Purgatory: Difference between revisions

For other uses, see Purgatory (disambiguation).

For other teachings concerning purification of souls in the afterlife, see Purgatory and world religions.

Illustration for Dante's Purgatorio (18), by Gustave Doré.

Purgatory, or "the final purification of the elect", is a process by which, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, souls are purified after death. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven." In more technical language, the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes purgatory as "a term used only in W[estern] Catholic theology for the state (or place) of punishment and purification where the souls of those who have died in a state of grace undergo such punishment as is still due to forgiven sins and, perhaps, expiate their unforgiven venial sins, before being admitted to the Beatific Vision."

Belief in purgatory developed out of the ancient practice of prayer for the dead, and the notion that not all souls are condemned to Hell or worthy of Heaven at the moment of death. Important theologians, including St. Augustine and Gregory the Great, contributed to the understanding of the soul’s purification after death, prior to the General Resurrection. Curiosity in the West concerning this interim state helped give rise to later theology, and by the twelfth century Purgatory had emerged as a fully developed concept, achieving formal doctrinal definition at the Councils of Lyon (1245, 1274), Florence (1439), and Trent (1545-63).

The doctrine contributed greatly to Christian spirituality, ritual, piety, and imagination, giving rise to various devotions and literary works. Historically, descriptions of purgatory have emphasised the natural and supernatural bonding between the living and the dead – the belief that the souls in Purgatory were part of the church of the redeemed, and prayer for the dead, became a principal expression of the ties binding the Christian community together. The teaching became "a powerful symbol of all that the holiness of God requires of man and also of His mercy and His love for men." Non-Catholic Christians have differing interpretations of the concept. Eastern Orthodox, while upholding the ancient Christian practice of prayer for the dead, generally reject the Roman Catholic understanding, as well as the penitential system to which it is tied, as unwarranted innovations. Protestant reformers of the 16th century came to reject the doctrine, especially because of its relationship with the granting of indulgences. In modern times, few Protestants have defended it.

Purgatory as taught by the Roman Catholic Church

Purgatory and its role in the Roman Catholic concept of the afterlife.

The teaching of the Catholic Church on purgatory is stated succinctly in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as follows:

Purgatory is the state of those who die in God's friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven. Because of the communion of saints, the faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in purgatory by offering prayers in suffrage for them, especially the Eucharistic sacrifice. They also help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance.

As the full Catechism further explains, "The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire. This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin" (2 Macc 12:45). From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead.

Prayer and other works for souls in purgatory

Monastic Liturgy of the Hours in German, with a rosary and attached crucifix.

Prayer for the dead

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the Church's teaching on purgatory is based on the practice of prayer for the dead, a practice mentioned in pre-Christian deuterocanonical 2 Maccabees 12:46 and one that, the Catechism says, the Church has practiced from the beginning. In 2 Timothy 1:17–18, which is not quoted by the Catechism, Paul the Apostle, speaking of a certain Onesiphorus, says: "May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day". The preceding verse is often interpreted as indicating that Onesiphorus was dead.

Prayer for the dead, in the belief that the dead are thereby benefited, is part of the practice of all the ancient Christian Churches, even those that do not accept the Roman Catholic teaching on purgatory. In particular, the Latin, Greek, Coptic, Syrian, and Chaldaean Churches of ancient tradition offer the Eucharist on behalf of the dead.

The exhortation of Saint John Chrysostom (349– c. 407) bespeaks this practice: "Let us then give [the dead] aid and perform commemoration for them. For if the children of Job were purged by the sacrifice of their father, why do you doubt that when we too offer for the departed, some consolation arises to them? (Since God is wont to grant the petitions of those who ask for others).... Let us not then be weary in giving aid to the departed, both by offering on their behalf and obtaining prayers for them: for the common Expiation of the world is even before us. ... and it is possible from every source to gather pardon for them, from our prayers, from our gifts in their behalf, from those whose names are named with theirs. Why therefore do you grieve? Why mourn, when it is in your power to gather so much pardon for the departed?"

Other good works and indulgences

In addition to prayer for the dead, it is traditional to "do good works and labours of faith and love for them." Practices performed to assist them include almsgiving on their behalf and fasting and other penitential acts. To such prayers and good works, whether done for the performer's own benefit or for the good of other persons, living or dead, the Catholic Church attaches indulgences, granted from the "treasury of merits" (Christ's and the saints'), "at times remitting completely and at times partially the temporal punishment due to sin ... (urging) to perform works of piety, penitence and charity — particularly those which lead to growth in faith and which favour the common good. And if the faithful offer indulgences in suffrage for the dead, they cultivate charity in an excellent way."

