Purgatory

PURGATORY. - An otherworldly state, lasting until the last judgment, in which the souls of those who have died in Grace, but with imperfections or venial sins or temporal punishments still to be expiated for grave sins already forgiven, atone and purify themselves before ascending into heaven.

I. EXISTENCE OF PURGATORY

1. Sacred Scripture

The Bible does not speak explicitly of P., but it contains texts that suggest the idea. The concept of a personal responsibility, which became ever clearer with the progress of Revelation, joined with that so widespread in the Old Testament (cf. Wis. 10:2; Num. 20:12; II Kings 13:13-14) according to which, once the sin is forgiven, there remains a temporal punishment to be expiated, is an important presupposition of the doctrine of P. If to this explicit conception of the Old Testament is joined the New Testament idea of a personal participation of individuals in their own salvation, especially in the penitential economy, not it is difficult to point out that, if some biblical text hints at the fact of an otherworldly prolongation of such an economy, Christian thought, guided by the Church, could, at some moment of its development, deduce the existence of that intermediate state between hell and paradise, which for centuries has been called purgatory.

Such a hint indeed emerges from certain passages, among them that of II Macc. 12:43-46. On the day after the victory over Gorgias, Judas Maccabeus discovered under the garments of those fallen on the field idolatrous objects, coming from the plundering of Jamnia, and saw, in this grave transgression of the law, the cause of the soldiers' death and therefore "having made a collection, he sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem, so that a sacrifice might be offered in expiation for the sins of those who had died on the field." He did this, first because as a pious and religious man he believed in the resurrection of the flesh (if indeed he had not had sure hope in the future resurrection [connected, in Jewish thought, with the survival of the soul] of those fallen in battle, it would have been a superfluous or useless thing to pray for the dead), then because he held that for those who had died piously an excellent reward was reserved. Holy and profitable, therefore, is the idea of praying for the dead, so that they may be freed from their sins. The hagiographer, in the original text, restricts his view to the sin of those fallen in battle, but the principle established is of universal scope. This text, at least indirectly, affirms that to the dead cum pietate, even if stained by some fault, God grants forgiveness of sins through the prayers of the survivors (cf. P. E. O'Brien, The scriptural proof for the existence of Purgatory from 2 Machabees 12, 43-46, in Sciences eccles., 2 [1949], pp. 80-108; P. Heinisch, Teologia del Vecchio Testamento, Italian trans., Rome 1950, p. 318; and also *E. Stauffer, Die Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 3rd ed., Stuttgart 1947, p. 191)

