purgatory

purgatory. In W. Catholic theology, the state (or place) of punishment and purification where the souls of those who have died in a state of grace undergo such punishment as is still due to forgiven sins and, perhaps, expiate their unforgiven venial sins, before being admitted to the Beatific Vision. In that explicit form the doctrine was not found before the 12th cent., but elements of it are much older, especially the notion that not all souls are condemned to Hell or are worthy of Heaven at the moment of death, and that prayer for the dead (q.v.) is valuable. The E. Church came to admit of an intermediate state, but refrained from defining it.

Belief that sins might be purged in an afterlife, and that the process might be accelerated by prayer, is expressed in the ‘Passion of Sts Perpetua and Felicity’ (AD 203), and St Gregory the Great specifically taught that ‘light sins’ might be purged in purgatorial fire. Scriptural passages alluded to in support of this teaching include Mt. 12: 32, Jn. 14: 2, and 1 Cor. 3: 11–15. In the 12th cent. the elaboration of the theology of penance helped to fashion the idea of purgatory as a place where penances unfinished in this world could be completed. St Thomas Aquinas taught that in purgatory any unforgiven guilt (culpa) of venial sin is expiated and any punishment (poena) for sins, both venial and mortal, still remaining at death is borne; and that the smallest pain in purgatory is greater than the greatest on earth, but is relieved by the certitude of salvation which establishes the holy souls in deep peace. Moreover, they may be helped by the prayers of the living. The teaching of the W. Church was defined at the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439) in the hope of reconciling the Greeks, who objected to various aspects. It provided a context for the development of indulgences.

The Reformers' opposition to the Church's teaching on purgatory was usually couched in terms of allusions to its weak support in Scripture and rejection of the mercenary aspects of later medieval religion in which purgatory was implicated, together with the way in which it seemed to extend Papal power into the afterlife. M. Luther at one time denied the existence of purgatory, but later Lutheran Confessions do not reject all ideas of purification after death, however much they object to Papal claims to remit sins. The Council of Trent reaffirmed the teaching of the Councils of Lyons and Florence, but confined itself to asserting the principles of purification after death and the value of prayers for the faithful departed. In the C of E Art. 22 of the Thirty-Nine Articles condemns the ‘Romish’ doctrine of purgatory, but the existence of an intermediate state of purification and the value of prayers for the dead are accepted by many Anglicans and some modern Protestant theologians. Recent RC discussions of purgatory are characterized by restraint and leave open many questions, such as whether souls in purgatory can pray for the living.