Temporal punishment

The phrase "temporal punishment" (also called "pain of sense") is applied to the cleansing in purgatory, in contrast to "eternal punishment" (also called "pain of loss ... of the infinite good, i.e. God") in hell. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:

Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the "eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain. … While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the "old man" and to put on the "new man" (cf. Ephesians 4:24).

Fire

Folio 113v of Très Riches Heures, a 15th c. Book of hours commissioned by Jean, Duc de Berry, "the Magnificent".

The imagery of fire has long been common, and has links tradition to certain texts of Scripture, in particular to 1 Corinthians 3:15 and 1 Peter 1:7, which also speak of fire, whether material or metaphorical. Although no dogmatic statement describes a material fire in the context of purgatory, the imagery of fire has long been common in the West. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Augustine stated that the pain which purgatorial fire causes is more severe than anything a man can suffer in this life, and Gregory the Great mentioned those who after this life "will expiate their faults by purgatorial flames," adding "that the pain be more intolerable than any one can suffer in this life". St. Bonaventure also stated that this punishment by fire is more severe than any punishment which comes to men in this life.

The conception of the purgatorial fire as material rather than metaphorical was a cause of disagreement between Latin Christendom and the Greeks, though at the Council of Florence, aimed at reconciliation between the groups, the Catholic participant Bessarion (Latin Patriarch of Constantinople) argued against the existence of real purgatorial fire, and the Greeks were assured that the Roman Church had never issued any dogmatic decree on this subject (see below). The later Council of Trent decreed: "Those matters … which tend to a certain curiosity or superstition, or that savour of filthy lucre, let them prohibit as scandals and stumbling blocks to the faithful." Recent Catholic discussions of purgatory have respected the reserve of the Council of Trent, interpreting the notion of fire in a metaphorical sense.

The imagery of Purgatory involving various miseries, whether fire or more specific punishments tailored for particular vices, has a long history in Christian literature and visionary accounts. However these miseries, "like the physical horrors of the process of death itself, were evoked not to curdle the blood and oppress the spirit, but to stir the living to present action. Mortified lives of penance would make Purgatory superfluous, almsgiving and good works in time of prosperity would be better than last-minute fire insurance." As explained by historian Eamon Duffy, "In the noblest, most circumstantial, and most theologically sophisticated of all medieval visions of the other world, Dante’s Commedia, Purgatory is unequivocally a place of hope and a means of ascent towards Heaven. It thus has nothing in common with Hell.

Place

As with heaven and hell, purgatory is often spoken of as a place to which one goes or where one is. But as Pope John Paul II declared when stating that "the term ('purgatory') does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence", Church teaching does not endorse the idea of a place within physical space for purgatory frequently found in works of literature such as Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia and legends such as that of St. Patrick's Purgatory.

Eastern Catholic Churches

A theologian of an Eastern Catholic Church of Greek tradition describes the attitude of his Church to the doctrine of Purgatory as follows:

As a general rule, all Eastern Christians do not use the word "Purgatory." This includes both Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians. The word "Purgatory" is specific to the Latin tradition, and carries some specific historical baggage that makes Eastern Christians uncomfortable.

In the Medieval West, many popular theologians defined Purgatory as a specific place, where people essentially sat around and suffered. Some theologians went so far as to imply that a literal fire burns those who suffer in Purgatory. It was also popular to tally periods of time that people spent in purgatory for various offences. It is worth noting that contemporary Roman Catholic theology has (thankfully) moved beyond this approach, to a more Patristic understanding of Purgatory.

In the Catholic understanding, only two points are necessary dogma concerning "purgatory": 1) There is a place of transition/transformation for those en-route to Heaven, and 2) prayer is efficacious for the dead who are in this state.

The Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches agree with the Latin Church fully on both of these points.

History

Purgatory developed out of the ancient practice of prayer for the dead, and the notion that not all souls are condemned to Hell or worthy of Heaven at the moment of death. Curiosity in the West concerning the intermediate state of the soul helped give rise to later theology. St. Augustine, Gregory the Great, and others contributed to the understanding of the soul’s purification after death, prior to the General Resurrection. By the twelfth century, Purgatory had emerged as a fully developed concept.

Christian Antiquity

A procession in the Catacombs of St. Callistus, Rome. The catacombs contain inscriptions that are often prayers for the dead.

