Part VII: Not in the Bible

THE WORD IS NOT THERE #

Search every page of every Bible -- Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. The word "purgatory" does not appear. Not once. The historian Jacques Le Goff ("The Birth of Purgatory," 1981) traced the Latin noun purgatorium, "the place of purging," to the late twelfth century. Before that there were scattered speculations about cleansing fire. The place itself was built in the Middle Ages.

ROME'S THREE PROOF TEXTS -- EXAMINED #

• 2 MACCABEES 12:42-46. After a battle, Judas Maccabeus finds that his fallen soldiers were wearing amulets of the idols of Jamnia under their tunics (12:40). He takes up a collection of two thousand drachmas of silver and sends it to Jerusalem for a sin offering (12:43), and the passage concludes that it is "a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins" (12:46, Douay-Rheims). Look at what this is. First: the book is deuterocanonical -- it is not in the Hebrew Bible, Jerome classed the books of Maccabees outside the canon in his preface to the books of Kings, and Protestants reject it. Second: the dead men were guilty of IDOLATRY -- by Rome's own teaching a mortal sin, and purgatory is only for those who die "in God's grace and friendship" (CCC 1030). Third: the author himself does not claim inspiration: "if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired: but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto" (2 Maccabees 15:38, KJV Apocrypha). Fourth: notice how the oldest "proof" of purgatory begins -- with silver sent to the temple on behalf of the dead.
• 1 CORINTHIANS 3:15: "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." Read 3:10-14. Paul is talking about builders -- teachers -- and the WORK they build on the foundation of Christ. "The day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is" (3:13). The fire tests WORK, on ONE day. It does not purge souls over centuries. And Paul says the builder "shall be saved."
• MATTHEW 12:32: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit "shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." That is a way of saying NEVER. Mark's parallel says it plainly: such a person "hath never forgiveness" (Mark 3:29). Rome reads it backwards: if one sin is not forgiven in the age to come, others must be. The verse says nothing of the kind.

HOW THE FIRE WAS BUILT -- DATE BY DATE #

   DATE          WHO / WHAT                       WHAT WAS ADDED
   ------------  -------------------------------  ------------------------
   c. 593-594    Gregory the Great, Dialogues     purgatorial fire for
                 Book 4                           "light faults"; ghost
                                                  stories; Masses for the
                                                  dead
   late 1100s    the noun purgatorium appears     a PLACE (Le Goff)
   1274          Second Council of Lyon           souls cleansed after
                 (profession of faith of          death "by purgatorial
                 Emperor Michael VIII)            punishments"
   1343          Clement VI, Unigenitus           the "treasury of
                                                  merits" the Church
                                                  dispenses
   1439          Council of Florence,             purgatory defined for
                 Laetentur Caeli                  East and West
   1476          Sixtus IV, Salvator Noster       indulgences applied to
                                                  souls IN purgatory
   1517          Tetzel's indulgence campaign     "the soul from purgatory
                                                  springs"
   1563          Council of Trent, Session 25     purgatory reaffirmed;
                                                  anathema on deniers

Gregory's Dialogues show you the engine. In one story the dead monk Justus, who had secretly kept three gold coins, is released from torment after thirty consecutive Masses are offered for him (Dialogues 4.57; numbered 4.55 in some editions). Three gold coins, thirty Masses. The practice of "Gregorian Masses" for the dead is still named after it.

FOLLOW THE MONEY #

Purgatory gave the Church something no earthly power had ever had: jurisdiction over the dead. Once there was a place of temporary punishment, there could be a remission of it. Once Clement VI declared a "treasury of merits" in the Church's keeping (1343), there was a vault. Once Sixtus IV extended indulgences to souls already in purgatory (1476), grieving families had a reason to pay. By 1517 Tetzel was selling relief for dead parents to fund a basilica in Rome (Part IX).

Purgatory is the doctrine that turned grief into revenue.

