Page "Afterlife" Paragraph 62

The noun " purgatorium " ( Latin: place of cleansing ) is used for the first time to describe a state of painful purification of the saved after life.

The same word in adjectival form ( purgatorius-a-um, cleansing ), which appears also in non-religious writing, was already used by Christians such as Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory I to refer to an after-death cleansing.