Three passages of the New Testament, although susceptible of another interpretation, can be explained in harmony with the doctrine of II Macc.: 1) Mt. 5:25-26: "Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are with him on the way, lest he hand you over to the judge and the judge to the public executor of justice (minister), so that you be taken to prison: truly I say to you that you will not come out until you have paid the last penny." St. Cyprian (Ep. 55 ad Antonianum, n. 20: PL 3, 786) and the Latin Fathers saw in this a clear allusion to purgatory; modern exegetes hold that the text is not strained, if the metaphor of the prison is interpreted as purgatory; 2) Mt. 12:31-32: "and whoever speaks against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come." St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei, 21, 24: PL 41, 739), St. Gregory the Great (Dial., 4, 39: PL 77, 396) and St. Bernard (Sermo 66 in Cant., n. 11: PL 182, 1100) deduced from the last clause that for certain sins, less grave than blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it is possible to obtain remission even in the life to come: this interpretation is not to be discarded, even if some moderns prefer to see in the emphatic phrase solely the exclusion of any forgiveness for the sin against the Holy Spirit. 3) Particularly important is the pericope of I Cor. 3:10-17: "No other foundation can anyone lay than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. And if one builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, the work of each will become manifest; for the day (of the Lord) will disclose it, since it is revealed in fire, and the work of each, of what sort it is, the fire will test. If the work that someone has built upon remains, he will have his reward; but if the work of one burns up, he will suffer loss, yet he himself will be saved, but as through fire (αὐτός δὲ σωθ. γέτατ. αὐτῷς δὲ ὡς διὰ πυρός)." St. Paul speaks of the work of the ministry, with which the Church is built; on the foundation of the apostolic preaching, which has as its center the doctrine of Christ crucified, preachers must build with equally precious material. The Apostle, alluding to the use of employing gold, silver, precious stones for the construction of temples and palaces, applies these names to true and profitable doctrines, while he reserves the terms wood, hay, straw for false, frivolous and worldly doctrines, unsuited to the spiritual edification of the faithful. The work of each preacher will be put to the test of fire (τὸ πῦρ, αὐτὸ δοκιμάσει, v. 13), on the day of the Lord (ἡ γὰρ ἡμέρα δηλώσει). St. Thomas Aquinas (In I Cor., chap. 3, lect. 2) interprets the fire in the broadest sense, as the complex of judgments and trials (metaphorical fire), to which Christ submits the work of those who have labored in his Church, and therefore holds that "the day of the Lord" (ἡ ἡμέρα) is all the moments in which God manifests his judgment on the work of the builders of the Kingdom (tribulations of the present life, particular judgment, final judgment). In each of these moments Providence shows the value of works: whoever has built with good material (gold, silver, precious stones) will see the solidity of his work and will have a reward (otherworldly); whoever has built with bad material (wood, hay, stubble) will ascertain the fragility of his own work and will himself suffer loss (that is, will have a punishment from it), but will be saved, not without pain and anguish, like one who fleeing through the flames experiences terror and carries away burns (cf. F. Zorell, πῦρ, in Lex. graecum N. T., Paris 1931). In this perspective the idea of purgatory is implicit; indeed the trials to which the architects of the Kingdom will be subjected cannot be considered merely earthly (the whole context concerns principally the future life), nor can they be restricted to those of the final judgment, since then there will be only the elect or the damned, whereas in the text there is talk of a transient suffering (a loss, ζητωθήσεται), which will conclude with the definitive salvation of the one who has built on the true foundation, but with worthless material. The concept of an otherworldly but not eternal trial corresponds to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. This interpretation is substantially common to numerous Catholic exegetes (A. B. Allo, Première épître aux Corinthiens, Paris 1934, pp. 59-61; 66-67; F. Prat, La teologia di s. Paolo, I, Italian trans., Turin 1936, pp. 88-91; A. Beel, Docetne s. Paulus dogma purgatorii in I Cor. 3, 11?, in Collat. Brugen., 37 [1937], pp. 77-103; V. Jacono, Le ep. di s. Paolo ai Romani, ai Corinti e ai Galati, Rome 1951, pp. 284-86).

2. Tradition

Christian thought, guided by the Church, arrived at the explicit formulation of the doctrine of purgatory, moving in the threefold direction traced by Scripture (suffrages, purification, expiation). The "euchological" line, which links up with the text of Maccabees, left a deep mark on the Christian conscience, so that East and West, from the earliest times down to the present day, are remarkably in agreement in affirming the value of prayers, good works and above all of the eucharistic sacrifice for the faithful departed. From the hints in II Tim. 1:18, in the Martyr. Polycarpi (18, 2-3) and in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, VII, 13: PG 9, 508) we come to the solemn testimonies of Eusebius (Vita Constantini, 4, 71: PG 20, 1115: prayers on the occasion of the death of the Christian Emperor), St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. Myst., 5, 9: PG 33, 1115: theological explanation of the value of the Mass for the dead), St. John Chrysostom (In I Cor. hom., 41, 5: PG 61, 361: comparison with the expiatory sacrifice of Job; In Acto hom., 21, 4: PG 60, 170: the memento for the dead is held to be of apostolic origin), St. Epiphanius (Haeres., 75, 8: PG 42, 513: Aerius is declared a heretic because he was the first to deny the efficacy of suffrages for the dead), St. Cyril of Alexandria (Adversus eos, qui audent dicere non esse offerendum pro iis, qui in fide obdormierunt, fragmenta: PG 76, 1432).

