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12/12/2018 The Historical Roots of Purgatory Protestant Fundamentalist can’t seem to address the Catholic understanding of Purgatory.

https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-roots-of-purgatory

All Christians agree that we won’t be sinning in heaven.

Sin and final glorification are utterly incompatible.

Therefore, between the sinfulness of this life and the glories of heaven, we must be made pure.

Between death and glory there is a purification.



Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

"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.”
(CCC 1030–1).

The concept of an after-death purification from sin and the consequences of sin is also stated in the New Testament in passages such as.
1 Corinthians 3:11–15 and Matthew 5:25–26, Matthew 12:31–32.



The doctrine of purgatory, or the final purification,

Has been part of the true faith since before the time of Christ.

The Jews already believed it before the coming of the Messiah, as revealed in the Old Testament.
(2 Macc. 12:41–45)

As well as in other pre-Christian Jewish works, such as one which records that Adam will be in mourning "until the day of dispensing punishment in the last years, when I will turn his sorrow into joy.”
(The Life of Adam and Eve 46–7).

Orthodox Jews to this day believe in the final purification, and for eleven months after the death of a loved one,

They pray a prayer called the Mourner’s Kaddish for their loved one’s purification.



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.

As the quotes below from the early Church Fathers show,

Purgatory has been part of the Christian faith from the very beginning.

Some imagine that the Catholic Church has an elaborate doctrine of purgatory worked out, but there are only three essential components of the doctrine:

1. that a purification after death exists,

2. that it involves some kind of pain, and

3. that the purification can be assisted by the prayers and offerings by the living to God.

Other ideas, such that purgatory is a particular "place" in the afterlife or that it takes time to accomplish, are speculations rather than doctrines.
 

 
The Acts of Paul and Thecla

"And after the exhibition, Tryphaena again received her [Thecla].

For her daughter Falconilla had died, and said to her in a dream:

‘Mother, you shall have this stranger Thecla in my place, in order that she may pray concerning me, and that I may be transferred to the place of the righteous.’”

(Acts of Paul and Thecla [A.D. 160]).
 
 

Abercius

"The citizen of a prominent city, I erected this while I lived, that I might have a resting place for my body.

Abercius is my name, a disciple of the chaste Shepherd who feeds his sheep on the mountains and in the fields, who has great eyes surveying everywhere, who taught me the faithful writings of life.

Standing by, I, Abercius, ordered this to be inscribed:

Truly, I was in my seventy-second year.

May everyone who is in accord with this and who understands it pray for Abercius.”
(Epitaph of Abercius [A.D. 190]).
 
 

The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity

"That very night, this was shown to me in a vision:

I [Perpetua] saw Dinocrates going out from a gloomy place, where also there were several others, and he was parched and very thirsty, with a filthy countenance and pallid color, and the wound on his face which he had when he died.

This Dinocrates had been my brother after the flesh, seven years of age, who died miserably with disease. . . .

For him I had made my prayer, and between him and me there was a large interval, so that neither of us could approach to the other . . .

And [I] knew that my brother was in suffering.

But I trusted that my prayer would bring help to his suffering;

And I prayed for him every day until we passed over into the prison of the camp, for we were to fight in the camp-show. Then . . .

I made my prayer for my brother day and night, groaning and weeping that he might be granted to me.

Then, on the day on which we remained in fetters, this was shown to me: I saw that the place which I had formerly observed to be in gloom was now bright;

And Dinocrates, with a clean body well clad, was finding refreshment. . . .

[And] he went away from the water to play joyously, after the manner of children, and I awoke.

Then I understood that he was translated from the place of punishment.”
(The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity 2:3–4 [A.D. 202]).
 

 
Tertullian

"We offer sacrifices for the dead on their birthday anniversaries
[the date of death—birth into eternal life]"
(The Crown 3:3 [A.D. 211]).

"A woman, after the death of her husband . . . prays for his soul and asks that he may, while waiting, find rest;

And that he may share in the first resurrection.
And each year, on the anniversary of his death, she offers the sacrifice"
(Monogamy 10:1–2 [A.D. 216]).
 
 

Cyprian of Carthage

"The strength of the truly believing remains unshaken; and with those who fear and love God with their whole heart,

Their integrity continues steady and strong.

For to adulterers even a time of repentance is granted by us, and peace [i.e., reconciliation] is given.

Yet virginity is not therefore deficient in the Church, nor does the glorious design of continence languish through the sins of others.

The Church, crowned with so many virgins, flourishes; and chastity and modesty preserve the tenor of their glory.

Nor is the vigor of continence broken down because repentance and pardon are facilitated to the adulterer.

It is one thing to stand for pardon, another thing to attain to glory;

It is one thing, when cast into prison, not to go out thence until one has paid the uttermost farthing;

Another thing at once to receive the wages of faith and courage.

It is one thing, tortured by long suffering for sins, to be cleansed and long purged by fire;

Another to have purged all sins by suffering.

It is one thing, in fine, to be in suspense till the sentence of God at the day of judgment;

Another to be at once crowned by the Lord.”
(Letters 51[55]:20 [A.D. 253]).
 
 

Cyril of Jerusalem

"Then we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep:

First, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition;

Next, we make mention also of the holy fathers and bishops who have already fallen asleep, and, to put it simply, of all among us who have already fallen asleep.

For we believe that it will be of very great benefit to the souls of those for whom the petition is carried up.

While this holy and most solemn sacrifice is laid out.”
(Catechetical Lectures 23:5:9 [A.D. 350]).
 
 

Gregory of Nyssa

"If a man distinguish in himself what is peculiarly human from that which is irrational.

And if he be on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for himself, in this present life he will purify himself of any evil contracted, overcoming the irrational by reason.

If he has inclined to the irrational pressure of the passions, using for the passions the cooperating hide of things irrational, he may afterward in a quite different manner be very much interested in what is better.

When, after his departure out of the body, he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and vice and finds that he is not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of the filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire"
(Sermon on the Dead [A.D. 382]).