Roman Catholicism
Loraine Boettner
©1962
Part 10
PURGATORY
1.
Rome’s Teaching concerning Purgatory. 2. The
Terrifying Aspect of Purgatory.
3.
The Money Motive in the Doctrine of Purgatory.
4. Scripture Teaching. 5. History of the
Doctrine. 6. Conclusion.
1.
ROME’S TEACHING CONCERNING PURGATORY
The
Roman Catholic Church has developed a doctrine in which it is held that all
who die at peace with the church, but who are not perfect, must undergo penal
and purifying suffering in an intermediate realm known as purgatory. Only
those believers who have attained a state of Christian perfection go
immediately to heaven. All unbaptized adults and those who after baptism have
committed mortal sin go immediately to hell. The great mass of partially
sanctified Christians dying in fellowship with the church, but who
nevertheless are encumbered with some degree of sin, go to purgatory where,
for a longer or shorter time, they suffer until all sin is purged away, after
which they are translated to heaven.
The Roman
Catholic Church holds that baptism removes all previous guilt, both original
and actual, so that if a person were to die immediately after baptism he would
go directly to heaven. All other believers, except the Christian martyrs but
including even the highest clergy, must go to purgatory to pay the penalty for
sins committed after baptism. The sacrifices made by the martyrs, particularly
those that reflect honour upon the church, are considered adequate substitutes
for the purgatorial sufferings.
The doctrine of purgatory is not based on the Bible, but on a distinction
which Rome makes by dividing sin into two kinds. This distinction is clearly
set forth by Dr. Zacchello, who says:
‘According
to Roman teaching, a person can commit two kinds of sin against God: mortal
and venial. By mortal sin is meant a grave offence against the law of God
or of the church. It is called “mortal” because it kills the soul by depriving
it entirely of sanctifying grace. Venial sin is a small and pardonable offence
against God and the laws of the church. Then, this confusing and unscriptural
doctrine continues: Two kinds of punishment are due to mortal sin, eternal (in
hell forever), and temporal (in purgatory). Eternal punishment is cancelled by
the sacraments of baptism and penance, or by an act of perfect contrition with
promise of confession. Temporal punishment is not cancelled by these
sacraments, but by works of penance, by almsgiving, by paying the priest to
say mass, by indulgences, etc., which reduce the temporal punishment for
mortal sins that would have to be suffered in purgatory. Thus even if all
mortal sins of a Roman Catholic are forgiven in confession by a priest, and he
does not perform enough of these “good works”, he will go to purgatory and
remain there in torture until his soul is completely purified’ (Secrets of
Romanism, p. 101).
The
doctrine of purgatory rests on the assumption that while God forgives sin, His
justice nevertheless demands that the sinner must suffer the full punishment
due to him for his sin before he will be allowed to enter heaven. But such a
distinction is illogical even according to human reasoning. For it manifestly
would be unjust to forgive a criminal the guilt of his crime and still send
him to prison to suffer for it.
The Roman Catholic people are taught that the souls of their relatives and
friends in purgatory suffer great torment in the flames, that they are unable
to help themselves, that not even God can help them until His justice has been
satisfied, and that only their friends on earth can shorten or alleviate that
suffering. Purgatory is supposed to be under the special jurisdiction of the
pope, and it is his prerogative as the representative of Christ on earth to
grant indulgences (i.e., relief from suffering) as he sees fit. This power, it
is claimed, can be exercised directly by the pope to alleviate, shorten, or
terminate the sufferings, and within limits it is also exercised by the
priests as representatives of the pope. It is, of course, impossible but that
power of this kind should be abused even in the hands of the best of men.
Vested in the hands of ordinary men, as generally must be the case, or in the
hands of mercenary and wicked men as too often has happened, the abuses were
bound to be appalling. The evils that have flowed from this doctrine, and
which are its inevitable consequences, make it abundantly clear that it cannot
be of divine origin.
2. THE TERRIFYING ASPECT OF PURGATORY
Since
none but actual saints escape the pains of purgatory, this doctrine gives to
the death and funeral of the Roman Catholic a dreadful and repellent aspect.
Under the shadow of such a doctrine death is not, as in evangelical
Protestantism, the coming of Christ for His loved one, but the ushering of the
shrinking soul into a place of unspeakable torture. It is no wonder that
millions of people born in the Roman Catholic Church, knowing practically
nothing about the Bible but believing implicitly in the doctrines of their
church, should live and die in fear of death, in fear of spending an unknown
number of years in the pain and anguish of that place called purgatory. How
tragic that these people live in fear and servitude to the priests, who, they
are taught to believe, hold in their hands the power of life and death, when
all the time Christ has paid redemption’s price in full. Few, if any,
of them know that their own Roman Catholic Bible says: ‘Wherefore, because
children have blood and flesh in common, so he in like manner has shared in
these; that through death he might destroy him who had the empire of death,
that is, the devil; and might deliver them, who throughout their life were
kept in servitude by the fear of death’ (Heb. 2:14,15, Confraternity Version).
