§ 118. PENANCE AND INDULGENCES. 741
fourteenth century, another step was taken, and the indul gence was regarded as directly absolving from the guilt and punishment of sins, culpa et pcena peccatorum. It was no longer a mitigation or abatement of imposed penance. It immediately set aside or remitted that which acts of penance had been designed to remove ; namely, guilt and penalty. It is sufficient for the Church to pronounce offences remitted. Wyclif made a bold attack against the indulgence "from guilt and punishment," a culpa et poena, in his Cruciata. Now that it is no longer possible to maintain the spuriousness of such papal indulgences, some Roman Catholic writers construe the offensive phrase to mean "from the penalty of guilt," a pcena culpce.
Such was the general indulgence given by pope Ccelestin V., 1294, to all who should on a certain day of the year enter the church of St. Mary de Collemayo in which he had been consecrated.1 This view had been stated almost thirty years before by Thomas of Chantimpre.2 And, about 1280, Peter of Olivi declared the indulgence granted to the Portiuncula church to be an " indulgence for all sins and from all guilt and penalty. " 3 It is evident from these documents that, at the close of the thirteenth century, the formula a culpa et poena, " from guilt and punishment," was quite familiar.
Boniface VIII. probably included the guilt of sin when he announced " full pardon for all sins," and succeeding popes used the form constantly.4 John XXIII., at the beginning of the fifteenth century, was especially prodigal in the distribu-
1 Dr. Lea, III. 63, has shown the significance of this document.
2 Kb'hler, p. 27, quce securam et mundatam animam ab omni culpa et pcena fecerunt.
3 See Sabatier, Fr, F. Bartholi, etc., in part reprinted by Kohler, pp. 27 sqq.
4 See a number of instances in Brieger and especially Lea, III. 55-80. Lea quotes Piers the Ploughman's Crede to show that this expressed the popular belief.
The power of the Apostells they posen in speche For to sellen the synnes for silver other mede And pulyche a pena the purple assoileth And a culpa also, that they may catchen Money other money wothe and mede to fonge.
742 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
tioii of this kind of indulgence and in vain did the council of Constance attempt to put some check upon the practice. Tetzel was following the custom of two centuries when he offered " remission and indulgence of guilt and penalty."
As for the application of the sacrament of penance to souls in purgatory, Alexander of Hales argued that, if the sacrament did not avail for them, then the Church prays in vain for the dead. Such souls are still under the cogni zance of the Church, that is, subject to its tribunal, — deforo ecclesice.1 Altars and chapels, called in England chantries, were built and endowed by persons for the maintenance of a priest, in whole or in part, to pray and offer up masses for their souls after their departure from this life. The further treatment of the subject belongs properly to the period just preceding the Reformation. It is sufficient to say here, that Sixtus IV., in 1476, definitely connected the payment of money with indulgences, and legislated that, by fixed sums paid to the papal collectors, persons on earth may redeem their kindred in purgatory. Thus for gold and silver the most inveterate criminal might secure the deliverance of a father or mother from purgatorial pain, and neither contri tion nor confession were required in the transaction.2 Such was the ultimate conclusion of the sacramental doctrine of penance, the sacrament to whose treatment the Schoolmen devoted most time and labor. The council of Trent re asserted the Church's right to grant indulgences.3 But what could seem to be more agreeable to the plain statements of
One of the most striking instances of this form of indulgence is the absolutio plenaria a poena et culpa issued by Alexander V. to the members of the council of Pisa, Von der Hardt, Cone. Const., III. 688.
1 In contrast to de fore dei, God's tribunal. See Lea, II. 296-371, and Brieger.
2 Lea, III. 595 sq., and the instructions of Albert, abp. of Mainz, quoted by Brieger, nee opus est, quod contribuentes pro animabus in capsam sint corde contriti et ore confessi.
3 Schaff, Creeds, II. 205. Harnack, Hist, of Doctr., II. 511 sqq., expresses his moral indignation over the mediaeval theory of penance. Of attritio, saeramentum pcenitentiee, and indulgentia, he exclaims, das ist die katJwlische Trias ! " That is the Catholic triad ! "