Saints and Seasons
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A day for clearing Purgatory

by Mike Oettle

THE appearance of All Souls Day (2 November)[1] on the Anglican cal­en­dar is a bit of an anomaly, since the reason for its existence is a Roman Catholic doctrine not sanctioned in the Thirty-Nine Art­icles.[2]

This is the belief in purgatory, a place where Christian sinners – those, at any rate, with the burden of lesser sins on their souls – must wait before being admitted to heaven until their souls have been cleansed, or purged, by the prayers of the faithful.

If you have read Neil Boyd’s book Bless Me Father, about his life as a Catholic priest, you will recall the tongue-in-cheek way in which he describes himself and Father Duddleswell, the parish priest, furiously cele­brating mass after mass on All Souls Day so as to free departed souls and whisk them into heaven.

It all seems rather superstitious to me. Indeed, the Thirty-Nine Articles condemn both belief in purgatory and the saying of masses for the dead, and for sound scriptural reasons. Article 22 states:

 

The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Wor­ship­ping and Ador­ation, as well as of Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded on no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.

 

     And Article 31 states, among other things:

 

Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.

 

But before we dismiss All Souls altogether, a word about its cus­toms. These revolve around the soul cake, which seems in turn to derive from pagan customs connected with the Corn Spirit. Until a gen­­eration or two ago, children in certain districts of England would go from door to door singing tra­di­tional rhymes – or “souling” – for apples and pennies. This is a typical “soul song”:

 

Soul! Soul! for a soul cake!

I pray, good missis, a soul cake!

An apple or pear, a plum or cherry,

Any good thing to make us merry.

One for Peter, one for Paul,

Three for Him who made us all.

 

Sadly, this custom seems to have died out, and in America, where it’s become confused with Halloween activities, its origins have been forgotten.


[1] If 2 November is a Sunday, All Souls moves to the 3rd (the Monday).

[2] The Thirty-Nine Articles are a statement of Protestant belief adopted in 1571 by the Convocation of the Church of England, and subsequently approved by Queen Elizabeth (*1533 †1603, Queen from 1558) and imposed on the clergy.

They follow from the Thirteen Articles adopted in 1538 under Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII (*1491 †1547, King from 1509), following an agreement with the German Lutherans and influenced by the Augsburg Confession.

From these are derived the Forty-Two Articles, written in 1553 by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer “for the avoiding of controversy of opinions”.

The Forty-Two Articles had been eliminated under Elizabeth’s half-sister Queen Mary (*1516 †1558, Queen from 1553), who had restored Catholicism and among other things sent several bishops to the stake, including Hugh Latimer.

Following Mary’s death and Elizabeth’s accession, a new statement of doctrine was needed, and in 1563 the Canterbury Convocation (the assembly of the southern half of the Church of England) drastically revised the Forty-Two Articles, which were then further amended at the Queen’s request.

The Thirty-Nine Articles, which were the eventual result, “deal briefly with the doctrines accepted by Catholics and Protestants alike and more fully with points of controversy” (quoted from the Encyclopædia Britannica).

The Britannica notes further: “They are often studiously ambiguous, however, because the Elizabethan government wished to make the national church as inclusive of different viewpoints as possible. Thus, interpretations of the articles have often varied.

Since 1865, Church of England clergy have been required to declare that the doctrine in the articles is “agreeable to the Word of God”, and Anglican clergy in Southern Africa are similarly required to assent to them.

However, in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States (the Anglican church in that country), “neither clergy nor laity is required formally to subscribe to them”.

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This article was originally published in Western Light, monthly magazine of All Saints’ Parish, Kabega Park, Port Elizabeth, in November 1991.

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