These words, ‘Kept in servitude by the fear of death,’ describe the spiritual
state even of devout Roman Catholics. All their lives they are kept in bondage
through fear of this imaginary purgatory.
The sufferings in purgatory are said to vary greatly in intensity and
duration, being proportioned to the guilt and impurity or impenitence of the
sufferers. They are described as being in some cases comparatively light and
mild, lasting perhaps only a few hours, while in others little if anything
short of the torments of hell itself, and lasting for thousands of years. They
differ from the pains of hell at least to this extent, that there is
eventually an end to the sufferings in purgatory, but not to those in hell.
They are in any event to end with the last judgment. Hence purgatory
eventually is to be emptied of all its victims.
As
regards the intensity of the suffering, Bellarmine, a noted Roman Catholic
theologian, says:
‘The pains of purgatory are very severe, surpassing anything endured in this
life.’
The Manual
of the Purgatorial Society, with the imprimatur of Cardinal Hayes, says:
‘According to the Holy Fathers of the Church, the fire of purgatory does not
differ from the fire of hell, except in point of duration. “It is the same
fire,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “that torments the reprobate in hell, and
the just in purgatory. The least pain in purgatory,” he says, “surpasses the
greatest suffering in this life.” Nothing but the eternal duration makes
the fire of hell more terrible than that of purgatory.’
And in
another book with the imprimatur of archbishop Speilman (now cardinal),
Bellarmine is quoted as saying:
‘There is
absolutely no doubt that the pains of purgatory in some cases endure for
entire centuries’ (John M. Haffert, Saturday in
Purgatory).
It seems
that the Church of Rome has rather wisely refrained from making any official
pronouncement concerning the nature and intensity of purgatorial suffering.
Books and discourses intended for Protestant readers or hearers speak of it
only in the mildest terms. But the Roman Church does not thereby escape
responsibility, for it has always allowed free circulation, with its expressed
or implied sanction, of books containing the most frightening descriptions,
ranging all the way from comparatively mild disciplinary measures to a burning
lake of billowing flames in which the souls of the impenitent are submerged.
Among their own people and in the hands of the priests the doctrine of
purgatory has been an instrument of terrifying power. We are reminded of the
remark of Charles Hodge in this connection: ‘The feet of the tiger with its
claws withdrawn are as soft as velvet; but when those claws are extended, they
are fearful instruments of laceration and death.’
Furthermore, as Dr. Augustus H. Strong has appropriately said:
‘Suffering
has in itself no reforming power. Unless accompanied by special renewing
influences of the Holy Spirit, it only hardens and embitters the soul. We have
no Scripture evidence that such influences of the Spirit are exerted after
death, upon the still impenitent; but abundant evidence, on the contrary, that
the moral condition in which death finds men is their condition forever. . . .
To the impenitent and rebellious sinner the motive must come, not from within,
but from without. Such motives God presents by His Spirit in this life; and
when this life ends and God’s Spirit is withdrawn, no motive to repentance
will be presented. The soul’s dislike for God (we may even say, the sinner’s
hatred for God) will issue only in complaint and resistance’ (Systematic
Theology, p. 1041).
We ask:
How can spirits suffer the pains of material fire in purgatory before they
have resurrection bodies? In answer to this question the Roman theologians
have invented a theory that in purgatory the soul takes on a different kind of
body—the nature of which they do not define—in which the suffering can be
felt. But that is like the doctrine of purgatory itself, a purely fictitious
assumption without any Scripture proof whatever, and in fact contrary to
Scripture.
Roman
Catholicism is often described as a religion of fear. The doctrine of
purgatory is where much of that fear centres—fear of the priest, fear of the
confessional, of the consequences of missing mass, of the discipline of
penance, of death, of purgatory, and of the righteous judgment of an angry
God. L. H. Lehmann tells us concerning his boyhood in Ireland:
‘A sense of
constant fear overshadowed everything. Ingrained fear is, in fact, the
predominant note running through the life of all children born and reared in
Catholic Ireland. Few ever get rid of it completely in after life, even in
America. That fear concerns everything in this life on earth, and still more
terrible is the fear of the terrors in the life beyond the grave’ (The Soul
of a Priest, p. 34).
