Many of the gravest Fathers of the first five centuries naturally conceived and taught⁠—as is indeed intrinsically reasonable⁠—that after death some souls will be punished for their sins until they are cleansed, and then will be released from pain. The Manichaeans imagined that all souls, before returning to their native heaven, must be borne first to the moon, where with good waters they would be washed pure from outward filth, and then to the sun, where they would be purged by good fires from every inward stain. After these lunar and solar lustrations, they were fit for the eternal world of light.