should they accidentally die on the road, or by sea, where no assistance could be given; shall be remembered in the prayers and offerings of the faithful.”[1] Can. lxxix. Conc. Gen. T. ii. p. 1206. See also the 29th Canon of the preceding Council of Carthage. Ibid. p. 1171.
St. Gregory of Nyssa, G.C. “In order that to man might be left the dignity of free-will, and evil, at the same time, might be taken from him, divine wisdom thus devised. He allows him to remain subject to what himself has chosen; that, having tasted of the evil which he desired, and learned by experience how bad an exchange has been made, he might again feel an ardent wish to lay down the load of those vices and inclinations, which are contrary to reason; and thus, in this life, being renovated by prayers and the pursuit of wisdom, or, in the next, being expiated by the purging fire,[2] he might recover the state of happiness which he had lost.—Man otherwise must incline to that side, to which his passions tend.—But when he has quitted his body, and the difference between virtue and vice is known, he cannot be admitted to approach the Divinity till the purging fire shall have expiated the stains, with which his soul was infected.[3]—That same fire, in others, will cancel the corruption of matter and the propensity to evil.”[4] Orat. de Defunctis. T. ii. p. 1066, 1067, 1068.
St. Ambrose, L.C. Having, in a preceding part of the chapter, spoken of the effect of penal fire on what the Apostle calls silver and gold, and hay and stubble, in our actions, he concludes: “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or
