The notion that the whole of creation can be “read” as a kind of sacred text appears in the intertestamental literature and pseudepigrapha, most notably in Enoch and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. [1]  This concept was taken up and elaborated by Origen in his refutation of astrology.  In his commentaries on Genesis and John, Origen cites a tradition from the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs that the patriarch Jacob had “read on the pages of the  heavens” [2] the several destinies of his sons.   Origen intended to defend the concept of human freedom by refuting the determinism that seemed an unavoidable corollary of astrology.  He argued that the fate of human beings is not fixed by the movements of planets and stars, even though the future is, as the Testament of the Twelve implies, recorded in the heavens for those who are able to read it: “The entirety of the heavens, like a prophetic text, contains the future, for it is, as it were, God’s book.”[3]  Origen did not regard the stars as instrumental causes of human events, but rather as letters and characters in a sidereal record of the divine purposes.  Not only important future events, but all human deeds are mysteriously “written on the heavenly pages”.[4] 

The art of reading God’s will in the pages of heaven is, however, a skill that is normally attainable only by beings far advanced in God’s service, “those who are worthy of the entirety of knowledge.”[5]  Origen believed that the power to read the “signs of God like letters and characters in the heavens” is proper to angels and other heavenly powers, and to the saints who have died and “escaped the bondage of this earthly state”. [6]  While those who dwell on earth must rely on the sacred scriptures for the revelation of God’s will, angels discern the divine intentions and purposes by “reading the Book of God”; [7] for “everything from eternity to the final consummation is inscribed in that worthy Book of God that is the heaven[s].”[8]

Purgatory means coming fully to terms with reality. Richard Purtill has suggested that the period between our death and resurrection will be a time of “reading” our lives like a book. The entire book would be present to us and we could reread past sections, skip ahead, and so on. All of this reading would be done in what he calls “Godlight.” ⁷¹ That is, it would be a matter of coming to see our lives as God sees them. This would involve, for instance, seeing the full force of how our sins affected others. “The only adequate purgatory might be to suffer what you made others suffer—not just an equivalent pain, but that pain, seeing yourself as the tormenter you were to them. Only then could you adequately reject and repent the evil.” ⁷² The other side of the coin is that we “would see with love even those who have hurt us, because God saw them with love.” ⁷³

Indeed, the accent here should fall on grace, for to see things in “Godlight” is to see them illumined by God's perfect love for all persons and his will to redeem us from our sins and unite us to himself and to each other. Continuing the reading analogy, Purtill points out that the first time we read a book we may hardly appreciate it but that a subsequent reading may fully disclose its beauty and richness.

As we may write a commentary on a book that has meant much to us, so part of our afterlife could be an appreciation and correction of our present lives. Even if our present lives have been almost a failure—even if we are barely saved after a life of folly and waste—we could still make these wasted lives the foundation of something glorious—a “commentary” much better than the “book.” ⁷⁴

Purgatory so conceived is not only a matter of taking our choices and our freedom seriously, it is more importantly a matter of taking seriously God's overwhelmingly (p. 61 ) gracious love to us and his power to redeem our lives, even “wasted” ones.

(71.) Richard Purtill, Thinking about Religion (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice‐Hall, 1978), 141–143.

(72.) Ibid., 148.

(73.) Ibid., 143.

(74.) Ibid., 152.

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