purgatoryPURGATORY
The concept of purgatory, an intermediate place between heaven and hell
and the death of a person and the final judgment, does not become firmly
established in Christianity until sometime between 1150–1200 CE.
Purgatory is a place for those Christians tainted by sin at the end of their
lives who are not yet worthy of heaven, and is thus related to ideas of indi-
vidual free will and responsibility along with a final judgment of the dead.
In Christianity, purgatory is related to notions of fire and purification.
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215) and Origen (d. 253/254), Greek
theologians, are the presumptive founders of purgatory. They borrow the
Hebrew Bible notion that fire is a divine instrument, use the New
Testament idea of baptism by fire, and the notion of a purification trial
after death from the letters of Paul. Clement distinguishes two types of
sinners: incorrigible ones and sinners who can be corrected. The latter
type of sinner can benefit from education, whereas the incorrigible need
punishment. In the afterlife, the incorrigible are consumed by a devour-
ing fire, whereas the correctable sinner encounters a fire that sanctifies
and does not consume. For the first time in Christian history, Origen
states that the soul can be purified in the other world after death, while
also making a distinction between mortal and venial sins.
The mature concept of purgatory is historically preceded by personal
visions and stories about spiritual journeys outside of the human body.
There are also tales of the dead being punished in purgatory, and asking
the living for help or warning them to mend their ways. The develop-
ment of the notion of purgatory manifests the influence of the twelfth-
century notion of justice, which implies that the inequalities and injustice
of the present life are supposed to be corrected in the next life. Another
influential factor in the evolution of purgatory is the distinction made by
Anselm (c. 1033–1109), Archbishop of Canterbury, between voluntary
sins that are subject to damnation and venial sins due to weakness of the
flesh. In short, the souls in purgatory are among the elect, and thus they
are ultimately destined to be saved. Moreover, a soul can be reprieved
from punishment by virtue of outside intervention and not its good con-
duct. By the end of the thirteenth century, purgatory is conceived as
a place and time: a place of limited duration and a time of sin and
purgation. The concept of purgatory is popularized by preaching friars,
and they evoke hope with their preaching.
The many fragmentary themes related to purgatory are woven together
by Dante (1265–1321) in his Divine Comedy, which is divided into three
books of thirty-three cantos each. The Trinitarian symbolism is obvious,