George Gordon Coulton

“ The prima-facie meaning of the phrase is that the Indulgence itself frees the sinner not only from the temporal penalty (poena) but also from the guilt (culpa) of all his sins: and the fact that a phrase so misleading remained so long current shows the truth of Father Thurston’s remark: “The laity cared little about the analysis of it, but they knew that the a culpa et poena was the name for the biggest thing in the nature of an Indulgence which it was possible to get” (Dublin Review, Jan. 1900) . ”

“ The growing effeminacy and corruption of mankind has found her censures unendurable . . . and the Church, going out into the highways and the hedges, has tried to entice men with the offer of generous Indulgence.” But it must be noted that, according to the orthodox doctrine, not only can an Indulgence not remit future sins, but even for the past it cannot take full effect unless the subject be truly contrite and have confessed (or intend shortly to confess) his sins. ”

“ In other passages of his works St Bonaventura tells us plainly how little had as yet been gained by suppressing clerical marriages; and the evidence of orthodox and distinguished churchmen for the next three centuries is equally decisive. Alvarez Pelayo, a Spanish bishop and papal penitentiary, wrote in 1332, “The clergy sin commonly in these following ways . . . fourthly, in that they live very incontinently, and would that they had never promised continence; especially in Spain and southern Italy, in which provinces the sons of the laity are scarcely more numerous than those of the clergy.” ”

“ Moreover, in proportion as the clergy, no longer mere ringleaders of a despised and persecuted sect, became beneficiaries and administrators of rich endowments—and this at a time when the external safeguards against embezzlement were comparatively weak—a strong feeling grew up among the laity that church revenues should not go to support the priest’s family. ”

“ His mind, strongly imbued with the theocratic ideal, saw more clearly than any other the enormous increase of influence which would accrue to a strictly celibate body of clergy, separated by their very ordination from the strongest earthly ties; and no statesman has ever pursued with greater energy and resolution a plan once formulated. ”

“ In one way, as I need not say, a saint has no superfluous merit. Whatever he has, he wants it all for himself, because, the more he merits on earth (by Christ’s grace) the greater is his glory in heaven. ”

“ As the middle ages drew to a close, earnest churchmen were compelled to ask themselves whether it would not be better to let the priests marry than to continue a system under which concubinage was even licensed in some districts. [16] Serious proposals were made to reintroduce clerical marriage at the great reforming councils of Constance (1415) and Basel (1432) ; but the overwhelming majority of orthodox churchmen were unwilling to abandon a rule for which the saints had fought during so many centuries, and to which many of them probably attributed an apostolic origin. ”

“ There seems to have been at times a pardonable confusion between some quasi-legitimate unions and those marriages by mere word of mouth, without ecclesiastical or other ceremonies, which the church, after some natural hesitation, pronounced to be valid. ”

“ In France the revolutionary constitution of 1791 abolished all restrictions on marriage, and during the Terror celibacy often exposed a priest to suspicion as an enemy to the Republic; but the better part of the clergy steadily resisted this innovation, and it is estimated that only about 2% were married. The Old Catholics adopted the principle of sacerdotal marriage in 1875.
The working of the system in modern times is perhaps too controversial a question to be discussed here ”

“ In different states of Spain the laws of the later middle ages recognized concubinage under the name of barragania, the contract being lifelong, the woman obtaining by it a right to maintenance during life, and sometimes also to part of the succession, and the sons ranking as nobles if their father was a noble. In Iceland, the concubine was recognized in addition to the lawful wife, though it was forbidden that they should dwell in the same house. The Norwegian law of the later middle ages provided definitely that in default of legitimate sons, the kingdom should descend to illegitimates. ”

“ Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly pleaded before the council of Constance in 1415 for the reform of “that most scandalous custom, or rather abuse, whereby many [clergy] fear not to keep concubines in public.” [15]
Meanwhile, as has been said above, the custom of open marriage among clergy in holy orders (priests, deacons and subdeacons) was gradually stamped out. A series of synods, from the early 12th century onwards, declared such marriages to be not only unlawful, but null and void in themselves. ”

“ The most accepted modern theory is that it is merely a catchword surviving from a longer phrase which proclaimed how, during such Indulgences, ordinary confessors might absolve from sins usually “reserved” to the Bishop or the Pope. ”

“ Again, the most adverse critics would admit that much was done by the counter-Reformation, and that modern ecclesiastical discipline on this point is considerably superior to that of the middle ages; while, on the other hand, many authorities of undoubted orthodoxy are ready to confess that it is not free from serious risks even in these days of easy publicity and stringent civil discipline. ”

“ Here we find “bishops and priests allowed to retain the wives whom they may have had before ordination, but not to marry in orders; the lower grades, deacons, subdeacons, &c., allowed to marry after entering the church; but all were to be husbands of but one wife, who must be neither a widow, a divorced woman nor a concubine” (Lea i. 28) . Many causes, however, were already at work to carry public feeling beyond this stage. ”

“ The authority to grant such discharge was conceived to be included in the power of binding and loosing committed by Christ to His Church; and when in the course of time the vaguer theological conceptions of the first ages of Christianity assumed scientific form and shape at the hands of the Schoolmen, the doctrine came to prevail that this discharge of the sinner’s debt was made through an application to the offender of what was called the “Treasure of the Church” (Thurston, p. 315) . ”

“ There can be no doubt, however, that the 4th century opened a wide breach in this respect between the Eastern and Western churches. The modern Greek custom is “ (a) that most candidates for Holy Orders are dismissed from the episcopal seminaries shortly before being ordained deacons, in order that they may marry (their partners being in fact mostly daughters of clergymen) , and after their marriage, return to the seminaries in order to take the higher orders; (b) that, as priests, they still continue the marriages thus contracted, but may not remarry on the death of their wife ”

“ Sinners say nowadays ‘I care not how many or how great sins I commit before God, for I shall easily and quickly get plenary remission of any guilt and penalty whatsoever (cujusdam culpae et poenae) by absolution and indulgence granted to me from the Pope, whose writing and grant I have bought for 4d. ”

“ Again not only was the church doctrine itself more or less consciously influenced by the Manichaean tenet of the diabolical origin of all matter, including the human body, but churchmen were also naturally tempted to compete in asceticism with the many heretics who held this tenet, and whose abstinence brought them so much popular consideration. ”

“ But these heroic measures soon caused serious embarrassment. If the laity were to stand aloof from all incontinent priests, while (as the most orthodox churchmen constantly complained) many priests were still incontinent, then this could only result in estranging large bodies of the laity from the sacraments of the church. It became necessary, therefore, to soften a policy which to the lay mind might imply that the virtue of a sacrament was weakened by the vices of its ministers ”

“ The Eastern Church, therefore, still adheres fairly closely to the rules laid down by the Apostolical Canons in the 4th century. In the West, however, a decisive forward step was taken by Popes Damasus and Siricius during the last quarter of that century. The famous decretal of Siricius (385) not only enjoined strict celibacy on bishops, priests and deacons, but insisted on the instant separation of those who had already married, and prescribed the punishment of expulsion for disobedience (Siric. Ep. i. c. 7; Migne, P.L. xiii. col. 1138) . ”

“ His Liber Gomorrhianus, addressed to and approved by St Leo IX., is sufficient in itself to explain the vehemence of his crusade, though it emphasizes even more strongly the impolicy of proceeding more severely against the open marriages of the clergy than against concubinage and other less public vices. [10] Damiani found a powerful ally in the equally ascetic but far more imperious and statesmanlike Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory VII. Under the influence of these two men, five successive popes between 1045 and 1073 attempted a radical reform ”