purgatory

History of the belief

The noun purgatory (in Latin purgatorium, a place of cleansing, from the verb purgo, 'to clean, cleanse') appeared perhaps only between 1160 and 1180, which encouraged speaking of Purgatory as a place.

Purgatory pre-dates the specific Catholic tradition of purgatory as a transitional state or condition; it has a history that dates back before Christ, to related beliefs also in Judaism, that prayer for the dead contributes to their afterlife purification. The same practice appears in other traditions, such as the medieval Chinese Buddhist practice of making offerings on behalf of the dead, who are said to suffer numerous trials.

The Catholic Church found specific Old Testament support in after-life purification in 2 Maccabees, which is part of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Church of the East biblical canons, but regarded as apocryphal by Protestants and major branches of Judaism. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, praying for the dead was adopted by Christians from the beginning, a practice that presupposes that the dead are thereby assisted between death and their entry into their final abode. The New American Bible Revised Edition, authorized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, says in a note to the 2 Maccabees passage:

This is the earliest statement of the doctrine that prayers and sacrifices for the dead are efficacious [...] The author [...] uses the story to demonstrate belief in the resurrection of the just, and in the possibility of expiation for the sins of otherwise good people who have died. This belief is similar to, but not quite the same as, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.

Sacred Tradition, by reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of the process as involving a cleansing fire. According to Jacques Le Goff, in Western Europe toward the end of the twelfth century Purgatory started to be represented as a physical place, Le Goff states that the concept involves the idea of a purgatorial fire, which he suggests "is expiatory and purifying not punitive like hell fire".

At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, when the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on purgatory, the Eastern Orthodox Church did not adopt the doctrine. The council made no mention of purgatory as a third place or as containing fire, which are absent also in the declarations by the Councils of Florence (1431–1449) and of Trent (1545–1563). Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have written that the term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence.

Christianity

Some Christians, typically Roman Catholics, recognize the doctrine of Purgatory. The Eastern Orthodox are less likely to use the term, although they acknowledge an intermediate state after death and before final judgment, and consequentially offer prayers for the dead.

Protestants usually do not recognize Purgatory as such; following their doctrine of sola scriptura, they claim Jesus is not recorded mentioning or otherwise endorsing it, and the deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees is not accepted by Protestants as scripture.

Catholicism

The Catholic Church holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo a process of purification after death, which the church calls Purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".

Though in popular imagination Purgatory is pictured as a place rather than a process of purification, the idea of Purgatory as a physical place is not part of the church's doctrine. However, the church's understanding has typically been that Purgatory has a temporal (temporary, terminating, non-eternal) component with only God being outside of time. Fire, another important element of the Purgatory of popular imagination, is also absent in the Catholic Church's doctrine.

Purgatory and indulgences are defined (i.e. official Catholic) doctrines, unlike limbo. Catholicism bases its teaching also on the practice of praying for the dead, in use within the church ever since the church began, and mentioned in the deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees 12:46.

At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on Purgatory, in summary two points:

some saved souls need to be purified after death;

such souls benefit from the prayers and pious duties that the living do for them.

The council declared:

[I]f they die truly repentant in charity before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for (sins) committed and omitted, their souls are cleansed after death by purgatorical or purifying punishments [...] And to relieve punishments of this kind, the offerings of the living faithful are of advantage to these, namely, the sacrifices of Masses, prayers, alms, and other duties of piety, which have customarily been performed by the faithful for the other faithful according to the regulations of the Church.

A century and a half later, the Council of Florence repeated the same two points in practically the same words, again excluding certain elements of the purgatory of popular imagination, in particular fire and place, against which representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church spoke at the council.

Catherine of Genoa

On the cusp of the Reformation, Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) re-framed the theology of purgatory as voluntary, loving and even joyful:

As for paradise, God has placed no doors there. Whoever wishes to enter, does so. An all-merciful God stands there with His arms open, waiting to receive us into His glory. I also see, however, that the divine presence is so pure and light-filled – much more than we can imagine – that the soul that has but the slightest imperfection would rather throw itself into a thousand hells than appear thus before the divine presence.

Therefore, purgatory is a state of both joy and voluntary pain:

Again the soul perceives the grievousness of being held back from seeing the divine light; the soul's instinct too, being drawn by that uniting look, craves to be unhindered

Pope Benedict XVI recommended to theologians the presentation of purgatory by Catherine of Genoa, for whom purgatory is not an external but an inner fire:

In her day it was depicted mainly using images linked to space: a certain space was conceived of in which Purgatory was supposed to be located. Catherine, however, did not see purgatory as a scene in the bowels of the earth: for her it is not an exterior but rather an interior fire. This is purgatory: an inner fire.

