The Catholic doctrine of Purgatory has already been stated in the preceding chapter. It contains two truths so obvious that one wonders they should ever have been called into question. The first is that souls departing this life without any grievous sins, such as would exclude them forever from the Vision of God, may yet have lesser stains "upon them, or may still have to undergo punishment due to sins already forgiven them on earth. The second truth is equally plain, that since these stains were not cleansed away in this earthly life, they must be purged away in the next. The mere intervention of death cannot undo the fact of the existence of these unatoned transgressions, nor can it dispense with the exercise of the Divine justice which demands full punishment for them. If not rendered in this life, it must certainly be paid in the next.
That sins may be pardoned by Almighty God, and nevertheless a temporal punishment remain to be paid for them is plain from many passages of Holy Scripture. Even when Adam's personal sin had been forgiven the temporal punishment still remained to be paid. He was to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow until he should finally return into the dust from which he came. The passing want of implicit trust in the word of God was forgiven Moses, but he was still to suffer the ultimate penalty, which consisted in his exclusion from the land of promise. Perhaps the most striking instance is that of David pleading for the life of his child, whose death was Divinely decreed, and the decree Divinely executed by the sole Sovereign over life and death. Yet the sin of the King had been forgiven him, which had made men blaspheme the name of God. In all these cases the temporal punishment remained after the soul had been cleansed of its guilt.
It is clear, therefore, that the whole punishment is not always remitted with the guilt of sin. If death intervenes before this punishment is paid on earth, there must be a place or state where it can be paid hereafter in the case of those souls that die with no grievous, or "mortal" guilt upon them. That place or state the Church calls Purgatory.
So again there may be lesser sins, which the Church calls "venial." These, as we have said, may remain both unrepented and unforgiven. Yet how can the soul with the defilement of such stains upon it, and the punishment for them still due, be admitted into the sight of Him whose eyes, the prophet says, "are too pure to behold evil"? (Habakkuk 1:13) So here, too, we must acknowledge the need of a place or state in which these transgressions can be fully expiated. This, again, is Purgatory.
Purgatory, therefore, as Mallock rightly concluded is a truth we must absolutely accept if we would bring our belief in future rewards and punishments "into anything like accordance with our notions of what is just and reasonable." The soul with venial sins upon it, or satisfaction still due for perhaps forgiven mortal sins, has incurred a debt which must be paid even to the last farthing in another world. Death, in fact, may overtake it in the very moment when it is steeped in such indebtedness. The full payment of this is surely no slight matter if we remember that the account stand against Infinite Justice. God's mercy, it is true, may still intervene in so far as our prayers, alms-deeds, penances and Masses may be accepted for such a soul in lieu of partial or entire payment of these debts, or we may be able to draw by indulgences upon the spiritual treasures of the Church, i.e., the superabundant merits and satisfactions of Christ and of His Saints administered by her. To quote once more a non-Catholic authority. In the Christian Commonwealth, September, 1916, Stanley Russell thus stated his reason for believing in the existence of Purgatory:
Jesus referred to a prison from which there should be no exit until the "uttermost farthing" had been paid, but that very sentence postulates a release when the uttermost farthing has been paid.
"But," says someone again, "this is the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory." Oh, those labels! What care I whether it be Roman Catholic, Methodist or Unitarian, if only it helps me to live and gives me strength to die, and finds corroboration in my touch upon God, and my experience of life? What does it matter whence it comes? I got it from the stage of His Majesty's Theatre, and turned to my New Testament and my heart, and both assured me that it was true. No other consideration interests me.
This argument appealed no less strongly to the early Christians than to this scion of our own modern age. The fact is that even the most highly civilized pagan nations, Greeks, Romans and Indian savants clearly distinguished between temporal and eternal punishments. So the infinite justice and holiness of God are brought into accord with His infinite wisdom and love.
