Before the modern Word-Faith (“name it and claim it” or “health and
wealth”) preachers there was a huckster named Johann Tetzel (1465–1519).
He is famous for his marketing of the medieval practice of selling
indulgences with the jingle, “When the coin in the coffer rings, the
soul from purgatory springs.”
What is an indulgence? According to Roman Canon Law,
An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.
According to Reinold Kiermayr, Thomas taught indulgences.
In the sixteenth century, and even well before, indulgences no longer reflected that lofty dogmatic purpose given them St. Thomas Aquinas; the medieval institution had taken on a purely revenue generating character. The theological context of indulgences or their dogmatic validity were no longer the subject of much public discussion; attention focused on their financial aspects and quite naturally their abuses (304) [Reinhold Kiermayr, “How Much Money Was Actually in the Indulgence Chest?,” Sixteenth-Century Journal 17.3 (1986): 303-18].
In the Papal Bull, Unigenitus Dei (1343) promulgated by
Clement VI (an Avignon pope!), decreed both “partial” and “general”
remission of temporal punishments, according to the discretion of the
church. Continue at Heidelblog
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