From the brief and evocative invocations of the catacombs: vivas in Christo; in refrigeria anima tua; Deus refrigeret spiritum tuum; vos precor, o fratres, orare hoc quando venitis; rogo vos omnes, qui legitis, orate pro me peccatore (cf. H. Leclercq, Purgatoire, in DACL, XIV, coll. 1978-81; id., Défunts, ibid., IV, col. 427 ff.; P. Kirsch, Die Lehre von der Gemeinschaft der Heiligen im christl. Altertum, Mainz 1900; S. Scaglia, Novissimi nei monum primitivi della Chiesa, Rome 1923, pp. 9-10), in the whole Latin Church we find the most explicit testimonies on the practice and the theory of suffrages: Tertullian (De corona, 3: PL 2, 79; De monogamia, 10: PL 2, 942), St. Cyprian (Ep. 1, 2, ed. Hartel: CSEL, III, II, p. 466), St. Ambrose (De excessu fratris sui Satyri, n. 1, 80: PL 16, 1372; De obitu Valentiniani, n. 56, 78: PL 16, 1146; De obitu Theodosii, n. 36, 37: PL 16, 1460), St. Jerome praises the piety of his friend Pammachius in suffraging his wife's soul with good works (Ep., 66, 5: PL 22, 642). St. Augustine definitively fixed Christian doctrine on suffrages. Referring explicitly to the text of Maccabees (De cura gerenda pro mortuis, 3: PL 40, 593) and to the constant practice of the Church (Sermo 182, n. 2: PL 38, 936), he rejected the error of Aerius (De haeres., 153: PL 42, 593), defending the efficacy of the sacrifice, of prayers and of alms for those souls of the dead which, though imperfect, are not unworthy of them (Ench., c. 110: PL 40, 283; cf. De octo Dulcitii quaestionibus, q. 3, n. 3: PL 40, 158); and with filial piety he prays for his mother Monica (Confessiones, 9, 13: PL 32, 778).

The "cathartic" tendency (otherworldly purification), which links up with I Cor. 3:10-17, had its greatest development in the East, while nevertheless remaining within the framework of an Old Testament conception of the future life (souls awaiting the final judgment; v. GIUDIZIO DIVINO; INFERNO). Clement of Alexandria was the first to distinguish two ways of punishing sinners in the present life (for those capable of correction, punishment ἐδιδασκαλικώς, for the incorrigible ἐκολαστικώς; Stromata, IV, 24: PG 8, 1363) and in the future life, in which two fires will operate, one "edax et omnia consumens: τὸ καταφάγον καὶ βέλθωσιν", the other "prudens, qui pervadit animam per ignem transeuntem: τὸ φρόνιον" (Stromata, VII, 6: PG 9, 450). Origen is more explicit. The theory of apocatastasis (v.) does not absorb the whole eschatological theology of the Alexandrian master, since at the moments when, setting aside bold hypotheses and unbridled speculations, he recovers his soul as a believer, he constantly draws a clear distinction between grave sins (πρὸς θάνατον ἁμαρτία) and imperfections (ὕποσ; In Lc. hom., 4: PG 13, 1236; In Ierem. hom., 2: PG 13, 280) and, consequently, between the otherworldly punishments of sinners "ad mortem" and those of the imperfect. Even the good, he affirms, are imperfect, and therefore all the just will be tested with the fire to which

