The Age of Reason by D. J. Medley (heaven official's blessing novel english TXT) 📖

for the special celebration of the sacramental mystery. This was first introduced in the bishopric of Liège in response to the vision of a certain nun. Urban IV, who had been a canon of Liège, adopted it for the whole Church in 1264, but it only became general after Clement V had incorporated Urban's ordinance as part of the Canon Law in the Clementines (1311).

While there was a growing elaboration of the sacramental rite, the laity in many parts of Europe came from slackness less frequently to receive communion. As early as Bede, in England, though not in Rome, communions were very infrequent. English and French Synods tried to insist on communion three times a year, but could not enforce the rule. Innocent III, in the fourth Lateran Council, with a view to compel confession, prescribes once a year. "Every one of the faithful," runs the canon of the Council, "of either sex, after he has come to years of discretion, is to confess faithfully by himself all his sins at least once a year to his own priest, and is to be careful to fulfil according to his power the penance enjoined on him, receiving with reverence the sacrament of the Eucharist at least at Easter."

Finally, the discussion of this theory of transubstantiation led to the development of a special view of the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas call the sacrament a representation of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. But to Albertus Magnus it is not merely a Representation, but a True Sacrifice, that is, "an Oblation of the thing offered by the hands of the priests," and St. Thomas elsewhere declares that the perfection of the sacrament consists not in its use by the faithful, but in the consecration of the element, that is to say, that the main point was the act of the priest. The prevalence of this view appears to have encouraged the idea in the laity that a mere attendance at the service was in itself so meritorious as almost to dispense with the need of communion, except once a year and on the death-bed. Similarly, private Masses for the dead were instituted, chantry chapels were founded for the celebration of them, and priests were appointed for the sole purpose of serving the altar of the chapel.

[Sidenote: Confession.]

Nor was the development of this sacramental system the only method by which the importance of the priesthood became enhanced. The whole penitential system of the Church was gradually perverted. Originally those convicted of open sin who submitted to penance were publicly readmitted to the Church after confessing their sin and making some form of atonement. People were encouraged to confess their sins to their bishop or priest even when their sins were not open and notorious. This was especially enjoined in the case of mortal sin. But it was for a long time a matter of discussion whether this confession to a priest was an indispensable preliminary to forgiveness. Peter Lombard marks another view. God alone remits or retains sins, but to the priests he assigns the power, not of forgiveness, but of declaring men to be bound or loosed from their sins. He adds that even though sinners have been forgiven by God, yet they must be loosed by the priest's judgment in the face of the Church. In this ambiguous position of the priest laymen were even entrusted with the power of hearing a confession if no priest was available. But in the twelfth century, as we have seen, confession was often reckoned among the sacraments; and at the Lateran Council Innocent III enjoined an annual confession to the parish priest. Before long the precatory form of absolution is replaced by the indicative form by which the priest declared the sinner absolved. Thomas Aquinas lays it down that "the grace which is given in the sacraments descends from the head to the members: and so he alone is minister of the sacraments in which grace is given who has a true ministry over Christ's body; and this belongs to the priest alone who can consecrate the Eucharist. And so when grace is conferred in the sacrament of penance, the priest alone is the minister of this sacrament; and so to him alone is to be made the sacramental confession which ought to be made to a minister of the Church." There was no room here for confession to laymen, although Thomas himself allows that in cases of necessity such confession has a kind of sacramental character which would be supplemented by Christ Himself as the high priest.

[Sidenote: Indulgences.]

The increasing stress laid upon private confession not only led to the decay of the public procedure, but also brought about some dangerous developments in the penitential system of the Church. This had already become very largely a matter of fixed pecuniary compensations for moral offences; so that the new system of compulsory confession was able to recommend itself to the people through the adaptation of the old mechanical standards by the confessors to each individual case. Far more important was the extension given to the system of indulgences. These had their origin in the remission of part of an imposed penance on condition of attendance at particular churches on certain anniversaries, it being understood that the penitent would present offerings to the Church. Abailard complains that on ceremonial occasions when large offerings are expected, bishops issue such indulgences for a third or fourth part of the penance as if they had done it out of love instead of from the utmost greed. And they boast of it, claiming that it is done by the power of St. Peter and the Apostles, when it is God who said to them "Whosesoever sins ye remit," etc. Thus all bishops took it upon themselves to issue indulgences for the furtherance of particular objects. But in its claim to subordinate the episcopal power to its own, the Papacy began to grant indulgences which were not limited to time or circumstance. Gregory VI in 1044 made promises to all who helped in the restoration of Roman churches; but Gregory VII promised absolution to all who fought for Rudolf of Suabia against Henry IV; while Urban II in the widest manner offered plenary indulgence, that is, remission of all penances imposed, in the case of any who would take part in the Crusade. This offer in whole or in part was constantly renewed in order to raise an army for the East.

[Sidenote: Effect on populace.]