In Christianity, prayer for the dead, perhaps originating in ancient Jewish practice (of which the episode in 2 Maccabees 12:39–46 is a possible example), is attested since at least the second century, evidenced in part by the tomb inscription of Abercius, Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia (d. c. 200), which begs the prayers of the living. Likewise, some of the inscriptions in the catacombs are in the form of prayers for those buried there.

St. Augustine affirmed prayer for the dead who die in the Communion of the Church.

The second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla present prayer as obtaining that a dead person "be translated to a state of happiness". And the third-century Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity gives expression to the belief that sins can be purged by suffering in an afterlife, and that the process can be accelerated by prayer. Celebration of the Eucharist for the dead was also practiced, and is attested to since at least the third century. When St Augustine's mother Monica was dying she told her two sons: "Lay this body anywhere, and do not let the care of it be a trouble to you at all. Only this I ask: that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you are."

Many of the Church Fathers express belief in purification after death and of the communion of the living with the dead through prayer. The patristic authors often understood those undergoing purification to be awaiting the Last Judgment before receiving the final blessedness of the Resurrection of the Dead, and they also often described this purification as a journey which entailed hardships but also powerful glimpses of joy. Certain statements are of particular interest due to their antiquity. Irenaeus's (c. 130-202) description of the souls of the dead (awaiting the universal judgment) to be experiencing a process of purification contains the concept of purgatory. Both St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) and his pupil, Origen (c. 185-254), developed a view of purification after death; this view drew upon the notion that fire is a divine instrument from the Old Testament, and understood this in the context of New Testament teachings such as baptism by fire, from the Gospels, and a purificatory trial after death, from St. Paul. For both Clement and Origen, the fire was neither a material thing nor a metaphor, but a "spiritual fire". An early Latin author, Tertullian (c. 160-225), also articulated a view of purification after death. In Tertullian's understanding of the afterlife, the souls of martyrs entered directly into eternal blessedness, whereas the rest entered a generic realm of the dead. There the wicked suffered a foretaste of their eternal punishments, whilst the good experienced various stages and places of bliss, an idea that was "universally diffused" in antiquity.

Later examples, which contain further elaborations, abound. Of these the most significant is St. Augustine (354-430), whose remarks concerning a purifying fire after death and the efficacy of prayer for those undergoing this purification were highly influential in later theology.

Early Middle Ages

A dove alights on Gregory the Great's shoulder as he writes his homilies (an ancient tradition). The pope taught that certain offenses could be pardoned in the afterlife.

Pope Gregory the Great's Dialogues, written in the late sixth century, taught:

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.

For Gregory, God was further illuminating the nature of the afterlife, sending visions and the like, whereby, more fully than before, the outlines of the fate of the soul immediately beyond the grave were becoming visible, like the half-light that precedes the dawn. In the seventh century, the Irish abbot St. Fursa described his foretaste of the afterlife, where, though protected by angels, he was pursued by demons who said, "It is not fitting that he should enjoy the blessed life unscathed..., for every transgression that is not purged on earth must be avenged in heaven," and on his return he was engulfed in a billowing fire that threatened to burn him, "for it stretches out each one according to their merits... For just as the body burns through unlawful desire, so the soul will burn, as the lawful, due penalty for every sin." The event was included by The Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History, a highly popular and influential work. St. Boniface also described a vision of Purgatory.

Theologians of the Carolingian period, especially Alcuin, Rabanus, Haymo, and Walafrid Strabo, contributed to the development of the doctrine. By the end of the tenth century, the widespread observance of All Souls' Day in the West, established in part through the influence of St. Odilo of Cluny, had "helped to concentrate the imagination on the fate of departed souls and fostered a sense of solidarity between the living and the dead." The great success of Cluniac monasticism helped foster a sense of spiritual fervor throughout Latin Christendom.

High Middle Ages

Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, whose writings contain the classic description of purgatory.

Amid the general elaboration of theology in the twelfth century, the studies by the masters of Paris and elsewhere concerning the theology of penance helped to fashion a notion of purgatory as a place where canonical penances unfinished in this life could be completed. It was in this century that the afterlife purification acquired the name "purgatorium", from Latin purgare (to cleanse). In the next century, a writing of Thomas Aquinas contains the classic formulation of the doctrine, stating that the dead in purgatory are at peace because they are sure of salvation, and that they benefit from the prayers of the living because they are still part of the Communion of Saints, from which only hell or limbo can separate one.