I Cor. 3:13 (In Ps. 36 hom., 3, 1: PG 12, 337); this trial is to be regarded as a baptismus ignis, which, purifying the soul from the unavoidable defects of earthly life, will make it worthy of heaven (In Lc. hom., 24: PG 13, 1861-65; In Num. hom., 25: PG 12, 769-70); this purification will be brought about by means of the (real) fire of the cosmic conflagration (In Ierem. hom., 2: PG 13, 280-81; In Lev. hom., 8: PG 12, 497; In Lc. hom., 14: PG 13, 1836; In Ps. 6 fragmentum: PG 17, 1177-78), which was held to be imminent (In Lc. hom., 24: PG 13, 1861-65); for the just it will be brief (In Lc. hom., 24: PG 13, 1865), for sinners "ad mortem" it will be prolonged through the ages (In Exod. hom., 6, n. 13: PG 12, 340; In Lc. hom., 19, n. 3: PG 14, 551; De principiis, 1, 2, c. 3, n. 3: PG 11, 183-84). If in this perspective of a trial common to all the just (including the Apostles), to take place at the imminent end of the world, Origen accepted questionable elements of the eschatology of his time, it must nevertheless be recognized that he was the first explicit assertor of the Catholic doctrine of purgatory (cf. Th. Spačil, La dottrina del p. in Clemente Alessandrino e in Origene, in Bessarione, 35 [1919], pp. 131-45).

Origen's teaching was perpetuated, becoming more refined, in the theology of the Greek Fathers: St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech., 15, 21: PG 33, 900: "fluvius ignis"), St. Basil (In Is., 9, 16: PG 30, 519: "he does not threaten to destroy it", alludes instead to purification according to what the Apostle says [I Cor. 3:13]; cf. In Is., 4, 4: PG 30, 342; De Spiritu Sancto, 15, 38: PG 32, 132), St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Oratio, 3, 7: PG 35, 524: "our actions must be tested or purified by fire: ἠνίκα ἂν πυρὶ κρίνεται τὰ ἡμέτρη ἢ καθαίρεται"; cf. Oratio, 39, 19: PG 36, 357). Origen's eschatological conceptions exercised a strong influence also on St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, whose doctrine on the future life was certainly not immune from imprecisions; also as regards purgatory the two Latin Fathers echo the teaching of the Alexandrian (St. Ambrose, In Ps. 118, sermo 3, n. 14-16: PL 15, 1292-93, cf. Ambrosiaster, In I Cor., 3, 13-15: PL 17, 211; St. Jerome, In Is., 66, 24: PL 24, 704).

The "juridical" conception (expiation, payment of the debt contracted with justice), founded on Mt. 5:25-26, was largely developed by the Latin tradition, which culminated in the explicit admission of a dark place (prison), where all the penalties due for sins are paid (you will pay to the last penny) and from which one may be released earlier with the help of the survivors. Tertullian, still entangled in the Jewish conception of the afterlife, held that only the martyrs ascend immediately to paradise (Scorpiace, 6: PL 2, 158; De contra resurrectione, 43: PL 2, 903), while all the other souls, good and bad, descend into sheol (ad inferos), awaiting the resurrection. Since the soul is capable of enjoying and suffering even when separated from the body, both the good and the bad, while awaiting in sheol, already have a foretaste of their eternal lot. Those destined to damnation will remain in that prison until the final resurrection, which will take place at the imminence of the last judgment, after the millennial reign (v. MILLENARIESIO), in which only the good will participate; they therefore will enjoy an anticipated resurrection; those among the good, then, who have debts to pay, will remain in sheol until the settlement of the last penny, and therefore their glorious resurrection (a necessary condition for participating in the enjoyments of the millennium) will be deferred ("mora resurrectionis", De anima, 58: PL 2, 796) in proportion to the penalties to be paid. St. Perpetua, martyr, relates that she had a vision of her brother Dinocrates, who had died at the age of seven: "exeuntem de loco tenebroso, aestuantem valde et sitientem, sordido cultu et colore pallido" (Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, c. 7, ed. C. Van Beek, Bonn 1938, p. 28). She therefore offered fervent prayers and in a later vision was able to see him "mundo corpore, bene vestitum, refrigerantem... ludere more infantium, gaudentem" (ibid., c. 8, p. 30) and concludes: "Tunc intellexi translatum eum esse de paena" (ibid., p. 32).

St. Cyprian accepted Tertullian's idea, according to which only the martyrs ascend immediately to the vision of God (Ad Fortunatum de exhortatione martyrii, praef. n. 4: PL 4, 683). He holds that all the other just await the vision of God shut up in a prison, where they pay "usque ad ultimum quadrantem" and are purified through painful trials and a lasting fire (Ep. 55 ad Antonianum, n. 20: PL 3, 786).

