"--_Lectures on the Catholic Church._
Lecture xi., p. 59.]
ORIGEN, who wrote in the same century as Cyprian, and some two hundred
years after Christ, speaks as follows, in language the most distinct,
upon our doctrine of Purgatory: "When we depart this life, if we take
with us virtues or vices, shall we receive reward for our virtues, and
shall those trespasses be forgiven to us which we knowingly committed;
or shall we be punished for our faults, and not receive the reward of
our virtues? Neither is true: because we shall suffer for our sins and
receive the reward of our virtues. For if on the foundation of Christ
you shall have built not only gold and silver and precious stones, but
also wood and hay and stubble, what do you expect when the soul shall
be separated from the body? Would you enter into Heaven with your wood,
and hay, and stubble, to defile the Kingdom of God; or on account of
those encumbrances remain without, and receive no reward for your gold
and silver and precious stones? Neither is this just. It remains, then,
that you be committed to the fire, which shall consume the light
materials; for our God, to those who can comprehend heavenly things, is
called a _consuming fire_. But this fire consumes not the
creature, but what the creature has himself built--wood, and hay, and
stubble.
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