We often think of “purgatory” as a modern day Catholic doctrine. The truth is, the theory goes all the way back to Babylon and deals with the gods of ancient fireworshippers. Those gods had to be appeased by some kind of sacrifice. So it was believed our God had to be appeased with sacrifices to allow souls to leave a place called purgatory. Even the famous greek philosopher Plato held a belief in a second chance doctrine. He believed some souls must endure the punishment they deserved for the life they lived here, but after that, they were permitted to ascend to a final celestral home. In Pagan Rome however, there was also a purgatory, there was just no hope of ever getting out. In Egypt, they basically agreed with the Roman belief. So the Romans began to say prayers for the dead. There was one problem with that however. To make the prayers work there had to be a priest to recite them. Of course with priestly functions came the opportunity to receive money for services rendered. Thus the Roman church found a great way to extract money from grieving relatives of the deceased. They devised a theory of “buying” souls out of purgatory.

In Greece, according to Plato, they came up with a mysterious sacrifice called the Telete. It was offered for both the living and the dead to free them from all the sins they would have been liable for when they left this world. After all, wouldn’t you pay everything you had if you thought it would assure your spouse or child went into paradise? However, I have met a few people who would have paid them to “keep their spouses” in purgatory. But the bottom line is, the common people weren’t allowed to read the scriptures for themselves, so they didn’t really know any better. Nowdays because of bad publicity you might say, they’ve taken the emphasis off the money and switched it to prayers to “pray them out of purgatory.” Let’s face it, the doctrine of purgatory is pagan, always was, always will be. If you’re covered by the blood of Yeshua, what more is needed? This doctrine is telling us that the blood covering was not sufficient, what an insult to Yeshua! You can see how the spirit of Babylon has worked it’s way down through time deceiving man into believing he can always buy himself a second chance for eternity!