INDULGENCES
565
INDULGENCES
III. Opposition to Iiidiilfjmces tcitliin the Church of Home.—^nch. a doctrine could not fail to offend truly pious souls even within the Church. Long before the Keformation the whole system was attacked by eminent doctors. One of its most powerful opponents was John of Wesel ((}. v.), in the middle of the loth century. A festival of jubilee, with vast indulgences, was proclaimed by pope Clement VI in 1450, and cardinal Cusanus vis- ited Erfurt as a preacher of indulgence. This brought the subject practically before Wesel's mind, and he wrote a treatise against indulgences {Adversus indulrjentias : see Walch, Monnm. Med. yEvi, ii, fasc. i, 111-15(5). For a full account of it, see Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, i, 258 sq. The flagrant abuses connected with the sale of indulgences began to cause a reaction against the system even in the popular mind. In the loth century, in particular, the disposal of them had become almost a common traffic ; and a public sale of them was generally preceded by some specious pretext ; for instance, the reduction of the Greeks under the j'oke of the Romish Church, a war with heretics, or a cru- sade against the Neapolitans, etc. Too often the pre- tences for selling indulgences were in reality bloody, idolatrous, or superstitious. It was one of the charges brought against John XXIII at the Council of Con- stance, in 1415, that he empowered his legates to ab- solve penitents from all sorts of crimes upon payment of sums proportioned to their guilt. When such indul- gences were to be published, the disposal of them was commonly farmed out; for the papal court could not always wait to have the money collected and conveyed from every country of Europe. And there were rich merchants at Genoa, Jlilan, Venice, and Augsburg who purchased the indulgences for a particular province, and paid to the papal chancery handsome sums for them. Thus both parties were benefited. The cliancery came at once into possession of large sums of money, and the farmers did not fail of a good bargain. They were care- ful to employ skilful hawkers of the indulgences, persons whose boldness and impudence bore due proportion to the eloquence with which they imposed upon the sim- ple people. Yet, that this species of traffic might have a religious aspect, the pope appointed the archbishops of the several provinces to be his commissaries, who in his name announced that indulgences were to be sold, and generally selected the persons to hawk them, and for this service shared the profits with the merchants who farmed them. These papal hawkers enjoyed great privileges, and, however odious to the civil authorities, they were not to be molested. Complaints, indeed, were made against these contributions, levied by the popes upon all Christian Europe. Kings and princes, clergy and laitj-, bishops, monasteries, and confessors, all felt themselves aggrieved by them ; the kings, that their countries were impoverished, under the pretext of cnisades that were never undertaken, and of wars against heretics and Turks ; and the bishops, that their letters of indulgence were rendered inefficient, and the people released from ecclesiastical discipline. But at Kome all were deaf to these complaints ; and it was not till the revolution produced by Luther that unhappy Europe obtained the desired relief (Mosheim, Eccles. Hist, cent, iii, sec. i, chap. i). Leo X, in order to carry on the expensive structure of St. Peter's Church at Rome, published indulgences, with a plenary remission to all such as should contribute towards erecting that magnificent fabric. The right of promulgating these indulgences in Germany, together with a share in the profits arising from the sale of them, was granted to Al- bert, elector of ]Mentz and archbishop of INIagdeburg, who selected as his chief agent for retailing them in Saxony John Tetzel, a Dominican friar, of licentious morals, but of an active and enterprising spirit, and re- markable for his noisy and popular eloquence. Assisted by the monks of his order, he executed the commission with great zeal and success, but with no less indecency, boasting that he had saved more souls from hell by his
indidgences than St. Peter had converted by his preach- ing. He assured the purchasers of them that their crimes, however enormous, would be forgiven ; that the efficacy of indulgences was so great that the most hei- nous sins, even if one should violate (which was impos- sible) the mother of God, would be remitted and expia- ted by them, and the person freed both from punish- ment and guilt ; and that this was the unspeakable gift of God, in order to reconcile men to himself. In the usual Ibrm of absolution, written by his own hand, he said: "May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon thee, and absolve thee by the merits of his most holy passion. And I, by his authority, that of his apostles Peter and Paul, and of the most holy pope, granted and committed to me in these parts, do absolve thee, first, from all ecclesiastical censures, in whatever manner they have been incurred ; then from all thy sins, trans- gressions, and excesses, how enormous soever they may be : even from such as are reserved for the cognizance of the holy see, and as far as the keys of the holy Chiurcli extend. I remit to thee all punishment which thou de- servest in Purgatory on their account; and I restore thee to the holy sacraments of the Church, to the unity of the faithful, and to that innocence and purity which thou possessedst at baptism: so that when thou diest the gates of punishment shall be shut, and the gates of the Paradise of delights shall be opened ; and if thou shalt not die at present, this grace shall remain in full force when thou art at the point of deatli. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." The terms in which the retailers of indulgences described their benefits, and the necessity of purchasing them, were so extravagant that they appear almost incredible. If any man, said they, purchase letters of indulgence, his soul may rest secure with respect to its salvation. The souls confined in Purgatory, for whose redemption indul- gences are jjurchased, as soon as the money tinkles in the chest, instantly escape from that place of torment, and ascend into heaven. That the cross erected by the preachers of indulgences was equally efficacious with the cross of Christ itself. " Lo," said they, " the heav- ens are open : if you enter not now, when will you enter ? For twelve pence you may redeem the soul of your fa- ther out of Purgatorj' ; and are j'ou so ungrateful that you will not rescue the soul of your parent from tor- ment? If you had but one coat, you ought to strip yourself instantly and sell it, in order to purchase such benefit." It was these abuses, as much as any other one cause, which led to the Lutheran Reformation, and it was against these that Luther first directed his at- tacks. See Luther ; Reformation.