The current of the "expiatory" doctrine continued (parallel to Origen's "cathartic" theory), in St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, to meet and merge in the definitive synthesis of St. Augustine. He brought decisive precisions and clarifications to the whole of Christian eschatology. Rejecting millenarianism (v.), he deduced that the pains of purgatory will not consist in delaying the somatic resurrection for those souls which are not yet worthy to participate in the joys of the kingdom of Christ; eliminating the theory of the deferral of the reward and the consequent waiting for the final judgment, he asserted, with unequivocal clarity, that the purifying pains must take place between the particular judgment (immediately after death) and the final one, after which there will be only hell and paradise (De Civitate Dei, XXI, 13: PL 41, 728). Refuting the Origenian hypothesis of the misericordes, he definitively discarded the idea of the universal salvation of the baptized through faith alone, independently of works (De fide et operibus, nn. 24-25: PL 40, 213-14; De Civitate Dei, XXI, 26: PL 41, 744). Having rejected errors and clarified other obscure points, St. Augustine arrived at a happy formulation of the doctrine, setting theological inquiry on the course that the magisterium of the Church would later fix. Christians who at the moment of death are free from grave sins, but still inordinately attached to earthly goods, are in reality in need of God's mercy and at the same time not unworthy of it; these precisely will be saved "per ignem" (De Civitate Dei, XXI, 13: PL 41, 728; Enchiridion, 69, 109-10: PL 40, 265, 283). The nature of this "ignis purgatorius" (Enchiridion, 69: PL 40, 265) and "emendatorius" (Enarr. in Ps., 37, 3: PL 36, 397) is not specified; St. Augustine remained hesitant, at times speaking of a metaphorical fire (De Civitate Dei, XXI, 26: PL 41, 743; De fide et operibus, n. 27: PL 40, 216; cf. A. Lehaut.

L'éternité des peines de l'enfer dans saint Augustin, Paris 1912, p. 69), at other times admitting the possibility of a real fire: "Si hoc temporis intervallo spiritus defunctorum eiusmodi ignem dicuntur perpeti... non redarguo, quia forsitan verum est" (De Civitate Dei, XXI, 26, n. 4: PL 41, 745).

3. Scholastic synthesis

The thought of St. Augustine passed, as an already settled doctrine, to the writers of the early Middle Ages. In the 12th century Honorius of Autun (Elucidarium, 3, 3: PL 172, 1158) and St. Bernard (Sermo 42 de quinque regionibus: PL 183, 663), with the bold hypothesis of the punishment of cold, show that at that time the punishment of real fire was not held to be an absolutely certain and common doctrine. In the 13th century the great scholastics, glossing the text of Peter Lombard, constructed a more substantial synthesis: although discussing certain secondary points (remissibility of venial sin, gravity and duration of the punishment, place of purgatory: cf. Alexander of Hales, Summa Theol., IV, q. 14, memb. 3, a. 3-4; St. Bonaventure, IV Sent. d. 21, q. 1; St. Albert the Great, IV Sent., d. 21), they held as a doctrine of faith the existence of purgatory and the temporariness of the punishment, and were agreed in holding the fire to be real. Particularly clear is the teaching of St. Thomas (Contra Gent., IV, 91; Declaratio quorundam articulorum, c. 9 [contra Graecos et Armenos]; IV Sent. d. 21 and d. 45, reproduced in Sum. Theol., suppl. q. 70, a. 1 [alienum a fide negare the existence of purgatory], a. 2 [de loco purgatorii non invenitur aliquid expresse determinatum in Scriptura], a. 3 [in purgatorio erit duplex poena, una danni... alia sensus... et quantum ad utrumque poena purgatorii minima excedit maximam poenam huius vitae] etc.; in q. 71 a broad and profound treatment of the value of suffrages [cf. J. D. Folghera-J. Webert, St Th. d'A. Somme, theol.: L'anedelo, con note e appendici, Paris 1935, pp. 303-17; 331-41)].

