Development of Indulgences in the Church.
DOUBTLESS the doctrine of salvation by faith was not entirely lost to the church. We meet with it in some of the most celebrated Fathers, after the time of Constantine, and in the middle ages. The doctrine was not formally denied. Councils and popes did not hurl their bulls and decrees against it; but they set beside it a something which nullified it. Salvation by faith was received by many learned men, by many a humble and simple mind, but the multitude had something very different. Men had invented a complete system of forgiveness. The multitude flocked to it and joined with it, rather than with the grace of Christ; and thus the system of man's devising prevailed over that of God. Let us examine some of the phases of this deplorable change. In the time of Vespasian and his sons, he who had been the most intimate companion of the despised Galilean, one of the sons of Zebedee, had said: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." About one hundred and twenty years later, under Commodus and Septimius Severus, Tertullian, an illustrious pastor of Carthage, speaking of pardon, already held a very different language. "It is necessary," said he, "to change our dress and food; we must put on sackcloth and ashes; we must renounce all comfort and adorning of the body, and, falling down before the priest, implore the intercession of the brethren." Behold man turned aside from God, and turned back upon himself. Works of penance, thus substituted for the salvation of God, multiplied in the church from the time of Tertullian to the thirteenth century. Men were enjoined to fast, to go bareheaded, to wear no linen, etc., or required to leave home and country for distant lands, or else to renounce the world and embrace a monastic life. In the eleventh century were added voluntary flagellations; a little after they became an absolute mania in Italy, which was then in a very disturbed state. Nobles and peasants, old and young, even children of five years old, went in pairs, through the villages, the towns, and the cities, by hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands, without any other covering than a cloth tied round the middle, and visiting the churches in procession in the very depth of winter. Armed with scourges, they lashed themselves without pity, and the streets resounded with cries and groans, which drew forth tears of compassion from all who heard them. And yet long before the evil had arrived at this height, men sighed for deliverance from the tyranny of the priests. The priests themselves were sensible that if they did not devise some remedy, their usurped power would be at an end. Then it was that they invented the system of barter known by the name of indulgences. It is under John, surnamed the Faster, archbishop of Constantinople, that we see its first commencement. The priests said, "O penitents, you are unable to perform the penances we have imposed upon you. Well then, we, the priests of God, and your pastors, will take upon ourselves this heavy burden. Who can better fast than we? Who better kneel and recite psalms than ourselves?" But the laborer is worthy of his hire. "For a seven weeks' fast," said Regino, abbot of Prum, "such as are rich shall pay twenty pence, those who are less wealthy ten pence, and the poor three pence, in the same proportion for other things." Some courageous voices were raised against this traffic, but in vain. The pope soon discovered what advantages he might derive from these indulgences. His want of money continued to increase. Here was an easy resource, which, under the appearance of a voluntary contribution, would replenish his coffers. It seemed desirable to establish so lucrative a discovery on a solid footing. The chief men of Rome exerted themselves for this purpose. The irrefragable doctor, Alexander de Hales, invented, in the thirteenth century, a doctrine well suited to secure this mighty resource to the papacy. A bull of Clement VII. declared the new doctrine an article of the faith. The most sacred truths were made to subserve this persevering policy of Rome. Christ, it was affirmed, has done much more than was required for reconciling God and man. One single drop of his blood would have sufficed for that; but he shed his blood abundantly, that he might form for his church a treasury that eternity itself should never exhaust. The supererogatory merits of the saints, the reward of the works they have done, beyond and additional to the obligations of duty, have still further enriched this treasury. Its guardianship and distribution are confided to the vicar of Christ upon earth. He applies to every sinner, for sins committed after baptism, these merits of Christ and of his saints, in the measure and degree that his sins have made necessary. Who would dare to attack a custom of so high and holy an origin? Rapidly was this almost inconceivable invention reduced to a system. The scale imposed ten, twenty years of penance, for such and such kinds of sin. "It is not merely for each kind of sin, but for each sinful action, that this penance of so many years is demanded," exclaimed the mercenary priests. Behold mankind, bowed down under the weight of a penance that seemed almost eternal. "But for what purpose this long penance, when life is so short; when can it take effect? How can man secure the time requisite for its performance? You are imposing on him centuries of severe discipline. When death comes, he will but laugh at you, for death will discharge him from his burden. Ah, welcome death!" But this objection was provided against. The philosophers of Alexandria had spoken of a fire in which men were to be purified. Some ancient doctors in the church had received the notion. Rome declared this philosophic tenet the doctrine of the church; and the pope, by a bull, added purgatory to his domain. He declared that man would have to expiate in purgatory all he could not expiate on earth; but that indulgences would deliver men's souls from that intermediate state in which their sins would otherwise hold them. Thomas Aquinas set forth this new doctrine in his celebrated Summa. Nothing was left undone to fill the mind with terror. Man is by nature inclined to fear an unknown futurity and the dark abodes beyond the grave; but that fear was artfully excited and increased by horrible descriptions of the torments of this purifying fire. We see at this day in many Catholic countries paintings exposed in the temples, or in the crossways, wherein poor souls engulfed in flames invoke alleviation for their miseries. Who could refuse the money that, dropped into the treasury of Rome, redeemed the soul from such horrible torments? But a further means of increasing this traffic was now discovered. Hitherto it had been the sins of the living that had been turned to profit; they now began to avail themselves of the sins of the dead. In the thirteenth century it was declared that the living might, by making certain sacrifices, shorten or even terminate the torments their ancestors and friends were enduring in purgatory. Instantly the compassionate hearts of the faithful offered new treasures for the priests. To regulate this traffic, they invented, shortly after, probably in the pontificate of John XXII., the celebrated and scandalous tax of indulgences, of which more than forty editions are extant; a mind of the least delicacy would be shocked at the repetition of the horrors therein contained. Incest was to cost, if not detected, five groschen; if known, or flagrant, six. A certain price was affixed to the crime of murder, another to infanticide, adultery, perjury, burglary, etc. Oh, shame to Rome! exclaims Claudius of Espensa, a Roman divine; and we may add, Oh, shame to human nature! For no reproach can attach to Rome which does not recoil with equal force on mankind in general. Rome is human nature exalted, and displaying some of its worst propensities. We say this in truth as well as in justice. Boniface VIII., the boldest and most ambitious of the popes after Gregory VII., effected still more than his predecessors had done. He published a bull in 1300, by which he declared to the church that all who should at that time or thenceforth make the pilgrimage to Rome, which should take place every hundred years, should there receive a plenary indulgence. Upon this multitudes flocked from Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, France, Spain, Germany, Hungary, and other quarters. Old men, of sixty and seventy, set out on the pilgrimage; and it was computed that 200,000 visited Rome in one month. All these foreigners brought with them rich offerings, and the pope and the Romans saw their coffers replenished. The avarice of the pontiffs soon fixed this jubilee at intervals of fifty years, afterwards at thirty-three years, and at last at twenty-five. Then, for the greater convenience of the purchasers, and to increase the profits of the vendors, they transferred both the jubilee and its indulgences from Rome to the market-places of all the nations of Christendom. It was no longer necessary to abandon one's home; what others had been obliged to seek beyond the Alps, each might now obtain at his own door. This evil was at its height,—and then the Reformer arose.—History of the Reformation.