Luther's first encounter with the hierarchy was on the traffic in
indulgences. It was a good fortune that it there began. That traffic
was so obnoxious to every sense of propriety that any vigorous attack
upon it would command the approval of many honest and pious people.
The central heresy of hierarchical religion was likewise embodied in
it, so that a stab there, if logically followed up, would necessarily
reach the very heart of the oppressive monster. And Providence
arranged that there the conflict should begin.
Leo X. had but recently ascended the papal throne. Reared amid lavish
wealth and culture, he was eager that his reign should equal that of
Solomon and the Cæsars. He sought to aggrandize his relatives, to
honor and enrich men of genius, and to surround himself with costly
splendors and pleasures. These demanded extraordinary revenues. The
projects of his ambitious predecessors had depleted the papal coffers.
He needed to do something on a grand scale in order adequately to
replenish his exchequer.
As early as the eleventh century the popes had betimes resorted to the
selling of pardons and the issuing of free passes to heaven on
consideration of certain services or payments to the Church. From
Urban II. to Leo X. this was more or less in vogue--first, to get
soldiers for the holy wars,[4] and then as a means of wealth to the
Church. If one wished to eat meat on fast-days, marry within
prohibited degrees of relationship, or indulge in forbidden pleasures,
he could do it without offence by rendering certain satisfactions
before or after, which satisfactions could mostly be made by payments
of money.[5] In the same way he could buy remission of sins in
general, or exemption for so many days, years, or centuries from the
pains of Purgatory. Bulls of authority were given, in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to issue certificates of exemption from
all penalties to such as did the service or paid the equivalent.
Immense incomes were thus realized. Even to the present this facile
invention for raising money has not been entirely discontinued. Papal
indulgences can be bought to-day in the shops of Spain and elsewhere.
Leo seized upon this system with all the vigor and unscrupulousness
characteristic of the Medici. Had he been asked whether he really
believed in these pardons, he would have said that the Church always
believed the pope had power to grant them. Had he spoken his real mind
in the matter, he would have said that if the people chose to be such
fools, it was not for him to find fault with them. And thus, under
plea of raising funds to finish St. Peter's, he instituted a grand
trade in indulgences, and thereby laid the capstone of hierarchical
iniquity which crushed the whole fabric to its base.
The right to sell these wares in Germany was awarded to Albert, the
gay young prince-archbishop of Mayence. He was over head and ears in
debt to the pope for his pallium, and Leo gave him this chance to get
out.[6] Half the proceeds of the trade in his territory were to go to
his credit. But the work of proclaiming and distributing the pardons
was committed to _John Tetzel_, a Dominican prior who had long
experience in the business, and who achieved "a forlorn notoriety in
European history" by his zeal in prosecuting it.