In the High Middle Ages, purgatory also began to loom large in lay awareness, providing the rational for the immense elaboration of the cult of the intercession of the dead. Many accounts of visions circulated among the laity and found their way into devotional collections. The best known examples include the Gast of Gy, the revelations of St. Brigit of Sweden, and those associated with St. Patrick’s Purgatory – a popular subject of legend, written about by Henry of Sawtrey in his twelfth-century Tractatus de Purgatorio S. Patricii (and others). These accounts were designed to move the Christian to pious action on his own behalf while still in health, to complete his penances, and to be generous in charity. These were the good deeds which would accompany everyman, to plead for him, "For after death amends may no man make, For then mercy and pity doth him forsake."

Building on these pictures of purgatory, Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) depicted in his Purgatorio, in which purgatory is a seven-story mountain, the gradual purification of the image and likeness of God in the human soul.

Medievalist Jacques Le Goff argued that purgatory was "born" in this period. Although he recognized the notion of purification after death in antiquity (specifically that Clement of Alexandria and Origen derived their view of purification from various biblical teachings), and even considered vague concepts of purifying and punishing fire to predate Christianity, Le Goff considered a radical conceptual shift to have taken place in the developed perception of purgatory from a prefatory process to a specific place. In his review of Le Goff’s work, historian Alan E. Bernstein disagreed, stating that, "the insistence that there was no purgatory until it was conceived as a place represented by a noun seems unnecessarily strict."

In the context of discussion with the Greeks, the two thirteenth-century Councils of Lyon considered purgatory. The official teaching of the Church then and later remained limited to two elements: the existence of a state of purification for souls en route to heaven, and the efficaciousness of prayer for the dead.

Disputes with other Christians over purgatory

Latin-Greek relations

The Catholic Latin Patriarch of Constantinople Bessarion argued against purification by material fire.

In the 15th century, at the Council of Florence, Eastern and Western clergymen met in an attempt to undo the Great Schism of 1054. Authorities of the Eastern Orthodox Church identified several apparent stumbling blocks to reunification, including Papal primacy, the West's unleavened bread in the Eucharist, two words in the Nicene Creed, and purgatory. The Greeks objected especially to the conception of material fire and to the legalism of the Western approach, for example in the distinction between guilt and punishment.

At the Council, the Catholic Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, Bessarion, argued against the existence of real purgatorial fire. The text of the Council's decree on purgatory contains no reference to fire and, without using the word "purgatorium" (purgatory), speaks only of "pains of cleansing" ("poenae purgatoriae"),

Though this reunification was generally rejected in the East, certain Eastern Communities were later received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

Protestant objections

Protestant theologians' developing views on salvation (soteriology) excluded purgatory, in part a result from doctrinal changes concerning justification and sanctification on the part of the reformers.

A young John Calvin. Calvin opposed both purgatory and prayer for the dead.

For Martin Luther, justification meant "the declaring of one to be righteous", where God imputes the merits of Christ upon one who remains without inherent merit. In this process, good works done in faith (i.e. through penance) are an unessential byproduct that contribute nothing to one's own state of righteousness. "Becoming perfect" came to be understood as an instantaneous act of God, so that each one of the elect (saved) experienced instantaneous glorification upon death. As such, there was little reason to pray for the dead, as there was not a process or journey of purification that continues in the afterlife. Luther wrote "We should pray for ourselves and for all other people, even for our enemies, but not for the souls of the dead." (expanded Small Catechism, Question No. 211) Luther stopped believing in purgatory around 1530, and later openly affirmed the doctrine of soul sleep, although subsequent Lutheran confessions do not expressly reject all ideas of purification after death.

Purgatory came to be seen as one of the "unbiblical corruptions" that had entered Church teachings sometime subsequent to the apostolic age. The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, produced during the English Reformation, stated: "The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory...is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture; but rather repugnant to the word of God" (article 22). John Calvin, central theologian of Reformed Protestantism, considered purgatory a superstition, writing in his Institutes (5.10): "The doctrine of purgatory ancient, but refuted by a more ancient Apostle. Not supported by ancient writers, by Scripture, or solid argument. Introduced by custom and a zeal not duly regulated by the word of God… we must hold by the word of God, which rejects this fiction."

Counter-Reformation and thereafter

The Council of Trent affirmed the doctrine of purgatory against challenges by Protestant Reformers.

An early reply to the Reformers was made by St. John Fisher, who based his defence of the doctrine on the writings of the Church Fathers, and the practice of prayer for the dead from the earliest times.

