plete strnctnre commenced under .Julius II — the building of St. Peter's church. Leo, who had made for himself a name as the jjrotector and patron of art, and had well- nigh revived the Periclean age of the Greeks, could not brook the thought that, while he was pontiff within the walls of the Paternal City, this great enterprise, likeh' to immortalize the name of its patron in the annals of art, should be passed over, and, finding the coffers of the papacy drained by his predecessor, saw only one way in which to secure the necessary funds for so stupendous an undertaking — the sale of indulgences (q. v.), securing to the contributor for this object forgiveness of sin in any form (comp. Mosheim, 7icc/. Hist, ii, 06, note 6 ; Bower, Hist, of Papacij, vii, 409 sq.; Fvobeitson, Ilisf. of Beirpi of Charles V, Harper's edit., p. 125 sq., especially the foot- notes on p. 120). Such utter disregard of the essence of religion resulted in one of the boldest assaults on the Romish Church that it had ever sustained. The very thought that forgiveness of sin M'as to be offered on sale for money " nmst have been mortally offensive to men whose convictions on that head had been acquired from contemplating the eternal relation l)etween God and man, and who, moreover, had learned what the doctrine of Scripture itself was on the subject" {llanke, Hist. Pap. i, 60). In Saxony, especially, men of jiiety and thought generally commended the interpretation which Lnthcr gave to this subject. They all regretted the delusion of the people, who, being taught to rely for the pardon of their sins on the indulgences which they could secure by purchase, did not think it incumbent on themselves either to study the doctrines of genuine Christianity, or to prac- tice the duties which it enjoins. Even the most unthink- ing were shocked at the scandalous behavior of the Do- minicans— .John Tetzel (q.v.) and his associates, who had the sale of indulgences intrusted to them — and at the manner in which they spent the funds accumulated from this traffic. These sums, which liad been piously be- stowed in hopes of obtaining eternal salvation and hap- pine.is, they saw squandered by tlie Dominican friars in drunkenness, gaming, and low debauchery, and ■' all be- gan to wish that some clieck were given to this com- merce, no less detrimental to society than destructive to religion" (Robertson, p. 126). Indeed, even the princes and nobles objected to this traffic ; they were irritated at seeing their vassals drained of so much wealth in order to replenish the treasury of a profuse pontiff, and when Luther's warm and impetuous temper did not suffer him any longer to conceal his aversion to the unscriptural doctrine of the Thomists, or to continue a silent specta- tor of the delusion of his country, from the pulpit in the great church of Wittenberg he inveighed bitterly against the false opinions, as well as the Avicked lives, of the preachers of indulgences (see Liisclif r's Reforma- tionsalcten, i, 729). " Indignation against Roman impost- ure increased; universal attention and sympathy were directed towards the bold champion of the triith'' (Giese- ler, Eccles. Hist. [Harper's edit.] iv, 33). On Oct. 31, 1517, finally, to gain also the suffrage of men of learn- ing, Luther published ninety-five theses against the traffic in indulgences, setting forth his objections to this abuse of ecclesiastical power. Not that he supposed these points fully established or of undoubted certainty, but he advanced them as the result of his own in\ esti- gation, and as sulyects of incpiiry and disputation unto others, that he might be corrected ii' his position could be impugned. He sent them to the neighboring bishops with a petition for the abolition of the evil if his views were found to be well grounded, and appointed a day on which the learned churchmen might publicly dispute the point at issue, either in person or by writing ; sub- joining to them, however, solemn protestations of his high respect for the apostolic see, and of his imjilicit submission to its authority. Many zealous champions immediately arose to defend opinions on which the wealth and power of the Church were founded; in es- pecial manner the opposition of the Dominicans (q. v.)
X, as pope of Rome, was the continuation of the incom- ! was roused, for the spirit of this order had become pe-
LEO X
36-
LEO X
culiarly sensitive on account of some recent humiliations, pnificiilarly by the fate of Savonarola (<!• v.), the events at J5jrnc', and by the still surviving controversy with Ufujlilin (q. v.), aside from the fact that the different mendicant orders cherished constant jealousy against each other. (The conjecture of some that the jealousy of the Augustine monk was apparent in Luther's attack on Tetzel because to the Dominicans had been intrusted the indulgence traffic is too ridicidous to need repetition here. Comp. however. Gieseler, Eccks. Hist, iv, "25, note I" ; Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. bk. iv, cent, xvi, sec. i, ch. ii, note IS.) In opposition to Luther's theses, Tetzel him- self came forward with counter theses, which he pub- lished at Frankfort -on -the -Oder. Prominent among others also were Eck (q. v.), the celebrated Augsburg divine, and Prierias (q. v.), the inqiusitor general, who botli replied to the Augustine monk with all the viru- lence of scholastic disputants. " But the manner in which they conducted the controversy did little service to their cause. Luther attemjitcd to combat indulgences by arguments founded in reason or derived from the Scriptures; they produced nothing in support of them but the sentiments of the schoolmen, and the conclusions of the canon law, and the decrees of popes. The deci- sion of judges so partial and interested did not satisfy the people, who began to call into question even the au- thority of these venerable guides when they foimd them standing in direct opposition to the dictates of reason and the determination of the divine law" (Robertson, p. 128). SeeLuTHEii; Kekokmation.