PURGATORIO

PURGATORY. – A state beyond death, 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, undergo purification before ascending to heaven.

OUTLINE: I. Existence of Purgatory – II. The Pains of Purgatory – III. The Joys of Purgatory – IV. Iconography.

I. EXISTENCE OF PURGATORY –

1. Holy Scripture

The Bible does not speak explicitly of Purgatory, but contains texts that suggest the idea. The concept of personal responsibility, which became ever clearer with the progress of Revelation, combined with the widespread notion in the Old Testament (cf. Wis 10:2; Num 20:12; 2 Kgs 13:13–14) that, even after sin has been forgiven, a temporal punishment remains to be endured, is an important premise for the doctrine of Purgatory. If to this explicit Old Testament conception we join the New Testament idea of personal participation in one’s own salvation, especially within the penitential economy, it is

“Son of man, men’s sins will be forgiven them, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.” From this final clause, St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei, 21, 24: PL 41, 739), St. Gregory the Great (Dialogues, 4, 39: PL 77, 396), and St. Bernard (Sermon 66 on the Song of Songs, no. 11: PL 182, 1100) deduced that for certain sins, less grave than blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, remission may also be obtained in the life to come; this interpretation cannot be dismissed, even though some moderns prefer to see in the emphatic phrase only the exclusion of any forgiveness for the sin against the Holy Spirit. 3) Of particular importance is the passage in 1 Cor 3:10–17: “For no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If the work that someone has built survives, that person will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss, but will be saved, yet so as through fire (αὐτὸς δὲ σωθήσεται, οὕτω δὲ ὡς διὰ πυρός).” St. Paul is speaking of the work of ministry by which the Church is built; upon the foundation of apostolic preaching, centered on the doctrine of Christ crucified, preachers must build with equally precious material. The Apostle, alluding to the use of gold, silver, and precious stones in the construction of temples and palaces, applies these names to true and profitable doctrines, while reserving the terms wood, hay, and straw for false, frivolous, and worldly doctrines unsuited to the spiritual edification of the faithful. The work of every preacher will be tested by fire (τὸ πῦρ αὐτὸ δοκιμάσει, V. 13) on the Day of the Lord (ἡ γὰρ ἡμέρα δηλώσει). St. Thomas Aquinas (In 1 Cor., cap. 3, lect. 2) interprets the fire in the broadest sense, as the whole complex of judgments and trials (metaphorical fire) to which Christ subjects the work of those who have labored in His Church, and thus holds that “the Day of the Lord” (ἡ ἡμέρα) refers to all the moments in which God manifests His judgment on the work of the builders of the Kingdom (the trials of this life, the particular judgment, the final judgment). In each of these moments, Providence reveals the value of works: those who have built with good material (gold, silver, precious stones) will see the solidity of their labor and receive a reward (beyond this life), while those who have built with bad material (wood, hay, stubble) will recognize the fragility of their work and suffer harm (i.e., punishment), yet be saved—not without pain and anguish, like one who flees through flames, experiencing terror and burns (cf. F. Zorell, πῦρ, in Lex. graecum N. T., Paris 1931). Within this perspective, the idea of Purgatory is implicitly present, for the trials to which the builders of the Kingdom are subjected cannot be regarded as merely earthly (the entire context concerns primarily the life to come), nor can they be confined to those of the final judgment, since at that time there will be only the elect or the damned, whereas the text speaks of a transitory suffering (a loss, ζημιωθεὶς) that will conclude with the definitive salvation of the one who has built on the true foundation but with worthless material. The concept of a trial beyond death, yet not eternal, corresponds to the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. This interpretation is substantially shared by numerous Catholic scholars (A. B. Allo, Première épître aux Corinthiens, Paris 1934, pp. 59–61; 66–67; F. Prat, La teologia di s. Paolo, I, trans. it., Turin 1936, pp. 88–91; A. Beel, Docetne Paulus dogma purgatorii in 1 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, arrives at the explicit formulation of the doctrine of Purgatory by moving along the triple path traced by Scripture (suffrages, purification, expiation). The “ecological” line, which takes its cue from the Maccabees text, has left a deep mark on Christian consciousness, so that East and West, from the earliest times to the present, have been remarkably united in affirming the value of prayers, good works, and above all the Eucharistic sacrifice for the faithful departed. From the hints in 2 Tim 1:18, the Martyrdom of Polycarp (18:2–3), and 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 at 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 Job’s expiatory sacrifice; In Acta hom., 21, 4; PG 60, 170: the memento for the dead is held to be of apostolic origin), St. Epiphanius (Hæres., 75, 8; PG 42, 513: Aero is declared a heretic for first denying 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 refrigerio anima tua*; *Deus refrigeret spiritum tuum*; *vos precor, o fratres, orare huc quando venitis*; *rogo vos omnes, qui legitis, orate pro me peccatore* (cf. H. Leclercq, *Purgatoire*, in DACL, XIV, cols. 1978-81; id., *Défunts*, ibid., IV, col. 427; PG 4, 213; id., *De l'Evangile*, in *Dictionnaire de Théologie*, 2nd ed., Paris, 1962, pp. 9-19), throughout the Latin Church the most explicit testimonies regarding the practice and theory of suffrages are to be found: Tertullian (*De corona*, 3; PL 2, 79; *De monogamia*, 10; PL 2, 942), St. Cyprian (*Ep. 1, 2*, ed. Hartel; CSEL, III, 11, 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 Pannachius in offering suffrages for the soul of his wife through good works (*Ep. 66, 5*; PL 22, 642). St. Augustine established definitive formulas for Christian doctrine on suffrages. Explicitly referring to the text of Maccabees (*De cura gerenda pro mortuis*, 3; PL 40, 593) and the constant practice of the Church (*Sermo 182*, n. 2; PL 38, 936), he rejected the error of Aero (*De haeres.*, 153; PL 42, 593) and defended the efficacy of sacrifice, prayers, and alms for those souls of the dead who, though imperfect, are not unworthy of them (*Euch.*, c. 110; PL 40, 283; cf. *De ocio Dulciti quaestionibus*, q. 3, n. 3; PL 40, 158); and with filial piety he prayed for his mother Monica (*Confessiones*, 9, 13; PL 32, 778).

