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History of purgatory. The idea of purgatory has roots that date back into antiquity. A sort of proto-purgatory called the "celestial Hades " appears in the writings of Plato and Heraclides Ponticus, among many other Classical writers. This concept is distinguished from the Hades of the underworld described in the works of Homer and Hesiod.
In Catholic doctrine, purgatory refers to the final cleansing of those who died in the State of Grace, and leaves in them only "the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven"; [3] it is entirely different from the punishment of the damned and is not related to the forgiveness of sins for salvation.
Paganism. A marble statue of Jupiter, king of the Roman gods. Paganism (from classical Latin pāgānus "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, [1] or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman Empire ...
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
Certain religious groups, in particular the Eastern Orthodox Churches, Anglican Church, and Catholic Church venerate saints as intercessors with God; the latter also believes in prayer for departed souls in Purgatory. Other religious groups, however, consider veneration of the dead to be idolatry and a sin.
Death in Norse paganism. This image is usually interpreted as a Valkyrie who welcomes a dead man, or Odin himself, on the Tjängvide image stone from Gotland, in the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm. Death in Norse paganism was associated with diverse customs and beliefs that varied with time, location and social group, and ...
The first edition cover of Hutton's book. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy is a book of religious history and archaeology written by the English historian Ronald Hutton, first published by Blackwell in 1991. It was the first published synthesis of the entirety of pre-Christian religion in the British ...
Pagan studies is the multidisciplinary academic field devoted to the study of modern paganism, a broad assortment of modern religious movements, which are typically influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of premodern Europe. [1][2] Pagan studies embrace a variety of different scholarly approaches to studying such ...