3. THE MONEY MOTIVE IN THE DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY
It is
safe to say that no other doctrine of the Church of Rome, unless it be that of
auricular confession, has done so much to pervert the Gospel or to enslave the
people to the priesthood as has the doctrine of purgatory. A mere reference to
the days of Tetzel, Luther, and the Protestant Reformation, not to mention
present day conditions in the Roman Catholic countries in Southern Europe and
Latin America, where that church has had undisputed ecclesiastical control for
centuries, is sufficient to illustrate this point. Every year millions of
dollars are paid to obtain relief from this imagined suffering. No exact
figures are available. In contrast with the custom in Protestant churches, in
which itemized financial statements of income and expenditure are issued each
year, Roman Catholic finances are kept secret, no kind of budget or balance
sheet ever being published which would show where their money comes from, how
much it amounts to, how much is sent to Rome, how or where the remainder is
spent. In this as in other things, the people must trust their church
implicitly.
The
doctrine of purgatory has sometimes been referred to as ‘the gold mine of the
priesthood’ since it is such a lucrative source of income. The Roman Church
might well say, ‘By this craft we have our wealth.’
In
general it is held that the period of suffering in purgatory can be shortened
by gifts of money, prayers by the priest, and masses, which gifts, prayers,
and masses can be provided by the person before death or by relatives and
friends after death. The more satisfaction one makes while living, the less
remains to be atoned for in purgatory.
At the
time of death the priest is summoned to the bed of the dying person. He
administers extreme unction, and solemnly pronounces absolution. Yet after
death occurs money is extracted from the mourning relatives and friends to pay
for masses to be said in order to shorten the period of torment in purgatory.
The result, particularly among ignorant and uneducated people, has been that
the Roman Church sells salvation for money, not outwardly and directly, but
nevertheless in reality. All understand that the service of the church in
securing the salvation of a soul in purgatory is to be rewarded with
appropriate gifts or services. It has well been said that the Roman Church is
a huge money-gathering institution, and that everything in Rome has a price
tag on it.
It is due
in no small measure to this doctrine of purgatory that the Roman Catholic
Church has been able to amass large sums of money and to build magnificent
cathedrals, monasteries, and convents, even in regions where the people are
poor. This has been particularly true in the Latin American countries. It is a
common experience in Mexico, for instance, to find in almost every town an
impressive Roman Catholic church surrounded by the miserable huts of the
natives. The practical outworking of the system has been seen in several
countries, e.g., France, England, Italy, Austria, Mexico, and others, when a
disproportionately large amount of property fell into the hands of the Roman
Catholic Church, sometimes as much as a fourth or a third of all the property
of the nation, and had to be confiscated and redistributed by the government
in order to redress the economic situation. There is literally no limit to the
amount of property that the Roman Church seeks for itself if it is not
restrained. Those who contribute money for masses, particularly those who at
the urging of the priests leave substantial portions of their estates to the
Roman Church so that future masses can be said for them, are helping to keep
in being a lucrative and detestable system, which did not become a regular
practice in the church until centuries after the time of Christ and which is a
disgrace to Christianity.
At this
point another question arises. If the pope, or the priest acting for him,
really has the power to shorten or modify or terminate the suffering of souls
in purgatory, why does he not, if he is a good man, render that service freely
and willingly as a Christian service to humanity? In the hospitals the doctors
and nurses try in every possible way to relieve the pain and misery of those
who come to them. Why does the pope, or the priest, keep those poor souls
suffering horrible pain in the fire, if at any time he can pay all their debt
out of his rich treasury of the merits of the saints? Why? Has Romanism an
answer?
If any
one of us actually had the power to release souls from purgatory and refused
to exercise that power except in return for a payment of money, he would be
considered cruel and unchristian—which indeed he would be. By all Christian
standards that is a service that the church should render freely and willingly
to its people. No decent man would permit even a dog to suffer in the fire
until its owner paid him five dollars to take it out. The insistence on a
money transaction before a soul can be released, and sometimes money
transactions over long periods of time, shows clearly the sinister purpose for
which the doctrine of purgatory was invented. The plain fact is that if
purgatory were emptied and all its suffering souls admitted to heaven, there
would be little incentive left for the people to pay money to the priests.
The
doctrine of purgatory is a horribly cruel doctrine in that the priests, most
of whom are educated, intelligent men, know how flimsy or how utterly lacking
is all actual evidence for such a place. Under the pretence of delivering
souls from that suffering, large sums of money are wrung from the bereaved at
a time when hearts are sore and when they are least able to think logically
about such matters.
Says
Stephen L. Testa:
‘Purgatory
has been called a “a gigantic fraud,” and “a colossal racket,” for it deprives
the poor of their last pennies and extorts large funds from the rich in
exchange for nothing. During the Middle Ages the rich rivalled each
other in leaving their estates to the Church, and the poor gave out of their
poverty till the Church became the richest landowner in every country. In
several countries the Church owned one-half of the land and one-third of all
the invested funds. It built great cathedrals and bishops’ palaces and left
the poor to live in huts and shanties. You can see even today in Europe and in
Mexico great massive cathedrals surrounded by the hovels of the poor, who
grovel in misery, ignorance, and wretchedness.
