Fliigge J says : " This anathema was the less effective because the eastern views on this subject differed so much from the western or Church doctrine. The former, or Origen's doctrine, contem- plated the purification of the greatest sinners and of the devil himself ; the Latin Church thought only of believers justified by the blood of Christ. The one supposed the sinner to purify him- self from his desire of evil ; the other, asserted expiation by suf- fering. According to the former, the sinner was healed and strengthened ; according to the latter, divine justice must be sat- isfied." It is not to be inferred from this, that the Greek Church adopted Origen's views as to " the restoration of all things ; " but it nevertheless maintained until a much later period the views by which it was distinguished from the Latins on the doctrine of the future state.
It was, therefore, in the western Church that the development of the doctrine of purgatory took place. Augustine first gave it a definite form, although his views are not "always consistently or confidently expressed. Thus he says : It is doubtful whether a certain class of men are to be purified by fire after death, so as to be prepared to enter heaven ; " utrum ita sit," he says, " quaeri potest : et aut inveniri, aut latere, nonnullos fideles per ignem quemdam purgatorium ; quanto magis minusve bona pereuntia dilexerunt, tanto tardius citiusque salvari." 2 In other places, however, he teaches the two essential points in the doctrine of purgatory, first, that the souls of a certain class of men who are ultimately saved, suffer after death ; and secondly, that they are aided through the eucharist, and the alms and prayers of the faithful.3
It was, however, 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 for government and income, which it has ever since re- mained. From this time onward through all the Middle Ages, purgatory became one of the prominent and constantly reiterated topics of public instruction. It took firm hold of the popular mind. The clergy from the highest to the lowest, and the differ- ent orders of monks vied with each other in their zeal in its incul- cation ; and in the marvels which they related of spiritual appa-
1 Ut supra, p. 327.
2 Enchiridion de Fide, Spe et Charitate, 69 ; Works, Paris, 1837, vol. vi. p. 382, b.
8 De Civitate Dei, xxi. xiii. ; Ibid. vol. vii. p. 1015, d. Enchiridion de Fide, Spe et Charitate, 110; Ibid. vol. vi. p. 403, b, c vol. in. 49
770 PART IV. Ch. L — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
ritions, 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 brother- hood who were there detained. The Carmelites asserted that the Virgin Mary had promised that no one who died with the Car- melite scapulary upon their shoulders, should ever be lost.1 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 skeptic and the believer were alike enslaved.2 From this slavery the Bible, not the progress of science, has delivered all Protestants.
1 Mosheim, Eistoria Ecclesice, Saeculum xin. pars ri. 2, § 29 ; edit. Helmstadt, 1764, p. 454.
2 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. When the writer was returning from Europe, he had as a fellow passenger a distinguished French di- plomatist. One evening when admiring the moon shining in its brightness, that gentleman adverted to the idea of creation, and pronounced it absurd, avowing himself an atheist. But he added immediately, "Don't misunderstand me. I am a good Catholic, and mean to die in the faith of the Catholic Church. You Protestants are all wrong. You tell every man to think for himself. Ho ! thon I'll think what I please. I want a religion which tells me I sha'n't think; only submit. Well! I mean to submit, and be buried in conse- crated ground."