Dist. 21, Part 1, Art. 2, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/21/q/bon-sent-IV-d21-p1-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the purgation of purgatory takes place through material fire.*

Secondly it is asked whether that purgation takes place through material fire, or through spiritual fire. And it seems that it is spiritual:

1. Through the Gloss on that text of First Corinthians, chapter three: *If anyone's work shall be burned*: "But the work of him who here loved temporal things is burned up, since the things possessed here with love do not perish without pain"; and Augustine, *On the City of God*, book twenty-one, expounding that text, says: "It is necessary that the pain burn as much as the love had clung." If therefore all this is spiritual, it does not seem that that purging fire is anything but something spiritual.

2. Likewise, what is purged and that by which it is purged and the purgation itself are something spiritual: therefore it seems that likewise so is that through which it is purged; but this is the purgatorial fire: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, nothing corporeal and extrinsic contributes anything to the justification of the soul, therefore neither to the remission of fault; but in purgatory the soul is cleansed from fault: therefore it does not seem that it is burned by material flame.

4. Likewise, if the soul is purged by corporeal punishment; since the punishment of death is the supreme of punishments, then it seems that it ought there to be purged entirely: therefore it in no way needs to be purged by material fire.

5. Likewise, it seems that there is no necessity for this, because vehement pain and fervent love by themselves, without anything exterior, suffice to blot out punishment and fault; but immediately, the soul being separated, since the free will is in accord with the soul's grace, charity grows fervent, and detests, as much as it can, the fault previously committed, and this begets fervor and pain: therefore immediately every fault is blotted out.

**On the contrary:**
1. As is said in the Gloss on that text: *So he shall be saved* etc., and is held in the text: "That fire is heavier than anything a man can suffer in this life": therefore the souls will have some afflictive thing outside; but that is either corporeal or spiritual; not spiritual, because then it would be either an Angel, or a soul, or God, none of which can be: therefore it is necessary that it be corporeal.

2. Likewise, we see that it comes about by right ordering that the soul, which had subjected itself lustfully to corporeal things, namely by conversion to a changeable good

is justified by material and corporeal Sacraments: therefore by parity of reasoning, after this life it ought to be purged by corporeal afflictions.

3. Likewise, if the soul is purified after death, then it is either by a pain that comes from contrition, or by a pain that comes from the loss of a thing, or by a pain that comes from exterior affliction. Not in the first way, because there is no longer a place of merit, neither as to contrition nor as to the other acts of virtue; not in the second way, because pain over loss savors rather of the character of fault than of the character of purgation, since it comes from disordered love: therefore in the third way it is purged by a pain that comes from exterior affliction: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, if that fire were spiritual; since it is not God — this is established — it is necessary that it be diversified and multiplied among diverse things: therefore as many as the souls were, so many would be the purgatorial fires and so many purgatories: if therefore this is unfitting, it is plain that it is not spiritual.

> **Conclusion.** The fire of purgatory is material or corporeal.

**I respond:** It must be said that Augustine seems to doubt whether that fire is *material* or *spiritual* which will torment, or now torments, souls — not only as to the purgatorial fire, but also as to the infernal fire, in which that rich man burned — not only in *On Genesis according to the Letter*, but also in the book *On the City of God*. Whence also by way of doubt he says, in the Gloss on that text of First Corinthians chapter three: *Who builds wood, hay* etc., setting down the opinion of those who say that souls are purged by material and temporal fire after this life; he says: "I do not refute it, because perhaps it is true." And this same thing is set down in the text, and his doubt seems reasonable enough. For the rich man, who was in hell and whose tongue was burned, did not have a corporeal tongue. And he who carries wood, hay, stubble does not carry these material things with him, but spiritual things, which are so named by metaphor; why then is it not fitting to understand likewise of spiritual fire metaphorically?

But although the eminent doctor Augustine seemed to doubt, other doctors nevertheless take away the doubt from us, since they knew this by manifold reasoning, as Gregory in the fourth book of the *Dialogues* and Isidore *On the Order of Creatures*, and the doctors of our time commonly hold that the purgatorial fire is material or corporeal. — But how such a fire acts upon the souls by afflicting them, this has great difficulty and will be inquired into below concerning the punishments of souls. But how it acts in purging, there is diversity among the doctors.

For some have wished to say that, besides the punitive power, there has been given to that fire a spiritual purgative power, by reason of which it purges from venial stain, or even from the dross of sin, just as the Sacraments have a sanctifying power given to them. — But it is not necessary to posit that, namely that beyond punishment it has a new power, since Gregory says that many souls are purged through diverse places, and such a cleansing of fault is properly from grace itself.

And therefore there is the position of others, which seems more correct, that that fire by one and the same nature both punishes and purges, since by punishing it aids grace, and grace, having the help of punishment and the consonance of our will — which, although it is not a helper, nevertheless does not impede — is able to purge fault and the dross of sin, so that such purgation is from grace, the free will consenting, and exterior punishment aiding, according to conformity to the remission of venial sins which takes place in this life.

If, however, you ask: how does punishment aid grace in blotting out or purging the stain? it must be said that divine justice does this; or also it can be understood in that manner by which it is said that a grave infirmity makes the soul sober, that is, virtue does this, in a certain way aided by punishment. — But if you ask whether immediately, when grace has that help, it blots out the fault and purges the dross: it can be said that either is probable enough, either that grace is at once invigorated so as to blot out the venial fault, when it is aided by punishment, and thereafter is punished by way of obligation; or it can be said that punishment more and more disposes, and after-

ward, once it has disposed sufficiently, grace itself in an instant blots out the fault, if there be any. Whichever of these be said, it does not seem that it can easily be disproved. — Therefore it must be conceded that that fire is material or corporeal.

1. To that, then, which is objected from the Gloss and from Augustine, it must be said that Augustine does not deny that that fire which will purge souls is material, but expounds that this can be understood of a spiritual fire. Yet Augustine himself, in his sermons, speaking of purgatory, sufficiently intimates that the fire is material, as is the fire of hell.

2. To that which is objected, that the purgation is spiritual; it must be said that this is true, and therefore effectively or formally it is through something spiritual, namely through grace; but nevertheless, because the soul sinned with the flesh and by sinning set the flesh before itself, and thus set the body before the spirit; divine justice decreed that, even in the purgation, it should be subjected to the corporeal thing.

3. To that which is objected, that it does not justify; it must be said that this is true in itself; yet the exterior punishment excites and aids the interior grace, so that it may be able to lead to perfect justification.

4. To that which is objected about the punishment of death, it must be said that the punishment of death itself is a debt of original sin and is not ordained to the purgation of the soul, unless it be voluntarily undertaken, when one is able to escape, as in the Martyrs, or even be voluntarily endured, when it is inflicted by another; but the punishment of purgatory is for this purpose.

5. To that which is objected about pain and love, it must be said that these are voluntary movements; and therefore it is not necessary that they be at their highest in the soul now stripped; moreover, by themselves they no longer suffice, since there no longer remains a space for meriting: and therefore it is necessary that the purgatorial fire be applied externally, just as the Sacrament of baptism comes to the aid of little children, who cannot merit by themselves.

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