Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/93

Rh to which these indulgences were much less harmful than they were once thought to be, and that they only excused the purchaser from punishments demanded by the canons of the Church, yet in the end it was acknowledged that the old definitions were in the main correct.

The Church as a matter of fact did distinguish theoretically between the purchase of an indulgence and the absolution as declared by the priest in Confession. The latter could be an absolution from culpability, or of the punishments exacted by the Church, or of the divine punishments for sin in time and eternity. But because this absolution was often granted by priests who accompanied the indulgence-vendors, and thus occurred at the same time when a purchase of indulgence was made; and because from the end of the 14th century the indulgences were also called indulgences for punishment and culpability (pœna et culpa) and praised as an atonement of man with God, it can be readily understood that the common people generally were of the opinion that on these occasions they had the opportunity, not only to receive indulgence for punishments, but also for culpability. For the common man did not know that theoretically the Church had bound together freeing from culpability with Confession and Absolution; he could only form his judgment according to what he saw. What he really saw was something that savored strongly of the open market-place, a business where Confession played a very much subordinated role, especially since attritio was considered enough. Although Tetzel, who was commissioned for his special trade, and of whom Paulus treats in a monogravure (1889),50 later after his acquittal, taught that the indulgences "served solely in the case of punishment of sins that had been repented of and confessed," yet his