<P> 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 and in many other pagan writers . This concept is distinguished from the Hades of the underworld described in the works of Homer and Hesiod . In contrast , the celestial Hades was understood as an intermediary place where souls spent an undetermined time after death before either moving on to a higher level of existence or being reincarnated back on earth . Its exact location varied from author to author . Heraclides of Pontus thought it was in the Milky Way ; the Academicians , the Stoics , Cicero , Virgil , Plutarch , the Hermetical writings situated it between the Moon and the Earth or around the Moon ; while Numenius and the Latin Neoplatonists thought it was located between the sphere of the fixed stars and the Earth . </P>
<P> 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 and in many other pagan writers . This concept is distinguished from the Hades of the underworld described in the works of Homer and Hesiod . In contrast , the celestial Hades was understood as an intermediary place where souls spent an undetermined time after death before either moving on to a higher level of existence or being reincarnated back on earth . Its exact location varied from author to author . Heraclides of Pontus thought it was in the Milky Way ; the Academicians , the Stoics , Cicero , Virgil , Plutarch , the Hermetical writings situated it between the Moon and the Earth or around the Moon ; while Numenius and the Latin Neoplatonists thought it was located between the sphere of the fixed stars and the Earth . </P>
where does the idea of purgatory come from
where does the idea of purgatory come from
antiquity
antiquity