Purgatory: Doctrinal, Historical, and Poetical

by Mrs. J. Sadlier

PART III.

HISTORICAL

All the ages, every clime
Strike the silver harp of time,
Chant the endless, holy story,
Souls retained in Purgatory.
Freed by Mass and holy rite,
Requiem, dirge and wondrous might,
A prayer which hut and palace send,
Where king and serf, where lord and hireling blend.
The vast cathedral and the village shrine
Unite in mercy's choral strain divine.

HISTORICAL.

THE DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY, OR A MIDDLE STATE, AMONG THE PAGAN NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY.

BY THE REV. A. A LAMBING, A.M.

[This very interesting article was originally published in the "Ave
Maria.">[

The attentive student of the mythology of the nations of antiquity cannot fail to discover many vestiges of a primitive revelation of some of the principal truths of religion, although in the lapse of time they have been so distorted and mingled with fiction that it requires careful study to sift the few remaining grains of truth from the great mass of superstition and error in which they are all but lost. Among these truths may be reckoned monotheism, or the belief in, and the worship of, one only God, which the learned Jesuit, the Rev. Aug. Thebaud, in his "Gentilism," has proved to have been the primitive belief of all nations. It may not, however, be so generally known that the doctrine of Purgatory, or a future state of purification, was also held and taught in all the religious systems in the beginning. While a knowledge of this fact cannot add anything to the grounds of our faith as Catholics, it will not be wholly without interest, and it will, besides, better enable us to give a reason for the faith that is in us. It was left to Martin Luther to found an ephemeral religious system that should deny this dogma, founded no less on revelation than on right reason; but, then, logic has never been one of the strong points of Protestants.

Before turning my attention to the nations of the pagan world, I shall briefly give the Jewish belief on this point. It may not generally be known that the doctrine of a middle state is not explicitly proposed to the belief of the Jews in any of the writings of the Old Testament, although it was firmly held by the people. We depend for our knowledge of this fact mainly on the celebrated passage of the Second Book of Machabees (xii. 43-46). The occasion on which the doctrine was stated was this: Some of the soldiers of Judas Machabeus, the leader of the Jewish armies, fell in a certain battle; and when their fellow-soldiers came to bury them, they discovered secreted in the folds of their garments some parts of the spoils of one of the pagan shrines, which it was not permitted them to keep. After praying devoutly, the sacred writer goes on to say that Judas, "Making a gathering, sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifices to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection [for if he had not hoped that they who 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."

The Catholic doctrine is thus briefly laid down in the Catechism: "Purgatory is a place of punishment in the other life where some souls suffer for a time before they can go to heaven;" or, in the words of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, there is "the fire of Purgatory, in which the souls of just men are cleansed by a temporary punishment in order to be admitted into their eternal country, 'into which nothing defiled entereth.'"

How far the pagan notions of a middle state harmonize with the
Christian doctrine the reader will be able to determine as we proceed.

I must premise by stating that almost all, if not all, the forms of paganism were two-fold, containing a popular form of religion, believed and practiced by the mass of the people, and a more recondite form that was known only to the initiated, whether this was the priestly caste, as was generally the case, or whether they were designated by some other name. It should also be observed that the forms of religion were constantly undergoing changes of greater or less importance. Nor must we lose sight of the fact that different nations embodied the same idea under different terms. The conception of the phlegmatic Norseman would be different from that of the imaginative Oriental, and the language of the refined Greek would be far other than that of the rude American savage. But yet the same truth may be found to underlie all, the outward garb alone differing.

Turning first to Egypt, which is, rightly or wrongly, commonly considered the cradle of civilization, we may sum up its teaching with regard to the lot of the dead, and the middle state, in these interesting remarks of a learned author: "The continuance of the soul after its death, its judgment in another world, and its sentence according to its deserts, either to happiness or suffering, were undoubted parts both of the popular and of the more recondite religion. It was the universal belief that immediately after death the soul descended into a lower world, and was conducted to the Hall of Truth (or, 'of the Two Truths'), where it was judged in the presence of Osiris and the forty-two demons, the 'Lords of Truth' and judges of the dead. Anubis, 'the director of the weight,' brought forth a pair of scales, and, placing on one scale a figure or emblem of Truth, set on the other a vase containing the good actions of the deceased; Thoth standing by the while, with a tablet in his hand, whereon to record the result. According to the side on which the balance inclined, Osiris delivered the sentence. If the good deeds preponderated, the blessed soul was allowed to enter the 'boat of the sun,' and was conducted by good spirits to Aahlu (Elysium), to the 'pools of peace,' and the dwelling place of Osiris…. The good soul, having first been freed from its infirmities by passing through the basin of purgatorial fire, guarded by the four ape-faced genii, and then made the companion of Osiris three thousand years, returned from Amenti, re-entered its former body, rose from the dead, and lived once more a human life upon earth. This process was reiterated until a certain mystic cycle of years became complete, when finally the good and blessed attained the crowning joy of union with God, being absorbed into the Divine Essence, and thus attaining the true end and full perfection of their being." [1]

[Footnote 1: "History of Ancient Egypt," George Rawlinson, Vol. I., pp. 327-329.]

