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The City of God

Chapter 13.--Against the Opinion of Those Who Think that the Punishments of the Wicked After Death are Purgatorial.

The Platonists, indeed, while they maintain that no sins are unpunished, suppose that all punishment is administered for remedial purposes, ¹ be it inflicted by human or divine law, in this life or after death; for a man may be scathless here, or, though punished, may yet not amend. Hence that passage of Virgil, where, when he had said of our earthly bodies and mortal members, that our souls derive--

"Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,

And human laughter, human tears;

Immured in dungeon-seeming night,

They look abroad, yet see no light,"

goes on to say:

"Nay, when at last the life has fled,

And left the body cold and dead,

Ee'n then there passes not away

The painful heritage of clay;

Full many a long-contracted stain

Perforce must linger deep in grain.

So penal sufferings they endure

For ancient crime, to make them pure;

Some hang aloft in open view,

For winds to pierce them through and through,

While others purge their guilt deep-dyed

In burning fire or whelming tide." ²

They who are of this opinion would have all punishments after death to be purgatorial; and as the elements of air, fire, and water are superior to earth, one or other of these may be the instrument of expiating and purging away the stain contracted by the contagion of earth. So Virgil hints at the air in the words, "Some hang aloft for winds to pierce;" at the water in "whelming tide;" and at fire in the expression "in burning fire." For our part, we recognize that even in this life some punishments are purgatorial,--not, indeed, to those whose life is none the better, but rather the worse for them, but to those who are constrained by them to amend their life. All other punishments, whether temporal or eternal, inflicted as they are on every one by divine providence, are sent either on account of past sins, or of sins presently allowed in the life, or to exercise and reveal a man's graces. They may be inflicted by the instrumentality of bad men and angels as well as of the good. For even if any one suffers some hurt through another's wickedness or mistake, the man indeed sins whose ignorance or injustice does the harm; but God, who by His just though hidden judgment permits it to be done, sins not. But temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But of those who suffer temporary punishments after death, all are not doomed to those everlasting pains which are to follow that judgment; for to some, as we have already said, what is not remitted in this world is remitted in the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal punishment of the world to come.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XIII: Contra opinionem eorum, qui putant criminosis supplicia post mortem causa purgationis adhiberi.

Platonici quidem, quamuis inpunita nulla uelint esse peccata, tamen omnes poenas emendationi adhiberi putant, uel humanis inflictas legibus uel diuinis, siue in hac uita siue post mortem, si aut parcatur hic cuique aut ita plectatur ut hic non corrigatur. hinc est Maronis illa sententia, ubi, cum dixisset de terrenis corporibus moribundisque membris, quod animae hinc metuunt cupiunt que, dolent gaudent que, nec auras suscipiunt, clausae tenebris et carcere caeco, secutus adiunxit atque ait: quin et supremo cum lumine uita reliquit - id est cum die nouissimo reliquit eas ista uita - , non tamen, inquit, omne malum miseris, nec funditus omnes corporeae excedunt pestes, penitusque necesse est multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris. ergo exercentur poenis ueterumque malorum supplicia expendunt; aliae panduntur inanes suspensae ad uentos, aliis sub gurgite uasto infectum eluitur scelus aut exuritur igni. qui hoc opinantur, nullas poenas nisi purgatorias uolunt esse post mortem, ut, quoniam terris superiora sunt elementa aqua, aer, ignis, ex aliquo istorum mundetur per expiatorias poenas, quod terrena contagione contractum est. aer quippe accipitur in eo quod ait: suspensae ad uentos; aqua in eo quod ait: sub gurgite uasto; ignis autem suo nomine expressus est, cum dixit: aut exuritur igni. nos uero etiam in hac quidem mortali uita esse quasdam poenas purgatorias confitemur, non quibus adfliguntur, quorum uita uel non inde fit melior, uel potius inde fit peior; sed illis sunt purgatoriae, qui eis coherciti corriguntur. ceterae omnes poenae, siue temporariae siue sempiternae, sicut unusquisque diuina prouidentia tractandus est, inferuntur uel pro peccatis siue praeteritis siue in quibus adhuc uiuit ille qui plectitur, uel pro exercendis declarandis que uirtutibus per homines et angelos seu bonos seu malos, nam etsi quisque mali aliquid alterius inprobitate uel errore patiatur, peccat quidem homo, qui uel ignorantia uel iniustitia cuiquam mali aliquid facit; sed non peccat deus, qui iusto, quamuis occulto, iudicio fieri sinit. sed temporarias poenas alii in hac uita tantum, alii post mortem, alii et nunc et tunc, uerumtamen ante iudicium illud seuerissimum nouissimum que patiuntur. non autem omnes ueniunt in sempiternas poenas, quae post illud iudicium sunt futurae, qui post mortem sustinent temporales. nam quibusdam, quod in isto non remittitur, remitti in futuro saeculo, id est, ne futuri saeculi aeterno supplicio puniantur, iam supra diximus.