WHAT THE BIBLE ACTUALLY SAYS ABOUT THE MOMENT AFTER DEATH #

• "Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." -- Luke 23:43. Said to a thief, with no penance, no Masses, no fire.
• "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." -- 2 Corinthians 5:8
• "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." -- Hebrews 9:27. Death, then judgment. No waiting room.
• "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." -- Hebrews 10:14
• "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." -- 1 John 1:7

ROME'S REPLY: purgatory is not a second chance, only the final purification of the already saved. ANSWER: "perfected for ever" (Hebrews 10:14) leaves nothing to purify -- and "all sin" (1 John 1:7) leaves nothing to burn.

ONE MEDIATOR -- THE BIBLE IS BLUNT #

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." -- 1 Timothy 2:5

ONE. Not one plus a mother. Not one plus ten thousand saints. And when the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he did not say "Hail Mary." He said: "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven" (Matthew 6:9). Prayer goes to the Father.

Count the prayers addressed to Mary in the New Testament: zero. Count the prayers addressed to any dead apostle, martyr or saint: zero. Not one believer in the entire New Testament prays to anyone but God.

TALKING TO THE DEAD #

"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD." -- Deuteronomy 18:10-12

Mary died. The apostles died. Every saint on every holy card died. Addressing requests to the departed is precisely what Deuteronomy forbids.

ROME'S REPLY: the saints are alive in Christ, for God "is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Mark 12:27). ANSWER: alive in God, yes -- which is exactly why you go to God, not to them; scripture never once shows a believer on earth praying to a believer in heaven.

WHAT JESUS HIMSELF SAID ABOUT HIS MOTHER #

• A woman in the crowd cried out: "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked." Jesus answered: "Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." -- Luke 11:27-28
• Told that his mother and brothers were outside asking for him, Jesus said: "Who is my mother, or my brethren?... For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." -- Mark 3:31-35

Jesus had every opportunity to set his mother above believers. Twice he refused.

HOW THE HAIL MARY WAS BUILT #

   PART OF THE PRAYER                       SOURCE
   ---------------------------------------  ------------------------------
   "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is        the angel's GREETING
    with thee"                              (Luke 1:28, Douay)
   "blessed art thou among women, and       Elizabeth's GREETING
    blessed is the fruit of thy womb"       (Luke 1:42)
   "Jesus"                                  added in the Middle Ages
   "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us   NOT IN SCRIPTURE. Versions
    sinners, now and at the hour of our     circulated in the 15th c.;
    death"                                  the form was fixed in Pius
                                            V's Roman Breviary, 1568

A greeting is not a prayer. Gabriel was speaking to a living girl in Nazareth, not opening a channel of petition for all time. The part that actually ASKS Mary for something -- the petition -- was standardized fifteen centuries after the Gospels.

THE COUNCILS AND THE TITLE #

In 431 the Council of Ephesus declared Mary "Theotokos" -- God-bearer, Mother of God. Read why: the fight was with Nestorius over the nature of CHRIST -- whether the child she bore was truly God. It was a statement about Jesus. It was never a license to pray to his mother. Rome built a devotion on top of a Christological title.

ROME'S OLDEST EVIDENCE: THE SUB TUUM PRAESIDIUM #

Rome points to a short Greek prayer preserved on a papyrus (Rylands Papyrus 470): "Beneath your compassion we take refuge, Theotokos; do not despise our petitions in time of trouble, but deliver us from danger, only pure, only blessed." It is the oldest known prayer to Mary. Scholars date the papyrus anywhere from the third century to later; many say the fourth.

ANSWER, in three lines: - At the very earliest it is some 200 years after Christ. When the Gnostic texts are that late, Rome calls them worthless (Part XI, Objection 1). The same rule applies here. - It is not scripture. It is evidence of what some Christians in Egypt began doing -- not of what Jesus or the apostles taught. - In the same era, Bishop Epiphanius condemned a group of women (the "Collyridians") for offering cakes to Mary as to a goddess, insisting that Mary be honored but that only the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be worshipped (Panarion 79, PARAPHRASE). Even the Church's own heresy-hunter saw where this road led.

WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT REPETITION #

"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." -- Matthew 6:7

The Greek is battalogesete -- "babble," "keep saying the same thing." Now count the rosary. In its classic form: fifteen decades, each of one Our Father and ten Hail Marys -- 150 Hail Marys, modeled on the 150 psalms, which is why it was called "Our Lady's Psalter." Since 2002, with the Luminous Mysteries: twenty decades, 200 Hail Marys. Counted on beads so none is missed.

Jesus gave the Lord's Prayer as a pattern of a few lines -- immediately after warning against "much speaking" (Matthew 6:7-13).

LEGEND: "MARY GAVE THE ROSARY TO ST. DOMINIC" #

Catholic tradition long held that the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Dominic (died 1221) and gave him the rosary. LEGEND. The story was promoted in the fifteenth century by the Dominican preacher Alan de la Roche (Alanus de Rupe, died 1475) -- about 250 years after Dominic's death. No source from Dominic's own lifetime or the first generations of his order mentions it. Historians trace the rosary's actual form to gradual medieval development, with fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Carthusian monks -- such as Henry of Kalkar and Dominic of Prussia -- credited with grouping the prayers into decades and attaching meditations to them.

HOW IT BECAME OFFICIAL #

   1400s       Alan de la Roche spreads the Dominic legend and founds
               rosary confraternities
   1569        Pope Pius V, bull "Consueverunt Romani Pontifices,"
               formally approves and standardizes the rosary
   1571        Battle of Lepanto; victory credited to the rosary; the
               feast of Our Lady of Victory (later Our Lady of the
               Rosary) follows
   2002        John Paul II, "Rosarium Virginis Mariae," adds five
               new "Luminous Mysteries"

Stop on the last line. A pope added a fifth of the rosary in 2002. If it came from heaven through Dominic, it was incomplete for 780 years. If it was built by men, men can add to it -- which is exactly what happened.

BEADS IN OTHER RELIGIONS -- THE CAREFUL VERSION #

Prayer beads are far older than Christianity's rosary and are used in many traditions: the Hindu japa mala and the Buddhist mala, and later the Muslim misbaha. Early Christian monks counted prayers with pebbles or knotted cords, and the Eastern prayer rope still exists. We will not claim the rosary was copied from any one of them -- that lineage is not proven. The point is simpler, and it is Jesus' point: counting repetitions so that you will be "heard for your much speaking" is exactly the practice he named and rejected in Matthew 6:7.

WHO THE BIBLE SAYS YOU CONFESS TO #

• TO GOD: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." -- 1 John 1:9
• TO ONE ANOTHER: "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." -- James 5:16

One another. Not to a priest. Not in a box. Not once a year by law. Mutually, among believers -- and to God.

ROME'S PROOF TEXT: JOHN 20:23 #

"Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." -- John 20:22-23

ANSWER. Read what is NOT there. No booth. No priestly caste -- the word "priest" (hiereus) is never used in the New Testament for a Christian minister. No command to list your sins by number and kind to a man. No yearly obligation. The words are spoken to the disciples gathered behind closed doors (20:19) -- and Luke's account of that same evening includes "them that were with them" (Luke 24:33) and defines the mission as "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations" (Luke 24:47). The authority is the proclamation of forgiveness through Christ, given to the community -- not a private tribunal run by a clergy that did not yet exist.