4. Controversy with the Greeks

While Latin theology, after St. Augustine, reached its full development, Greek theology halted at the positions reached in the 4th and 5th centuries: hence one witnesses a process of crystallization of the archaic doctrine (the waiting of souls in their respective subterranean places, the fire of judgment, which will purify the souls destined for glory while tormenting the damned forever), to which those Byzantine theologians who from the 13th century came into contact with the Roman Church showed themselves particularly attached.

At the end of 1231 George Bardanes, bishop of Corcyra, having noted the different position of the Latins, affirmed the waiting of souls until the universal judgment, rejecting the fire of purgatory as a theory with an Origenian flavor (cf. the mss. Barb. grec. 297 and Laur. grec. 36, n. 3). The Byzantine patriarch Germanus II, informed by Bardanes, wrote a treatise (lost) to refute the Latins. From that time the conviction spread throughout the West that the Greeks denied purgatory and the immediate retribution of souls. The twofold error was soon combated by the Dominicans of Pera.

St. Thomas Aquinas kept in mind the two errors attributed to the Greeks when in the De rationibus fidei ad Cantorem Autiochenum, c. 9 (Opuscula theolog. omnia, III, ed. P. Mandonnet, Paris 1927, pp. 274-76) he insists on the immediate animarum retributio or, in the Contra errores Graecorum (ibid., pp. 303 and 327) affirms the efficacy of the Mass on behalf of the souls in purgatory. At the Second Council of Lyon (1274) the Byzantine emperor Michael Palaiologos presented to Pope Gregory X, as a sign of adherence to the teaching of the Roman Church, the profession of faith that had been sent to him by Clement IV (1265-68), in the preparatory period of the Council of union. In this professio fidei there is indeed an article concerning purgatory: «if it happens that some faithful person truly repentant dies in the grace of God, but before having completed the penance (satisfactio) due for his sins, his soul is perfected by purifying punishments (poenis purgatoriis seu cetharteriis, sicut nobis frater Johanne [the Franciscan Giovanni da Balastri, apostle of the union] nobis explanavit, post mortem purgari). After the Council of Lyon, Benedict XII (1341) and Clement VI (1351) rejected the denial of purgatory attributed to the Armenians (Denz-U 535 and 3050), while Latin theologians polemicized with the opponents of the union

(Matthew Koëstor, Angelo Panaretos, Symeon of Thessalonica), who attacked above all the doctrine of the fire of purgatory as it had been taught by St. Thomas. Among the Greek Catholics the Dominican Manuel Calecas (d. 1410) proved himself a convinced defender of the Western doctrine in his notable work: Adversus Graecos (PG 152, 228 ff.). At the Council of Florence (1439), the debated question of purgatory (above all of the fire), in which the best Oriental minds (Mark Eugenikos, Card. Bessarion) and Western minds (Card. Giuliano Cesarini, Card. Giovanni Turrecremata) engaged, concluded without any definition on the part of Pope Eugene IV regarding the nature of the fire and with the acceptance by the Greeks of the fundamental elements of the dogma already formulated in the professio fidei of Palaiologos, reproduced almost literally (with the word catharteria suppressed) in the bull Laetentur caeli of 6 July 1439 (Denz-U, 693), with an important addition on the nature of caelum, to which souls completely purified ascend at once (mox): «Et intueri clare ipsum Deum Trinum et Unum, sicuti est, pro meritorum tamen diversitate alium alii perfectius» (ibid.). With this clause, taken from the dogmatic bull Benedictus Deus of 29 Jan. 1336 (Denz-U, 530) of Benedict XII, the Palamite conception of paradise (non-immediate vision of the divine essence) was rejected, to which Mark Eugenikos inclined (cf. A. D'Alès, La question de purgatoire au Conc. de Florence, in Gregorianum, 3 [1922], pp. 8-50; A. Michel, Purgatoire, in DThC, XIII, coll. 1252-63; M. Gordillo, Comp. theol. orient., Rome 1937, pp. 179-97). Thus at Florence union was reached on the essential points of the existence of purgatory and the value of suffrages (a defined dogma), and the doctrine of the fire was left with its character of sententia, which Latin theologians rightly hold to be founded in tradition (v. above). The attitude of the Oriental theologians after the Council of Florence is described in M. Jugie (Purgatoire dans l'Eglise Greco-Russe après le Concile de Florence, in DThC, XIII, coll. 1326-52; id., Theol. dogm. Christian. Orientalium, IV, Paris 1931, p. 362 ff.).