‘But many
of those Catholic nations during the last century had their wars of
independence, beginning with the French Revolution, and the Church was
deprived of its temporal power and the landed properties were seized by the
State and partitioned among the poor farmers. In Italy this happened in 1870.
But Mussolini restored the temporal power of the pope (in name only) in 1929.
However, the church is not the rich land owner that it once was. The spirit of
liberty and democracy is fatal to the autocracy and totalitarianism of the
Roman Church’ (booklet, The Truth About Catholics, Protestants, and Jews,
p. 14).
And Dr. Robert Ketcham asks:
‘How do you
know, Mr. Priest, when to stop praying and taking money from your parishioners
for a given case? How do you know when John Murphy is out of purgatory? His
getting out is dependent upon the saying of masses paid for by his bereaved
ones. If you stop one or two masses too soon, what then? If you keep on saying
masses for the fellow after he is out, that is bad. It is bad either way you
come at it. I ask seriously, Sir, Mr. Roman Catholic Priest, How do you know
when to stop saying masses for a given individual? Do you have some kind of a
connection with the unseen world?’ (book let, Let Rome Speak for Herself,
p. 20).
The fact
is that Roman Catholic priests admit that they have no way of knowing when a
soul is released from purgatory. One former layman of that church, writing on
this subject, says that it was the priests’ abuse of this doctrine that
finally turned him against Roman Catholicism. He tells of an incident that
occurred forty-five years after the death of a man in his congregation, when
the then officiating priest again asked the widow for money that he might say
mass for her husband. A succession of priests in turn had taken money from
that widow, always on the pretence of getting her husband out of purgatory.
But they had never gotten him out. And there, forty-five years later, they
were still extracting money on that fraudulent claim.
We assert
in the strongest terms that the practice of saying mass for souls in purgatory
is a gigantic hoax and fraud, a taking of money under false pretences, because
it purports to get people out of purgatory when actually no such place exists.
We would not trust a judge who manipulated the law to make himself rich, nor
would we trust a policeman who asked for a bribe. Why, then, should we trust a
priest who presents an interpretation, concerning the afterlife, which is not
only not in the Bible but which is contrary to the clear teaching of the
Bible? Such practice is fraudulent and is designed primarily for only one
purpose, that of keeping the people under the power of the priests and
controlling their lives and property as far as possible.
4. SCRIPTURE TEACHING
That the
doctrine of purgatory is unscriptural can be shown easily. The Bible says
nothing about any such place, and in fact the most devastating arguments
against purgatory come from those inspired pages. Christ made not even so much
as a passing allusion to purgatory. Instead He said: ‘He that heareth my word,
and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into
judgment, but hath passed out of death into life’ (John 5:24). Hence
eternal life is already possessed by the soul that believes on Christ and
there can be no possible condemnation of that soul. When Jesus said to the
penitent thief on the cross, ‘Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise’ (Luke
23:43), the clear inference was that at his death he would go immediately to
heaven. Christ’s words, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30), spoken at the
end of His suffering on the cross, mean that the work of redemption which He
came to perform has been accomplished, finished, not partially, but
completely. Furthermore, there is no transfer from one realm to another after
death. Those who go to the place of outer darkness cannot cross from that
sphere to the other: ‘Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that
they that would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may
cross over from thence to us’ (Luke 16 :26).
The
apostle John teaches the same: ‘The blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from
all sin. .. . If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1
John 1:7,9). Hence our sins, all of them, are forgiven through the
sacrifice of Christ, and none are left to be purged away by human merit. And
again: ‘And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead
who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest
from their labours; for their works follow with them’ (Rev. 14:13).
Paul’s
teaching on this subject is quite full. He anticipated no purgatory, but said
that to depart was to ‘be with Christ,’ and that it would be ‘very far better’
(Phil. 1:23). While we are ‘at home in the body,’ we are ‘absent from
the Lord’; but to be ‘absent from the body’ is to be ‘at home with the Lord’
(2 Cor. 5:8). To the Philippians he wrote: ‘For me to live is Christ, and to
die is gain’ (1:21). In answer to the question, ‘What must I do to be saved?’
he gives the straightforward and unqualified answer: ‘Believe on the Lord
Jesus, and thou shalt be saved’ (Acts 16:31)—no reference there to confession
to a priest, penance, purgatory, or any other thing such as a religion of
works attaches. Those who put their trust in Christ’s atoning death do not
come into judgment: ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are
in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 8:1).
Peter,
the alleged founder of Romanism, declared: ‘Christ also suffered for sins
once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God’ (1
Peter 3:18). Hence we cannot be made to suffer for that sin a second time. And
the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that God not only forgives, but
pledges Himself never to bring our sins to His remembrance: ‘And their sins
and their iniquities will I remember no more’ (10:17).