It may be remarked that all systems of religion which held the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, should be considered as believing in a middle state of purgation, since they maintained the necessity of the soul's further purification, after death, before it was permitted to enter into its final rest.

In the ever-varying phases through which Buddhism, the religion of all South-eastern Asia, has passed in its protracted existence, it is difficult to determine with any degree of certainty, precisely what its disciples hold; but the belief in metempsychosis, which is one of its fundamental doctrines, must permit us to range it on the side of those who hold to the idea of a middle state. Certain it is, they believe that the soul, by a series of new births, becomes, in process of time, better fitted for the final state in which it is destined for ever to remain. The same may be said of the religion of the great body of the Chinese; for, although they have their law-giver Confucius, their religion at present, as far as it merits the name, appears to be no more than a certain form of Buddhism.

Coming to the more western nations of Asia, we may remark that, as their religions were evidently a corruption of primitive revelation, less removed in point of time, they must, although they had already become idolatrous, have embodied the idea of a future state of purgation, notwithstanding that it is impossible to determine at this distant day, the exact nature of their doctrines. If, however, we turn from these to the doctrine of Zoroaster, our means of forming an opinion are more ample.

Zoroaster, or, more correctly, Zarathustra, the founder of the Persian religion, was born, according to some accounts, in the sixth century before our era, while others claim for him an antiquity dating at least from the thirteenth century before Christ. Be that as it may—and it does not concern us to inquire into it—this much is certain: he was a firm believer in a middle state, and he transmitted the same to his followers. But, going a step further than some, he taught that the souls undergoing purification are helped by the prayers of their friends upon earth. "The Zoroastrians," says Mr. Rawlinson, "were devout believers in the immortality of the soul and a conscious future existence. They taught that immediately after death the souls of men, both good and bad, proceeded together along an appointed path, to 'the bridge of the gatherer.' This was a narrow road conducting to heaven or paradise, over which the souls of the pious alone could pass, while the wicked fell from it into the gulf below, where they found themselves in the place of punishment. The good soul was assisted across the bridge by the Angel Serosh—'the happy, well-formed, swift, tall Serosh'—who met the weary wayfarer, and sustained his steps as he effected the difficult passage. The prayers of his friends in this world were of much avail to the deceased, and greatly helped him on his journey." [1]

[Footnote 1: "Ancient Monarchies." Vol. II, p 339.]

With regard to the opinions held by the Greeks,—and the same may, in general terms, be applied to the Romans, whose religious views coincided more or less closely with those of their more polished neighbors,—it is difficult to form a correct idea. Not that the classic writers and philosophers have permitted the subject to sink into oblivion,—on the contrary, they have treated it at considerable length, as all classic scholars well know,—but while, on the one hand, as I remarked above, there is a difference between the popular ideas and those of the learned, there is also here a great difference of opinion between the various schools of philosophy. Not only so, but it is difficult to determine how far the philosophers themselves were in earnest in the opinions they expressed; and how far, too, we understand them. The opinions of the people, and much more, those of the learned, vary with the principal periods of Grecian and Roman history. This much, however, may be safely held, that, while they drew their origin from Central or Western Asia, their religion must, in the beginning, have been that of the countries from which they came. But truth only is immutable; error is ever changing.

I shall not tax the patience of the reader by asking him to pass in review the more striking periods of the history of these famous nations, but shall content myself with giving the views of a celebrated writer on a part, at least, of the question. Speaking of the opinions held by the Greek philosophers regarding the future state of the soul, Dr. Dollinger says, "The old and universal tradition admitted, in general, that man continued to exist after death; but the Greeks of the Homeric age did not dream of a retribution appointed to all after death, or of purifying and penitential punishments. It is only some conspicuous offenders against the gods who, in Homer, are tormented in distant Erebus. In Hesiod, the earlier races of man continue to live on, sometimes as good demons, sometimes as souls of men in bliss, or as heroes; yet, though inculcating moral obligations, he does not point to a reward to be looked for beyond the grave, but only to the justice that dominates in this economy…. Plato expressly ascribes to the Orphic writers the dogma of the soul's finding herself in the body as in a sepulchre or prison, on the score of previously contracted guilt; a dogma indubitably ascending to a very high antiquity.

