St. Catherine of Genoa: Treatise on Purgatory

[Stone]

**Appendices**

Appendix A.

The Saint must here be understood to mean that the souls in purgatory cannot recollect the specific reasons of the pains they suffer; that they cannot say, "I have done such and such sins, for which I deserve to be here." She cannot mean absolutely that they do not know that the pains they suffer are in punishment for their sins. For besides such ignorance being scarcely conceivable, it is contrary to her own express statement in chap. vii., where she says, that "that which causes the souls in purgatory most pain, is the seeing in themselves a thing displeasing to God; and the being conscious that it has been committed against so much goodness."



Appendix B.

There is a difference of opinion among theologians as to the nature of that purification which the souls undergo in purgatory. From what are they purified? From the guilt of sin, or simply from imperfections? If from imperfections, in what sense do they become perfect? In that they are intrinsically improved; or is it merely that they have bettered their condition before God?

Bellarmine goes so far as to maintain that the culpa, or guilt, of venial sin is remitted in purgatory. To Calvin's objection to Matt. xii. 32 being quoted in favour of purgatory, because there Our Lord is speaking of sin being remitted in the world to come quoad culpam, whereas purgatory only remits sin quoad poenam, he replies, that at least venial sin is remitted in purgatory quoad culpam (De Purg. lib. i. c. iv. 6). He says that the true opinion is St. Thomas's, that the guilt of venial sin, culpae veniales, is remitted in purgatory by an act of love and patient endurance (De Purg. lib. i. c. xiv. 22).

Suarez, on the other hand, does not seem to admit that purgatory betters the soul in any other sense than enabling it to discharge the debt of punishment due to sin (Suarez, Disp. xi., sec. iv. a. 2, § 10). All the guilt of sin, he says, is remitted at the first moment of the soul's separation from the body — in primo instanti separationis animae a corpore — "by a single act of contrition, whereby the will is wholly converted to God, and turned away from every venial sin" (§ 13). And in this way, he says, sin may be remitted — quoad culpam — in purgatory, because the soul's purification dates from this moment (§ 10). As to bad habits and vicious inclinations, he says, "We ought not to imagine that the soul is detained for these: for so far as they arise from the sensitive appetite, they are laid aside with the body; so far as they are in the will, they are either taken away at the moment of death, or expelled by an infusion of the contrary virtues when the soul enters into glory" (Disp. xlvii. sec. i. 6).

Now which view, it may be asked, does St. Catherine countenance in the present treatise — that of Bellarmine or that of Suarez? She is plainly unfavourable to Bellarmine's view of the culpa, or guilt of venial sin, being remitted in purgatory: for she says (chap. iii.) that "the souls in purgatory are free from the guilt of sin, and nothing is between God and them except the punishment"; and in chap. iv., that the souls in purgatory have only the punishment, the guilt — la culpa — having been cancelled at the moment of death; and so far she supports Suarez. Yet there are not wanting many passages which make it very doubtful whether she is altogether on his side.

What does the Saint understand by the macchia, or stain, which she says is upon the soul after sin, and to get rid of which it must needs go through purgatory? According to St. Thomas, the effect of sin is threefold: 1. It weakens the soul's natural propensity to good — corrumpit bonum naturae; 2. It leaves a stain — causat maculam — on the soul; 3. It incurs a debt of punishment — facit hominem reum poenae. The stain, or macula, is altogether a privative idea. As the result of mortal sin, "it is that shadow which is upon the soul when the light of grace can no longer shine there, which shade in some way or other takes its shape* from the actual sin which has caused it — Est privatio nitoris gratiae seu quod idem est ipsiusmet gratiae connotans peccatum actuale praecedens a quo causatur" (Billuart, vol. iv. d. vii. a. 11). As the result of venial sin, it is the diminution of the fervour of charity: Est privatio fervoris charitatis ex peccatis actualibus venialibus (Ibid.).

Speaking analogously of the souls in purgatory, does the Saint mean by the macchia, or stain, that shade or gloom which is over the soul in consequence of being deprived of the light of glory?

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* "Sicut umbra quae est varia pro diversitate corporum." (St. Thomas, Sum. Th. I. 2, q. 86.)

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The comparison in chapter ii. at first sight seems favourable to such a notion; but then it is to be observed in that comparison, that the Saint has evidently before her mind the ruggine del peccato as the cause, not the effect, of God's not shining into the soul.

Perhaps, then, there is no reference in this macchia to St. Thomas's macula. It may simply mean the state of the soul which has not paid the debt of punishment when it ought. For that it includes in it the idea of an imperfection in the soul, and not simple punishment, seems evidently implied by its being opposed (chapter viii.) not merely to God's justice, but to His purity. But does it not also include the corruptio naturalis boni — that weakness in the direction of virtue, those bad dispositions, those unheavenly tastes, which the soul contracts through sin, and which remain after the guilt of sin is remitted? Certainly such could be got rid of, as Suarez suggests, in a moment; but there seems a moral fitness that it should not be so — that as they have been gained by slow degrees, and a repetition of acts, they should be got rid of by a like process — that in getting back to virtue we should have to retrace the steps we have taken in departing therefrom. We know that such is God's way of dealing with souls in this life; why should we think it is different in purgatory?

There are several passages in the treatise which make one think that this must have been St. Catherine's view. In chapter xi. she almost, if not quite, says so. She says that when the soul has been restored to grace, it often remains so stained and turned to self (imbrattata e conversa verso se stessa), that to recall it to its first state, as God created it, needs all those operations of the Divine power which she has been describing, without which it could never be recalled. Now what can she mean here but selfish habits? She concludes the treatise by saying, that "God, Who is great and good, destroys all that is of man, and purgatory purifies it." Now what can be meant by all that is of man except earthly inclinations?

It is very easy to reconcile what the Saint says elsewhere, which looks the other way. For instance, in chapter iii., where she says, that there is nothing between God and the souls except the punishment, it may be conceived that the Saint includes this very getting rid of the bad inclinations as a part of the punishment: observe, in connection with the preceding context, what she says in chapter xi. about the istinto acceso ed impedito constituting the soul's purgatory. Again, it may be thought, that in chapter i., the idea of imperfection is excluded from the souls in purgatory; but the Saint there only speaks of the impossibility of acts of imperfection existing in purgatory: such inclinations and habits as are here supposed are altogether passive. And that she does not exclude all idea of imperfection is evident both, as was said before, from her making the impediment something opposed to God's purity, and from her own express statement in chapter xi., where she says that "there are so many secret imperfections in the soul, that were it to see them it would be driven to despair; that God in that final condition of the soul consumes them, and when consumed, shows them to the soul, that it may know that it is He who has caused the fire of love, which consumes whatever of imperfection there is to consume."

Bellarmine, an authority on such a subject by no means inferior to Suarez, doubts, "An sicut in hac vita immoderatus amor erga temporalia purgatur a Deo variis afflictionibus, ut mortibus uxoris, liberorum, &c., ita etiam credibile sit, post hanc vitam adhuc remanere in anima separata aliquas reliquias talium affectionum actualium quae purgari debeant tribulationibus et molestiis" (De Pur. lib. i. c. xv. 25).

On the whole, there does not appear anything contrary to sound theology in the idea of such an intrinsic improvement taking place in the soul in purgatory as is implied in the gradual getting rid of passive bad habits and earthly tastes. Such a notion is very much in accordance with what we know of God's dealings with the soul here on earth, and seems countenanced by the present treatise.