The tendency toward purification (*purificatio ultraterrena*), linked to 1 Cor 3:10-17, reached its fullest development in the East, though it remained 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 modes of punishment for sinners in this life (for the correctible, the punishment is *falsa kala*, for the incorrigible it is *kala stikhos*; *Stromata*, IV, 24; PG 8, 1363) and in the next, where two fires will operate: one “devouring and consuming all things” (*το καταφάγον καὶ βάνουσιν*), the other “prudent, which penetrates the soul through the passing fire” (*το φρόνιμον*; *Stromata*, VII, 6; PG 9, 450). Origen is more explicit. The theory of apocatastasis (*v.*), while not encompassing the entirety of the Alexandrian master’s eschatological theology, is set aside in moments when, abandoning bold hypotheses and unbridled speculations, he recovers the soul of a believer and consistently draws a clear distinction between grave sins (*πρὸς θάνατον ἀμαρτία*) and imperfections (*ὅπως*; *In Lc. hom.*, 4; PG 13, 1236; *In Ierem. hom.*, 2; PG 13, 280) and, consequently, between the ultraterrene punishments of sinners “unto death” and those of the imperfect. Even the good, he affirms, are imperfect, and thus all the just will be tested by fire, as alluded to in 1 Cor 3:13 (*In Ps. 36 hom.*, 3, 1; PG 12, 337); this trial is to be regarded as a *baptismus ignis*, which, by purifying the soul of the inevitable defects of earthly life, will render it worthy of heaven (*In Lc. hom.*, 24; PG 13, 1861-65; *In Num. hom.*, 25; PG 12, 769-70); this purification will be effected by 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), deemed imminent (*In Lc. hom.*, 24; PG 13, 1861-65); for the just it will be swift (*In Lc. hom.*, 24; PG 13, 1865), while for sinners “unto death” it will extend through the ages (*In Exod. hom.*, 6, n. 13; PG 12, 340; *In Lc. hom.*, 19, n. 3; PG 14, 551; *De principiis*, I, 2, c. 3, n. 3; PG 11, 183-84). Though in this perspective of a trial common to all the just (including the Apostles), to be verified at the imminent end of the world, Origen adopted questionable elements of the eschatology of his time, it must nonetheless be acknowledged that he was the first explicit proponent of the Catholic doctrine of purgatory (cf. Th. Sepiol, *La dottrina del p. in Clemente Alessandro e in Origene*, in *Bessarione*, 35 [1919], pp. 131-45).