"… It is from this source that Pindar drew, who, of the old Greeks, generally has expressed notions the most precise and minutely distinct of trial and tribulation after death, and the circuits and lustrations of the soul. He assigns the island of the blest as for the everlasting enjoyment of those who, in a triple existence in the upper and lower world, have been able to keep their souls perfectly pure from all sin. On the other hand, the souls of sinners appear after death before the judgment seat of a judge of the nether world, by whom they are sentenced to a heavy doom, and are ceaselessly dragged the world over, suffering bloody torments. But as for those whom Persephone has released from the old guilt of sin, their souls she sends in the ninth year back again to the upper sun; of them are born mighty kings, and men of power and wisdom, who come to be styled saintly heroes by their posterity." And, again: "Plato was the first of the Greeks to throw himself, in all sincerity, and with the whole depth of his intellect, upon the solution of the great question of immortality…. He was, in truth, the prophet of the doctrine of immortality for his time, and for the Greek nation…. The metempsychosis which he taught under Orphic and Pythagorean inspiration is an essential ingredient of his theory of the world, and is, therefore, perpetually recurring in his more important works. He connects it with an idea sifted and taken from popular belief of a state of penance in Hades, though it can hardly be ascertained how large a portion of mystical ornament or poetical conjecture he throws into the particular delineation of 'the last things,' and of transmigration. He adopts ten grades of migration, each of a thousand years; so that the soul, in each migration, makes a selection of its life-destiny, and renews its penance ten times, until it is enabled to return to an incorporeal existence with God, and to the pure contemplation of Him and the ideal world. Philosophic souls only escape after a three-fold migration, in each of which they choose again their first mode of life. All other souls are judged in the nether world after their first life, and there do penance for their guilt in different quarters; the incurable only are thrust down forever into Tartarus. He attaches eternal punishment to certain particularly abominable sins, while such as have lived justly repose blissfully in the dwelling of a kindred star until their entrance into a second life. Plato was clearly acquainted with the fact of the necessity of an intermediate state between eternal happiness and misery, a state of penance and purification after death." [1]

[Footnote 1: "The Gentile and the Jew," Vol. I. pp. 301-320.]

The popular notion of Charon, the ferryman of the lower world, refusing to carry over the river Acheron the souls of such as had not been buried, but leaving them to wander on the shores for a century before he would consent, or rather before he was permitted by the rulers of the Hades to do so, contains a vestige of the belief in a middle state, where some souls had to suffer for a time before they could enter into the abode of the blest. But when it is said that the friends of the deceased could, by interring his remains, secure his entry into the desired repose, we see a more striking resemblance to the doctrine that friends on earth are able to assist the souls undergoing purgation. A remarkable instance of the popular belief in this doctrine is furnished in Grecian history, where the soldiers were encouraged on a certain occasion to risk their lives in the service of their country by their being told to write their names on their arms, so that if any fell his friends could have him properly interred, and thus secure him against all fear of having to wander for a century on the bleak shores of the dividing river. Nothing could better show the hold which this idea had on the minds of the people.

Roman mythological ideas were, as has been said, nearly related to those of Greece; they underwent as great modifications, while the opinions of her philosophers were equally abstruse, varied, and difficult to understand. The author above quoted, treating of the notion of the soul and a future state entertained by the Roman philosophers, proves their ideas to have been extremely vague and ill- defined. Still, there were not wanting those who held to the belief of an existence after this life. Plutarch, a Greek, "has left us a view of the state of the departed. The souls of the dead, ascending through the air, and in part reaching the highest heaven, are either luminous and transparent or dark and spotted, on account of sins adhering to them, and some have even scars upon them. The soul of man, he says elsewhere, comes from the moon; his mind, intellect,—from the sun; the separation of the two is only completely effected after death. The soul wanders awhile between the moon and earth for purposes of punishment—or, if it be good, of purification, until it rises to the moon, where the vouç [1] leaves it and returns to its home, the sun; while the soul is buried in the moon. Lucian, on the other hand, whose writings for the most part are a pretty faithful mirror of the notions in vogue among his contemporaries, bears testimony to a continuance of the old tradition of the good reaching the Elysian fields, and the great transgressors finding themselves given up to the Erinnys in a place of torment, where they are torn by vultures, crushed on the wheel, or otherwise tormented; while such as are neither great sinners nor distinguished by their virtues stray about in meadows as bodiless shadows, and are fed on the libations and mortuary sacrifices offered at their sepulchres. An obolus for Charon was still placed in the mouth of every dead body." [2] Here, again, we have both the belief in the existence of a middle state and of the assistance afforded to those detained there.

