TETZEL, or TEZEL (properly Diez or Diezel), Join:, well known in connection with the controversy regarding indulgences, out of which the first beginnings of the reforma tion took their rise, was b. at Leipsic between 1450 and 1460. His father was a gold smith of that city. Tetzel, after completing the ordinary studies of the period iu the university, entered the Dominican convent of St. Paul in 1489, and soon established a reputation as a popular and effective preacher. His personal character is a subject of much controversy. The questions as to the teaching of Tetzel are more important. His ability and success as a preacher led to his being intrusted with the charge of preaching an indulgence, first on behalf of the Teutonic knights, and afterward, in 1516, on the far more momentous occasion of the celebrated indulgence published in favor of con tributors to the fund for building the church of St. Peter's at Rome. In the discharge of this commission it cannot be doubted that Tetzel went to extremes which it is impos sible to justify; but the worst charges, and especially that of preaching the efficacy of indulgences without repentance, and of offering anticipatory pardons for future sin, are strongly denied by Roman Catholic writers as being contradicted not only by contem porary authorities, but also by the very instructions contained in his official commission. Much of the obloquy which he drew upon his cause was produced by the pomp and apparent luxury in which he traveled about upon his mission. it was in opposition to
the preaching of Tetzel that Martin Luther published his celebrated theses, on Oct. 31, 1517. Tetzel replied first by publicly burning these obnoxious propositions; but he afterward published a series of counter-theses (which were burned in retaliation by the students of the university of Wittenberg); and in May, 1518, a detailed reply to Luther's celebrated sermon on indulgences. On the arrival of the papal delegate Miltitz, Tetzel addressed to him a letter in reply to the charges of his adversaries; but, notwithstanding this defense of his conduct, he was summoned to appear before Miltitz in Leipsic in the January of the following year, and underwent a severe rebuke for the excesses in lan guage and the improprieties in proceeding which had brought so much scandal upon the church. Miltitz threatened him, moreover, with the severest animadversions on the part of the pope. He was required in consequence to withdraw to his convent at Leip sic, where he died in the August of the same year, 1519, according to some of the plague, but according to another account, of the chagrin and mortification resulting from the judgment of the papal representative.—See, on the one side, Hechlein, Vita Tezelie; Hofmann, Lebensbeschreibung des Ablass-predigers Dr. Joh. Tetzel (Leip. 1844); and on the other, Schrodl, in Wetzer's Kirchen-Lexicon, art. " Tetzel," x. 767.