He further said that:

'The soul', Catherine says, 'presents itself to God still bound to the desires and suffering that derive from sin and this makes it impossible for it to enjoy the beatific vision of God' [...] The soul is aware of the immense love and perfect justice of God and consequently suffers for having failed to respond in a correct and perfect way to this love; and love for God itself becomes a flame, love itself cleanses it from the residue of sin.

In his 2007 encyclical Spe salvi, Pope Benedict XVI, referring to the words of Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 3:12–15 about a fire that both burns and saves, spoke of the opinion that "the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away."

Duration

In his 2007 encyclical Spe salvi, Pope Benedict XVI teaches:

It is clear that we cannot calculate the 'duration' of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming 'moment' of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning – it is the heart's time, it is the time of 'passage' to communion with God in the Body of Christ."

Eastern Catholics

The popular conceptions of Purgatory that, especially in late medieval times, were common among Catholics of the Latin Church have not necessarily found acceptance in the Eastern Catholic Churches, of which there are 23 in full communion with the Pope. Some have explicitly rejected the notions of punishment by fire in a particular place that are prominent in the popular picture of Purgatory.

The representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church at the Council of Florence (1431–1449) argued against these notions, while declaring that they do hold that there is a cleansing after death of the souls of the saved and that these are assisted by the prayers of the living:

If souls depart from this life in faith and charity but marked with some defilements, whether unrepented minor ones or major ones repented of but without having yet borne the fruits of repentance, we believe that within reason they are purified of those faults, but not by some purifying fire and particular punishments in some place.

The definition of Purgatory adopted by that council excluded the two notions with which the Orthodox disagreed and mentioned only the two points that, they said, were part of their faith also. Accordingly, the agreement, known as the Union of Brest, that formalized the admission of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church into the full communion of the Roman Catholic Church stated: "We shall not debate about purgatory, but we entrust ourselves to the teaching of the Holy Church".

Popular notions of Purgatory

Some Catholic saints, theologians and laity have had ideas about purgatory beyond those adopted by the Catholic Church, reflecting or contributing to the popular image, which includes the notions of purification by actual fire, in a determined place and for a precise length of time.

In his La naissance du Purgatoire (The Birth of Purgatory), Jacques Le Goff attributes the origin of the idea of a third other-world domain, similar to heaven and hell, called Purgatory, to Paris intellectuals and Cistercian monks at some point in the last three decades of the twelfth century, possibly as early as 1170−1180. Previously, the Latin adjective purgatorius, as in purgatorius ignis ('cleansing fire') existed, but only then did the noun purgatorium appear, used as the name of a place called Purgatory. Robert Bellarmine also taught "that Purgatory, at least the ordinary place of expiation, is situated in the interior of the earth, that the souls in Purgatory and the reprobate are in the same subterranean space in the deep abyss which the Scripture calls Hell."

The change happened at about the same time as the composition of the book Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii, an account by an English Cistercian of a penitent knight's visit to the land of Purgatory reached through a cave in the island known as Station Island or St Patrick's Purgatory in the lake of Lough Derg, County Donegal, Ireland. Le Goff said this book "occupies an essential place in the history of Purgatory, in whose success it played an important, if not decisive, role".

One of the earliest depictions of St Patrick's Purgatory is a fresco in the Convent of San Francisco in Todi, Umbria, Italy. Whitewashed long ago, this fresco was only restored in 1976. The painter was likely Jacopo di Mino del Pellicciaio, and the date of the fresco is around 1345. Purgatory is shown as a rocky hill filled with separate openings into its hollow center. Above the mountain St Patrick introduces the prayers of the faithful that can help attenuate the sufferings of the souls undergoing purification. In each opening, sinners are tormented by demons and by fire. Each of the seven deadly sins – avarice, envy, sloth, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony – has its own region of purgatory and its own appropriate tortures.

Le Goff dedicates the final chapter of his book to the Purgatorio, the second canticle of the Divine Comedy, a poem by fourteenth-century Italian author Dante Alighieri. In an interview Le Goff declared: "Dante's Purgatorio represents the sublime conclusion of the slow development of Purgatory that took place in the course of the Middle Ages. The power of Dante's poetry made a decisive contribution to fixing in the public imagination this 'third place', whose birth was on the whole quite recent." Dante pictures Purgatory as an island at the antipodes of Jerusalem, pushed up, in an otherwise empty sea, by the displacement caused by the fall of Satan, which left him fixed at the central point of the globe of the Earth. The cone-shaped island has seven terraces on which souls are cleansed from the seven deadly sins or capital vices as they ascend. Additional spurs at the base hold those for whom beginning the ascent is delayed because in life they were excommunicates indolent or late repenters. At the summit is the Garden of Eden, from where the souls, cleansed of evil tendencies and made perfect, are taken to heaven.