For further proof of the doctrine of Purgatory it will be well indeed to turn to the Sacred Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testament. From the former various passages 'are quoted by the Fathers, e.g., by Origen and Ambrose; as indicating the belief in Purgatory. But we naturally turn to the classic passage from the Second Book of Machabees. The inspiration of the Books of Machabees, defined by the Church, and always maintained from the beginning, need not be proved here. Prescinding from this entirely, the purely historic value of these books suffices to show that the practice of the Jews, both priests and people, was one with that of the Church today in praying for the dead. Describing the deeds of the valiant Judas Machabeus the sacred writer adds:
And making a gathering he sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection.
(For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead,)
And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness had great grace laid up for them.
It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins. (II Machabees 22:43-46)
From other sources, too, it can be shown that such was the belief of the Jews concerning the dead (e.g., Buxdorf, "Synagoga Judaica," c. 48). It is plain, therefore, that it was the faith of Judas Machabeus and of the Jews at large, approved by the sacred writer, that there could be punishment for sin in the next life from which relief and even release could be afforded by sacrifice and prayer. Such is the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. The canonicity of the Books of Machabees, always accepted in the Church, was denied by Protestantism merely to escape this text. Yet the historic facts remain untouched by this denial.
Various passages can be cited from the New Testament which should convince even the most skeptical: "Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him /'said Our Divine Lord, "but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come" Hence it follows that there must be sins which are forgiven in the next world. But they are not forgiven in Heaven, where nothing defiled can enter, as the Sacred Scripture tells us. Neither are they forgiven in Hell since Our Lord assures us that from this there is no redemption. Hence there must be a third state, which we call Purgatory. Here alone they can still be cleansed away. Such, moreover, was the interpretation given to this text by that great light of the Church, Saint Augustine, by Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Bernard, Saint Bede and others whose names need not be enumerated here. Equally familiar is the passage from Saint Paul:
For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus.
Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble:
Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is.
If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. (I Corinthians 3:ll-15)
The Apostle here insists that a solid edifice should be built by the preachers of the Gospel upon a good foundation, that is upon the doctrine of Christ. Vain and useless doctrines - wood, hay and stubble - are not to be mixed with this. In the test of fire the true foundation will remain, but whatever has through venial faults been mingled with it - such vanities as are described above and which are not mortal sins - will be burned away. The purification will be "so as by fire," and it will take place in connection with "the day of the Lord," the day of judgment. In various parts of this epistle, Saint Paul refers to this day, and in fact does so immediately before and after the passage quoted above (vv. 8 and 17.). Hence the explanation that there is reference here to the present world cannot hold. The conclusion that suffices for us is that Saint Paul clearly teaches that a soul may be saved, and yet suffer punishment after death. This is the plain Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.
The "fire" in the present instance, by which the purification is to take place, is by many taken only figuratively, since the entire passage is metaphorical. The point is that the soul which has been guilty of human vanities in setting forth the Gospel of Christ, will suffer loss, will endure punishment in the fire, and yet be finally saved, because it was not guilty of mortal transgressions. Its punishment must be referred to the particular judgment, since the Last Judgment will but confirm before all the world that first, particular judgment which is passed in the instant of death. On this first individual judgment the earliest Christian traditions are perfectly clear.
If, however, this passage is difficult for the reader it suffices to know that great minds like Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory saw in it a convincing proof of the existence of Purgatory, of a state where the dross of lesser sins - the hay and stubble of life - is burned away, and the soul is at last purified to enter into the presence of God.
That the doctrine of Purgatory was taught and understood in the Church from the earliest days is of course perfectly clear from the many references to it that have come down to us from the earliest centuries. Thus going back to the very cradle of our Faith, we find Tertullian, in his treatise De Monogamia, exhorting a widow "to pray for the soul of her husband." and "to make oblations for him on the anniversary of his demise," precisely as Catholics do today. Saint Cyprian (Epistle 52 to Antonin) and Saint Jerome (In c. v. Math.) both quote in proof of the existence of Purgatory the same passage from Saint Matthew (v:26) which we have seen was so convincing to Stanley Russel: "This is that which He saith," writes Saint Jerome, "Thou shalt not go out of prison till thou shalt pay even thy little sins."