5. Protestant errors

The existence of purgatory, already denied by certain medieval sects (the Apostolics [St. Bernard, Sermo 36 in Cant.; PL 183, 1098], the Petrobusians, the Waldensians), then implicitly by Wycliffe (Denz-U, 622) and by Hus (ibid., 634; cf. nn. 676-77), was combated by Luther first with hesitation and then more and more decisively: in the 95 theses of 1517, by attacking indulgences and therefore the condition of the souls in purgatory, and by denying any spiritual relationship between them and the surviving faithful; in the Leipzig disputation of 1519 he rejected the biblical proof of purgatory, and in 1530 he definitively denied the dogma. Luther was followed by Calvin (Inst. relig. christ., I, IV, cap. 5, n. 6) and by the Anglicans (Confessio anglic., 39 art., a. 22).

6. Council of Trent

Catholic theologians reacted strongly with special treatises (Card. Cajetan, A. Catarino, S. Mazzolini, St. G. Fisher, G. Eck, A. Varani, V. Graccari), with public condemnations by the Universities (Louvain 1519, Paris 1521), until the Council of Trent issued (3-4 Dec. 1563) the celebrated Decretum de purgatorio (Denz-U, 983), where the Catholic doctrine is formulated in precise and sober terms and disciplinary norms of great importance are promulgated.

II. THE SORROWS OF PURGATORY

They consist in separation from God (poena damni, an expression perhaps to be eliminated, because it too much recalls hell) and, according to the common doctrine of Catholic theologians, in the sufferings caused by fire (poena sensus).

The greatest torment is separation from God. Souls separated from the body live a more intense spiritual life because they are now free from the weight of the flesh, which hinders and burdens the spirit: far from earthly illusions, from the tumult of the passions, from the dissipations of life, the souls of purgatory know the preciousness of the intuitive vision of God in a manner immensely superior to that of the purest souls of this earth, and concentrating their contemplation on the attributes of God they conceive an indescribable desire to see His essence, but the impetuous impulse is cut short by the narrow limit of the prison that confines them, by the threefold burden that weighs upon their spirits: the temporal punishment (due to forgiven grave sins), unremitted venial sins, and the evil inclinations contracted in earthly life. Forced to turn back upon themselves, they feel the emptiness of their being through the absence of Him who alone can fill it (cf. St. Catherine of Genoa, Tratt. del p., ed. by Valeriano da Finalmarina, Genoa 1929, p. 17). In this unsatisfied longing for happiness, the imprisoned souls enumerate with regret the earthly infidelities that cause them such anguish: they feel that they failed through their own fault to meet God; not having sought above all the Kingdom of God on earth, now, as exiles, they feel a piercing nostalgia for it.

Souls expiate the "relics of sin" (temporal punishments) not by imposing them upon themselves (satisfactio) but by accepting (satispassio) from God the sufferings of purgatory; this acceptance, being likewise passive and not meritorious, cannot be called totally involuntary, because a sacred ardor of penance pervades them all (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., Suppl., q. 70, a. 4; St. Catherine of Genoa, Tratt. del p., ch. 8, n. 4; ed. cit., p. 20). Venial sins not yet remitted quod culpam are forgiven, according to Scotus (IV Sent., d. 21, q. 1), at the moment of death by virtue of preceding merits; according to St. Thomas (De malo, q. 7, a. 11) through an act of perfect charity; according to Arriaga (Disput. theol., VIII, disp. 14, sect. 6) through the merits that can be acquired even in purgatory only in order to the remission of these sins (cf. C. Manzoni, De natura peccati deque eius remissione, S. Angelo di Lodi 1890, pp. 387-91).