The Council of Trent gave the official response of the Catholic Church to the critics, repeating the teaching already given by the First Council of Lyon. The text of its decree (given above) restates the concepts of purification after death and the efficacy of prayers for the dead, and sternly instructed preachers not to push beyond that and distract, confuse, and mislead the faithful with unnecessary speculations concerning the nature and duration of purgatorial punishments. The legends and speculation that had grown up and still continue to grow up around the concept of purgatory were not treated as Church teaching. The Council decreed: "Those matters … which tend to a certain curiosity or superstition, or that savour of filthy lucre, let them prohibit as scandals and stumbling blocks to the faithful." Recent Catholic discussions of purgatory have respected the reserve of the Council of Trent, interpreting the notion of fire in a metaphorical sense, and the temporal aspect in terms of intensity.

Some Protestants have accepted prayer for the dead, an intermediate state of purification, and even the term "purgatory". William Forbes, the first Scottish Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh, affirmed prayer for the dead and described an intermediate state where the soul is purified by its fervent longing for God.Anglican apologist C. S. Lewis believed in purgatory, if not in what the Reformers called "the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory", and defended the notion. Other Anglicans, in particular Anglo-Catholics (such as the Guild of All Souls), profess belief in purgatory.

Later ideas about purgatory

Questions already discussed among theologians since the Middle Ages continued to be developed. One is whether the souls in purgatory can pray for the living. When considering whether the saints in heaven pray for us, Saint Thomas Aquinas said that the souls in purgatory cannot. According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542 – 1621) advocated petitioning the souls in purgatory to pray for one, According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, on the contrary, Saint Robert Bellarmine (in De Purgatorio, lib. II, xv), while finding unconvincing the reason given by Saint Thomas Aquinas, said that, ordinarily speaking, it is superfluous to invoke the prayers of those in purgatory, "for they are ignorant of our circumstances and condition." The Catholic Encyclopedia attributes instead to the theologian Francisco Suárez (in De poenit., disp. xlvii, s. 2, n. 9) the opinion "that the souls in purgatory are holy, are dear to God, love us with a true love and are mindful of our wants; that they know in a general way our necessities and our dangers, and how great is our need of divine help and divine grace".

Related beliefs continued to grow, such as the Sabbatine privilege, which appeared in the second half of the fifteenth century, the wondrous powers for releasing souls from purgatory of a prayer of uncertain date attributed to Gertrude the Great. There were accounts too of souls in purgatory passing "their purification in the air, or by their graves, or near altars where the Blessed Sacrament is, or in the rooms of those who pray for them, or amid the scenes of their former vanity and frivolity".

Purgatory themes have also been prominent in various works of literature, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet (1603), Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, and the European ghost-story tradition in general.

See also

• Afterlife
• Anima Sola
• Brig (Bridge) of Dread
• Catherine of Genoa
• Christian eschatology
• Christina the Astonishing
• The Divine Comedy
• Gehenna
• Gertrude the Great
• Hades
• Heaven
• Hell

• Indulgence
• Limbo
• Lyke-Wake Dirge
• Mortal sin
• Penance
• Prayer for the dead
• Purgatorial society
• Sabbatine Privilege
• Soteriology
• St. Patrick's Purgatory
• Venial sin

External links

• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030-1032
• CatholicBridge.com, Purgatory — Ecumenical article by David MacDonald concerning Evangelical and Catholic belief
• Catholic Answers, Purgatory — Catholic apologetic article
• NewAdvent.org, Purgatory — 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article
• bringyou.to/apologetics — Readings from the Church Fathers and other sources on Purgatory, by Phil Porvaznik
• EWTN.com library, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory according to Pope John Paul II — Articles from the newspaper of the Holy See, L'Osservatore Romano, July-August 1999
• JewishEncyclopedia.com, Purgatory — Article by Kaufmann Kohler in the online Jewish Encyclopedia
• New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Purgatory — Article by C. A. Beckwith in the 19th century Protestant encyclopedia (ed. Philip Schaff)
• Purgatory account in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Purgatory article in Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
• I Believe in Purgatory... — excerpt from C. S. Lewis's Letters To Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, chapter 20
• Frequently Asked Questions at Holy Souls Online
• Purgatory and praying for the dead on Catholic Apologetic
• "Prisoner of the King: Thoughts on the Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory", H. J. Coleridge, 1889. retrieved 24 May 2007
• Three Purgatory Poems, a scholarly history of Purgatory from Medieval Institute Publications