Trick or Treating

The Doctrine of Purgatory.  The Catholic church's doctrine of Purgatory was defined by the Councils of Lyon (1274 CE/AD), Ferrara-Florence (1438–45 CE/AD), and Trent (1545–63 CE/AD).  In these meetings, the doctrine was first justified in scriptures rejected by Protestants and Jews in the Catholic Bible's apocryphal 2 Maccabees 12:42–45 suggesting prayers and alms for the poor collected for those already dead could redeem those who were killed but not already redeemed. Protestants thought the idea that prayers for the dead could redeem them preposterous, with only an individual's faith in Christ's sacrifice on the cross and God's grace being the only thing that could redeem anyone.  That single difference of opinion would eventually result in the death of 70 million Christians killing other Christians.

Doctrinal Differences that Created the Modern World.  Of course these doctrinal differences led to the Christian: Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation; the Spanish, French, and Roman/Italian Inquisitions; publication of the Malleus Maleficarum (famous witch hunting guide-book, The Witch Hammer) in 1487 CE resulting in centuries of witch hunts, false accusations of the church's or neighbors' enemies, trials, and witch burnings; and, famously, The European Wars on Religion in which 70 million Christians killed other Christians from the late 15th Century (1400s CE/AD) through the early 18th Century (1700s).  Ironically, they led to the freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, and church-state separation that America's founding fathers insisted upon in the Bill of Rights' First Amendment. The framers of the U.S. Constitution, America's founding fathers, wrote extensively about these things as being necessary antecedents for (conditions that must precede) Republican (representative) self government, the rule of law, and even for freedom itself to exist during the age of Political Revolutions starting with the American Revolution (in the late 18th-19th Centuries).  

The aforementioned councils clarified Purgatory was also implied in the New Testament in Christ's “forgiveness in this age and the age to come," Matthew 12:31-32 Peter's “trial of faith" in 1 Peter 1:6-7,  Paul's “cleansing fire" of 1 Corinthians 3:13-15.  These councils constructed the theological doctrine of the Catholic seven sacraments from these scriptures (baptism, confirmation, communion, confession, anointing of the sick/last rites, marriage, and holy orders/service to church) required for a soul to be in a state of grace to bypass Purgatory's cleansing to enter heaven.  

Martin Luther would retain three: confession, communion, and baptism as necessary for a soul to be in a state of grace, and rejected the idea of Purgatory.  Incidentally, this doctrine is also what led to the sale of indulgences (payment for full or partial remission [payment for a debt] for purification of sins on earth or after death in Purgatory) that Martin Luther objected so heavily to, among 94 other complaints, leading to his 95 Theses, or claims/complaints, and The Protestant Reformation (and by consequence, the Age of Reason/Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution).

Ludovico Carracci  (1555–1619): An Angel Frees the Souls of Purgatory (1610) Credit: Wikimedia: Pinacoteca Vaticana Web Gallery

St. Odilo of Cluny Credit: Wikimedia:  Holy Abbot Odilo of Cluny covers dead bodies of two children

Soulers would sing songs as they went door to door 'guising to collect alms.  Here's one souling song's chorus (Credit: Roud 304 ; Ballad Index BGMG408 ; trad.):

“Soul! soul! for a soul-cake;

Pray, good mistress, for a soul-cake.

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for Them who made us all.

Soul! soul! for an apple or two;

If you’ve got no apples, pears will do.

Up with your kettle, and down with your pan;

Give me a good big one, and I’ll be gone.

An apple or pear, a plum or a cherry,

Is a very good thing to make us merry."

Another chorus that was sung sings (Credit: John Brand in his “Popular Antiquities” (1777) taken directly from the lips of “the merry pack, who sing from door to door, on the eve of All – Soul’s Day, in Cheshire ”):

“Soul day, soul day, Saul

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for Him who made us all.

Put your hand in your pocket and pull out your keys,

Go down into the cellar, bring up what you please;

A glass of your wine, or a cup of your beer,

And we’ll never come souling till this time next year.

We are a pack of merry boys, all in a mind,

We are come a souling for what we can find,

Soul, soul, sole of my shoe,

If you have no apples, money will do;

Up with your kettle and down with your pan,

Give us an answer and let us be gone

An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing that will make us all merry.

Thus, Celtic pagan, Roman Pagan (Pomonalia), and Roman (Irish) Catholic traditions blended in the British Isles in All Hallowed Evening's souling and guising, which their immigrants to the New World would bring with them in the 1830s-1860s during the Irish potato famine (1845-1852) in which roughly 4-6 million Irish emigrated to the United States.