It was of course presupposed by those in authority in the cases of these indulgences that, confession having been made, the temporal penalties to be undergone either here or in purgatory were thus remitted. But preachers in their eagerness to raise troops asserted that those guilty of the foulest crimes obtained pardon from the moment when they assumed the cross, and were assured of salvation in the event of death. Consequently the people in their ignorance overlooked the conditions attached and regarded these indulgences as promises of eternal pardon. It is not wonderful that men released from social restraints of a more or less stable society should have developed in their new abode the licence which made crusaders a byword in the West.

[Sidenote: Papal indulgences.]

So far the Popes had endeavoured to supersede the bishops in the issue of indulgences by entering into rivalry with them. But the power was used by the bishops in such detailed ways as perhaps seriously to interfere with the offerings which should reach the Papacy or be applied to important projects. Innocent III, therefore, at the great Lateran Council limited the episcopal power to the grant of an indulgence for one year at the consecration of a church and for forty days at the anniversary. Unfortunately this did not mean the suppression of trifling reasons for the multiplication of indulgence. The whole system was a convenient method of adding to the revenues of Rome, and no occasion seemed too small for the exercise of the papal power of dispensation. Urban IV granted an indulgence to all who should listen to the same sermon as the King of France. The Crusades were the great occasion and excuse for the development of this system, and it certainly reached its nadir when Gregory IX showed himself ready in return for a pecuniary penance to absolve men from the vows which they had perhaps been unwillingly forced to take by his own agents for going on crusade. Equally disgraceful was the establishment of the year of Jubilee in 1300 by Boniface VIII, when plenary indulgence of the most comprehensive kind was offered to all who within the year should in the proper spirit visit the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome.

[Sidenote: Treasury of merits.]

But how came the Pope to be in possession of this power of remitting the penalties for sin? The schoolmen of the thirteenth century supply the answer. Alexander of Hales and Albert the Great invented the theory and Thomas Aquinas completed it. According to their teaching, the saints, by their works of penance and by their unmerited sufferings patiently borne, have done in this world more than was necessary for their own salvation. These superabundant merits, together with those of Christ, which are infinite, are far more than enough to fulfil all the penalties due for their evil deeds from the living. The idea of unity in the mystical body enables the shortcomings of one man to be atoned for by the merits of another. The superabundant merits of the saints are a treasury for use by the whole Church, and are distributed by the head of the Church, that is, the Pope. Furthermore, to St. Thomas is due the idea that the contents of this treasury were equally available for the benefit of souls in purgatory, for whom the Church was already accustomed to make intercession.

[Sidenote: Canonisation of saints.]

It was to our Lord Himself that the theologians attributed all merit; but in the popular mind the merits of the saints took an ever more important place, since the Church seemed to make the priesthood a barrier against, rather than a channel for, the flow of God's mercy to man; but popular feeling sought to find intercessors before the throne of grace in the holy men and women of the faith. For a long time it was the bishops who decided the title to saintship. But in 993 Pope John XV, in a Council at Rome and in response to a request of the Bishop of Augsburg, ordered that a former bishop of that see should be venerated as a saint. This was the process afterwards called Canonisation, which involved the insertion of a name in the Canon or list, and gave it currency not merely in a single diocese, but throughout western Christendom. In 1170 Alexander III claimed such recognition as the exclusive right of Rome. But despite this assumption of authority, popular feeling very often dictated to the Pope whom he should admit into the list. Death followed by miracles at the tomb, and sometimes the building of an elaborate shrine with an altar, forced the Pope to grant the claims of a popular favourite.

[Sidenote: Miracles and relics.]

A rapid increase in the number of applications for such official recognition would be the result of any widely popular movement. Such was the effect of the Crusades in the twelfth century, and of the foundation of the Mendicant Orders in the thirteenth. And the multiplication of saints meant an increase in the number of relics and an ever-growing belief in the miraculous. Miracles frequently took place in connection with living persons of saintly life. Abailard scornfully pointed out that some of the attempts made by Norbert or Bernard to work miraculous cures were quite unsuccessful, while in successful cases medicine as well as prayers had been employed. But such rationalism was beyond the grasp of an ignorant age, and collections of stories of miracles, such as remain to us in the "Golden Legends" of Jacob de Voragine, a Dominican of the thirteenth century, fed the popular belief. Miracles so commemorated often occurred in connection with relics; and the traffic in relics and so styled "pious" frauds, not to say the forcible means used to procure reputed relics of authentic or supposititious saints, forms a curious if a discreditable feature in mediæval history. An occasional protest was uttered against the manner in which credit was often obtained for relics of more than doubtful authenticity; but the manufacture of them was easy and profitable, and pilgrims returning from Palestine could palm off anything upon the credulity of a willing and ignorant populace. The growth of a legend in connection with relics is fitly illustrated by the history of the eleven thousand Virgins of Köln. Martyrologies of the ninth century celebrate the martyrdom of eleven virgins in the city of Köln. Perhaps these were described as XI. M. Virgines, and the letter