HOW THE BOOTH WAS BUILT -- DATE BY DATE #

   DATE          PRACTICE
   ------------  ---------------------------------------------------------
   1st c.        confess to God and to one another (1 Jn 1:9; Jas 5:16)
   2nd c.        Shepherd of Hermas: after baptism, ONE repentance only
                 (Mandate 4.3)
   c. 200-205    Tertullian, On Penitence 7-12: a second penance granted
                 only once; PUBLIC -- sackcloth, ashes, fasting, kneeling
                 before the presbyters and the congregation
   589           Third Council of Toledo, canon 11, condemns the NEW habit
                 of seeking reconciliation again every time one sins
   6th-7th c.    Irish penitentials (Finnian, Columbanus): PRIVATE,
                 REPEATABLE confession, with a price list of penances
                 for each sin; spread to the continent by Irish monks
   1215          Fourth Lateran Council, canon 21, "Omnis utriusque
                 sexus": every believer must confess ALL sins at least
                 ONCE A YEAR to HIS OWN PRIEST
   1551          Council of Trent, Session 14: confession of all mortal
                 sins to a priest required by divine law
   c. 1565-76    Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, promotes the
                 enclosed confessional with a screen; his building
                 instructions (1577) spread the design
   1622          Gregory XV, "Universi Dominici gregis," against priests
                 soliciting penitents in confession

Look at the arc. A public, once-in-a-lifetime act of restoration became private, then repeatable, then priced, then compulsory, then enclosed in a wooden box. The Church's own Council of Toledo in 589 called the private, repeatable practice an abuse. Six centuries later the Church made it the law.

And the screen in the booth was not only for modesty. Borromeo's grille was designed to separate penitent and confessor because solicitation in confession was a real scandal -- serious enough that popes issued bulls against it (1622 and after).

THE PRIEST AS MEDIATOR -- AGAINST HEBREWS #

"Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God... Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." -- Hebrews 4:14-16

Boldly. To the throne. Not timidly, to a box.

"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people." -- 1 Peter 2:9

Every believer is the priest. The New Testament has exactly one High Priest -- Jesus -- and a whole people of priests. It has no room for a caste that stands between them.

ROME'S REPLY: the priest acts "in persona Christi" -- it is Christ who forgives through him. ANSWER: then Christ can forgive without him, and the Bible says he does (1 John 1:9).

ROME'S LADDER VS THE DIRECT PATH #

        ROME'S LADDER                         THE DIRECT PATH (GNOSIS)
        =============                         ========================

             GOD                                   THE FATHER
              ^                                   (the Depth)
              |                                        ^
           CHRIST                                      |
              ^                                        |
              |                                        |
            MARY                                       |
              ^                                        |
              |                                     no rungs
           SAINTS                                no tollkeepers
              ^                                   no veil --
              |                                torn top to bottom
           PRIEST  (booth, penance,                (Matt 27:51)
              ^     absolution)                       |
              |                                        |
  PURGATORY - YOU - ROSARY                            |
   (pay now     (count                             THE SPARK
    or later)    your prayers)                    within you
                                                   (pneuma)

   "one mediator between God and men,     "the kingdom of God is within
    the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5)       you" (Luke 17:21)

A VALENTINIAN READING: NO MIDDLEMEN #

The Valentinians had sacraments, teachers and community. What they did not have was a ladder. Salvation, for them, was the Father making himself known to his own -- directly.

"The gospel of truth is joy for those who have received from the Father of truth the grace of knowing him." -- Gospel of Truth, NHC I,3 16:31-33 (Robinson)

"He who is to have knowledge in this manner knows where he comes from and where he is going." -- Gospel of Truth, NHC I,3 22:13-15 (Robinson)

The Gospel of Truth describes the little children -- not the scholars, not the officials -- as the ones to whom knowledge of the Father belongs (NHC I,3 19:27-30, PARAPHRASE), and it ends with the awakened resting in the Father, with the Father in them and they in him (NHC I,3 42, PARAPHRASE). No fire to pay off. No mother to petition. No beads to count. No box to kneel in.

Rome built four veils. Gnosis is the knowledge that the veil was torn on the day Jesus died -- and that it was torn from the top.