The origin of the doctrine of Purgatory was established in 593 AD by Gregory the Great. It was proclaimed dogma by The Council of Florence in 1439.
It's a lie.
"It's a lie."
Indeed it is. Still people prefer a lie over truth!
Hell is going ot be a VERY crowded place.
Actually -- no -- that is a Protestant belief. If you look hard enough, you will find Purgatory in the Bible. Not the word, Purgatory, but references to it.
Even St. Paul referred to Purgatory!
Sources please... How do you explain the quotes from the early church listed on the linked site found below, ALL of which predate 593 AD?
There are many here on this thread already who have launched on the usual theme about Purgatory being "not found in Scripture." We've all been through this a number of times before.
First, it IS alluded to in Scripture, even if the name "Purgatory" is not specified. The situation is similar to the "Trinity," where the word itself is never used, but the concept is there in Scripture (although indistinctly) and extra-biblical clarification was provided by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
Second, this whole matter underscores yet again the point I find that I'm always making here: the witness of the early Church is powerful for illuminating all aspects of the Christian Faith. If the early Church believed in such things, by what authority do you or your spiritual ancestors (all of them flourishing post-1517) deny them now? How arrogant!
The problem here is that you have artificially excised the oral Tradition of the Church from your belief system. It's not so much a matter of "that's not scriptural" as it is a matter of "why have you jettisoned Tradition/oral teaching?" It's not our fault that you have renounced much of the source material for the Faith which comes down to us from the Apostles.
But you must ask yourself the question: if the Church of the martyrs, if the Church of the early Fathers, universally recognized the concept of Purgatory and the beneficial application of prayers for the dead (and various other beliefs that are "Catholic" in nature and denied by Protestants), how can you come along nearly 2000 years later and presume to deny them? How can the proto-Protestants of the 1500's have done the same thing nearly 1500 years after these beliefs were promulgated? Where's the authority for this? There is none. Yet an objective review of some of the pointed remarks on this thread alone indicates that, somehow, you believe that it is the Catholics who are the innovators and that their beliefs in this matter and others are tools of Satan!
If the early Church got this and so much else wrong, then Jesus was a liar and we are all wasting our time in any flavor of Christianity, for He could not preserve His Church from error as He promised in Matthew 28:20. If He could not do what He claimed, then He is not God. Either that, or it cannot mean much to you that God could not providentially guide His Church even from the get-go. You MUST, therefore, subscribe to a belief system similar to that of the Mormons, who believe that the Church apostatized immediately after the Apostolic Era. Some "safeguarding" on Christ's part *that* is!
If, on the other hand, the early Church was right, and such teachings were part of the Deposit of Faith, then you yourself err grievously, and likely fulfill the prophecy of St. Paul in 2Timothy 3:1-9, particularly verses 5-7. If you have cut yourselves off from the fullness of the Faith, and are, within yourselves, the source of endless Christian disunity that results in lack of effective witness to the secularists, the pagans and the ignorant, then you have no one but yourselves to blame when God takes you to task for it.
Pick an issue! Over and over, the witness of the early Church vindicates and ratifies current Catholic doctrine and teaching. We've treated to many of these over the last months on various threads here on FR. You cannot even come up with a rational explanation for the canon of the very Scriptures, yet you appeal to them without reference to the early Church's understanding of them! And, "perspicuous" though the Scriptures may be, according to your own fundamental theology, non-Catholics manage to twist them into a multiplicity of mutually contradictory passages of utterly no consequence to the world around us. The results are in every newspaper, every news broadcast, and nearly every piece of drivel coming from Hollywood!
The Church is the "pillar and ground of the Truth." (1Timothy 3:15) And the Truth is Christ. (John 14:6) His Truth is indivisible, since He is God and cannot be self-contradictory. He prayed hard that the Truth of His faith might not be divided (John 17, especially verses 20-21), so that it might be a proper and convincing witness to the world. And He promised to be with the Church "all days" till the end of time (Matthew 28:16-20), sending the Holy Spirit to guide it (John 16:13).
If the early Church didn't possess the Truth, and resorted to "fables" like Purgatory, again, you and I both are wasting our time. If they didn't possess the Truth, then neither do we! The same people who "invented" such "absurdities" also were responsible, for several hundred years, for handing-down the contents of Scripture, from one generation to the next. Their witness, if they were prone to lying and doctrinal invention, would be meaningless. Christianity is a sham in such a situation. I would urge you to chew on that for a bit, and then perhaps actually *read* the material from these links: http://www.catholic.com/library/Roots_of_Purgatory.asp
http://www.davidmacd.com/catholic/purgatory.htm
The origin of the doctrine of Purgatory was established in 593 AD by Gregory the Great. It was proclaimed dogma by The Council of Florence in 1439.
It's a lie.
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I think you are mistaten to take this attitude for it is recognized in the Bible as Spirit Prison even Jesus preach to those in Spirit Prison!