Purgatory. 110
absolution, by which the sinners by imposition of hands received lib.ty to communicate, and remission of sins. But at this day it is otherwise in the Church of Rome. Wherefore satisfaction, taken as the redemption of the temporal pain only, after the remission of the guilt of the sin, and following the absolution, was unknown to the fathers.
Purgatory 1. Tertullian, a Montanist, and Origen were the first that ever talked of purgatory in the church. And yet Origen will have purgatory to be in this life (in Levit., lib. 8, apud Cyrillum), and also to remain even after the resurrection (hom. 14, in Luc.). "In sum," says Tertullian
(de anima, cap. 55 and ultimo), "since we understand that prison that the gospel speaks of to be hell, and do interpret, that to pay the very last penny, every slender sin shall be there punished during the stay of the resurrection, none need to doubt that the soul shall pay anything in hell by the body also, after the fulfilling of the resurrection. This also the Comforter has often commended. If any man admit his speeches, by the acknowledging of his promised graces…." Roffensis against Luther, artic. 18, confesses that purgatory was long unknown, and lately known and received into the church; and so, after men began to be afraid of the fire of purgatory, in crept indulgences.
2. Afterwards the fathers fell to speak, both of the manner of the pain, and of purgatory itself, but not as of an article of faith, but only of a probable thing probably. "It is not incredible," says Augustine
(Enchirid., ca. 67 & 69), "that some such thing should be after this life, it may be demanded whether it be so or no, and it may either be known or unknown, that some of the faithful, as their love to
temporal things has been more or less, so are saved either sooner or later, by a certain purging fire." And (de civit. Dei, lib. 21, cap. 26):
"But whether it be there alone, or there and here, or here alone, that these parts of the worldly building, pardonable from damnation, shall find a burning fire of transitory tribulation, I do not dispute against it. It may be it is true." And (de fide & op., cap. 16): "Whether therefore some such judgments follow us in this life only, or after this life also, it does not (as I think) disagree from truth, if we understand this sentence in this manner." Jerome (in Isa., lib. 28, cap. ultimo, ad finem) would have such things left wholly unto the knowledge and judgment of God, and yet he says that he thinks that there is a moderate and gentle sentence of the Judge concerning the burning away of the sins of Christians. "Do you leave no punishment for the souls," says one in Boetius (in Prosp. 4, lib. de Consolat.
Philosophie), "when the bodies are dead?" "Yes, and that great," says another, "part whereof is exercised in penal bitterness, and part (I think) in purgatory clemency."
3. But contrariwise, the fathers do expressly raze the foundation of the popish purgatory. "There is no middle place," says Augustine (lib. de pec. mor. & rem., cap. 28), "that a man may be anywhere, but with the devil, who is not with Christ." And the author of Hypognost., lib.
5, says: "We acknowledge no third place at all." "When we once depart from hence," says Cyprian (tract. ad Demetr.), "there is no more place of penance, nor no more effect of satisfaction." "The guilt being taken away," says Tertullian (De Baptismo), "so is the punishment." "Sin is so utterly abolished in the remission," says
Chrysostom (De paenit. Ser. 3), "that no print of it is left remaining."
And (in Genes., hom. 5): "He that has not purged away his sins in this life, shall find no comfort in the life to come. This is the time of acting, and of wrestling, and striving; that is, for coronation and reward."
And hom. 69, ad pop. Ant.: "The just that depart hence, are altogether happy, for they are gone to Christ, they are with the King, and there most near Him, not by faith, but face to face." (Hom. 69, ad pop. Ant.) And again, hom. 16, in ep. ad Ro.: "Death severs not us from Christ but joins us unto that quiet which is with Him, and makes us partakers of that glory." (Hom. 16, in ep. ad Ro.) "Here only is the place for mercy;" says Bede, in Psal. 6, "after this world is place only for justice." (Bede, in Psal. 6) "After the departure of soul out of the body," says the author of the question in Justin, quest. 75,
"presently distinction is made of the good and the evil, and both are led by angels to the places provided for them; the souls of the good unto paradise, where they enjoy the blessed company of angels, and of their Savior, Christ." (Justin, quest. 75) "The saints in honor, they rest in glory, and their departure from hence is into perfection," says
Epiph., Haer. 78, sub finem. (Epiph., Haer. 78) "The preachers of the church," says Anselm, in 2 Cor. 5, "departing from their bodies, are not deferred from the enjoying of their heavenly country, by spacious delays, as the old fathers were, but instantly upon their leaving of the flesh, they do rest in heavenly faith." (Anselm, in 2 Cor. 5) "What is it to you," says Bernard, epist. 266, "and your earthly vestures, that being about to go to heaven, hast the robe of glory to put on instantly?" (Bernard, epist. 266) And Otho Frisingensis, in his
Chron., lib. 8, ca. 26, says that some affirm that there is a purgation place in hell, wherein the souls of those that are to be saved, are either punished with darkness only, or with the fire of expiation also.
(Otho Frisingensis, Chron., lib. 8, ca. 26) "If we look upon Him with a right faith, that for our sins hung upon a tree," says Lombard, Sen.
3, dist. 19, lit. A, "we are loosed from the bands of the devil, that is, from our sins; and we are so loosed, that He shall find nothing in us punishable after this life, because by that His death as the only true sacrifice, what fault soever we had in us whereby the devil might bind us to punishment, Christ so extinguished, that the devil cannot
prevail over us by tempting, no, not in this life." (Lombard, Sen. 3, dist. 19) 4. The ancient Greek and Latin fathers believed that the souls of the dead were kept all in one common receptacle out of heaven until the resurrection. So holds Lactantius, in his work de divino praemio, lib.