Eastern Orthodoxy

While the Eastern Orthodox Church rejects the term Purgatory, it acknowledges an intermediate state after death and before final judgment, and offers prayer for the dead. According to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America:

The moral progress of the soul, either for better or for worse, ends at the very moment of the separation of the body and soul; at that very moment the definite destiny of the soul in the everlasting life is decided. ...There is no way of repentance, no way of escape, no reincarnation and no help from the outside world. Its place is decided forever by its Creator and judge. The Orthodox Church does not believe in Purgatory (a place of purging), that is the inter-mediate state after death in which the souls of the saved (those who have not received temporal punishment for their sins) are purified of all taint preparatory to entering into Heaven, where every soul is perfect and fit to see God. Also, the Orthodox Church does not believe in indulgences as remissions from purgatorial punishment. Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-corelated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church, and when they were enforced and applied they brought about evil practices at the expense of the prevailing Truths of the Church. If Almighty God in His merciful loving-kindness changes the dreadful situation of the sinner, it is unknown to the Church of Christ. The Church lived for fifteen hundred years without such a theory.

Eastern Orthodox teaching is that, while all undergo an individual judgment immediately after death, neither the just nor the wicked attain the final state of bliss or punishment before the Last Day, with some exceptions for righteous souls like the Theotokos (Blessed Virgin Mary), "who was borne by the angels directly to heaven."

The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that it is necessary to believe in this intermediate after-death state in which souls are perfected and brought to full divinization, a process of growth rather than of punishment, which some Orthodox have called purgatory. Eastern Orthodox theology does not generally describe the situation of the dead as involving suffering or fire, although it nevertheless describes it as a "direful condition". The souls of the righteous dead are in light and rest, with a foretaste of eternal happiness; but the souls of the wicked are in a state the reverse of this. Among the latter, such souls as have departed with faith but "without having had time to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance ... may be aided towards the attainment of a blessed resurrection [at the end of time] by prayers offered in their behalf, especially those offered in union with the oblation of the bloodless sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, and by works of mercy done in faith for their memory."

Protestantism

In general, Protestant churches reject the Catholic doctrine of purgatory although some teach the existence of an intermediate state, which is termed Hades. However, Protestant churches that affirm the existence of an intermediate state (Hades) reject the Roman Catholic view that it is a place of purgation. Affirming the existence of an intermediate state, adherents of certain Protestant denominations, such as those of the Lutheran Churches, say prayers for the dead.

Reformed Protestants, consistent with the views of John Calvin, hold that a person enters into the fullness of one's bliss or torment only after the resurrection of the body, and that the soul in that interim state is conscious and aware of the fate in store for it. Others, such as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, have held that souls in the intermediate state between death and resurrection are without consciousness, a state known as soul sleep.

The general Protestant view is that the biblical canon, from which Protestants exclude deuterocanonical books such as 2 Maccabees, contains no overt, explicit discussion of purgatory as taught in the Roman Catholic sense: commonly they believe that "unbiblical" beliefs should be rejected.

The reality of purgatorial purification is envisaged in Thomas Talbott's The Inescapable Love of God. Different views are expressed by different theologians in two different editions of Four Views of Hell.

The Lutheran Churches teach the existence of an intermediate state after the departure of the soul from the body, until the time of the Last Judgment. This intermediate state, known as Hades, is divided into two chambers: (1) Paradise for the righteous (2) Gehenna for the wicked. Unlike the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, the Lutheran doctrine of Hades is not a place of purgation.

Beside, the divine narrative informs us, that there is an impassable gulf, dividing Hades into two apartments. And so great is this chasm as to render it impossible to pass from one apartment to the other. And, therefore, as this rich man and Lazarus are not on the same side of the gulf, they are not in the same place. They are both in Hades, but not the same apartment of it. The apartment to which the rich man went, the Scriptures call Γέεννα hell; and that to which Lazarus went, they call PARADISE, Abraham's bosom, Paradise, heaven. And, therefore, inasmuch as all spirits, upon hearing their sentence, must pass away into one of these apartments, it is conclusive, that the good will go to where Lazarus and the dying thief are, with Jesus in ουρανός, heaven, which is in Hades; and the bad will go where the rich man is in Γέεννα, hell, also in Hades. So that the spirit, after its departure from the body, after hearing its doom, and upon the execution of the sentence, enters immediately into Hades, either to a state and place of suffering or of enjoyment. And here, in Hades, the righteous enjoy bliss, such as 'eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, not the heart of man conceived.' But the wicked experience miseries such as are represented by the gnawings of "the worm that never dies," and burnings of "the fire that is never quenched." But once more: the state of spirits in Hades, between death and judgment, is not one of probation, nor yet or purgation.

