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In his La naissance du Purgatoire (The Birth of Purgatory), Jacques Le Goff attributes the origin of the idea of a third other-world domain, similar to heaven and hell, called Purgatory, to Paris intellectuals and Cistercian monks at some point in the last three decades of the twelfth century, possibly as early as 1170−1180. [53]
While the idea of purgatory as a process of cleansing thus dated back to early Christianity, the 12th century was the heyday of medieval otherworld-journey narratives such as the Irish Visio Tnugdali, and of pilgrims' tales about St. Patrick's Purgatory, a cavelike entrance to purgatory on a remote island in Ireland. [44]
They also hold that Hell is not an eternal place and that the descriptions of it as "eternal" or "unquenchable" does not mean that the fire will never go out. They base this idea in other biblical cases such as the "eternal fire" (e.g. Jude 1:7) that was sent as punishment to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, that later extinguished. [120]
Hell of the Damned, also known as "Gehenna" (Hebrew: גֵּיהִנּוֹם), is hell strictly speaking, which the Catholic Church defines as the "state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed". [4] Purgatory is where just souls are cleansed from any defilement before entering Heaven.
There are few, if any, Old Testament or apocryphal writings that could be construed as implying particular judgment. The first century Jewish pseudepigraphal writing known as the Testament of Abraham includes a clear account of particular judgment, in which souls go either through the wide gate of destruction or the narrow gate of salvation.
Biblical scholar Richard Bauckham offered an academic survey of the history of the re-arising of the belief in Universal Salvation: The history of the doctrine of universal salvation (or apokatastasis) is a remarkable one. Until the nineteenth century almost all Christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in hell.
As the Times points out, a monetary donation wouldn't go amiss toward earning an indulgence. It writes, "charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one."
Traditionally Hell is defined in Christianity and Islam as one of two abodes of Afterlife for human beings (the other being Heaven or Jannah), and the one where sinners suffer torment eternally. There are several words in the original languages of the Bible that are translated into the word 'Hell' in English.