The punishments of purgatory are certainly proportionate to the sins and imperfections of each person and are therefore different. Just as among the blessed it is impossible to find two whose earthly history was identical, so too in purgatory no two souls will be found who suffer the same punishment. Souls retain their unmistakable physiognomy more than their face (cf. L. Parè, Les mystères de l'au-delà. Que penser du purgatoire?, Paris 1936, pp. 100-101). About the duration of purgatory nothing is certain. Alexander VII condemned the following proposition: "Annuum legatum pro anima relictum non durat plus quam per decem annos" (Denz-U, 1143).

III. THE JOYS OF PURGATORY

Sorrow is compatible with joy. The repentant sinner experiences at one and the same time joy for the forgiveness obtained and sorrow for the offense done to God. The souls in p. must feel deep satisfaction in knowing that they are at last making reparation for the outrages committed against God; for the first time, perhaps, they feel that they can give to God what is God's, after having so many times given to the world what was not the world's. A particular relief is brought to them by the visit of the Angels, messengers of God and of Mary, solatium purgatorii. The guardian Angel cannot abandon, at the moment of trial, his protégé. This is a pious persuasion spread by St. Bernardino of Siena, by Fénelon, by Faber, and above all by Card. Newman (The Dream of Gerontius, final verses; Ital. trans., in C. Martindale, Lo spirito del card. Newman, Brescia 1931, pp. 196-97). It is a dogma of faith that the souls in p. are relieved by the suffrages of the faithful, above all by the Eucharistic Sacrifice (v. COMUNIONE DEI SANTI; CORPO MISTICO; INDULGENZE; MESSA). The souls do not let themselves be outdone in generosity and repay by imploring graces and blessings for us (cf. Julian of Toledo, Prognosticon futuri saeculi, I, II, ch. 26; PL 96, 488; F. Suárez, De purgatorio, disp. 47, 2; A. Minon, Peut-on prier les âmes du purgatoire?, in Rev. eccl. de Liège, 35 [1948], p. 329 ff.). P., a mystery of justice and of love, makes the attributes of God shine forth.

Antonio Piolanti

IV. ICONOGRAPHY

A precise iconography of purgatory did not develop or establish itself over the course of the history of Christian art. There nevertheless exist various late-Gothic representations, in which souls are seen subjected to torments and tortures of the kind found in representations of hell, but at the same time these souls are here seen still assisted by angels.

A good example of such a depiction of the suffering souls in purgatory is in a panel of the South German school, preserved in the National Museum of Munich; Italian art was late in depicting such a subject. But earlier it frequently provided figurative images of the help brought to the souls in purgatory by means of the Holy Mass and prayers.

Thus the visions of certain saints are illustrated, for example, those of St. Gregory the Great and of St. Bernard. Among these depictions, see the antependium carved in marble with Stories of St. Gregory the Great in the church of S. Gregorio al Celio in Rome, an exquisite work by Luigi Capponi, datable to the last years of the 15th century, and a 19th-century altarpiece of the church of S. Maria Scala Coeli in the abbey of the Tre Fontane in Rome, depicting St. Bernard celebrating Mass and seeing a ladder on which those souls for whom he prays in the Divine Office ascend from purgatory to heaven. Purgatory is also often depicted in paintings commemorating the Sabbatine privilege: see, for example, the painting by Tintoretto in Parma (Pinacoteca) and the canvases by Tiepolo at the Scuola dei Carmini in Venice (1744).

Singular is a 14th-century fresco in the church of S. Maria del Piano at Loreto Aprutino depicting the Last Judgment. In a detail of this painting is represented the passage of souls over the bridge of purgatory, according to the vision of the Cassinese monk Alberic, who lived in the first half of the 12th century (cf. ch. 17 of the Epistola, ed. M. Inguanez, in Miscellanea Cassinese, 11, Montecassino 1932, p. 93; see also: A. Mirra, La visione di Alberico, ibid., pp. 33, 79).

Witold Wehr