Question Two
Whether another place of Purgatory is found besides that which is in the center of the earth, where the souls of the moderately good are purged
It is asked whether, besides the principal Purgatory in the center of the earth, a place is also found upon the surface of the earth where the souls of the moderately good are purged.
To this Thomas and Bonaventure, in Book IV, distinction 21, answer affirmatively, saying that the place of Purgatory is twofold.
One place exists according to the common divine law, and thus it is a lower place, joined as it were to hell, as was said above. For this reason the opinion of Hugh is not to be accepted. In Book II On the Sacraments, he denies that there is any determinate and common place of Purgatory in the center of the earth and says that individual souls suffer punishments especially in those places in which they committed their fault. For it is not probable, as Bonaventure says, that all the souls which sinned at Paris are punished at Paris.
Another place of Purgatory exists according to divine dispensation in certain open places upon the surface of the earth, to which souls are assigned for purgation. It was perhaps according to this latter manner that Hugh understood what he said above.
Hence Gregory, in Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 4, says:
The superabundant bounty of divine goodness, generally seeking the salvation of human beings who do not seek it themselves, disposed that there should also be, upon the surface of the earth assigned for human habitation, certain open places of torments in which it would be established by many indications that after death the souls not only of the wicked but also of the moderately good are tormented.
These are his words.
God specially ordained these particular places of Purgatory upon the surface of the earth, as Thomas says in the place cited above and Lord John of Torquemada says upon On Penance, distinction 7, chapter Hic autem ignis, for five reasons.
First, for the lighter punishment of souls. Thus, according to Gregory, it was revealed concerning certain souls that they were punished in a shadow. In Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 4, he relates that a certain Paschasius, a deacon of the Roman Church, was a man of such holy life that after his death a certain demoniac was healed by touching his bier. Nevertheless, long after his death, Paschasius’s soul was found by a certain holy bishop in the baths—that is, in places where hot water boils up from the earth.
When the bishop asked it why it was there, it said that it was tormented in the heat of that water because, in the schismatic contention between Symmachus and Laurentius over which of them should be pope, Paschasius maintained Laurentius’s side until his death, although Laurentius possessed no right to the papacy—though others say that it was because during his life he delighted in that place.
Second, for our instruction, so that we may recognize that great punishment is inflicted upon sinners after this life and thus desist from sins and turn ourselves to God. This was evident at Paris in the case of a pupil to whom his master appeared after death and revealed his damnation. When the pupil felt the master’s burning in his own hand, he immediately turned to the Lord.
Third, on account of the fault’s having been perpetrated in that place. This is evident from the man who performed penitential punishment, as though in Purgatory, in his own bath where he had sinned. By the merit of thirty Masses he flew up to heaven, as is said in Book IV of the Dialogues.
Fourth, on account of the prayer of some holy person. Thus it is read that Saint Patrick obtained for certain persons a Purgatory in a particular place beneath the earth.
Fifth, for the speedier liberation of souls, so that they may reveal their need to others, seek suffrages from them, and thus depart from their punishments more quickly. This is evident from a certain soul existing in a piece of ice which the fishermen of Blessed Theobald caught in the autumn and presented to the bishop. When, for the sake of cooling himself, he kept that ice beneath his feet, he distinctly heard a voice saying that within the ice there was a soul assigned to it as to a place of Purgatory. And when that soul sought suffrages from the bishop during the night, by the merit of thirty Masses it flew up to heaven.
The same is evident from the soul of a certain religious, which was assigned to the fortress of the town of Adriano in Apulia as to a place of Purgatory. Concerning that soul and its Purgatory there, a matter clearer than light was made manifest to the senses of me, the compiler of the present work, in the following manner.
