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 INDULGENCES

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INDULGENCES

might, for just and reasonable causes, distribute it to the faithful in full or in partial remission of the temporal punishment due to sin." Hence the con- demnation by Leo X of Luther's assertion that "the treasures of the Church from which the pope grants indulgences are not the merits of Christ and the saints" (Enchiridion, 757). For the same reason, Pius VI (1794) branded as false, temerarious, and in- jurious to the merits of Christ and the saints, the error of the synod of Pistoia that the treasury of the Church was an invention of scholastic subtlety (Enchiridion, 1541).

According to Catholic doctrine, therefore, the source of indulgences is constituted by the merits of Christ and the saints. This treasury is left to the keeping, not of the individual Christian, but of the Church. Consequently, to make it available for the faithful, there is required an exercise of authority, which alone can determine in what way, on what terms, and to what extent, indulgences may be granted.

The Power to Grant Indulgences. — Once it is admitted that Christ left the Church the power to forgive sins (see Penance), the power of granting indulgences is logically inferred. Since the sacra- mental forgiveness of sin extends both to the guilt and to the eternal punishment, it plainly follows that the Church can also free the penitent from the lesser or temporal penalty. This becomes clearer, however, when we consider the amplitude of the power granted to Peter (Matt., xvi, 19) : " I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it .shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven." (Cf . Matt., xviii, 18, where like power is conferred on all the Apostles.) No limit is placed upon this power of loosing, "the power of the keys", as it is called; it must, therefore, extend to any and all bonds contracted by sin, including the penalty no less than the guilt. When the Church, therefore, by an indulgence, remits this penalty, her action, according to the declaration of Christ, is rati- fied in heaven. That this power, as the Council of Trent affirms, was exercised from the earliest times, is shown by St. Paul's words (II Cor., ii, 5-10) in which he deals with the case of the incestuous man of Corinth. The sinner had been excluded by St. Paul's order from the company of the faithful, but had truly repented. Hence the Apostle judges that to such a one "this rebuke is sufficient that is given by many ", and adds: "To whom you have pardoned any thing, I also. For what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned any thing, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ." St. Paul had bound the guilty one in the fetters of excommunication; he now releases the peni- tent from this punishment by an exercise of his au- thority — "in the person of Christ." Here we have all the essentials of an indulgence.

These essentials persist in the subsequent practice of the Church, though the accidental features vary according as new conditions arise. During the per- secutions, those Christians who had fallen away but desired to be restored to the communion of the Church often obtained from the martyrs a memorial (libellus pads) to be presented to the bishop, that he, in consideration of the martyrs' sufferings, might ad- mit the penitents to absolution, thereby releasing them from the punishment they had incurred. Ter- tuUian refers to this when he says (Ad martyres.c.i, P. L., I, 621): "Which peace some, not having it in the Church, are accustomed to beg from the martyrs in prison; and therefore you should possess and cher- ish and preserve it in you that so you perchance may be able to grant it to others." Additional light is thrown on this subject by the vigorous attack which the same TertuUian made after he had become a Montanist. In the first part of his treatise " De pudi- VII.— 50

citia ", he attacks the pope for his alleged laxity in admitting adulterers to penance and pardon, and flouts the peremptory edict of the "pontifex maxi- mus episcopus episcoporum ". At the close he com- plains that the same power of remission is now al- lowed also to the martyrs, and urges that it should be enough for them to purge their own sins — "Suffi- ciat martyri propria delicta purgasse". And, again, "How can the oil of thy little lamp suffice both for thee and me? " (c. x.xii). It is sufficient to note that many of his arguments would apply with as much and as little force to the indulgences of later ages.

During St. Cyprian's time (d. 258), the heretic Novatian claimed that none of the lapsi should be re- admitted to the Church; others, like Felicissimus, held that such sinners should be received without any penance. Between these extremes, St. Cyprian holds the middle course, insisting that such penitents should be reconciled on the fulfilment of the proper conditions. On the one hand, he condemns the abuses connected with the libellus, in particular the custom of having it made out in blank by the martyrs and filled in by any one who needed it. " To this you should diligently attend ", he writes to the martyrs (Ep. xv), "that you designate by name those to whom you wish peace to be given." On the other hand, he recognizes the value of these memorials: "Those who have received a libellus from the martyrs and with their help can, before the Lord, get relief in their sins, let such, if they be ill and in danger, after confession and the imposition of your hands, depart unto the Lord with the peace promised them by the martyrs" (Ep. xiii, P. L., IV, 261). St. Cyprian, therefore, believed that the merits of the martyrs could be applied to less worthy Christians byway of vicarious satisfaction, and that such satisfaction was acceptable in the eyes of God as well as of the Church.

After the persecutions had ceased, the penitential discipline remained in force, but greater leniency was shown in applying it. St. Cyprian himself was re- proached for mitigating the "Evangelical severity" on which he at first insisted; to this he replied (Ep. lii) that such strictness was needful during the time of persecution not only to stimulate the faithful in the performance of penance, but also to quicken them for the glory of martyrdom; when, on the contrary, peace was secured to the Church, relaxation was necessary in order to prevent sinners from falling into despair and leading the life of pagans. In 380 St. Gregory of Nyssa (Ep. ad Letojum) declares that the penance should be shortened in the case of those who showed sincerity and zeal in performing it — "ut spa- tium canonibus pra>stitum possit contrahere " (can. xviii; cf. can. ix, vi, viii, xi, xiii, xix). In the same spirit, St. Basil (.379), after prescribing more lenient treatment for various crimes, lays down the general principle that in all such cases it is not merely the duration of the penance that must be considered, but the way in which it is performed (Ep. ad Amphilo- chium, c. Ixxxiv). Similar leniency is shown by vari- ous Councils — Ancyra (314), Laodicea (320), Nicaea (325), Aries (330). It became quite common during this period to favour those who were ill, and espe- cially those who were in danger of death (see Amort, " Historia ", 28 sq.). The ancient penitentials of Ire- land and England, though exacting in regard to dis- cipline, provide for relaxation in certain cases. St. Cummian, e. g., in his Penitential (seventh century), treating (cap. v) of the sin of robbery, prescribed that he who has often committed theft shall do penance for seven years or for such time as the priest may judge fit, must always be reconciled with him whom he has wronged, and make restitution proportioned to the injury, and thereby his penance shall be consid- erably shortened (multum breviabit poenitentiam ejus). But should he be unwilling or unable (to com- ply with these conditions), he must do penance for