376 - The Birth of Purgatory

The Birth of Purgatory
By Jacques Le Goff
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1984. 430 pp. $25.00.

This book is a fascinating and unusual study of the development of the imagery and doctrinal formulation of the Christian teaching on purgatory by the director of the École des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris. It is fascinating in as far as it focuses strongly on the formation of psychological structures in medieval thought. It is unusual in that it gives more attention than is commonly found to the social, economic, and intellectual setting that contributed significantly to the shaping of the doctrine of purgatory.

Purgation in some form is a common theme of the early Christian tradition. But purgatory as a place in which some of the dead were subjected to a trial that could be shortened by the prayers and spiritual aid of the living is a creation of the late twelfth century. The idea that purgation after death is carried out in a specific place between heaven and hell and for a time proportionate to the number and quality of sins in this life is seen by Le Goff as a mental revolution of considerable significance. The rise of purgatory as an intermediary realm in the world beyond parallels the medieval tendency to introduce a middle class in the social structures of this world, a class between the powerful and the poor and between the clergy and the laity. The creation of such a third place springs from the believers demand for a justice never realized in this world.

Le Goff documents his argument with a sensitive and comprehensive account of the wide variety of sources that bear on his topic. Once the idea of purgatory as a specific place entered into Western thought toward the end of the twelfth century, things moved rapidly through the systematization attempted by university theologians, the popularization of authors such as Caesar of Heisterbach and Stephen of Bourbon, and the development of the canonical regulation of the power this doctrine gives to the hierarchy of the church even over those who have died. The triumphant climax of this development is found in the Jubilee Year of 1300, a year of generous indulgences granted through the exercise of the "power of the keys."

The creation of purgatory is an event in the history of human imagination that had important consequences. The doctrine held open the possibility of salvation to many people who previously would have been consigned to hell since they lacked the obvious heroic virtue necessary to reach heaven. The clear connection between purgatory, penance, confession, and indulgences made it easier for the hierarchy of the church to assert its power to regulate even life in the beyond.

As a historical study that not only traces the sources and development of the doctrine of purgatory but relates this doctrine to the significant social and economic structures of the medieval period, this is an

378 - The Birth of Purgatory

exceptional work addressed primarily to the academic community. It is not, however, beyond criticism in all respects. The insistence that there is no purgatory until we find the use of the noun-form "purgatory" and not merely the adjective-form as in "purgative fire" reflects a methodological issue that is clearly open to question. The relation between the popular imagination and the hierarchy of the church needs considerable clarification. Without further insight into the role of the imagination in the overall development of human consciousness and without a closer investigation into the "sense of the faithful" as a source of theology, any judgments about the exploitive tendency of the hierarchy would be premature. Is the hierarchy exploiting the naivete of the common people in the discipline of indulgences? Or, is the imagination of the people making a demand on the church to which the hierarchy responded in an understandable way?

Finally, Le Goff ends his extensive presentation with the hope that the doctrine of purgatory will not become the victim of over-zealous efforts at modernization in the contemporary church. In view of his own argument, it is not clear what significance this doctrine might have when the world-view from which it emerged and of which it is an integral part is no longer the operative world-view of twentieth-century believers. Surely, for Le Goff, the answer to this must lie in his understanding of the dynamism of imagination. Unfortunately, this is not developed in the present work. We are left at the end of this stimulating work with the strange feeling of an intellectual's nostalgia for a sort of lost simplicity.

Zachary Hayes
Catholic Theological Union
Chicago, Illinois