BOOK III.

HE INDULGENCES, AND THE THESES.

1517-1518.

A GREAT agitation reigned, at that time, among the people of Germany. The Church had opened a vast market on the earth. Judging from the crowd of buyers, and the noise and jests of the dealers, we might call it a fair; but a fair held by monks. The merchandise they extolled, offering it at a reduced price, was, said they, the salvation of souls!

The dealers passed through the country in a gay carriage, escorted by three horsemen, in great state, and spending freely. One might have thought it some dignitary on a royal progress, with his attendants and officers, and not a common dealer, or a begging monk. When the procession approached a town, a messenger waited on the magistrate: "The grace of God, and of the Holy Father, is at your gates !" said the envoy. Instantly every thing was in motion in the place. The clergy, the priests, the nuns, the council, the schoolmasters, the trades, with their flags,-men and women, young and old, went forth to meet the merchants, with lighted tapers in their hands, advancing to the sound of music, and of all the bells of the place; "so that," says an historian, "they could not have given a grander welcome to God himself.". Salutations being exchanged, the whole procession moved toward the church. The pontiff's bull of grace was borne in front, on a velvet cushion, or on cloth of gold. The chief

vendor of indulgences followed, supporting a large red wooden cross; and the whole procession moved in this manner, amidst singing, prayers, and the smoke of incense. The sound of organs, and a concert of instruments, received the monkish dealer and his attendants into the church. The cross he bore with him was erected in front of the altar: on it was hung the Pope's arms; and, as long as it remained there, the clergy of the place, the penitentiaries, and the sub-commissioners, with white wands in their hands, came every day after vespers, or before the salutation, to do homage to it.* This great bustle excited a lively sensation in the quiet towns of Germany.

One person in particular drew the attention of the spectators in these sales. It was he who bore the great red cross and had the most prominent part assigued to him. He was clothed in the habit of the Dominicans, and his port was lofty. His voice was sonorous, and he seemed yet in the prime of his strength, though he was past his sixty-third year. This man, who was the son of a goldsmith of Leipsic named Diez, bore the name of John Diezel or Tetzel. He had studied in his native town, had taken his bachelor's degree in 1487, and entered two years later into the order of the Dominicans. Numerous honours had been accumulated on him. Bachelor of Theology, Prior of the Dominicans, Apostolical Commissioner, Inquisitor, (heretica pravitatis inquisitor,) he had ever since the year 1502, filled the office of an agent for the sale of indulgences. The experience he had acquired as a subordinate functionary had very early raised him to the station of chief commisioner. He had an allowance of 80 florins per month, all his expenses defrayed, and he was allowed a carriage and three horses; but we may readily imagine that his indirect emoluments far exceeded his allowances. 1507, he gained in two days at Freyberg 2000 florins. If his occupation resembled that of a mountebank, he had also the morals of one. Convicted at Inspruck of adultery and

In

* Instruction of the Archbishop of Mentz to the sub-commissioners of the Indulgence, &c. art. 8.

+ Ingenio ferox et corpore robustus. (Cochl. 5.)

abominable profligacy, he was near paying the forfeit of his life. The Emperor Maximilian had ordered that he should be put into a sack and thrown into the river. The Elector Frederic of Saxony had interceded for him, and obtained his pardon.* But the lesson he had received had not taught him more decency. He carried about with him two of his children. Miltitz, the Pope's legate, cites the fact in one of his letters. It would have been hard to find in all the cloisters of Germany a man more adapted to the traffic with which he was charged. To the theology of a monk, and the zeal and spirit of an inquisitor, he united the greatest effrontery. What most helped him in his office was the facility he dis played in the invention of the strange stories with which the taste of the common people is generally pleased. No means came amiss to him to fill his coffers. Lifting up his voice and giving loose to a coarse volubility, he offered his indulgences to all comers, and excelled any salesman at a fair in recommending his merchandise.‡

As soon as the cross was elevated with the Pope's arms suspended upon it, Tetzel ascended the pulpit, and, with a bold tone, began, in the presence of the crowd whom the ceremony had drawn to the sacred spot, to exalt the efficacy. of indulgences. The people listened and wondered at the admirable virtues ascribed to them. A Jesuit historian says himself, in speaking of the Dominican friars whom Tetzel had associated with him:- -"Some of these preachers did not fail, as usual, to distort their subject, and so to exaggerate the value of the indulgences as to lead the people to believe that, as soon as they gave their money, they were certain of salvation and of the deliverance of souls from purgatory."§

If such were the pupils, we may imagine what lengths the * Welchen Churfürst Friederich vom Sack zu Inspruck er beten Hatte. (Mathes. x.)