This original teaching was perpetuated and refined in the theology of the Greek Fathers: St. Cyril of Jerusalem (*Catech.*, 15, 21; PG 33, 900: “river of fire”), St. Basil (*In Is.*, 9, 16; PG 30, 519: “it does not threaten to destroy him,” but rather alludes to purification as the Apostle says [1 Cor 3:13]; cf. *In Is.*, 4, 4; PG 30, 342; *De Spiritu Sancto*, 15, 38; PG 32, 132), St. Gregory Nazianzen (*Oratio*, 3, 7; PG 35, 524: “our deeds must be tested or purified by fire; ἦν ἦν καὶ περὶ κρίσεται τὰ ἡμέτερα ἢ καθαρίσματα”; cf. *Oratio*, 39, 19; PG 36, 357). Origen’s eschatological conceptions also strongly influenced St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, whose doctrine on the future life was not without imprecision; even regarding purgatory, the two Latin Fathers echo the teaching of the Alexandrian (*St. Ambrose, In Ps. 118, sermo 3, nn. 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), based on Matt 5:25-26, was widely developed in the Latin tradition, culminating in the explicit admission of a dark place (prison), where all the punishments due for sins are served (you will pay the last penny) and from which one can be released early with the help of the living. Tertullian, still steeped in the Jewish conception of the afterlife, holds that only martyrs ascend immediately to *paradise* (*Scorpiace*, 6; PL 2, 158; *De carnis resurrectione*, 43; PL 2, 903), while all other souls, good and bad, descend into the *8° 6°* (to *Hades*), awaiting the resurrection. Since the soul is capable of joy and suffering even when separated from the body, both the good and the bad, while awaiting the *8° 6°* (to *Hades*), already experience a foretaste of their eternal fate. Those destined for damnation will remain in that prison until the final resurrection, which will occur at the approach of the Last Judgment, after the thousand-year reign (*V. MILLENARISMO*), in which only the good will participate; they will thus enjoy an early resurrection. As for the good who still have debts to pay, they will remain in the *8° 6°* until the last penny is paid, and thus their glorious resurrection (a necessary condition for participating in the delights of the millennium) will be deferred (*a mora resurrectionis*, *De anima*, 58; PL 2, 796) by the measure of the punishments to be served. Perpetua the martyr recounts having had a vision of her brother Dinocrates, who died at the age of seven: “*exeuntem de loco tenebroso, aestuatum valde et sitientem, sordido cultu et colore pallido*” (*Passio sanctorum Perpetuae et Felicitatis*, c. 7, ed. C. Van Beek, Bonn 1938, p. 28). She therefore offered fervent prayers, and in another vision she saw him “*mundo corpore, bene vestitum, refrigerantem... ludere more infantium, gaudentem*” (ibid., c. 8, p. 30) and concluded: “*Tunc intellexi translatum eum esse de paena*” (ibid., p. 32).

St. Cyprian adopted Tertullian’s idea that only martyrs ascend immediately to the vision of God (*Ad Fortunatum de exhortatione martyrii*, praef. n. 4; PL 4, 683). He holds that all other just souls await the vision of God confined in a prison, where they serve their time “until the last penny” and are purified through painful trials and enduring fire (*Ep. 55 ad Antonianum*, n. 20; PL 3, 786).

The current of the “expiatory” doctrine continued (speaking of the “cathartic” theory of Origen) among St Ambrose and St Jerome, to meet and merge in the definitive synthesis of St Augustine. He provided decisive clarifications and explanations to the whole of Christian eschatology. Rejecting millenarianism (v.), he deduced that the punishments of purgatory would not consist in delaying the bodily resurrection for those souls still unworthy of sharing in the joys of Christ’s kingdom; by eliminating the theory of deferred reward and the consequent waiting for the final judgment, he asserted with unmistakable clarity that the purifying punishments must take place between the particular judgment (immediately after death) and the final judgment, after which there will be only hell and paradise (De civitate Dei, XXI, 13: PL 41, 728). Refuting the Christian hypothesis of the merciful, he definitively discarded the idea of the universal salvation of the baptised by 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 felicitous formulation of the doctrine, steering theological inquiry in the direction that the Church’s magisterium would later establish. 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, but through fire (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, sometimes 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 real fire: “Si hoc temporis intervallo spiritus defunctorum eiusmodi ignem dicuntur perpetui... non redarguo, quia forsitan verum est” (De civitate Dei, XXI, 26, n. 4: PL 41, 745).

3. Scholastic synthesis

St Augustine’s thought passed, as a now fixed 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 penalty of cold, show that at that time the real fire of purgatory was not considered an absolutely certain and common doctrine. In the 13th century the great scholastics, commenting on the text of Peter Lombard, constructed a more consistent synthesis: while debating certain secondary points (remissibility of venial sin, gravity and duration of the penalty, 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, the temporality of the penalty and were unanimous in considering 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 [“to deny the existence of purgatory is to deny the faith”], a. 2 [“nothing is expressly determined in Scripture regarding the place of purgatory”], a. 3 [“in purgatory there will be a twofold penalty, one of loss... the other of sense... and in both respects the penalty of purgatory exceeds the greatest penalty of this life”] etc.; in q. 71 an ample and profound treatment of the value of suffrages [cf. J. D. Folghera, J. Webert, St. Th. d’A., Somm. theol.: L’analyse, with notes and appendices, Paris 1935, pp. 303-17; 331-41]).