What a
contrast there is between these words of Scripture concerning the state of the
righteous immediately after death, and that teaching which would have us
believe that the sufferings of purgatory must be endured indefinitely, perhaps
even for years! The Roman Church knows to a certainty that this doctrine of
purgatory, which is of such great importance to it, is not in the Bible. And
that undoubtedly is one of the reasons why through the ages it has kept the
Bible from the people.
Purgatory
is, therefore, a travesty of the justice of God. God’s justice has been fully
satisfied once and for all by the sacrifice of Christ, and God cannot
exact double punishment, once from Christ, and again from those for whom He
died. Hence the redeemed soul goes not to any midway station between earth and
heaven, but directly to heaven; and the sacrifice on Calvary was sufficient to
‘purge’ all our sins without the need of any ‘purg’-atory.
A Roman
Catholic cannot approach his deathbed and the certain prospect of the dread
fires of purgatory with anything other than fear. For as far as he is true to
the doctrines of his church he can see only great fires beyond. It is
difficult to conceive of a belief so groundless and yet so frightening as that
of the doctrine of purgatory. But what a marvellous, glorious thing it is at
death to go straight to heaven! And what good news it is for Roman
Catholics when they learn that there is no such place as purgatory, no
suffering for the redeemed soul beyond the grave!
Where,
then, does Rome find her authority for the doctrine of purgatory? Four
Scripture verses are cited, but not one of them has any real bearing on the
subject. They are (Confraternity Version): ‘He will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit and with fire’ (the words of John the Baptist concerning Christ) (Matt.
3:11) ‘If his work burns, he will lose his reward, but himself will be
saved, yet so as through fire’ (1 Cor. 3:15); ‘And some, who are judged,
reprove; and others, save, snatching them from the fire’ (Jude 22-23);
and ‘Christ. . . (who) was brought to life in the spirit, in which also he
went and preached to those spirits that were in prison. These in times past
had been disobedient when the patience of God waited in the days of Noe while
the ark was building. In that ark a few, that is, eight souls were saved
through water’ (1 Peter 3:18-20).
None of
these verses mentions purgatory, nor gives any real ground for believing that
such a place exists. 1 Peter 3:18-20 at first seems somewhat plausible. But a
closer examination makes it clear that these verses simply tell us that the
Spirit through which Christ ‘was brought to life’ (in the resurrection), which
we believe refers to the Holy Spirit, was the same Spirit in which He preached
to the people in Noah’s day. The preaching referred to by Peter was long since
past. It occurred while the ark was in process of construction; and the tragic
thing about it is that only eight souls responded to that preaching. Those
eight, and only those, were saved through water. Those who refused the
testimony of the Spirit of Christ as He spoke through Noah were ‘those spirits
that were in prison’ (the American Standard Version translates more
accurately: ‘the spirits in prison’), that is, in the prison house of sin, or
in hell, at the time Peter wrote. And they still are imprisoned. These verses
are, in brief, a warning against disobedience to God and rejection of the
Gospel, but they have no bearing on the doctrine of purgatory. Thus the four
passages cited by Roman Catholics surely are a very slender cord on which to
hang so heavy a weight.
But Rome
bases her doctrine of purgatory primarily on a passage in 2 Maccabees, which
is a Jewish book written after the close of the Old Testament. It is an
apocryphal writing, and is not acknowledged by Protestants as having any
authority. In order to show how flimsy this evidence is we quote this passage
in full:
‘And the day following, Judas (Maccabeus) came with his company, to take
away the bodies of them that had been slain, and to bury them with their
kinsmen, in the sepulchres of their fathers. And they found under the coats
of the slain some of the donaries of the idols of Jamnia, which the law
forbiddeth to the Jews: so that all plainly saw, that for this cause they
were slain. Then they all blessed the just judgment of the Lord, who has
discovered the things that were hidden. And so betaking themselves to
prayers, they besought him, that the sin which had been committed might be
forgiven. But the most valiant Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves
from sin, forasmuch as they saw before their eyes what had happened, because
of the sins of those that were slain. And making a great gathering, he sent
twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for a 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’ (12 :39—45,
Douay Version).
But these
verses really do not teach the doctrine at all. Nowhere in this passage is
there any mention of fire in which souls are tormented. All that is mentioned
is prayers for the dead, from which the Roman Catholic theologians infer,
first, that such prayers are proper, and secondly, that such prayers can be
effective for the salvation of the dead. Furthermore, from the Roman Catholic
viewpoint, these verses prove too much, for they teach the possible salvation
of soldiers who had died in mortal sin, that of idolatry. And that contradicts
Roman Catholic doctrine, which is that those dying in mortal sin go straight
to hell and are permanently lost. They do not go to purgatory, where they can
be aided by the prayers of people still on earth. Surely one who had never
heard of purgatory would not learn about it from this passage. The word
‘purgatory’ is not found here. This, again, is a precarious passage on which
to build such an important doctrine.
5. HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE
The germ
of what afterward grew into the doctrine of purgatory is to be found in the
idea of a purification by fire after death among the ancients, long before the
time of Christ, particularly among the people of India and Persia. It was a
familiar idea to the Egyptian and later to the Greek and Roman mind. Plato
accepted the idea and gave expression to it in his philosophy. He taught that
perfect happiness after death was not possible until a man had made
satisfaction for his sins, and that if his sins were too great his sufferings
would have no end. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek
influence spread through all the countries of western Asia, including
Palestine. We have seen that it found expression in 2 Maccabees. The Rabbis
began to teach that by means of sin offerings children could alleviate the
sufferings of deceased parents. Later Jewish teachers divided the underworld
into two abodes—Paradise, a place of happiness, and Gehenna, a place of
torment.
We need
only read church history to discover how this doctrine developed by slow
processes into its present form. In the early Christian era, following the
Apostolic age, the writings of Marcion and the Shepherd of Hermas (second
century) set forth the first statement of a doctrine of purgatory, alleging
that Christ after His death on the cross went to the underworld and preached
to the spirits in prison (I Peter 3 : 19) and led them in triumph to heaven.
Prayers for the dead appear in the early Christian liturgies and imply the
doctrine, since they suggest that the state of the dead is not yet fixed.
Origen, the most learned of the early church fathers (died A.D. 254),
taught, first, that a purification by fire was to take place after the
resurrection, and second, a universal restoration, a purifying by fire at the
end of the world through which all men and angels were to be restored to
favour with God.
In the
writings of Augustine (died A.D. 430) the doctrine of purgatory was
first given definite form, although he himself expressed doubt about some
phases of it. It was, however, not until the sixth century that it received
formal shape at the hands of Gregory the Great, who held the papal office from
A.D. 590 to 604. Thereafter eschatology entered upon what we may term its
mythological phase, during the period of history known as the Dark Ages. The
invisible world was divided into heaven, hell, and purgatory, with the
imagination attempting to portray as vividly as possible the topography and
experiences of each region. The doctrine was proclaimed an article of faith in
1439, by the Council of Florence, and was later confirmed by the Council of
Trent, in 1548. But does any intelligent person believe that if such a place
as purgatory is described in the Bible it would have taken the church fathers
600 years to discover it, and another 1,000 years to confirm it? At any rate
the Protestant Reformation swept away those creations of terror and fancy, and
reverted to the Scriptural antithesis of heaven and hell. The Eastern Orthodox
Church incidentally, does not teach the doctrine of purgatory.
The
following paragraph by Dr. Charles Hodge shows the influence that this
doctrine had in the lives and thinking of all classes of people during the
Middle Ages:
‘It was
Gregory the Great who consolidated the vague and conflicting views circulating
through the church, and brought the doctrine into such a shape and into such
connection with the discipline of the church, as to render it the effective
engine of government and income, which it has ever since remained. From this
time onward through all the Middle Ages, purgatory became one of the
prominent and consistently reiterated topics of public discussion. It took
firm hold of the popular mind. The clergy from the highest to the lowest, and
the different orders of monks vied with each other in their zeal for its
inculcation, and in the marvels which they related of spiritual apparitions,
in support of the doctrine. They contended fiercely for the honour of superior
power of redeeming souls from purgatorial pains. The Franciscans claimed that
the head of their order descended annually into purgatory, and delivered all
the brotherhood who were detained there. The Carmelites asserted that the
Virgin Mary had promised that no one who died with the Carmelite scapulary
upon their shoulders, should ever be lost. The chisel and pencil of the artist
were employed in depicting the horrors of purgatory, as a means of impressing
the public mind. No class escaped the contagion of belief. The learned as well
as the ignorant, the high and the low, the soldier and the recluse, the
sceptic and the believer were alike enslaved. From this slavery, the Bible,
not the progress of science, has delivered all Protestants. . . . All
experience proves that infidelity is no protection against superstition. If
men will not believe the rational and true, they will believe the absurd and
the false’ (Systematic Theology, III, pp.
769—70).
Dr.
Harris says:
‘It is well
to remember that the doctrine of purgatory which rests like a heavy burden
upon the heart of every Roman Catholic was not taught by any of the early
church fathers and had a very slow growth until the fifth century. Its
beginnings in prayers for the dead and a difference in status between the
martyred dead and the ordinary Christian departed may be found as early as
A.D. 200 in Tertullian. Mention of the penal fires comes much later, and the
masses for the poor souls in purgatory still later. The doctrine of purgatory
is another one of those foreign growths that has fastened itself like a
malignant tumour upon the theology of the Roman Catholic Church’
(Fundamental Protestant Doctrines, V. p. 7).