+ L. Opp. (W.) xv. 862.

+ Circumferuntur venales indulgentiæ in his regionibus a Tecelio, Dominicano impudentissimo sycophantâ. (Melancth. Vita Luth.)

§ Hist. de Lutheranisme par le P. Maimbourg de la compagnie de Jesus. 1681, p. 21.

master went. Let us hear one of these harangues, pronounced after the erection of the cross.

"Indulgences," said he, "are the most precious and sublime of God's gifts.

"This cross"-(pointing to the red cross)" has as much efficacy as the cross of Jesus Christ.*

"Draw near, and I will give you letters, duly sealed, by which even the sins you shall hereafter desire to commit shall be all forgiven you.

"I would not exchange my privileges for those of Saint Peter in heaven, for I have saved more souls with my indulgences than he with his sermons.

"There is no sin so great that the indulgence cannot remit it, and even if any one should (which is doubtless impossible) ravish the Holy Virgin Mother of God, let him pay,-let him only pay largely, and it shall be forgiven him.†

"Even repentance is not indispensable.

"But more than all this: indulgences save not the living alone, they also save the dead.

"Ye priests, ye nobles, ye tradesmen, ye wives, ye maidens, and ye young men hearken to your departed parents and friends, who cry to you from the bottomless abyss: 'We are enduring horrible torment! a small alms would deliver us;— you can give it, and you will not!'"

A shudder ran through his hearers at these words, uttered by the formidable voice of the mountebank monk.

"The very moment," continued Tetzel, "that the money clinks against the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purgatory and flies free to heaven.t

"O, senseless people, and almost like to beasts, who do not

* L. Opp. (W.) xxii. 1393.

+ Tetzel defended and maintained this assertion in his antitheses, published the same year. (Th. 99, 100, 101.)-Sub-commissariis, insuper ac prædicatoribus veniarum imponere, ut si quis per impossibile Dei genetricem semper virginem violasset, quod eundem indulgentiarum vigore absolvere possent, luce clarior est. (Positiones fratris I. Tezelii quibus defendit indulgentias contra Lutherum.) *Th. 56. (Ibid.)

comprehend the grace so richly offered! This day, heaven is on all sides open. Do you now refuse to enter? When then do you intend to come in? This day you may redeem many souls. Dull and heedless man, with ten groschen you can deliver your father from purgatory, and you are so ungrateful that you will not rescue him. In the day of judg ment, my conscience will be clear; but you will be punished the more severely for neglecting so great a salvation. I protest that though you should have only one coat, you ought to strip it off and sell it, to purchase this grace. Our Lord God no longer deals with us as God. He has given all power to the Pope!"

Then, having recourse to other inducements, he added:— "Do you know why our most Holy Lord distributes so rich a grace? The dilapidated Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is to be restored, so as to be unparalleled in the whole earth. That church contains the bodies of the holy apostles, Peter and Paul, and a vast company of martyrs. Those sacred bodies, owing to the present condition of the edifice, are now, alas! continually trodden, flooded, polluted, dishonoured, and rotting in rain and hail. Ah! shall those holy ashes be suffered to remain degraded in the mire?"*

This touch of description never failed to produce an impression on many hearers. There was an eager desire to aid poor Leo X. who had not the means of sheltering from the rain the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul!

The speaker next proceeded to declaim against the disputers who should question, and the traitors who should oppose his mission:-"I declare them all excommunicated!"

Then turning to the docile souls among his hearers, and impiously perverting the Scripture: "Blessed," said he, "blessed are the eyes that see what you see, for I tell you that many prophets and many kings have desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard them." And as a finish to his address, pointing to the strong box in which the * Instruction of the Archbishop of Mentz, &c.