The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER XIV 73
"Doesn't such a misfortune affect you?" asked the young wife.
"You know very well that I was one of the six who accompanied the body, and it was I who appealed to the
Captain-General when I saw that no one, not even the authorities, said anything about such an outrage,
although I always prefer to honor a good man in life rather than to worship him after his death."
"Well?"
"But, madam, I am not a believer in hereditary monarchy. By reason of the Chinese blood which I have
received from my mother I believe a little like the Chinese: I honor the father on account of the son and not
the son on account of the father. I believe that each one should receive the reward or punishment for his own
deeds, not for those of another."
"Did you order a mass said for your dead wife, as I advised you yesterday?" asked the young woman,
changing the subject of conversation.
"No," answered the old man with a smile.
"What a pity!" she exclaimed with unfeigned regret.
"They say that until ten o'clock tomorrow the souls will wander at liberty, awaiting the prayers of the living,
and that during these days one mass is equivalent to five on other days of the year, or even to six, as the curate
said this morning."
"What! Does that mean that we have a period without paying, which we should take advantage of?"
"But, Doray," interrupted Don Filipo, "you know that Don Anastasio doesn't believe in purgatory."
"I don't believe in purgatory!" protested the old man, partly rising from his seat. "Even when I know
something of its history!"
"The history of purgatory!" exclaimed the couple, full of surprise. "Come, relate it to us."
"You don't know it and yet you order masses and talk about its torments? Well, as it has begun to rain and
threatens to continue, we shall have time to relieve the monotony," replied Tasio, falling into a thoughtful
mood.
Don Filipo closed the book which he held in his hand and Doray sat down at his side determined not to
believe anything that the old man was about to say.
The latter began in the following manner: "Purgatory existed long before Our Lord came into the world and
must have been located in the center of the earth, according to Padre Astete; or somewhere near Cluny,
according to the monk of whom Padre Girard tells us. But the location is of least importance here. Now then,
who were scorching in those fires that had been burning from the beginning of the world? Its very ancient
existence is proved by Christian philosophy, which teaches that God has created nothing new since he rested."
"But it could have existed in potentia and not in actu," [54] observed Don Filipo.
"Very well! But yet I must answer that some knew of it and as existing in actu. One of these was Zarathustra,
or Zoroaster, who wrote part of the Zend-Avesta and founded a religion which in some points resembles ours,
and Zarathustra, according to the scholars, flourished at least eight hundred years before Christ. I say 'at least,'
since Gaffarel, after examining the testimony of Plato, Xanthus of Lydia, Pliny, Hermippus, and Eudoxus,