For when, by reason of the office which I sometimes unworthily discharged, I was visiting the province of Apulia, it happened that I also turned aside to a certain little house of the Order near Adriano, a town in the territory of Otranto in Apulia. When the brothers there, and a certain Gregory Spertus, had shown me much kindness by reason of my office, after dinner I was led to bed in the fortress. But after I had begun to sleep in the dead of night, I was awakened by a certain din and crash. In the hall I perceived someone wandering about here and there and sounding terribly with the chains by which, as I suppose, he was burdened. While I spoke in order to wake the companion whom I had with me, he stood still. As soon as we became silent, he began again: at first he walked farther away with the din of his fetters more violently, and with a certain horrible crash and effort he broke through the doors which were before the bedchamber. Meanwhile, struck by enormous fear, we spoke together; he became still.
Then, when we had become silent, for a third time the chained wanderer roamed about for roughly two hours. At last, with the greatest crash, he entered the bedchamber in which we lay almost lifeless. He wandered about in it and opened the windows. Meanwhile we remained trembling; our voices stuck in our throats, and as fear increased, death seemed about to follow.
We saw the windows open. Wherever we turned ourselves there seemed to be no hope. Between fear and anger we suddenly leapt from the bed into the middle of the room. With the greatest violence, he broke the other door by which one descended to the prison of the condemned at the bottom of the tower, and rushed down step by step with a heavier din of arms and chains. Although nowhere seen, he filled everything with tumult.
Made cold and senseless, we lit a lamp and awaited the day without sleep. Meanwhile we examined all the windows and found them all shut fast, just as we had bolted them in the evening.
At dawn the brothers and Gregory, our hosts, returned to us and greeted us. But we, made almost mad and speechless, said in trembling and weary voices: “May almighty God have mercy upon you, fathers, and upon you, good George. You received us as guests into the fortress, ignorant of its shades and spirits, so that we nearly died.”
They laughed and said: “Pardon us, fathers. Yesterday evening we forgot to warn you that a certain shade and spirit wanders here in the fortress. It says that God has assigned this place to it as Purgatory for a thousand years because it committed many evils and caused the deaths of human beings here. Although we do not see it, we speak with it very often. Very often it discloses many things to us and collectively imparts very many benefits, asking only this from us: that we help it by our prayers so that the time fixed for it in this place by the Lord may be shortened by our prayers.”
Perhaps a similar event among the gentiles is related by Pliny the Younger in Book VII concerning a certain soul or apparition.
“At Athens,” he says, “there was a certain spacious and roomy house, but one notorious and deadly, which the philosopher Athenodorus rented for a small price. When evening began to approach, he ordered a bed to be made for himself in the first part of the house. He set out writing tablets, a stylus, and a lamp; sent all his servants into the inner rooms; and himself directed his mind, eyes, and hand to writing, lest an unoccupied mind should fashion for itself empty fears—a wandering apparition or phantom.
“But when the silence of night began, he heard iron struck and chains moved everywhere. The philosopher steadied his mind, stretched out his hand toward his ears, did not lift his eyes, and did not lay down his stylus. Then the crash increased. The apparition approached; it was now heard in the light and within the threshold. He looked back. Immediately an apparition was visible: an old man wasted by emaciation and filth, with a long beard and bristling hair, wearing fetters upon his legs and chains upon his hands. It stood and beckoned with its finger like one calling.
“The philosopher, in reply, signaled with his hand that it should wait a little, and again bent over his wax tablets and stylus. The apparition rattled its chains over the head of the writer. He looked back again and saw it making the same sign as before. Without delay he lifted the lamp and followed it.
“It went with a slow step, as if heavy with fetters. But after it turned aside into the courtyard of the house, it suddenly sank down and deserted its companion. Left alone, Athenodorus gathered grasses and leaves and set them as a marker upon the place.
“On the following day the philosopher approached the magistrates and urged them to order that place to be dug up. They found bones inserted into and entangled with chains, which time and the earth had left bare and gnawed, the body having rotted away around the fetters. They were gathered and publicly buried. After the remains had been duly interred, the house was thereafter free of spirits.”