Purgatory

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Drawing of St. Patrick's purgatory from 1419

Purgatory is a passing intermediate state after physical death for purifying or purging a soul, often viewed as location between the joys of Heaven and the torments of Hell. A common analogy is dross being removed from gold in a furnace.

In Catholic doctrine, purgatory refers to the final cleansing of those who died in the State of Grace, and leaves in them only "the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven." It is entirely different from the punishment of the damned and is not related to the forgiveness of sins for salvation.

The word "purgatory" has come to refer to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation. English-speakers also use the word analogously to mean any place or condition of suffering or torment, especially one that is temporary.

Etymology

The noun "Purgatory" comes from the Latin purgatorium, meaning a place of cleansing, from the verb purgo ("to clean, cleanse"). It was borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French, appearing only between 1160 and 1180.

Its original usage encouraged speaking of Purgatory as a place rather than a spiritual state of the afterlife.

Pre-Christian usage

Purgatory pre-dates the specific Catholic tradition of purgatory as a transitional state or condition; it has a history that dates back before Jesus Christ, to related beliefs also in Judaism, that prayer for the dead contributes to their afterlife purification. Rabbinical Judaism believes in the possibility of after-death purification and may even use the word "purgatory" to describe the similar rabbinical concept of Gehenna, though Gehenna is also sometimes described as more similar to Hell or Hades.

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.

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."

Christian usage

The Catholic church found specific Old Testament support in after-life purification in 2 Maccabees 12:42–45, 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 Church of England, mother church of the Anglican Communion, officially denounces what it calls "the Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory," but the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodox Churches hold that for some there is cleansing after death and pray for the dead, knowing it to be efficacious.

In general, Protestant churches reject the Catholic doctrine of purgatory although some teach the existence of an intermediate state, which is termed Hades. 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.

Catholic teachings

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.

Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have written that the term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence. Catholic doctrine specifies the following teachings concerning purgatory:

Purgatory is the state of those who die in God's friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven.
Because of the communion of saints, the faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in purgatory by offering prayers in suffrage for them, especially the Eucharistic sacrifice. They also help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance.

Relation to sin

According to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, those who die in God's grace and friendship imperfectly purified, although they are assured of their eternal salvation, undergo a purification after death, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of God.

Unless "redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness", mortal sin, whose object is grave matter and is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent, "causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back."

Dante's Purgatorio

In his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri 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.