adv. Hæres., lxxv.). “Not in vain,” says St. John Chrysostom, “are oblations made on behalf of the departed; not in vain supplications; not in vain alms (οὐκ εἰκῇ προσφοραὶ ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀπελθόντων γίνονται, οὐκ εἰκῇ ἱκετηρίαι, οὐκ εἰκῇ ἐλεημοσύναι). All these things has the Spirit ordained, wishing us to be aided by each other,” etc. (In Act. Apost., Hom., xxi. n. 4; cf. In Matt. Hom., xxxi. n. 4; Hom., xxviii. n. 3; In Ep. i., ad Cor. Hom., xli. nn. 4, 5; In Ep. ad Philipp. Hom., iii. n. 4).

All the ancient Liturgies, without exception, contain prayers and mementos for the dead. (See Faith of Catholics, vol. iii. pp. 201–205.)

3. The existence of Purgatory is also a consequence of two recognized theological principles. The first of these is the distinction between mortal sin and venial sin (see supra, § 156); the other is the distinction between the guilt of mortal sin and the temporal punishment due even after the guilt has been forgiven (p. 475). As we have already pointed out at the beginning of this section, persons dying with venial sin on their souls, or who have not fully paid their debt of temporal punishment, cannot at once enter Heaven (Apoc. 21:27), and yet do not deserve Hell. Indeed, it is difficult to reconcile the holiness and mercy and justice of God without maintaining a place of purgation after death.

II. What is the precise nature of the punishment suffered by the souls in Purgatory has not been defined by the Church. Theologians, following the analogy of the doctrine of Hell, have taught that the souls undergo both a pain of loss and a pain of sense. They are, indeed, certain of their salvation, but they suffer from an intense longing to enjoy that Highest Good, which now they appreciate in a way which they could never do while here below (Lessius, De Perfect. Divin., xiii. c. 18). It is also commonly held, at least in the Western Church, that the pain of sense is caused by fire. The text, “He himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire,” has been interpreted by many of the Fathers and theologians, both Eastern and Western, as referring to a material fire in Purgatory. See St. Thomas, In iv. Sent., dist. 21, q. 1, a. 1; St. Bonaventure, Brevil., vii. 2; Bellarmine, De Purgat, i. c. 5, and ii. c. 11; Suarez, In iii. p. 3, disp. 46, sect. 2, n. 12). It should be noted, however, that at the Council of Florence the question was left an open one, whether the souls suffer from fire, or darkness, or storm.