INDULGENCE, in Roman Catholic theology, means a remission, by church authority, to a repentant sinner, of the temporal punishment which, in the Catholic theory, remains due after the sin and its eternal punishment have been remitted. A doctrine which has been the subject of so much angry controversy, and which may be regarded as the chief among the proximate causes of the reformation, deserves very careful con sideration. We must confine ourselves, however, to a brief authentic explanation of the doctrine such as it is held by Roman Catholics, together with a history of the prac tice in the various ages of the church.
By the discipline of the first centuries, a severe course of penitential observance was exacted of all who fell into any grievous crime, especially apostasy, murder, and adul tery, such sinners being excluded from church communion for various periods, in some cases even till the hour of death. These penitential observances, which regard as purely disciplinary, were designed, according to the Catholic view, as an expiation, on the part of the penitent, for the temporal punishment which, after sin and the eternal punishment due to it have been remitted by God, still remains to lye under gone; and some of the most acrimonious of the early controversies, the Montanist and the Novatian, arose as to the power of the church to relax these penitential observ ances, and to admit grievous sinners to communion. These ancient relaxations (of which they regard that referred to in 1 Cor. v. 5 and in 2 Cor. ii. 10 as a type) are con sidered by Catholics as examples of the modern indulgence; and the practice which grew up in the 3d and 4th centuries, and which even then was carried to great extremes, of granting stich relaxations on the recommendation of martyrs or confessors, is held by Catholic theologians to be an illustration of that principle of vicarious atone ment, according to which, in the theory of indulgences, the church is supposed to supply, from the inexhaustible treasure of the merits of Christ, and of the " supererog atory" works of the saints, what may be wanting to the completeness of the atonement of the less perfect but yet truly penitent sinner to whom she grants the indulgence. That this practice of relaxation, whatever may have been its real import, was to be used according to the judgment of the bishop as to the disposition of the penitent, is expressly laid down by the council of Ancyra in 303, and by that of Nice in 325. In all cases, however, the person granting the relaxation was to impose certain good works as a partial substitute for the penalty which had been relaxed; and among these works, which bad at first been purely personal, came by degrees to be included money pay ments for certain religious or charitable objects, as the building of a church, or the foundation of a monastery or hospital. The name indulgence appears to have origi nated late, the first recorded instance of its use being by Alexander II. in the 11th c. ; but the institution itself is found in full development during the wars of the crusades, the serving, or the contributing to service in which, "provided it were for devotion alone, and not from motives of greed or of glory," was accepted in the council of Clermont "as an equivalent substitute for all penance." Such an indulgence was called "plenary;" where a portion only of the penitential works was relaxed, it was called " partial;" and in order to put a bar to their excessive multiplication and to other abuses, Innocent III. declared the power of granting "plenary indulgences" to be reserved to the pope alone, bishops being only authorized to grant the "partial" or limited indulgences described above. The fourth Lateran council condemns the "indiscreet and superfluous" granting of indulgences; and among the abuses which grew up in the church during the western schism, one of the most remarkable was the lavish dispensation of indulgences, in the granting of which the contending popes rivaled each other in prodigality. The last extreme, however, was not reached until
the beginning of the 16th c., when, with a view to raising the funds necessary for the erection of the great church of St. Peter's at Rome, the pope, Leo X., published a plenary indulgence, the principal condition for the gaining of which was a contribution to this work. Catholic historians contend that in itself such a condition was perfectly justifiable, and that if duly explained to the people, it might be lawfully and even meri toriously complied with; hut they admit that many of the preachers of the indulgence, in extolling its natural effects, went to indefensible extremes, and that, even making the fullest allowance for exaggeration, it cannot lie denied that grievous abuses both of doctrine and of practice were committed in Germany and in Switzerland. hence the decree of the council of Trent, while it affirms that the use of indulgences, as hieing " most salutary for the Christian people, and approved by the authority of councils, is to be retained in the church," yet orders that, "in granting them, moderation be observed, lest, V discipline May "bon the special instructions of this council alrthe nioderu legislatlon on the has been founded; but as the decree of the council does not explicitly declare what is the precise effect of an indulgence, it is further explained by Pope Pius VI., in his cele brated bull, Auctorem Fidel, that an indulgence, received with due dispositions, remits not alone the canonical penance attached to certain crimes in this life, but also the temporal punishment which would await the penitent after death to be endured by him in purgatory.
From the above explanation, it will be gathered that Catholics do not understand by an indulgence a remission of sin, much less a permission to commit sin, or a promise of Iforgiveness of future sin. They contend, moreover, that since the benefit of an indul gence can only be enjoyed by a sinner who has repented of sin and resolved to embrace a new life, the imputation of introducing laxity of principle and easy self-indulgence is entirely unwarranted. And although, for the most part, the good works which arc required as the condition of obtaining indulgences may appear easy and even trivial, yet the one indispensable preliminary—sorrow for sin and sincere purpose of amend inent—in itself involves the very highest effort of Christian virtue.
On the subject of indulgences, 'Protestants are accustomed to quote the language used by popes in granting them, in opposition to the views put forth by Roman Catho lies in defending them. And nothing is more common than for popes in their bulls of jubilee to grant the most plenary and complete indulgence, pardon, and remission of all sins, on certain conditions specified. And although this grant is made only to "the faithful who are truly penitent and have confessed," yet being limited to a certain period, as the year of jubilee, and to certain conditions, as saying certain prayers, visiting certain churches. wearing or kissing a scapular, or the like, it is argued that these cannot but acquire, in the estimation of the people, an importance which is very unfavorable to penitence, virtue, faith, and piety. It is likewise urged that the whole doctrine of indulgences is founded not only on an unwarranted assumption of power given to the church, but also on a doctrine- of human works and merits inconsistent with what we are taught in Scripture as to the office of Christ as a Savior.