§ 118. PENANCE AND INDULGENCES. 737
and distinct from the time of Alexander of Hales. Peter the Lombard was the last of the prominent Schoolmen to declare that the priest did not give absolution for guilt. The later Schoolmen with one consent oppose him at this point and teach that the priest absolves both from the guilt and the punishments of sin in this world and in purgatory. Thomas Aquinas asserted that, "if the priest cannot remit these temporal punishments, — for the punishments of pur gatory are temporal, — then he cannot remit at all and this is contrary to the words of the Gospel to Peter that whatso ever he should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven."1
The ultimate and, as it proved, a most vicious form of priestly absolution was the indulgence. An indulgence is a remission of the guilt and punishment of sin by a mitigation or complete setting aside of the works of satisfaction which would otherwise be required. A lighter penalty was substi tuted for a severer one.2 Gottlob3 has recently divided in dulgences into three classes: (1) indulgences which are secured by going 011 a crusade; (2) such as are secured by the payment of money for some good church cause, and (3) such as are secured by the visiting of certain churches.
Towards the close of this period this substitution usually took the form of a money-payment. For a lump sum absolution for the worst offences might be secured. It be came a tempting source of gain to churches and the Roman curia, which they were quick to take advantage of. The dogmatic justification of this method of remission found positive expression before the practice became general. Alexander of Hales here again has the distinction of being the first to give it careful definition and unequivocal emphasis.
1 Si non potest remittere quantum ad pcenam temporalem, nullo modo remittere potest quod ornnino contrarium dictis evangelii. Supplem., VIII. 2, Migne, IV. 988 ; Sent., IV. 20, 1, 1-5.
2 Beringer-Schneider, the chief Rom. Cath. writer on Indulgences, p. 2, de fines an indulgence "as an act of mercy and goodness, a salvation by the order of the Church, an act of grace and forgiveness."
8 Kreuzablass, etc., pp. 10 sqq. Gottlob, p. xv, says indulgences occupy a central place in the political and religious life of the last three centuries of the Middle Ages. SB
738 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, and the other Schoolmen fol low him closely and add little. Thomas Aquinas declared it impious to say the Church might not dispense indul gences.1
The first known case occurred about 1016 when the arch bishop of Aries gave an indulgence of a year to those partici pating in the erection of a church building.2 The Crusades furnished the popes the occasion to issue indulgences on a magnificent scale. Urban II. Js indulgence, 1095, granting plenary absolution to all taking the journey to Jerusalem was the first of a long series of such papal franchises. That journey, Urban said, should be taken as a substitute for all penance. Granted at first to warriors fighting against the infidel in the Holy Land, they were extended so as to include those who fought against the Slavs, as by Eugenius III., 1147, against the Stedinger, Albigenses, and the Hussites, 1425, and against all enemies whatsoever of the papacy, such as Frederick II. and Manfred. Innocent II., in 1135, prom ised full remission to those who fought the battle of the papal chair against Roger of Sicily, and the anti-pope, Anacletus II. In these cases such expressions are used as "remission and indulgence of penances," "relaxation or remission from the imposed penance," "the relaxation of the imposed satisfaction," and also "a lightening or remission of sins."3
The free-handed liberality with which these franchises were dispensed by bishops became so much of a scandal that the Lateran council of 1215 issued a sharp decree to check it. More than half a century before, in 1140, Aboard had con demned the abuse of this prerogative by bishops and priests who were governed in its lavish exercise by motives of sordid cupidity.4
1 Supplem., xxv-xxvii, Migne, IV. 1013 sqq. Lea devotes the entire third volume of his Hist, of Confession to a noteworthy discussion of indulgences.
2 See for the text Kohler, pp. 5 sq.
;: relaxatio^ remissio, indulgentia de injuncta pcenitentia, etc. See Brieger for these expressions, and Brieger and Lea for numerous examples of papal indulgences of this sort. 4 Ethica, XL. See Kohler, p. 8.