of services. The Elector Frederick was a great collector of relics, and had stored his collection in the church.150 He had also procured an Indulgence to benefit all who came to attend the anniversary services and look at the relics.
On All Saints' Day, Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the church. It was a strictly academic proceeding. The Professor of Theology in Wittenberg, wishing to elucidate the truth, offered to discuss, either by speech or by writing, the matter of Indulgences.151 He put forth ninety-five propositions or heads of discussion which he proposed to maintain. Academic etiquette was strictly preserved; the subject, judged by the numberless books which had been written on it, and the variety of opinions expressed, was eminently suitable for debate; the Theses were offered as subjects of debate; and the author, according to the usage of the time in such cases, was not supposed to be definitely committed to the opinions expressed.
The Theses, however, differed from most programmes of academic discussions in this, that everyone wanted to read them. A duplicate was made in German. Copies of the Latin original and the translation were sent to the University printing-house, and the presses could not throw them off fast enough to meet the demand which came from all parts of Germany.
CHAPTER II. 152
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY TO THE DIET OF WORMS.
§ 1. The Theory and Practice of Indulgences in the Sixteenth Century.
The practice of Indulgences pervaded the whole penitential system of the later mediæval Church, and had done so from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Its beginnings go back a thousand years before Luther's time.
In the ancient Church, lapse into serious sin involved separation from the Christian fellowship, and readmission to communion was only to be had by public confession made in presence of the whole congregation, and by the manifestation of a true repentance in performing certain satisfactions,153 such as the manumission of slaves, prolonged fasting, extensive almsgiving, etc. These satisfactions were the open signs of heartfelt sorrow, and were regarded as at once well-pleasing to God and evidence to the Christian community that the penitent had true repentance, and might be received back again into their midst. The confession was made to the whole congregation; the amount of satisfaction deemed necessary was estimated by the congregation, and readmission was also dependent on the will of the whole congregation. It often happened that these satisfactions were mitigated or exchanged for others. The penitent might fall sick, and the fasting which had been prescribed could not be insisted upon without danger of death; in such a case the external sign of sorrow which had been demanded might be exchanged for another. Or it might happen that the community became convinced of the sincerity of the repentance without insisting that the whole of the prescribed satisfaction need be performed.154 These exchanges and mitigations of satisfactions were the small beginnings of the later system of Indulgences.
In course of time the public confession of sins made to the whole congregation was exchanged for a private confession made to the priest, and instead of the public satisfaction imposed by the whole congregation, it was left to the priest to enjoin a satisfaction or external sign of sorrow which he believed was appropriate to the sin committed and confessed. The substitution of a private confession to the priest for a public confession made to the whole congregation, enlarged the circle of sins confessed. The secret sins of the heart whose presence could be elicited by the questions of the confessor were added to the open sins seen of men. The circle of satisfactions was also widened in a corresponding fashion.
When the imposition of satisfactions was left in the hands of the priest, it was felt necessary to provide some check against the arbitrariness which could not fail to result. So books were published containing lists of sins with the corresponding appropriate satisfactions which ought to be demanded from the penitents. If it be remembered that some of the sins mentioned were very heinous (murders, incests, outrages of all kinds), it is not surprising that the appropriate satisfactions or penances, as they came to be called, were very severe in some cases, and extended over a course of years. From the seventh century there arose a practice of commuting satisfactions or penances. A penance of several years' practice of fasting might be commuted into saying so many prayers or psalms, into giving a definite amount of alms, or even into a money fine—and in this last case the analogy of the Wehrgeld of the Germanic tribal codes was frequently followed.155 These customary commutations were frequently inserted in the Penitentiaries or books of discipline. This new custom commonly took the form that the penitent, who visited a certain church on a prescribed day and gave a contribution to its funds, had the penance, which had been imposed upon him by the priest in the ordinary course of discipline, shortened by one-seventh, one-third, one-half, as the case might be. This was in every case the commutation or relaxation of the penance or outward sign of sorrow which had been imposed according to the regulations of the Church, laid down in the Penitentiaries (relaxatio de injuncta pœnitentia). This was the real origin of Indulgences, and these earliest examples were invariably a relaxation of ecclesiastical penalties which had been imposed according to the regular custom in cases of discipline. It will be seen that Luther expressly excluded this kind of Indulgence from his attack. He declared that what the Church had a right to impose, it had a right to relax. It was at first believed that this right to relax or commute imposed penances was in the hands of the priests who had charge of the discipline of the members of the Church; but the abuses of the system by the priests ended by placing the power to grant Indulgences in the hands of the bishops, and they used the money procured in building many of the great mediæval cathedrals. Episcopal abuse of Indulgences led to their being reserved for the Popes.
Three conceptions, all of which belong to the beginning of the thirteenth century, combined to effect a great change on this old and simple idea of Indulgences. These were—(1) the formulation of the thought of a treasury of merits (thesaurus meritorum); (2) the change of the institution into the Sacrament of Penance; and (3) the distinction between attrition and contrition in the thought of the kind of sorrow God demands from a real penitent.
The conception of a storehouse of merits (thesaurus meritorum or indulgentiarum) was first formulated by Alexander of Hales156 in the thirteenth century, and his ideas were accepted, enlarged, and made more precise by succeeding theologians.157 Starting with the existing practice in the Church that some penances (such as pilgrimages) might be vicariously performed, and bringing together the several thoughts that the faithful are members of one body, that the good deeds of each of the members are the common property of all, and therefore that the more sinful can benefit by the good deeds of their more saintly brethren, and that the sacrifice of Christ was sufficient to wipe out the sins of all, theologians gradually formulated the doctrine that there was a common storehouse which contained the good deeds of living men and women, of the saints in heaven and the inexhaustible merits of Christ, and that all these merits accumulated there had been placed under the charge of the Pope, and could be dispensed by him to the faithful. The doctrine was not very precisely defined by the beginning of the sixteenth century, but it was generally believed in, taught, and accepted. It went to increase the vague sense of supernatural, spiritual powers attached to the person of the Bishop of Rome. It had one important consequence on the doctrine of Indulgences. They might be the payment out of this treasury of an absolute equivalent for the satisfaction due by the penitent for his sins; they were no longer merely the substitution of one form of penance for another, or the relaxation of a penance enjoined.
The institution of Penance contained within it the four practices of Sorrow for the sins committed (contritio); the Confession of these sins to the priest; Satisfaction, or the due manifestation of sorrow in the ways prescribed by the Church through the command of the confessor; and the Pardon (absolutio) pronounced by the priest