Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

ments which had been affixed to certain definite transgressions by the decrees of the older councils. By several synods of the fourth century, it had been conceded to all the bishops, that each one, in his own diocese, might, at discretion, or rather according to the circumstances, relax somewhat the canonical penances, abridge their duration, or even commute the prescribed modes of penance for others. By the introduction of private confession, which soon followed, and by establishing particular penitentiaries, the ancient strictness of church discipline afterwards experienced generally much relaxation. Still more of it was lost, when, in the sequel, it was decided, that men might buy off the prescribed penance, in certain cases. An appearance of the thing, however, was always kept up; for the penance for every particular sin, must still be separately bought off, and the payment of the definite tax was not then regarded as a purchase of the indulgence, or for the remission of the penance, but simply as the commutation of one kind of penance for another. Previously to the eleventh century, too, it occurred to no one, that the popes alone could grant such indulgences, paid or unpaid. Individual bishops, it is true, sometimes sent penitents who had been guilty of some particular crime, to Rome, in order to procure absolution from the pope, or submitted it to his discretion, whether he would absolve penitents who had themselves applied to him. But the first took place only in extraordinary cases; and took place in part, too, with the view of inflicting on them, by the pilgrimage to Rome, the severest of all penances. When, on the contrary, the other case occurred, the popes commonly regarded it as even their duty to give notice of it to the ordinaries of the penitents, before they actually imparted absolution to them. It was only at the close of the eleventh century, that the change took place which gave a new form to the whole matter of penance, and brought into the church the peculiar disorder which results from indulgences. About this time, the idea was hit upon at Rome, that it would be a most powerful means for accomplishing any enterprises in which the popes were depended on, if every man who would take part in the affair, should be promised, as the reward of his participation, the remission of all penances which he must otherwise have performed, for his trans

Officers in some cathedrals, vested by the bishop with the power of absolution in certain cases. — TR.

gressions. They immediately employed this means to kindle and sustain the fanaticism of the crusades; for under these, the new Indulgentiae plenariae first came directly into use. But as they were used for the promotion of so holy a work, the blind simplicity of the age overlooked, not only the innovation which came with them, but also the baneful consequences which it must have in other respects. Men the more readily overlooked the first, because there was only this novelty in the change, that these indulgences were granted in a general way, and not merely for specific sins; for their operation, which in other respects was according to the views of this age, did not consist in remitting all penance to the sinner, but simply in allowing all other kinds of penance to be commuted for this new one; or that a crusade, or a contribution to the expense of a crusade, should be received instead of every other penance. In the mean while, little was thought of the entirely new prerogative which the Romish bishops assumed to themselves in the granting of such indulgences. But when, by the frequent use of this prerogative, the world had once become accustomed to it, and when these bishops themselves learnt by experience more highly to prize its importance, they took care not only to secure it forever to their chair, but to assume to themselves alone as much as possible of whatever pertained to the administration of penance. The granting of general indulgences, now came to be reckoned among those exclusive rights of the head of the church, which were accorded as consequences of the supremacy of the Roman chair; and with this, was attained the first object. But in order to reach also the second, on the one hand, the reserved cases were brought in, (while they could not entirely take from the bishops the right of dispensation and absolution in their own dioceses), and on the other hand, the power of dispensation, which was to reside in the successors of Peter, was extended over all cases without distinction, and over the whole christian world. In their power, it was said, there is an immense treasure, consisting of the infinite merits of Christ and all the saints; and it is at their option to dispense this treasure

* Before the beginning of the thirteenth century, no theologue of the Roman church knew of 66 any treasure of superabundant merits." The scholastics who held the opinion, that a satisfaction is to be required for every individual sin, tormented themselves most pitifully, in their treatises on penance, in order to stop this dogmatic leak, which would be continually breaking open, as, by the crusades

according to the necessities of each individual. According to an entirely new doctrine which Clement VI. published as an article of faith in his famous bull in 1342, Christ, forsooth, must have done much more than was really necessary for reconciling men with God. One single drop of his blood would have been adequate to this purpose. But he has shed much more; and this cannot have taken place to no purpose. It was on the contrary, his purpose to lay up in store for his church, a treasure which could never be exhausted, and this has been entrusted to the custody and management of Christ's vicar upon earth. To this there has since been added the merit and value of all the good works performed by the saints, beyond what were necessary to their own salvation. It now remains with the pope to impute, as it were, to each one who falls from grace after baptism, so much of these merits of Christ and the saints, as his own fall short of equalling his sins; or to deduct as many sins as may be compensated by the imputed works of others.*

These principles, which were gradually extended further, soon formed that whole doctrine of indulgence, which the papal court knew how to construct in a manner so conducive, not only to their revenue, but also to their particular designs. The power which the Romish bishops had assumed to themselves by setting up such an article of faith, was now frequently enough brought into use, especially in those times when poverty comin the twelfth century, the indulgence became continually more frequent, and likewise Peter the chanter and some other respectable theologians, zealously opposed it. Alexander von Hales, a Franciscan, about the year 1230, first hit on the edifying thought of such a treasure of overflowing merits; but he mentioned it yet only as conjecture and hypothesis, till Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas his contemporaries, maintained this supposition as an axiom, heavenfirm.

