Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/94

56 instructions read, outside of indulgence for punishment of sin, of the plenaria omnium peccatorum remissio, and without repenting one could buy an indulgence upon the presentation of which any promiscuously chosen priest was forced once during lifetime and in the hour of death to grant to the professor a general absolution.

In the same way an indulgence for the dead could be had, for "as soon as the money clinked in the bottom of the chest, the souls of the deceased friends forthwith went into Heaven," was, according to Prierias, actually preached as "mera et catholica Veritas." Therefore, it was no trivial issue on which Luther's battle began; it was an institution, representative of the entire system which brought it forth, and because of whose abuses the entire world suffered.

Concerning particularly that indulgence connected with the Castle Church at Wittenberg, P. Kalkoff treats in his "Ablass und Reliquienverehrung an der Schlosskirche zu Wittenberg" (1907).

To the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses. As far as these are concerned, in addition to the already mentioned writing of Bratke, the publications of Koehler and Brieger come into consideration.51 Koehler presents all the documents from the 11th century to the Indulgence Decretal of Leo X on the 9th of November, 1518, that are necessary for the understanding of the indulgence controversy, so that every one can form an estimate for himself. And then he arranges the Ninety-five Theses so that, alongside of the individual theses, he can give Luther's own explanation in the "Resolutiones" and the