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Do not fill this in! ===== As a place ===== In his ''La naissance du Purgatoire'' (''The Birth of Purgatory''), [[Jacques Le Goff]] attributes the origin of the idea of a third other-world domain, similar to heaven and hell, called Purgatory, to Paris intellectuals and [[Cistercians|Cistercian monks]] at some point in the last three decades of the twelfth century, possibly as early as 1170−1180.{{refn|Though a place in which "space and time were different in Purgatory than space and time here below-governed by different rules" and "marvelous".<ref name="leGoff"/>{{rp|7}} }} Previously, the [[Latin]] adjective ''purgatorius'', as in ''purgatorius ignis'' (cleansing fire) existed, but only then did the noun ''purgatorium'' appear, used as the name of a place called Purgatory.<ref name=leGoff>{{cite book |last1=Le Goff |first1=Jacques |title=The birth of purgatory |date=1986 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=9780226470832}}</ref>{{rp|167–168}} [[Robert Bellarmine]] also taught "that Purgatory, at least the ordinary place of expiation, is situated in the interior of the earth, that the souls in Purgatory and the reprobate are in the same subterranean space in the deep abyss which the Scripture calls Hell."<ref>Catech. Rom., chap. vi. § 1.</ref>{{check|date=January 2024}}<ref>{{cite book|chapter=[[s:Purgatory:_illustrated_by_the_lives_and_legends_of_the_saints/Part_1#5|Chapter IV.]]|title=Purgatory: illustrated by the lives and legends of the saints|year=1920|publisher=Benziger Brothers|first=F.X.|last=Schouppe|location=London|page=5}}</ref> <!-- Hmmm. The 1923 English edition of the catechism of tent has quite a different thing at that reference: and it uses "abodes" rather than "places"--> [[File:William Frederick Wakeman Lough Derg.png|thumb|The island of St Patrick's Purgatory]] The change happened at about the same time as the composition of the book ''[[Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii]]'', an account by an English Cistercian of a penitent knight's visit to the land of Purgatory reached through a cave in the island known as Station Island or [[St Patrick's Purgatory]] in the lake of [[Lough Derg (Donegal)|Lough Derg]], [[County Donegal]], [[Ireland]]. Le Goff said this book "occupies an essential place in the history of Purgatory, in whose success it played an important, if not decisive, role".<ref name=leGoff/>{{rp|193}} One of the earliest depictions of St Patrick's Purgatory is a fresco in the Convent of San Francisco in [[Todi]], Umbria, Italy.<ref>{{cite web |title=Station Island |url=http://creatureandcreator.ca/?p=2677 |website=Creature and Creator | date=26 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200918160723/http://creatureandcreator.ca/?p=2677 |archive-date=2020-09-18 |access-date=22 April 2022}}</ref><ref>MacTréinfhir, N. (1986). The Todi Fresco and St. Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg. Clogher Record, 12, 141-158.</ref> Whitewashed long ago, this fresco was only restored in 1976. The painter was likely Jacopo di Mino del Pellicciaio, and the date of the fresco is around 1345. Purgatory is shown as a rocky hill filled with separate openings into its hollow center. Above the mountain St Patrick introduces the prayers of the faithful that can help attenuate the sufferings of the souls undergoing purification. In each opening, sinners are tormented by demons and by fire. Each of the seven deadly sins – avarice, envy, sloth, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony – has its own region of purgatory and its own appropriate tortures. [[File:Dante03.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Dante gazes at Purgatory (shown as a mountain) in this 16th-century painting.]] Le Goff dedicates the final chapter of his book to the ''[[Purgatorio]]'', the second canticle of the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', a poem by fourteenth-century Italian author [[Dante Alighieri]]. In an interview Le Goff declared: "Dante's ''Purgatorio'' represents the sublime conclusion of the slow development of Purgatory that took place in the course of the Middle Ages. The power of Dante's poetry made a decisive contribution to fixing in the public imagination this 'third place', whose birth was on the whole quite recent."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2005/09/27/invenzione-del-purgatorio.html |title=Fabio Gambaro, "L'invenzione del purgatorio" in ''La Repubblica'', 27 September 2005 |date=27 September 2005 |access-date=3 January 2019 |archive-date=19 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181119214643/https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2005/09/27/invenzione-del-purgatorio.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Dante pictures Purgatory as an island at the [[antipodes]] of Jerusalem, pushed up, in an otherwise empty sea, by the displacement caused by the fall of [[Dante's Satan|Satan]], which left him fixed at the central point of the globe of the Earth. The cone-shaped island has seven terraces on which souls are cleansed from the [[seven deadly sins]] or capital vices as they ascend. Additional spurs at the base hold those for whom beginning the ascent is delayed because in life they were [[Excommunication|excommunicates]] indolent or late repenters. At the summit is the [[Garden of Eden]], from where the souls, cleansed of evil tendencies and made perfect, are taken to [[Heaven#Christianity|heaven]]. The Catholic Church has included in its teaching the idea of a purgatory rather as a condition than a place. On 4 August 1999, [[Pope John Paul II]], speaking of purgatory, said: "The term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence. Those who, after death, exist in a state of purification, are already in the love of Christ who removes from them the remnants of imperfection as "a condition of existence".<ref name="Audience of 4 August 1999"/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page