Latter Day Saint Movement

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, teaches of an intermediate place for spirits between their death and their bodily resurrection. This place, called "the spirit world," includes "paradise" for the righteous and "prison" for those who do not know God. Spirits in paradise serve as missionaries to the spirits in prison, who can still accept salvation. In this sense, spirit prison can be conceptualized as a type of Purgatory. In addition to hearing the message from the missionary spirits, the spirits in prison can also accept posthumous baptism and other posthumous ordinances performed by living church members in temples on Earth. This is frequently referred to as "baptism for the dead" and "temple work." Members of the church believe that during the three days following Christ's crucifixion, he organized spirits in paradise and commissioned them to preach to the spirits in prison.

Analogous concepts in other religions

Judaism

In Judaism, Gēʾ-Hīnnōm is a place of purification where, according to some traditions, most sinners spend up to a year before release.

The view of Purgatory can be found in the teaching of the Shammaites: "In the last judgment day there shall be three classes of souls: the righteous shall at once be written down for the life everlasting; the wicked, for Gehenna; but those whose virtues and sins counterbalance one another shall go down to Gehenna and float up and down until they rise purified; for of them it is said: 'I will bring the third part into the fire and refine them as silver is refined, and try them as gold is tried' [Zech. xiii. 9.]; also, 'He [the Lord] bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up again'" (I Sam. ii. 6). The Hillelites seem to have had no purgatory; for they said: "He who is 'plenteous in mercy' [Ex. xxxiv. 6.] inclines the balance toward mercy, and consequently the intermediates do not descend into Gehenna" (Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 3; R. H. 16b; Bacher, "Ag. Tan." i. 18). Still they also speak of an intermediate state.

Regarding the time which Purgatory lasts, the accepted opinion of R. Akiba is twelve months; according to R. Johanan b. Nuri, it is only forty-nine days. Both opinions are based upon Isa. lxvi. 23–24: "From one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship before Me, and they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched"; the former interpreting the words "from one new moon to another" to signify all the months of a year; the latter interpreting the words "from one Sabbath to another," in accordance with Lev. xxiii. 15–16, to signify seven weeks. During the twelve months, declares the baraita (Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 4–5; R. H. 16b), the souls of the wicked are judged, and after these twelve months are over they are consumed and transformed into ashes under the feet of the righteous (according to Mal. iii. 21 [A. V. iv. 3]), whereas the great seducers and blasphemers are to undergo eternal tortures in Gehenna without cessation (according to Isa. lxvi. 24).

The righteous, however, and, according to some, also the sinners among the people of Israel for whom Abraham intercedes because they bear the Abrahamic sign of the covenant are not harmed by the fire of Gehenna even when they are required to pass through the intermediate state of purgatory ('Er. 19b; Ḥag. 27a).

Mandaeism

In Mandaean cosmology, the soul must go through multiple maṭarta (i.e., purgatories, watch-stations, or toll-stations) after death before finally reaching the World of Light ("heaven").

The Mandaeans believe in purification of souls inside of Leviathan, whom they also call Ur.

Islam

Jahannam refers to both the entirety of hell, as well as to its upper most layer; Barzakh is the "intermediate" place the dead go before reckoning. al-A'raf also has similarities to purgatory or limbo. Jahannam has been conceptualized as a temporary place for Muslim sinners. Unlike the rest of hell, when the last Muslim sinner repented, Jahannam would cease to exist.

Some scholars asserted by referring to God's mercy (r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi) that hell will eventually end. This doctrine is referred to as fana' al-nar ('annihilation of fire'). However, this doctrine is not universally accepted in Islam and rejected by the majority.

Hinduism

While Hell in Hinduism is not typically considered to be a central feature of the religion, it does exist. Hell for Hindus involves the realm of naraka. Naraka is not a permanent place for the soul after death, but a realm related to "punishment for moral impure deeds." It functions more like a prison than the Hell of, for instance, traditional Christianity.

There are a few different views of naraka in Hinduism. One of these, discussed in the Mahābhārata, holds that one goes from naraka's punishment straight to heaven (svarga) in their next life, though this celestial realm is distinct from the ultimate form of salvation in Hinduism: spiritual liberation from the cycle of rebirth known as mokṣa. Another view is that after naraka, one would then proceed to be reborn as an animal and just continue the cycle of rebirth.

Zoroastrianism

According to Zoroastrian eschatology, the wicked will get purified in molten metal.