As one out of our many witnesses against these daring innovators, let us hear, from the fourth century, the venerable Cyril of Jerusalem, while officially instructing his Catechumens in order to their baptism.
Read the twenty and two books contained in the Old Testament: but WITH THE APOCRYPHA HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON. Study diligently those twenty and two books ALONE, which also with confidence are read in the Church. The Apostles and the ancient Bishops, who delivered those books to us, were much wiser than you. As children of the Church, therefore, set not upon her authorised documents the adulterating seal of a false impression. [27a]
This adulterating seal of a false impression, so strongly reprobated by Cyril in the fourth century, was, in the sixteenth century, employed, without the least scruple, for the impious corruption of God’s written word, by the Romish Clergy at the Council of Trent.
III. From Scripture, let us proceed to the early Fathers of the Church.
I. In the way of negative evidence, Polycarp the disciple of St. John, Athenagoras, and Irenèus, who collectively flourished during a period which extends from the latter end of the first to the latter end of the second century, are TOTALLY SILENT respecting the existence of a Purgatory; even when the nature of their subject is such, that, had they been acquainted with the doctrine, they must have mentioned it. [27b]
2. In the way of positive evidence, Clement of Rome the disciple and fellow-labourer of St. Paul, Ignatius the disciple of St. John, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, and Cyprian, who collectively flourished during a period which extends from the year 63 to the year 258, either by anticipation EXPRESSLY CONTRADICT, or else use language PALPABLY INCOMPATIBLE WITH, the doctrine of a Purgatory. [28a]
3. When this doctrine began to creep into the Church, the individuals, who started it, could not agree among themselves, either as to its nature, or as to its certainty, or as to its chronological location: and, what is sufficiently whimsical, not one among them agreed with the present Church of Rome. [28b]
Now, if the doctrine of a Purgatory had been uniformly and universally and constantly held in the Church Catholic from the very beginning, as the Romish Clergy would persuade us: it is quite clear, that this curious discrepance could never have occurred.
4. At present, the members of the Latin Church pray for the dead, with the avowed object that their souls may be delivered from Purgatory: but, when prayers for the dead first came into use, those prayers were offered up with no such purpose and intention.
Let it be known and observed (for many are ignorant of the circumstance): that, at the commencement of the practice, supplication was made, not that souls might be delivered from Purgatory, but that they might be partakers of the first resurrection: [28c] and the notion itself evidently originated from a gratuitous interpretation of a well known obscure text in the Apocalypse. [29a]