7, cap. 21. (Lactantius, de divino praemio, lib. 7, cap. 21) And Irenaeus, in fine, lib. 5. (Irenaeus, lib. 5) Tertullian likewise against Marcion, lib. 4, capit. 35, and in his book, de anima, cap. 55, where he says that every soul is sequestered in the lower places, until the judgment day. (Tertullian, adv. Marcionem lib. 4 cap. 35; de anima cap. 55) So holds Justin. (Justin) And even the canon of the mass, which prays for the region of light and peace unto all men. So that they admitted not this purgatory.
5. The fathers say that all sins, even mortal, are purged and remitted by this purgatory fire. So says Origen, in Jerome, hom. 13: "If our sin be mortal, we cannot be purged with nitre or borith (which is a kind of herb), but with the spirit of justice, the spirit of burning and punishment." (Origen in Jerome, hom. 13) And hom. 24, in Num., he says that all that we carry with us, is to be tried by fire or water.
(Origen, hom. 24 in Num.) "That prayer," says the book that is called Dionys. Hierar. Ecclesiast., page 3, cap. 7, "intreats God's clemency to pardon the dead for all sins committed through human infirmity."
(Dionys. Hierar. Ecclesiast., p. 3 cap. 7) "The offerings for the dead," says Theophyl., in Luc. 12, "are of no small value for those that died even in great sins." (Theophyl., in Luc. 12) "Some," says Bede, in Psal. 37, "commit greater venial sins, and some lesser, and therefore it is meet to have them put into the fire of purgatory, now in the space between this and the judgment." (Bede, in Psal. 37)
6. The fathers teach also that all are to be purged by fire, as well the saints of God, as the infidels. "All must come to the fire, all must come to this "Furnace," says Origen, in Exod., hom. 6. And, in Psal. 36, hom. 3 (as I think), "It is necessary for us all to come to that fire." "The sons of Levi," says Ambrose, in Psal. 36, "shall be purged with fire, and so Ezekiel likewise with fire, and Daniel also. But although these shall be tried by fire, yet they shall say, we have passed by fire and water."
And, in Psal. 118, oct. 20, "While we live here, let us keep our humility, that when any of us do come unto the judgment of God, and unto those fires which we are to pass through, He may say," besides a little before, "'It behooves all men to pass through these flames,' whether it be John the Evangelist or Peter."
7. The place wherein there is no water, which Zachariah speaks of, cap. 9, signifies the pains eternal, after Jerome, and the depth of human misery, after Augustine, de civit. Dei, lib. 18, cap. 35.
8. The fathers also speak very often of a purgatory in the last judgment, that is, of the pains which are to be suffered not immediately after death, but after the resurrection. For they affirm that all men except Christ are to be tried, and in some sort to be tried with the fire of burning in the day of judgment. "I think," says
Origen, in Luc., hom. 14, "that after the resurrection from the dead, we shall all need a purging, and purifying sacrament, for none can arise again without some stains." And this also he affirms in divers other places of his works, viz., in Psal. 36, hom. 3; in com. in epist. ad
Rom., lib. 8 in fine; in Jerome, hom. 13. And Lactantius, de divin. praem., lib. 7, cap. 21, says that there is a trial to be made by the fire, when God has judged all men. "Out of this which is already spoken," says Augustine, de civit. Dei, lib. 20, cap. 25, "we do plainly see that
there are some that in that judgment shall be punished with certain purging fires." "After the end of the world," says Ambrose, in Psal.,
118, Serm. 3, "this shall be the future baptism, when iniquity shall be burned away by the furnace, that the just may shine as the sun in the kingdom of God." Look also the other places of this father, viz., in Psal. 118, Sermon 20; in Psal. 36, ad verba, Framea peccatorum. As also Jerome upon Isaiah, in fine, and also upon Amos, cap. 3, who nevertheless upon the same later prophet, cap. 9, overthrows the same point of purgatory. Look also Hilary, in Psal. 118, upon the words Concupinit anima mea justitiam. And Basil, in Isa., cap. 4, upon the words Expurganit Jerusalem.
9. Although Gregory by his apparitions and visions do make for purgatory, yet in his dialogues (or rather some others), he speaks not confidently, as the papists do, but with a plain doubtfulness.
"Herein," says he, Dialog, lib. quarto, c. 58, "we must consider that it is a safer way for a man to do that good himself in his own life, which he hopes to obtain at others' hands after his death." And indeed,
Gregory in his unforged works, flatly overthrows purgatory. "Because we are redeemed by the grace of our Creator," says he, in Job, lib. 13, cap. 20, "we have this heavenly gift bestowed upon us, that when we leave our carnal habitation, immediately we are carried unto our heavenly rewards, because seeing that our Maker and Redeemer breaking up the gates of hell, took thence all the souls of the elect, surely He suffers not us to go thither from whence He brought all the rest in His descension."
10. That place of Paul which speaks of the trial by fire (1 Corinthians 3:13, 15), by the common consent of the ancient fathers, was never spoken nor intended of purgatory. For first of all, by the builders,
Augustine understands all Christians (Enchirid. 68). Others, the ministers and preachers of the gospel, as do Ambrose, Sedulius,