And Alexander
Hislop, in his exhaustive study of the origin of Roman Catholic doctrines,
finds that the doctrine of purgatory was adopted from paganism—from
Babylonian, Greek, and Roman mythology:
‘In every
system except that of the Bible the doctrine of a purgatory after death, and
prayers for the dead, has always been found to occupy a place. Go wherever we
may, in ancient or modern times, we shall find that Paganism leaves hope after
death for sinners, who, at the time of their departure, were consciously unfit
for the abodes of the blest. For this purpose a middle state has been feigned,
in which, by means of purgatorial pains, guilt unremoved in time may in a
future world be purged away, and the soul be made meet for final beatitude. In
Greece the doctrine of a purgatory was inculcated by the very chief of the
philosophers (Plato). . . . In pagan Rome, purgatory was equally held up
before the minds of men.
‘In
Egypt, substantially the same doctrine of purgatory was inculcated. But when
once this doctrine of purgatory was admitted into the popular mind, then the
door was opened for all manner of priestly extortions. Prayers for the dead
ever go hand in hand with purgatory; but no prayers can be completely
efficacious without the interposition of the priests; and no priestly
functions can be rendered unless there be special pay for them.
Therefore, in every land we find the pagan priesthood “devouring widows’
houses,” and making merchandise of the tender feelings of sorrowing relatives,
sensitively alive to the immortal happiness of the beloved dead’ (The Two
Babylons, pp. 167—8).
6. CONCLUSION
As we
have indicated, there is surprisingly little revealed in Scripture concerning
the intermediate state. This has led some to resort to conjecture and
imagination in order to fill out the picture that revelation has given only in
the barest outline.
The Roman
Catholic theologian Newman cites the doctrine of purgatory as one of the
clearest instances of ‘development’ from a slight Scriptural germ. But in
reality it is an instance of the development from a germ of that which was
never in it to begin with—as if from a mustard seed one could derive an oak
tree.
In
defence of this doctrine Roman Catholics lay considerable stress upon the fact
that the custom of praying for the dead prevailed early and long in the
church. Such prayers, it is said, take for granted that the dead need our
prayers, and that they are not immediately in heaven. But the fact is that
prayer for the dead is merely another superstitious practice which is entirely
without Scriptural support. That was one of the early corruptions introduced
into the church from heathenism. It will not do to argue from one corruption
to support another.
One thing that has given the doctrine of purgatory a certain amount of
plausibility is the fact that we all are sinners and do not attain perfect
holiness in this life, while heaven is a place of perfect holiness where
nothing evil can enter. The question naturally arises, How is the soul
cleansed from the last remnants of sin before it enters heaven? Since this
deals with something that is outside the realm of our experience it might seem
reasonable to believe that there would be a place of further purification. In
this case the Bible is our only trustworthy source of information. But a
careful examination of all the passages relating to this subject shows that
there are only two abodes for the dead: a heaven for the saved, and a hell for
the lost. And in response to the question as to how the Christian is made
ready for heaven, the Bible teaches that perfect righteousness is not to be
had by any process at all, but only through faith in Christ (Gal. 2:16). We
are not justified by the works of the law. As expressed in the Westminster
standards: ‘The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in
holiness.’ And if it be doubted that holiness can be attained in a single
moment, let it be remembered that recovery from disease is ordinarily a
process, but that when Christ said, ‘I will; be thou made clean,’ even the
leper was cleansed in an instant (Matt. 8:3).
Belief
that a man can maintain contact with the dead, and that he can influence them
for good or bad, has been a common element in the pagan religions. When the
Israelites came into the land of Canaan, Moses strictly charged them that they
were not to follow the customs of the land in making gifts to or sacrificing
for the dead, nor were they to allow any marks to be made in their flesh to
appease or facilitate contact with the spirits of the dead. In Deuteronomy
26:13-14 we read: ‘And thou shalt say before Jehovah thy God, I have
put away the hallowed things (objects of heathen veneration and worship) out
of my house. . .. I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I put
away thereof, being unclean, nor given thereof for the dead.’ The Roman
practice of gifts for the dead and prayers to and for the dead (to Mary and
the saints and for deceased relatives and friends) is not far removed, if
indeed it is removed at all, from such customs.
Mr.
Norman Porter, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, tells of a conversation that
occurred during a visit to a Roman Catholic monastery in connection with a
course of instruction offered on Roman Catholic beliefs. ‘I asked the priest,
“Sir, when you die, where do you hope to go?” He replied, “I hope that when I
die I shall go at least to the lowest place in purgatory.” That was his hope.
I said, “Tell me, when the pope dies, where will he go?” He said, “He will be
just as I am. He hopes that he will go to purgatory.” I said, “The so-called
Vicar of Christ, the man who has claimed for himself the right to represent
Christ on earth is going to purgatory?” He said, “Yes.” I then said, “Sir,
when do you get out of purgatory? When will you be in heaven?” He answered, “I
don’t know.” So not even the Roman priests know when a soul escapes from this
mysterious place. What a message for a perishing world!’