4. Controversy with the Greeks

While Latin theology, after St Augustine, reached its full development, Greek theology remained at the positions reached in the 4th and 5th centuries: hence one witnesses a process of crystallisation of the ancient doctrine (waiting of souls in their respective subterranean places, fire of judgment which will purify the souls destined for glory while tormenting the damned forever), to which Byzantine theologians from the 13th century onwards, in contact with the Roman Church, showed particular attachment.

At the end of 1231 George Bardanes, bishop of Corcyra, noting the different position of the Latins, affirmed the waiting of souls until the universal judgment, rejecting the fire of purgatory as a theory of original flavour (cf. mss. Barb. grec. 297 and Laur. grec. 36, n. 3). The Byzantine patriarch Germanus II, informed by Bardanes, wrote a treatise (now 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 double error was soon combated by the Dominicans of Pera.

St Thomas Aquinas had in mind the two errors attributed to the Greeks when, in the De rationibus fidei ad Cantorem Antiochenum, c. 9 (Opuscula theologica omnia, III, ed. P. Mandonnet, Paris 1927, pp. 274-76), he insisted on the immediate retribution of souls, or, in the Contra errores Graecorum (ibid., pp. 303 and 327), affirmed the efficacy of the Mass for the souls in purgatory. At the Second Council of Lyons (1274) the Byzantine emperor Michael Palaeologus 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) during the preparatory period of the Council of Union. In this profession of faith there is precisely an article concerning purgatory: “if it happens that any faithful truly penitent dies in the grace of God but before completing the penance (satisfaction) due for sins, his soul is perfected through purifying punishments (poenis purgatorii seu catharterii, sicut nobis frater Johannes [the Franciscan John of Balat, apostle of the union] explained to us, being purged after death).” After the Council of Lyons, Benedict XII (1341) and Clement VI (1351) rejected the denial of purgatory attributed to the Armenians (Denz-U 535 and 305), while Latin theologians polemicised with the opponents of the union.

(MATTEO KOICSTOR, ANGELO PANARETO, SIMONE OF THESSALONICA), who chiefly attacked the doctrine of purgatory (*purgatorium*, *p.*), as it had been taught by St Thomas Aquinas. Among 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 much-debated question of purgatory (especially of fire), in which the finest Eastern (Mark of Ephesus, Cardinal Bessarion) and Western minds (Cardinal Julian Cesarini, Cardinal John Turrecremata) engaged, concluded without any papal definition by Eugene IV regarding the nature of the fire, and with the Greeks’ acceptance of the fundamental elements of the dogma already formulated in the *professio fidei* of the Palaeologus, reproduced almost verbatim (with the word *cathartēris* suppressed) in the bull *Laetentur caeli* of 6 July 1439 (Denz-U, 693), with an important addition concerning the nature of *caelum*, to which the completely purified souls ascend forthwith (*mox*): «And to behold clearly the very God, Triune and One, as He is, though to each according to the diversity of merits more perfectly than another» (ibid.). With this aside, taken from the dogmatic bull *Benedictus Deus* of 29 January 1336 (Denz-U, 530) of Benedict XII, the Palamite conception of paradise (non-immediate vision of the divine essence) to which Mark of Ephesus inclined was rejected (cf. A. D’Ales, *La question du purgatoire au Conc. de Florence*, in *Gregorianum*, 3 [1922], pp. 8-50; A. Michel, *Purgatoire*, in DThC, XIII, cols. 1252-63; M. Gordillo, *Comp. theol. orient.*, Rome 1937, pp. 179-97). Thus at Florence, union was achieved on the essential points of the existence of purgatory and the value of suffrages (dogma defined), while the doctrine of fire was left as a *sententia*, which Latin theologians rightly consider founded in tradition (cf. above). The attitude of Eastern theologians after the Florentine Council is described in M. Jugie (*Purgatoire dans l’Église gréco-russe après le Concile de Florence*, in DThC, XIII, cols. 1326-52; id., *Theol. dogm. Christian. Orientalium*, IV, Paris 1931, pp. 362 ff.).