* "As the bishops," says Sarpi with genuine satirical wit, "did not live in such a manner as to be able to impart of their own merits to others, there was supposed a treasury in the church, replete with the merits of all those who had more than was needful for themselves, and that the disposal is committed to the pope, who thence imparts indulgences to the sinner, and pays the debt due for them by assigning an equivalent from what is found in the treasury." Hist. de Conc. de Trente, L. i. p. 18. The celebrated bull of Clement VI., is found among the constitutions which are appended to the sixth book of the decretals.

pelled the popes, often against their will, to multiply the sources of their income.* The general indulgence which before had been proclaimed only every hundredth year, was now published every fiftieth, and finally every twenty-fifth year. Besides this opportunity, they knew how to make and to improve occasions enough, when the wisdom and the welfare of the church guided the holy fathers, to open her treasures and exchange them for ready cash. In Rome itself, too, the trade in indulgences was prosecuted even in small and individual things, and carried on with a regularity which would have done honor to the most reputable business in the world. There was drawn up a formal statute regulating the prices of all kinds of sins, even of those the very existence and names of which had perhaps been conceived of only in the imagination of some idle casuist, in which statute, the price of each pardon was fixed on the most singular principles of estimation. This almost incredible monument of the most audacious oppression and the blindest superstition, is still extant.

But in all indulgences of this kind, there was still nothing more intended than barely a remission of the temporal penalties which were affixed, by the canon law, to certain definite sins. Even in the famous bull of Clement VII. quoted above, it is

Urban II. had published the first grand indulgence in 1095; and from that time it ever remained as the means to which the popes resorted in case of necessity. The largest use or abuse of it, was made in the time of the great schism. See Baluzii Hist. Pontificum Avenionensium T. I. 15.

In the year 1300, Boniface VIII. appointed the jubilee for every hundreth year; in 1350, Clement VI. commanded one to be celebrated every fiftieth year; and in 1475, Paul II. found it more profitable for one to be bolden every twenty-fifth year. See Jac. Cajetani, Card. S. Georgii, Relatio de auno jubilaeo, Part XXV. Biblioth. max. Patrum, p. 267.

[At the time of a jubilee, the pope grants plenary indulgence to all who visit Peter's or Paul's church at Rome. No less than 2,000,000 are computed to have made this pilgrimage in the year 1300. As most of them made voluntary offerings to the church, it was found extremely profitable to the popes. Almost any day in the year, 200, 000, strangers were to be found in Rome; and so great was the rush to those churches, that multitudes were trodden to death, just as is now the fact around the car of Juggernaut. See Murdock's Mosheim, II. 396. TR.]

See Tara Sacræ Poenitentiariæ by Hortleder on the causes of the German war, B. I. c. 47. p. 564.

expressly taught, that it is merely the remission of temporal inflictions, whether total or limited, which can be effected by the application of the foreign merits that are in the custody of the Romish bishop. In this view and in this form, the traffic, thus unreservedly carried on at Rome, might yet have plead some measure of apology; but means were soon found to extend it still further, as it was only needful to enlarge a little more the boundaries of the papal sovereignty upon which it depended. Luckily for the popes, there was still room here, which was directly so apparent as to cost them but little trouble in proving, that it still fell within the limits of their province.

From the time of Origen, there had always remained in the church an idea of a purifying fire, in which men must hereafter be cleansed, and thus be rendered capable of the full enjoyment of salvation. The principle was also adopted, at least in some churches, that here those sins must first be expiated, for which enough had not been done in this life. Nothing further now remained for the policy of the holy fathers, but barely to adopt among their doctrines an opinion which could so greatly promote their system, and then to decide, in a bull, that the jurisdiction of the successors of Peter extended also over this purgatory, and that it was just as much in their power to mitigate or remit the penalties which there first followed upon sins, as those by which the same sins would have been expiated in this world. As the one had already been conceded to them, it could not be difficult for them to obtain the other also from the good natured credulity of an age already prepared for the thing. By this singular artifice, their dominion was now extended, not only over the living, but also the dead; and a new source of the richest revenue, which besides promised never to dry up, was opened for their treasury.

This was now the doctrine of indulgence which was set forth in the bull of Leo X. and was every where extolled and defended by Tetzel, on this occasion, in its widest compass, and in the severest sense, and by the most imposing expressions.

"Nunc pro totali, nunc pro partiali remissione poenæ temporalis pro peccatis debitæ."

† St. Thomas in particular, maintained the opinion that the effect of indulgences extends beyond the mere temporal penalties of the church; and Pallavicini hence charges Luther with having attacked this doctrine out of mere hatred against the good Thomas. Conc. di Tr. L. I. p. 70.

Hist. del

« AnteriorContinuar »