the man who "adored" them, long years of indulgence,1 were exhibited to worshipers, and the approach of this high feast-day put the thought of indulgences uppermost in the minds of everybody in Wittenberg, including the author of the Theses.2

3

But neither the Theses nor the results which followed them could be confined to Wittenberg. Contrary to Luther's expectation and to his great surprise, they circulated all through Germany with a rapidity that was startling. Within two months, before the end of 1517, three editions of the Latin text had been printed, one at Wittenberg, one at Nürnberg, and one as far away as Basel, and copies of the Theses had been sent to Rome. Numerous editions, both Latin and German, quickly followed. Luther's cotemporaries saw in the publication of the Theses "the beginning of the Reformation," and the judgment of modern times has confirmed their verdict, but the Protestant of to-day, and especially the Protestant layman, is almost certain to be surprised, possibly deeply disappointed, at their contents. They are not "a trumpet-blast of reform"; that title must be reserved for the great works of 1520.5 The word "faith," destined to become the watchword of the Reformation, does not once occur in them, the validity of the Sacrament of Penance is not disputed; the right of the pope to forgive sins, especially in "reserved cases," is not denied; even the virtue of indulgences is admitted, within limits, and the question at issu is simply "What is that virtue?”

To read the Theses, therefore, with a fair degree of comprehension we must know something of the time that produced them, and we must bear two facts continually in mind. We must remember that at this time Luther was a devoted son of the Church and servant of the pope, perhaps not quite the "right frantic and raving papist"" he afterwards called him self, but as yet entirely without suspicion of the extent to which he had inwardly diverged from the teachings of Roman theology. We must als remember that the Theses were no attempt at a searching examination o the whole structure and content of Roman teaching, but were directed

1 The Church of All Saints at Wittenberg was the repository of the great collection of relics which Frederick the Wise had gathered. A catalogue of the The collection, with illustrations by Lucas Cranach, was published in 1509. collection contained 5005 sacred objects, including a bit of the crown of thorns and some of the Virgin Mother's milk. Adoration of these relics on All Saints' Day (Nov. Ist) was rewarded with indulgence for more than 500,000 years. So VON BEZOLD, Die deutsche Reformation (1890), p. 100; see also BARGE, Karlstadt, I, 39 ff.

2 Luther had preached a sermon warning against the danger of indulgences 07 the Eve of All Saints (1516). See below.

against what Luther conceived to be merely abuses which had sprung up around a single group of doctrines centering in the Sacrament of Penance. He sincerely thought that the teaching of the Theses was in full agreement with the best traditions of the Church,1 and his surprise that they should have caused so much excitement is undoubtedly genuine and not feigned. He shows himself both hurt and astonished that he should be assailed as a heretic and schismatic, and "called by six hundred other names of ignominy." On the other hand, we are compelled to admit that from the outset Luther's opponents had grasped far more completely than he himself the true significance of his "purely academic protest."

2. Penance and Indulgence.-The purpose of the disputation which Luther proposed to hold was to clear up the subject of the virtue of “indulgences," and the indulgences were the most striking and characteristic feature of the religious life of the Church in the last three Centuries of the Middle Ages. We meet them everywhere-indulgences for the adoration of relics, indulgences for worship at certain shrines, indulgences for pilgrimages here or there, indulgences for contributions to this or that special object of charity. Luther roundly charges the indulgence-vendors with teaching the people that the indulgences are a means to the remission of sins. What are these indulgences?

Their history is connected, on the one hand, with the history of the Sacrament of Penance, on the other with the history of the development of papal (power. The Sacrament of Penance developed out of the administration of Church discipline. In the earliest days of the Church, the Christian who fell into sin was punished by exclusion from the communion of the Church. This excommunication was not, however, permanent, and the sinner could be restored to the privileges of Church-fellowship after he had confessed his sin, professed penitence, and performed certain penitential acts, chief among which were alms-giving, fasting and prayer, and, some what later, pilgrimage. These acts of penitence came to have the name of "satisfactions," and were a condition precedent to the reception of absolution. They varied in duration and severity, according to the enormity of the offence, and for the guidance of those who administered the discipline the Church, sets of rules were formulated by which the "satisfactions" or enances" were imposed. These codes are the "Penitential Canons. he first step in the development of the indulgences may be found in the actice which gradually arose, of remitting some part of the enjoined enances" on consideration of the performance of certain acts which uld be regarded as meritorious.

