Chapter II.
On the antecedents to the judgment, of which kind is purgatorial punishment.
Then, in particular, concerning the state of the final judgment, certain things are to be considered as preambles, certain things as concomitants, and certain things as consequents. The preambles, however, are two, namely purgatorial punishment and ecclesiastical suffrages.
First, therefore, concerning purgatorial punishments, this is to be held: that the purgatorial fire is a corporeal fire, by which nevertheless the spirits of the just, who in this life did not fulfill condign penance and satisfaction, are afflicted to a greater or lesser degree, according as they carried with them from this life more or less of what is combustible.
They are afflicted, however, less gravely than in hell, and more gravely than in this world; yet not so gravely that they do not always hope and know that they are not in hell, although perhaps on account of the magnitude of their punishments they sometimes do not advert to this.
By this affliction inflicted by corporeal fire, spirits are purged from guilt and dross and also from the remnants of sins; and when these have been sufficiently purged away, they immediately fly forth and are introduced into the glory of paradise.
The reason for understanding the aforesaid is this: since the First Principle, by the very fact that it is first, is the best and most perfect, and by the very fact that it is the best, is supremely loving of good and supremely detesting of evil, just as the highest goodness does not suffer that good remain unrewarded, so also it ought not to suffer that evil remain unpunished. Since, therefore, just men sometimes depart this life who have not totally fulfilled their penance in this life—since the merit of eternal life in them cannot remain unrewarded, and the stain of fault cannot remain unpunished, lest the beauty of the order of the universe be disturbed—it is necessary that they be finally rewarded; it is also necessary that the same be temporally punished according to the demand and guilt of their faults.
And because the fault committed was both offensive to the divine majesty and damaging to the Church and deformative of the divine image impressed upon our mind—especially if it was a mortal fault, and venial fault also disposes toward this—and for the offense punishment is required, for the damage satisfaction must be rendered, and for the deformation purgation must be sought: hence it is that this punishment must be justly punitive, worthily satisfactory, and sufficiently purgative.
First, therefore, since that punishment ought to be justly punitive: and the spirit, which, having despised the eternal and highest good, subjected itself to the lowest, ought justly to be subjected to inferior things, so that it may receive punishment from those on whose occasion it perpetrated fault, and on account of which it both despised God and made itself vile: hence it is that the order of divine justice requires that the spirit be punished by material fire; so that, just as according to the order of nature the soul is united to the body in order to bestow life, so it may be united to material fire according to the order of justice as the punishable to the punisher, from which it may receive punishment.
And because just men, who are in grace, are worthy of nothing but transitory punishment: and they are worthy of so much greater punishment as they committed greater sins and performed lesser penance: hence it is that they are punished by material fire temporally, some however for a longer time, some indeed for a shorter, some more harshly, some more lightly, according as the guilt of their offenses requires. "For it is necessary, as the distinguished doctor Augustine says, that pain burn as much as love had clung." For one is purged with so much more difficulty as the love of worldly things had clung more intimately to the marrow of one's heart.
Furthermore, since that punishment ought to be satisfactory: and satisfaction regards the freedom of the will and the state of the wayfarer; especially since there is no longer the state of meriting there, and those punishments hold the character of the voluntary in the least degree: it is necessary that what is lacking on the part of freedom in the will that endures be supplied in severity on the part of the punishment. — But because those who are purged possess grace, which indeed they can no longer lose: hence it is that they neither can be utterly consumed by sorrow, nor fall into despair, nor can they nor do they in any way wish to break forth into blasphemy: and therefore, although they are gravely punished, yet far differently and more mildly than in hell; and they know without doubt that that state is other than this one in which those who are irremediably tormented in hell exist.
Lastly, because that punishment ought to be purgative: and that purgation is spiritual: it is necessary either that that fire have a spiritual power divinely given to it, or, as I more believe, that the very power of grace dwelling within, aided by the extrinsic punishment, purge the soul itself — already punished for its offenses and relieved of the burden of its guilt — with a sufficient purgation, so that no dissimilitude to glory may remain.
And since such spirits are disposed in the highest degree to receive in themselves the deiformity of glory: when the gate is opened and purgation is consummated, it is necessary that those spirits fly upward, in whom is the fire of charity lifting them upward, and nothing holding them back on the part of the soul's impurity or guilt. For it is not fitting for divine mercy or justice to defer glory any longer when it finds a fitting receptacle, and there is great punishment in the deferral of rewards, nor ought a spirit already purged to be punished any longer.