Saint Augustine, writing his "City of God," was impressed strongly, as all must be, by that other passage from Saint Matthew (22:32) referring to those who shall be forgiven neither in this world, nor in the world to come: "Neither could it be truly said of some," he argues, "that they are neither forgiven in this life, nor in the life to come, unless there were some, who though they are not forgiven in this life, yet should be in the life to come."
Saint Cyprian makes allusion to the sacrifice of the Mass offered for the souls of the dead, precisely as any Bishop or priest might do today and calls attention to a refusal of the holy Mass to the souls of those who violate the law forbidding them to appoint a churchman as their executor. The preciousness of this holy Sacrifice, as offered for the dead, is equally insisted upon by Saint Chrysostom, who invokes Apostolic authority for this practice:
Not without reason was it ordained by the Apostles, that in celebrating the Sacred Mysteries the dead should be remembered; for they well knew what advantage would thence be derived. (Horn. 3 in Ep. ad Philip.)
We might continue to quote almost indefinitely from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and from the earliest Christian writers, to show how perfectly the first centuries of Catholicity were linked with our own present times in one clear understanding and one practical application of the doctrine of Purgatory. In the fourth century we hear a Council of the Church speaking of suffrages for the dead as we might speak today, and as Tertullian had spoken even centuries before. (Carth. II, can. 29.)
Further, all the ancient liturgies, even some in use among the early oriental sectaries, such as the Nestorians, contain prayers for the dead. The very oldest, that go back unquestionably to the Apostles themselves, contain without any exception prayers and remembrances for the departed. In the liturgy of Saint Tames we read: "May this oblation which the living offer for the dead, expiate the soul's iniquity, and may its trangressions be remitted." ("Kirchenlexicon" article "Fegfeuer.")
There is consequently no confusion or doubt in this teaching. The passages quoted to prove an apparent contradiction deal merely with the uncertainties regarding the precise nature of the punishments of Purgatory, their place and duration. On these subjects no authoritative doctrine has been handed down to us that is of faith. But of one thing there can be no doubt, and that is that the first Christians distinguished as clearly as we between Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. As a final example it will suffice to quote here from one of the very earliest writers of the Church. In reference to the Pauline text which we have already discussed at considerable length, Origen says:
For if on the foundation of Christ you have built not only gold and silver and precious stones, but also wood and hay and stubble, what do you expect when the soul shall be separated from the body? Would you enter into Heaven with your wood and hay and stubble and thus defile the Kingdom of God; or on account of these hindrances would you remain without and receive no reward for your gold and silver and precious stones? Neither is this just. It remains then that you be committed to the fire which will burn the light materials; for our God to those who can comprehend heavenly things is called a cleansing fire. But this fire consumes not the creature, but what the creature has himself built, wood and hay and stubble. It is manifest that the fire destroys the wood of our transgressions, and then returns to us the reward of our good works. (P.G., XIII, col. 445, 488, quoted in "The Catholic Encyclopedia.")
There could be no clearer statement of the doctrine of Purgatory and the reason for it than is given in these lines, written at the very beginning of the Christian. Church. Here is the echo of them in our own day from the lips of a speaker who though himself without the Fold, could not but recognize the impregnable strength of the Catholic position, the Rev H. Page Dyer, whose, words merely repeat the argument of Origen:
The ancient belief of God's Church is one of holy common sense. Few souls are so pure that they are fit for Heaven, where nothing that is defiled may enter. And yet there are many millions of people who are too good to go to Hell. This vast body of immortal beings will at death go neither to Heaven nor to Hell, but to an intermediate state, a sort of vestibule to heaven, an ante-chamber, where their stains will be removed, and where a Divine process of purgation is mercifully provided by Almighty God.
These then are the reasons why Catholics believe in the Doctrine of Purgatory, which all must accept who would not deny the Church and the Scriptures; who would not gainsay the long traditions of the ancient Synagogue and of all the Christian centuries; who would not, in fine, reject the clear demands of morality, of "holy common sense," and of Divine Justice.
- taken from the book The Souls in Purgatory, by Father Joseph Husslein, S.J.