“…as Purgatory, for instance, which Gregory was advocating with the aid of the most absurd fables.”
-J.H. Merle d’Aubigne, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, trans. Dr. H. White, Vol. V (Rapidan, VA: Harland Publications, 1846 edition), p. 683.
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According to Roman Catholic dogma, a Christian who dies in a state of grace (i.e. did not lose their salvation) will go to Heaven. However, all sins that that believer committed after baptism must be satisfied or else the believer will suffer temporary punishment:
“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent.”
-Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraphs 1030 and 1031
According to the Council of Trent, Purgatory is based on the writings of Scripture and the Church fathers:
“Since the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has, following the sacred writings and the ancient tradition of the Fathers, taught in sacred councils and very recently in this ecumenical council that there is a purgatory, and that the souls there detained are aided by the suffrages of the faithful and chiefly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar, the holy council commands the bishops that they strive diligently to the end that the sound doctrine of purgatory, transmitted by the Fathers and sacred councils, be believed and maintained by the faithful of Christ, and to be everywhere taught and preached.”
-The Council of
These beliefs are echoed by Roman Catholic apologists in our modern times who claim that purgatory can be supported by both the test of history and by Scripture. Is this true? This article will deal with the history and roots of Purgatory and prove that it was not a doctrine that was taught by the apostles but something that was injected into Christianity by pagan Greek philosophy.
A Little History
Roman Catholic apologists often imply that all the early church fathers believed in Purgatory which, if true, would most certainly be a great proof that their doctrine was taught by the apostles. Here is a quote from a Catholic apologetics website:
“The doctrine of purgatory, or the final purification, has been part of the true faith since before the time of Christ…Jews, Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox have always historically proclaimed the reality of the final purification. It was not until the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century that anyone denied this doctrine…purgatory has been part of the Christian faith from the very beginning.”
–Catholic Answers, “The Roots of Purgatory” (
http://www.catholic.com/library/Roots_of_Purgatory.asp
However, this statement is very misleading, and as we shall see, the roots of purgatory are not Hebrew but Greek, not Divine but pagan. Throughout this article, I will be using Jacques Le Goff’s The Birth of Purgatory as my resource. Although, to my best estimation, he is an unbeliever, I found the work to be very thorough and non-polemical. He is a careful historian whose work has been built off of the foundations of other careful historians. So, let us delve into the history of purgatory.
Individual Groups
The Jews
The claim that the Jews have always believed in purgatory or any sort of final purification is downright false. The practice of praying for the dead was not practiced by the Jews until the inter-testamental period:
“It then becomes clear that at the time of Judas Maccabeus-around 170 B.C., a surprisingly innovative period-prayer for the dead was not practiced, but that a century later it was practiced by certain Jews.”
-Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), p.45.
The origins of this belief may have been from the Hellenism that was brought to the region by the Greeks.
Eastern Orthodox
The claim that the Eastern Churches have always historically believed in a purifying afterlife is a bit misleading. Although it was in the Greek Churches that the idea that led to purgatory was invented, the Greek Church never accepted it (LeGoff, p.281). The Greek Christians considered it a ‘false doctrine’ and even ‘anathematized’ it (not officially though):
“George Bardanes begins by stating that the Franciscans “approve the false doctrine that there exists a purgatorial fire…to which souls are sent if they die after confession but before completing penance for their sins, where they are purified and delivered from punishment prior to the Last Judgment”…THE GREEKS: Look, we not only do not accept this, we anathematize it, as do the fathers in council. According to the words of the Lord, “You go astray, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” The Greek view is that the Latins, faced with the Scriptures, which do not mention Purgatory, can only cite visions of souls allegedly saved from torment in the hereafter. But, they add, “these facts, contained in dreams and reveries that people tell, are full of ravings and hence offer no certainty.”” (emphasis mine)
-Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp.281, 287.
The Greek Church believes that all Christians (in a ‘state of grace’) go to the bosom of Abraham at death (LeGoff, p.288), a view that was held by many of the early Church fathers as we shall see.
The Early Christian Church
The Apostolic Fathers
As William Webster has noted:
“In all the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, Irenaeus and Justin Martyr there is not the slightest allusion to the idea of purgatory.”
-William Webster, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1995), p.114.
One searches in vain to find references to the justified dead suffering in purifying flames. The only two places that are mentioned as places where the souls of the dead reside are heaven or hell (or lower Hades, the place where the damned reside before the Day of Judgment).
Prayers for the Dead and Tertullian
By the beginning of the third century, prayers for the dead were becoming popular, and the third century church father, Tertullian, is an example of this:
“As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offerings for the dead as birthday honours.”
-Tertullian, De Corona 3
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/anf03-10.htm#P1035_422175
Roman Catholic apologists use this belief to say that the early Christians were praying for their deceased brethren in order to get them out of purgatory. On the contrary, this is an uneducated assumption at best or deceptive at worst. The early Christians prayed for ‘refrigerium’, for greater joys in paradise (emphasis mine):
“Among later Christian writers refrigerium is used in a general way to denote the joys of the world beyond the grave, promised by God to the elect…Indeed, as we have seen, refrigerium denotes a quasi-paradisiacal state of happiness and not a place…Between Tertullian’s refrigerium interim and Purgatory there is a difference not only of kind-for Tertullian it is a matter of a restful wait until the Last Judgment, whereas with Purgatory it is a question of a trial that purifies because it is punitive and expiatory-but also of duration: souls remain in refrigerium until the resurrection but in Purgatory only as long as it takes to expiate their sins.”
-Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp.46-48.
In fact, as with most of the Christians of his day, Tertullian believed the souls of all dead Christians reside in the bosom of Abraham, also known as upper sheol (LeGoff, p.47).
Purgatory and History
(Part 1)