The indulgences received a new form, however, and became a part of the

1 See Letter to Staupitz, below.

2 See Letter to Leo X, below.

3 Cf. GOTTLOB, Kreuzablass und Almosenablass, p. 1.

4 See Theses 5, 8, 85.

2

sorrow of the heart, and must include the purpose henceforth to avoid sin; "satisfaction” must be made by works prescribed by the priest who heard confession. In the administration of the Sacrament, however, the absolution preceded "satisfaction" instead of following it, as it had done in the discipline of the early Church.1 To justify this apparent inconsistency, the Doctors further distinguished between the "guilt" and the "penalty" of sin.2 Sins were classified as "mortal" and "venial."3 Mortal sins for which the offender had not received absolution were punished eternally, while venial sins were those which merited only some smaller penalty; but when a mortal sin was confessed and absolution granted, the guilt of the sin was done away, and with it the eternal penalty. And yet the absolution did not open the gate of heaven, though it closed the door of hell; the eternal penalty was not to be exacted, but there was a temporal penalty to be paid. The "satisfaction" was the temporal penalty, and if satisfaction was in arrears at death, the arrearage must be paid in purgatory, a place of punjshment for mortal sins confessed and repented, but "unsatisfied," and for venial sins, which were not serious enough to bring eternal condemnation. The penalties of purgatory were "temporal," viz., they stopped somewhere this side of eternity, and their duration could be measured in days and years, though the number of the years might mount high into the thousands and tens of thousands.

'It was at this point that the practice of indulgences united with the theory of the Sacrament of Penance. The indulgences had to do with the "satisfaction." They might be "partial," remitting only a portion of the penalties, measured by days or years of purgatory; or they might be "plenary," remitting all penalties due in this world or the next. In theory, however, no indulgence could remit the guilt or the eternal penalty of sin, and the purchaser of an indulgence was not only expected to confess and be absolved, but he was also supposed to be corde contritus, i. e., "truly penitent.” A rigid insistence on the fulfilment of these conditions

would have greatly restricted the value of the indulgences as a means of gain, for the right to hear confession and grant absolution belonged to the parish-priests. Consequently, it became the custom to endow the indulgence-venders with extraordinary powers. They were given the authority to hear confession and grant absolution wherever they might be, and to absolve even from the sins which were normally "reserved" for the absolution of the higher Church authorities.

The demand for contrition was somewhat more difficult to meet. But here too there was a way out. Complete contrition included love to God as its motive, and the truly contrite man was not always easy to find; but some of the scholastic Doctors had discovered a substitute for contrition in what they called "attrition," viz., incomplete contrition, which might have fear for a motive, and which the Sacrament of Penance could transform into contrition. When, therefore, a man was afraid of hell or of purgatory, he could make his confession to the indulgence-seller or his agent, receive from him the absolution which gave his imperfect repentance the value of, true contrition, released him from the guilt of sin, and changed its eternal penalty to a temporal penalty; then he could purchase the plenary indul gence, which remitted the temporal penalty, and so in one transaction, im which all the demands of the Church were formally met, he could become sure of heaven. Thus the indulgence robbed the Sacrament of Penance of its ethical content.

Furthermore, indulgences were made available for souls already in purgatory. This kind of indulgence seems to have been granted for the first time in 1476. It had long been held that the prayers of the living availed to shorten the pains of the departed, and the institution of masses for the dead was of long standing; but it was not without some difficulty that the Popes succeeded in establishing their claim to power over purgatory. Their power over the souls of the living was not disputed. The "Power of the Keys" had been given to Peter and transmitted to his successors; the "Treasury of the Church,"1 i. e., the merits of Christ and of the Saints, was believed to be at their disposal, and it was this treasury which they employed in the granting of indulgences;2 but it seemed reasonable to suppose that their jurisdiction ended with death. Accordingly, Pope Sixtus IV, in 1477, declared that the power of the Pope over purgatory while genuine, was exercised only per modum suffragii, "by way of intercession.”3 The distinction was thought dogmatically important

1 See Theses 56-58.

2 The doctrine of the "Treasury of the Church" grew up as a result of the indu gences. It was an attempt to answer the question, How can a "satisfaction, which God demands, be waived? The answer is, By the application of merits earne by Christ and by the Saints who did more than God requires. These merit form the Treasury of the Church. Cf. SEEBERG, PRE3 XV, 417; LEA, Hist of Confession, etc., III, 14-28.

3 See Thesis 26.