§ 81. LUTHER AND TETZEL. 1651
Pope Leo X., which set the example for the secularization and luxury of the prelates in Germany.!
Albrecht was largely indebted to the rich banking-house of Fugger in Augsburg, from whom he had borrowed thirty thousand florins in gold to pay for the papal pallium. By an agreement with the Pope, he had permission to keep half of the proceeds arising from the sale of indulgences. The agents of that commercial house stood behind the preachers of indulgence, and collected their share for the repayment of the loan.
The Archbishop appointed Johann Tetzel (Diez) of the Dominican order, his commissioner, who again employed his sub-agents.
Tetzel was born between 1450 and 1460, at Leipzig, and began his career as a preacher of indulgences in 1501. He became famous as a popular orator and successful hawker of indulgences. He was prior of a Dominican convent, doctor of philosophy, and papal inquisitor (heretice pravitatis inquisitor). At the end of 1517 he acquired in the University of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder the degree of Licentiate of Theology, and in January, 1518, the degree of Doctor of Theology, by defending, in two disputations, the doctrine of indulgences against Luther.2. He died at Leipzig during the public debate
1 Janssen, II. 60, 64: ‘‘ Das Hofwesen so mancher geistlichen Fiirsten Deutschlands, insbesondere das des Erzbischofs Albrecht von Mainz, stand in schreiendem Widerspruch mit dem eines kirchlichen Wirdetrdgers, aber der Hof Leo’s X., mit seinem Aufwand fiir Spiel und Theater und allerlet weltliche Feste entsprach noch weniger der Bestimmung eines Oberhauptes der Kirche. Der Verweltlichung und Ueppigkeit geistlicher Fiirstenhofe in Deutschland ging die des rémischen Hofes voraus, und erstere ware ohne diese kaum moglich gewesen.”? He quotes (II. 76) Emser and Cardinal Sadolet against the abuses of indulgences in the reign of Leo X. Cardinal Hergenrother, in the dedicatory preface to the Regesta Leonis X. (Fasc. I. p. ix), while defending this Pope against the charge of religious indifference, censures the accumulation of ecclesiastical benefices by the same persons, as Albrecht, and the many abuses resulting therefrom.
2 Loscher (I. 505-523) gives both dissertations, the first consisting of 106, the second of 50 theses, and calls them ‘‘ Proben von den stinkenden
152 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
between Eck and Luther, July, 1519. He is represented by Protestant writers as an ignorant, noisy, impudent, and immoral charlatan, who was not ashamed to boast that he saved more souls from purgatory by his letters of indulgence than St. Peter by his preaching.! On the other hand, Roman- Catholic historians defend him as a learned and zealous servant of the church. He has only an incidental notoriety, and our estimate of his character need not affect our views on the merits of the Reformation. We must judge him from his published sermons and anti-theses against Luther. They teach neither more nor less than the usual scholastic doctrine of indulgences based on an extravagant theory of papal authority. He does not ignore, as is often asserted, the necessity of repentance as a condition of absolution.2, But he probably did not emphasize it in practice, and gave rise by unguarded expressions to damaging stories. His private character was certainly tainted, if we are to credit such a witness as the papal nuncio, Carl von Miltitz, who had the
Schdden des Papstthums.’’ He ascribes, however, the authorship to Conrad Wimpina, professor of theology at Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, who afterwards published them as his own, without mentioning Tetzel, in his Anacephalaiosis Sectarum errorum, etc., 1528 (Loéscher, I. 506, II. 7). Gieseler, Késtlin, and Knaake are of the same opinion. Grdéne and Hergenréther assign them to Tetzel.
1 Mathesius, Myconius, and Luther (Wider Hans Wurst, 1541, in the Er]. ed. XX VI. 51) ascribe to him-also the blasphemous boast that he had the power by letters of indulgence to forgive even a carnal sin against the Mother of God (‘‘ wenn einer gleich die heil. Jungfrau Maria, Gottes Mutter, hatte geschwacht und geschwdngert”’). Luther alludes to such a monstrous saying in Thes. 75, and calls it insane. But Tetzel denied and disproved the charge as a slander, in his Disp. I. 99-101 (‘‘ Subcommissariis ac preedicatoribus veniarum IMPONERE, ut si quis per impossibile Dei genetricem semper virginem violasset . . . ODIO AGITARI AC FRATRUM SUORUM SANGUINEM SITIRE’’), and in his letter to Miltitz, Jan. 31, 1518. See Késtlin, I. 160 and 785, versus Korner and Kahnis. Kayser also (l.c. p. 15) gives it up, although he comes to the conclusion that Tetzel was ““ ein unverscliinter und sittenloser Ablassprediger”’ (p. 20).
2 In Theses 55 and 56 of his first Disputation (1517), he says that the soul, after it is purified (anima purgata, ist eine Seele gereinigt), flies from purgatory to the vision of God without hinderance, and that it is an error to suppose that this cannot be done before the payment of money into the indulgence box. See the Latin text in Loscher, I. 509.