Furthermore, the doctrine of purgatory represents God as a respecter of
persons, which the Bible says He is not. Because of money, a rich man can
leave more for prayers and masses and so pass through purgatory and into
heaven more speedily than many a poor man. But the Bible teaches that God’s
judgment is based on character alone, not on outward circumstances of wealth,
position, or special standing.
This
doctrine turns to commercial gain the sorrow of relatives and friends for
their departed loved ones, and prolongs indefinitely the hold of the priest
over the guilty fears and hopes of people which otherwise would end at death.
It is not difficult to imagine the anguish in the heart of a devout Roman
Catholic who accepts the teachings of his church and believes that his father
or mother, son or daughter, is suffering in the flames of purgatory. Millions
of people are steeped in that superstitious system, and those who sincerely
believe it will do almost anything to provide relief. It is not strange that
the Roman Church accumulates wealth.
What a
striking contrast there is between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic funeral!
For the Protestant, death is his promotion to the glory-land, his coronation.
He has gone to heaven to be with Christ who has preceded us to the Father’s
house. We gather not primarily to mourn a loss, but to celebrate a victory.
The Scriptures are read, and the words of Christ comfort our hearts: ‘Let not
your hearts be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s
house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to
prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come
again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be
also.’ We read, too, such words of Paul as these: ‘For me to live is Christ,
and to die is gain having the desire to depart, and be with Christ; for it is
very far better’; ‘. . . willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be
at home with the Lord.’ Christian hymns about heaven are sung, such as: ‘Safe
in the arms of Jesus’; ‘O think of the home over there’; ‘When we all get to
heaven’; ‘And I shall see Him face to face, and tell the story, “Saved by
grace”’; ‘Beyond the sunset’—hymns which speak of heaven as our home. Then
words of comfort and consolation are spoken to the bereaved family, words of
inspiration and warning to the congregation, urging them to accept Christ as
Saviour and to walk in His way as He is the way that leads to heaven.
But how
different is the Roman Catholic funeral! We quote the words of Stephen L.
Testa as he describes a funeral that he attended recently:
‘It was a
high requiem mass, with three priests officiating, all in black robes,
chanting a dirge of penitential psalms in Latin, in lugubrious tones which
heighten the wailing and crying of the bereaved family especially if they come
from Latin countries. The friends of the family read the prayer on the prayer
card given to them at the door by the undertaker, praying to Jesus to have
mercy on the soul of the deceased and release it soon from the “devouring
flames” (of purgatory) where it is supposed to be imprisoned. At one point
during the mass the priest will sprinkle the casket with holy water and
pronounce the “absolution of the dead,” and then he will fumigate it with
sweet-smelling burning incense, walking around the casket or catafalque,
mumbling Latin prayers.
‘No hymns
about heaven are sung. It is a fact that Catholic prayer books have no
songs about heaven.1 And no sermon or words of consolation are
spoken by the priest to the bereaved family, for the whole service is intended
to appease God, that He may have mercy on the soul of the deceased and deliver
him soon from the flames of purgatory. If any words are spoken in English it
is to induce the friends of the bereaved family to pay for more requiem masses
to be said in the future, . . . for the refreshment and repose of that soul in
purgatory.’
The strong public sentiment that is found everywhere against the obtaining of
money under false pretences should apply to the Roman Catholic priests who
extort money from deceived relatives for prayers and masses which they pretend
will better the condition of the dead. And the church that maintains this
species of dishonesty should be held in disrepute and contempt by all honest
people, regardless of denominational differences.
Our
conclusion, therefore, after an extensive survey of the doctrine of purgatory
is that it is not in the Bible, that it is a human invention, and that it is
contrary to what the Bible teaches. Redeemed souls are cleansed, not by the
fires of purgatory, but by the blood of Christ and in this present life; for
the Bible says, ‘The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin’
(1 John 1:7)—thereby eliminating once and for all any need for such a horrible
place as purgatory. We do not say that any person who believes in purgatory
cannot be a Christian. Experience shows that Christians as well as unbelievers
sometimes are very inconsistent; they may accept, without thinking it through,
a doctrine or theory that is contrary to what the Bible teaches and to what
their hearts know to be true. How thankful we should be that we are not under
the false teaching of a misguided church or priesthood that threatens us with
the torments of purgatory, but that instead we have the assurance that at
death we go immediately to heaven and enter into its joys!
FOOTNOTE
*
A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary (Th.B.,
1928; ThM., 1929), where he studied Systematic Theology under Dr. C. W. Hodge,
his books include: The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, Roman
Catholicism, Studies In Theology, Immortality, The Millennium and A
Harmony of the Gospels.
1
The new Catholic hymnal of 1965 includes Protestant hymns, even
‘Ein’ feste burg’.
