Annotatio CXL

”After darkness I hope for light.” — Job 17:12

Gregory, in book 13 of the Explanations on Job, chapter 20, writes these things:¹ “Because by the grace of our Author we have been redeemed, this we now have as of a heavenly gift: that, when we are withdrawn from the inhabitation of our flesh, we may at once be led to the heavenly rewards; because, while our Creator and Redeemer, penetrating the bars of hell, leads forth thence the souls of the elect, he does not suffer us to go thither — whence he has already, by descending, freed others.” That this passage has been distorted by the Lutherans to overthrow the faith of purgatory, John Bunderius is a witness, in title 18 of his Concertations, where, refuting these same heretics, he says: “Gregory did not wish, by these words, to deny Purgatory — which in the fourth [book] of the Dialogues, and elsewhere, he so diligently confirmed through the Scriptures and histories; but he wished to insinuate this: that we are not now excluded from the kingdom of heaven, when migrating from life, as the Fathers of the Old Testament were excluded before Christ’s passion. For they, however much purged, were nevertheless still excluded; but this is now not so. And that this was his intention is plain from what follows: for he adds, ‘Those who, before his coming into this world, departed — however much justice-virtue they had — being led out of [their] bodies, could in no way at once be received into the bosom of the heavenly fatherland, because he had not yet come who by his descent should loose the bars of hell, and place the souls of the just in [their] perpetual seat.’”