Dist. 21, Part 1, Art. 3, Q. 1
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-a3-q1
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### Article III. *On the deliverance from purgatory.*
### Question I. *Whether in purgatory one is freed before another.*

Consequently, as to the third article, the inquiry concerns deliverance from purgatory. And concerning this two things are asked. First, it is asked whether one is freed before another. Second, whether anyone flies forth before the final judgment.

As to the first, then, it is shown that one is freed before another:

1. *First*, by that which the Apostle says in the First [Letter] to the Corinthians, chapter three: *He who builds wood, hay, stubble*; but stubble is consumed more easily and more quickly than wood: therefore, since one bears stubble and another bears wood, it seems that one is freed more quickly than another.

2. Likewise, it is had in the [Master's] text, and it is a word of Augustine in the Enchiridion: «*After this life it is not incredible that some of the faithful are saved through a purgatorial fire*, more quickly or more slowly according as they loved perishing goods more or less».

3. Likewise, in the court of penance a graver penalty corresponds to a graver fault, not only as to intensity, but also as to duration, as is clear to one inspecting the canons, in which the penances are assessed: if therefore the right judgment of the Church is conformed to the divine judgment, it is clear etc.

4. Likewise, through sin the soul has merited not only to be burned in the fire, but also to be deprived of the vision of God: therefore in both ways it ought to be punished temporally: therefore

he who has sinned more gravely ought not only to be punished more sharply, but also to be separated longer from the vision of God, therefore to be purged more slowly.

**On the contrary:** 1. However unequal the merits may be, both in heaven and in hell the rewards and punishments endure equally: therefore by parity of reasoning, as it seems, it ought to be so in the purgatorial pain.

2. Likewise, according as the fault is more intense, a more intense penalty is rendered to it; but a lesser penalty can do as much over a lesser fault as a greater can over a greater: therefore as quickly as the small sinner is freed in purgatory through a small penalty, just as quickly the great sinner is freed through a great penalty.

Likewise, if one is freed more quickly than another, [it is] either by reason of greater charity, or by reason of lesser liability. By reason of greater charity, it seems [so]: because charity is the greater the more the soul is like to God, and the more it is like to God, the nearer to the state of glory: therefore so much the more quickly is it healed and purged and borne into heaven. — But that [it is] by reason of lesser liability, it seems [so]: because the soul is there only to pay off what it drew from this life; but the less the debt is, the more quickly it is paid off: therefore it seems that such a one is purged more quickly and borne into heaven.

> **Conclusion.** In purgatory one is purged more quickly than another.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as Augustine says expressly in the [Master's] text, in that fire one is purged more quickly than another. For he who has remained longer in sin, it is fitting that he should bear the penalty longer; again, he who has offended more gravely, it is fitting that he be punished with a sharper penalty and a longer deferral of the fatherland, the divine justice doing this, which most becomingly renders to all the wages of [their] merits.

1. To that which is objected to the contrary concerning the equality of duration in heaven, it must be said that it is not similar: because in hell an eternal penalty is inflicted, and in the eternal there is no greater and lesser on the side of the after, or on the side of that whereby it is eternal; likewise in heaven an eternal reward is given; but in purgatory only a temporal penalty is inflicted, and in this there is longer and shorter.

2. To that which is objected, that a grave penalty as quickly does away with a grave [fault] etc., it must be said that it would be true, if the penalty were intensified entirely according as the fault is intensified; but the divine dispensation so orders [things] that it is not intensified entirely as to sharpness, on account of the great difficulty, or also because [God] wills to punish in both ways, so that the greater sharpness and the longer duration may make up for whatever was lacking in the other.

To that which is asked, who is purged more quickly; it must be said that the one who has the lesser liability, since the purgatorial place is not owed except by reason of liability, or of some fault. And if you object that greater charity ought to make [one] fly forth more quickly; it must be said that greater charity increases glory intensively, but not as to duration. Hence if two innocents of unequal charity were to die at the same time, they would fly forth at the same time, yet they would not be equally blessed. As to what is said, then, that [one] is more like to the state of glory; it must be said that it is true by reason of the ordination toward the good, but not more as to deliverance from evil; and the swifter purgation regards the rescue from evil directly, not the fitting [of the soul] for the good.