INDULGENCE. 599 INDULT. be inflicted in the regular exercise of ecclesiasti- cal discipline. According to Bellarmine's state- ment, one who has been absolved from guilt in the sacrament may be released from penalty by an indulgence. It is an act, not of 'order,' but of 'jurisdiction,' based upon the power of the keys. (See Keys, Power of.) So complete is this power held to be that the efficacy of an indulgence is believed., in a true sense, to satisfy divine justice, as well as to secure the remis- sion of temporal penalties, whereby it is made to extend beyond this present life into the state of purgatory. The ground of this satisfaction is sought in the treasure of merit laid uj) by Christ and the saints, and always at the dis- ])o^al of the Church whenever need requires. This thesaurus meritorum is fundamental to the fully developed theorj* of indulgences. The clergy are its duly a])pointed custodians; its beneficiaries aie the adherents of the Church throughout the world who avail themselves of its virtues; the indulgence is its channel of commu- nication. The history of indulgences begins •nith Roman law, where the word induUjeniia means the re- mission of a punishment or of a ta.x. From legal the word easily passed into ecclesiastical usage. A ^sovereign Church, like a sovereign State, might exercise clemency, instead of exact- ing the full measuie of punishment which the law required. But long-continued, and sometimes bitter, controversies indicate the doubts which many Christians felt as to the propriety of this contention, which finally led to the catastrophe of the sixteenth century, when Luther voiced the protest of a large section of Christendom against certain current abuses of the doctrine. The first im|iortant step toward establishing the dispens- ing power of the Church was taken in conse- quence of the Decian pensecution. beginning a.d. 2.'>0, when the problem arose how to deal with the lapsed. These questions were answered by the beginnings of penitential discipline. Tlic further question of the relaxation of discipline was also answered on the side of mildness. The power of 'loosing' was declared to be no less real than the power of 'binding" (cf. Matt. xvi. 19). Ambrose especially taught that the two were cnrrelative. and the Church accepted his view. But the Council of Aneyra (a.d. 314) had al- ready sanctioned the use of clemency, at the discretion of the bishop, and this position had been indorsed by the first Ecumenical Council at Nicica (325). Appeal was made to the ex- ample of Saint Paul, who recommended a de- gree of mercy toward the offender in Corinth (see II. Cor. ii. 0-8). The main exercise of this power, in the fourth and fifth centuries, was in shortening the canonical [leriods of penance, evi- dence of which is found, for instance, in the teaching of Gregory of Nyssa. By degrees a variety of substitutes for the canonical penalties were introduced. Fasting might lie remitted in consideration of repeating a certain number of psalms, or of paying a tine (as by Theodore of "Tarsus. Archbishop of Can- terbury, ill the seventh century). Almsgiving, pilgrimages, and holy wars came to be the most popular means of securing indulgences, cspceially in the jieriod of the Crusades (q.v.) . The Council of Clermont (IOA.t) asserted that the pilgrimage to the Holy Land took the place of all other penance. With the decline of the Crusades in- dulgences were offered for fighting against here- tics, such as the Albigenses and Hussites (q.v.). The first great jubilee indulgence was published by Pope Boniface V'lll. in 1300. The fully de-
eloped scholastic theory upon which indulgence:!
are based is found in Thomas Aquinas and Alexander of Hales. The importance there at- tached to the "treasure of merit' naturally led to a popular belief among the ignorant that pardon for sin and immunity from pvmishment were matters of ecclesiastical bookkeeping — that they could be bought and sold. It was in view of this popular impression, and the undoubted abuses which grew out of it, that Luther pub- lished his theses on indulgences in 1517, the event ivliich marks the beginning of the Protes- tant Reformation. See Lutheb. The Council of Trent, at its twenty- fifth ses- sion (1563), condemned those who assert that indulgences are useless, or deny that the Church has power to grant them; but in reaffirming its belief the Church decreed the abolition of all evil gains and other abuses which had gmwn up in connection with the indulgence system. Since that time the Church has attempted to guard against misinterpretations of the doctrine, and to safeguard it from the criticisms to which it had previously been exposed. From what has been said it will be evident that Roman Catholics do not understand by an indulgence a remission of sin itself, much less a permit to sin, or a pardon for the future. They hold that its benefits can be enjoyed only by a sinner who has repented and resolved to lead a new life, and they deny the charge that the in- dulgence system has introduced any laxity of principle into the Church. The power to grant indulgences for the whole Church resides on!}' in the Pope, but primates, archbishops, and bishops have power to grant them within their own jurisdictions. The in- dulgence may be either plenary or partial, the former remitting the whole of the temporal pun- ishment, the latter something less than the whole. For example, an indulgence of forty days is understood to remit as much as would have required forty days of penance without it. In- dulgences may be attached to certain articles (e.g. a crucifix), or to certain places (as a shrine) . In these cases the original possessor of the article, or the pilgrim to the shrine, re- ceives the Ijenefit of the indulgence. A custom of granting indulgences for the dead grew up in the Middle Ages. The right and ellicacy of such grants has been much debated; but the Church holds them to be salutary, even though their precise scope cannot be defined. As limited by Sixtus IV. (Constitution of 1477), they are 'only by way of sufl'rage' — i.e. the Church does not assiune direct authority over the dead. Consult: E. Amort. De Origine, Progressu, Valore ac Fructu Indulgenliariim (Augsburg, 1735) ; Palmieri, Tractatus de Pwnitentia (,2d ed., Prati. 1896) ; H. C. T^a, History of Auricu- lar Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church, vol. iii., "Indulgences" (Philadelphia, 1890) ; "The Roman Cath<flie Doctrine of Indul- gences," by the Bishop of Xewport. in the Nine- Ircnth Centurii (January. 1901); Addis and .Arnold, Catholic Dictionary (2d ed., London, 1884), article "Indulgence." INDTJLT (Lat. indultum, indulgence, from indulgere, to indiUge). A term derived from the