[Footnote 1: Mind]

[Footnote 2: "The Gentile and the Jew," Vol. II., p. 146.]

The religion of the Druids is so wrapped in mystery that it is difficult to determine what they believed on any point, and much more on that of the future lot of the soul; but as they held the doctrine of metempsychosis, it is fair to class them among the adherents to the notion of a period of purgation between death and the soul's entrance into its final rest. Of the views of the sturdy Norsemen, on the contrary, there can be no two opinions; in their mythology the idea of a middle state is expressed in the clearest language. The following passage from Mr. Anderson, places the matter beyond question. I may first remark, for the information of the general reader, that by Gimle is meant the abode of the righteous after the day of judgment; by Naastrand, the place of punishment after the same dread sentence; by Ragnarok, the last day; Valhal, the temporary place of happiness to which the god Odin invites those who have been slain in battle; and Hel, the goddess of death, whose abode is termed Helheim. With these explanations the reader will be able to understand the subjoined passage, which expresses the Norse idea of the future purgation of the soul.

After speaking of the lot of the departed, the writer says: "But it must be remembered that Gimle and Naastrand have reference to the state of things after Ragnarok, the Twilight of the gods; while Valhal and Hel have reference to the state of things between death and Ragnarok;— a time of existence corresponding somewhat to what is called Purgatory by the Catholic Church." [1]

[Footnote 1: "Norse Mythology," p. 393.]

It would appear to be no exaggeration to claim the same belief in a middle state for the American Indians, in as far as it is possible for us to draw anything definite from their crude notions of religion. A good authority on subjects connected with Indian customs and beliefs says: "The belief respecting the land of souls varied greatly in different tribes and different individuals." And, again: "An endless variety of incoherent fancies is connected with the Indian idea of a future life…. At intervals of ten or twelve years, the Hurons, the Neutrals, and other kindred tribes, were accustomed to collect the bones of their dead, and deposit them, with great ceremony, in a common place of burial. The whole nation was sometimes assembled at this solemnity; and hundreds of corpses, brought from their temporary resting-places, were inhumed in one common pit. From this hour the immortality of their souls began." This evidently implies a period during which the souls were wandering at a distance from the place of their eternal repose. Does the following passage throw any light upon it? The reader must decide the point for himself. "Most of the traditions," continues the same writer, "agree, however, that the spirits, on their journey heavenward, were beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage, and drove many into the abyss. This river was full of sturgeons and other fish, which the ghosts speared for their subsistence. Beyond was a narrow path between moving rocks which each instant crushed together, grinding to atoms the less nimble of the pilgrims who essayed to pass." [1] A vestige of the same belief seems to crop out in a custom of some of the tribes of Central Africa, as appears from the remarks of a recent traveller. "When a death occurs," says Major Serpa Pinto, "the body is shrouded in a white cloth, and, being covered with an ox-hide, is carried to the grave, dug in a place selected for the purpose. The days following on an interment are days of high festival in the hut of the deceased. The native kings are buried with some ceremony, and their bodies, being arrayed in their best clothes, are conveyed to the tomb in a dressed hide. There is a great feasting on these occasions, and an enormous sacrifice of cattle; for the heir of the deceased is bound to sacrifice his whole herd in order to regale his people, and give peace to the soul of the departed." [2]

[Footnote 1: "The Jesuits in North America," Francis Parkman.
Introduction, pp. 81, 92.]

[Footnote 2: "How I Crossed Africa," Vol. I., p. 63.]

Such a unity of sentiment on the part of so many nations differing in every other respect can only be attributed either to a natural feeling inherent in man, or to a primitive revelation, which, amid the vicissitudes of time, has left its impress on the minds of all nations. That the doctrine of a middle state of purification was a part of the primitive revelation cannot, I think, admit of reasonable doubt. To the true servant of God, this unanimity is another proof of the faith once revealed to the Saints, and, at the same time, an additional motive for thanking God for the light vouchsafed him, while so many others are left to grope in the darkness of error.—Ave Maria, Nov. 17, 1883.