The Invention of The Purgatory Doctrine

*Crystal and Chaney read the same article so see Crystal's blog for more information on this hot topic. 

The purgatory doctrine was invented in the 12th century and has no scriptural basis of origin. The Protestants rejected the doctrine in the 16th century. According to the doctrine, purgatory is another world where people who have died go before entering into heaven. They have already been forgiven for their sins, but they still need to atone for them. They have to be cleansed of their sins before they can enter heaven. This ties into the the idea of indulgences where you could pay money to have your sins forgiven or the amount of time spent in purgatory reduced. If a family member died then the family could buy indulgences so their relative could move from purgatory to heaven faster. The medieval Catholic church needed to innovate in order to gain more market position in a time when many religious ideologies challenged christianity and purgatory was one way of doing that. With the new doctrine of purgatory the Catholic church could now increase its revenues while also increasing the satisfaction of its members.

The author of the article is writing about the Catholic church as if it was simply a firm in the market of religion. The Catholic church, with its ideology of purgatory, can be compared to the business and legal proceedings of bankruptcy. When someone files for bankruptcy in the business world they are given a second change and can start over. This is similar to purgatory because now sinners have a chance to enter heaven if they died without their sins being atoned. With the new hope for sinners that purgatory brings, the price for sin now costs less and the demand curve is downward sloping. Now a church member can commit more sin and still make it into heaven and pay a cheaper price for sin. Purgatory also lowers the transaction cost to sinners with a high opportunity cost. The Catholic church was the main supplier of ideology at the time and it had a monopolistic advantage over other ideologies. They used price discrimination because the price they put on indulgences was always the member’s maximum willingness to pay. 

During our time in Rome we toured the Vatican and the Sistine chapel. Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the Sistine chapel and in his work shows a depiction of souls in purgatory waiting for their sins to be atoned before entering heaven. Also on the Vatican tour we entered into St. Peter's Basilica which is the largest Catholic basilica in the world. The basilica is full of large statues of saints and gold paintings of scenes and people from the bible. The grand scale of church took over 100 years to complete and is big enough to have the Coloseum fit inside of it. The Catholic church built it so large in order to make its visitors feel small and to show how powerful the church was. The purgatory doctrine was a way for the church to increase its market share and retain its power in the religion market. 

Pictures are from the Vatican tour and show the basilica.