5. *Protestant Errors*. — The existence of purgatory, already denied by certain medieval sects (Apostolics [St Bernard, *Sermo 56 in Cant.* PL 183, 1098], Petrobusians, Waldensians), then implicitly by Wycliffe (Denz-U, 622) and Huss (ibid., 634; cf. nn. 676-77), was combated by Luther first with hesitation and then ever more decisively: in the 95 Theses of 1517, attacking indulgences and thus the condition of souls in purgatory and denying any spiritual relation between them and surviving faithful; in the Leipzig Disputation of 1519 he rejected the biblical proof for purgatory, and in 1530 he definitively denied the dogma. Luther was followed by Calvin (*Inst. relig. christ.*, I. IV, ch. 5, n. 6) and by Anglicans (*Confessio anglic.*, 39 arts., art. 22).

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

II. *The Punishments of Purgatory*. — These consist in the privation of God (poena damni, an expression perhaps to be avoided, since it too closely 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. The souls separated from the body live a more intense spiritual life, now freed from the weight of flesh, which dulls and burdens the spirit: far from earthly illusions, the tumult of passions, the dissipations of life, the souls in purgatory know the preciousness of the intuitive vision of God in a manner immeasurably superior to that of the purest souls on earth, and concentrating their contemplation on the attributes of God conceive an inexpressible desire to see His essence, but the impetuous impulse is checked by the narrow limit of the prison that confines them, by the triple burden that weighs upon their spirits: the temporal penalty (due to grave sins forgiven), venial sins not yet expiated. According to Scotus (IV *Serm. ad 2*, 21, q. 1), these are forgiven at the moment of death by virtue of previous merits; according to St Thomas (*De malo*, q. 7, a. 11) by an act of perfect charity; according to Arriaga (*Disput. theol.*, VIII, disp. 14, sect. 6) by merits that can be acquired even in purgatory solely for 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 proportioned to the sins and imperfections of each, and are therefore diverse. As among the blessed there cannot be found two whose earthly history was identical, so in purgatory there will not be found two souls that suffer the same penalty. The souls, more than their faces, retain their unmistakable features (cf. L. Paré, *Les mystères de l’au-delà. Que penser du purgatoire?*, Paris 1936, pp. 100-101). As to the duration of purgatory, nothing certain is known. Alexander VII condemned the following proposition: «An annual legacy left for a soul does not last more than ten years» (Denz-U, 1143).

III. *The Joys of Purgatory*. — Pain is compatible with joy. The repentant sinner experiences at the same time joy for the forgiveness obtained and sorrow for the offence given to God. The souls in purgatory must feel profound satisfaction in knowing that at last they are making amends for the outrages done to God; perhaps for the first time they feel able to give to God what is God’s, after having so often given to the world what was not the world’s. Further consolation is brought them by the visits of angels, messengers of God and of Mary, *solatium purgatorii*. The guardian angel cannot abandon his charge at the moment of trial. This is a pious persuasion spread by Bernardino of Siena, Fénelon, Faber, and especially by Cardinal 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 purgatory are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful, especially by the Eucharistic Sacrifice (cf. COMMUNION OF SAINTS; MYSTICAL BODY; INDULGENCES; MASS). The souls do not fail in generosity and repay us with prayers and blessings (cf. Julian of Toledo, *Prognosticon futuri saeculi*, I, II, ch. 26; PL 96, 485; F. Suárez, *De purgatorio*, disp. 47, 2; A. Minon, *Peut-on prier les âmes du purgatoire?*, in *Rev. eccl. de Liège*, 35 [1948], pp. 329 ff.). Purgatory, a mystery of justice and love, makes the attributes of God shine forth.

IV. Iconography

A precise iconography of purgatory has not developed or become established in the course of the history of Christian art. There exist, however, various late Gothic representations in which souls are seen undergoing torments and tortures similar to those depicted in representations of hell, yet at the same time these souls are here seen as assisted by angels.

A fine example of such a depiction of suffering souls in purgatory is found in a panel of Southern German school, preserved in the National Museum of Munich; Italian art made use of such a subject rather late. Before this, however, it frequently provided figurative images of the aid brought to the souls in purgatory through the Holy Mass and prayers.

Thus are illustrated the visions of certain saints, for example, those of St. Gregory the Great and St. Bernard. Among these representations may be seen the marble sculpted antependium with Stories of St. Gregory the Great in the church of S. Gregorio al Celio in Rome, a exquisite work by Luigi Capponi, datable to the last years of the 15th century, and an 19th-century altarpiece in 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 souls ascend from heaven, for whom he prays in the Divine Office. Purgatory is also often depicted in paintings recalling the Sabbatine privilege: see, for example, the painting by Tintoretto in Parma (Pinacoteca) and the canvases by Tiepolo in the Scuola dei Carmini in Venice (1744).

Notable is a 14th-century fresco in the church of S. Maria del Piano in 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).