An indulgence granted to the living is an act of jurisdiction, or exercise by the Church of the power of the keys conferred on it in the well-known words of the Gospel of Saint Matthew: And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever thou shalt bind on earth, it shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed in Heaven.' Every Church, in so far as it is a visible organization, claims in some degree a power of the keys, that is, the right to admit or exclude mem bers — to determine fellowship. But the antith esis so emphatically expressed in the text be tween heaven and earth proves that the king dom of heaven there spoken of is more com prehensive than the visible Church of Christ It is proclaimed that the power of binding and loosing on earth bestowed upon the Apostles and their successors, is ratified in its every act by the supreme tribunal of God in the Church triumphant. In accordance with a well-known principle of Catholic exegesis, the best interpre tation of a text of Sacred Scripture is furnished by the universal tradition of the Church from the age of the Apostles to the present time.
Saint Paul, in his epistles to the Corinthians, describes how he imposed punishment on the incestuous Corinthian and how he subsequently remitted it. The penalty was not merely an ecclesiastical censure of excommunication in flicted primarily for the purpose of safeguard ing the flock of Christ. The Apostle expressly states that the chief motive which actuated him was anxiety for the individual salvation of the transgressor; Nor could it have been (as has been already shown) a mere disciplinary meas ure to impress upon the sinner the gravity of his crime or to test the sincerity of his repent ance. Having no organic relation to confes sion, whether public or private, and no expressed or implied connection with perfect contrition, it was not a part of any conceivable Chris tian ordinance for the remission of the guilt and eternal punishment of sin. According to Catholic reasoning, it was therefore an exercise of the power of the keys by the Apostle to remit a temporal debt due to God for the offense; and since, according to universal Jew ish and Christian belief, the Divine Justice rig orously demanded either direct or vicarious satisfaction, the Apostle could only concede that "indulgence" by appropriating to the indi vidual sinner the superabundant merits of Christ and the Saints out of the treasury of the Church.
It will be observed that the Apostle of the Gentiles granted the first recorded indulgence in the form of an absolution. Indulgences usu ally took this form in the primitive Church. The early Fathers frequently refer to their be ing thus conceded by bishops on the presentation of a "Libellus Supplex" given to the penitent by some Christian martyr on the eve of suffer ing an heroic death for Christ. It is interest ing to note that the present practice of never Rranting those favors except to persons who are in full communion with the Church, and who have received the Sacrament of Penance, was substantially insisted upon by Saint Cyprian. He demands that the martyrs should not grant "Libelli" except to persons who had abandoned their sinful career and given ample evidence of heartfelt contrition and sincere conversion. In dulgences in the first Centuries of the Church having implied a diminution of the period of canonical punishment — the name by which this act of leniency was then known was Odavepwiria— (Consult Concilium Ancyra, can. 5; cf. Hefele,
), such expressions as an indulgence of seven years and seven quaran tines came into use. An indulgence of seven years means the condonation of as much of the temporal debt due to God for sin as canonical punishment extending over seven years would atone for. Likewise an indulgence of seven quarantines connotes a canonical punishment extending over seven Lents.
We find in the writings of Saint Augustine reference to the remission, in return for alms giving, of temporal penalties imposed for minor ecclesiastical offenses. Thus there gradually grew up the custom of granting indulgences un der the form of commutation. Under this form they were especially conspicuous during the period of the Crusades. Every person who confessed his sins in a sincere and contrite spirit, received Holy Communion and joined the Crusade for liberating the holy places from the infidels was declared to need no other penance. "her illud pro omni Pernitentio reputetur' was one of the decrees of the Coun cil of Clermont, held under Urban II in the year 1095. The system of commutation for almsgiving afforded opportunity for abuse, as was evident in the practice of "farming out" to laymen the collection of alms in return for indulgence. Thus, for example, in the case of the famous indulgence granted by Leo X, in 1517, to the Catholic faithful on condition that they would contribute to the completion of Saint Peter's basilica in Rome, the right of collecting the money was conferred, in the first instance, on Albert, bishop of Maintz, and then sold by him to an Augsburg banker. Circum stances like these gave occasion to the Prot estant party to charge the Church with the °sale of indulgences.' Cardinal Pallavicini, the celebrated Jesuit historian of the Council of Trent, does not hesitate to say that if Leo X had been surrounded by able theologians and. enlightened by their counsels he would have proceeded more cautiously in dispensing in dulgences. However, it should in justice be recognized that the erection of Saint Peter's in Rome, the ancient capital of the Christian world, was an enterprise of the deepest inter est to every member of the faithful. Together with the incidental abuses connected with com mutations, other circumstances combined to in spire disaffection for the Holy See in the minds of European rulers and their dependents; and, as in the case of every revolution fed by pro longed and deeply-rooted discontent in the minds of those who control public opinion, a spark sufficed to start the conflagration. The life of Luther recently published by the Rev. Heinrich Denifle, 0.P., and the abundant con troversial literature which it has called forth from the ablest Protestant historians and the ologians of Germany, have proved that the first Apostle of the Protestant Reformation was an epoch-maker by reason of conditions, not be cause he possessed in any high degree the quali ties of the Uebermensch. Yet the nailing of his 95 thesis on the doors of the castle church of Wittenburg in protest against the indulgence granted by Leo X, and preached by Tetzel, sub delegate of Albert, bishop of Maintz, set all Europe aflame and destroyed the dogmatic unity of Catholic christendom.