Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On Indulgences and the Jubilee · Book II: Against the Adversaries of Indulgences
Chapter 2: Answer to what John Calvin objects against indulgences in the Institutes, chapter 9, number 38
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. VII, De Indulgentiis et Jubilaeo, Book II, a treatise of the Controversies. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
I come now to the objection of John Calvin. And since no one (that I know of) has undertaken to discuss his opinions on purpose, I shall answer everything he wrote in the Institutes, chapter 9, from number 38 to 44, in which place he gathered what he judged should be said by him about indulgences.
At the beginning, then, in number 38, after his manner he plays with insults and lies. For first he writes that he need not labour much in refuting indulgences, since of their own accord, and shaken by the arguments of Luther as by the strongest battering rams, they begin to lean toward their fall. Then he adds that they stood safe so long because for some centuries men were sunk in so deep a night of errors that, though they saw money being squeezed out of them through indulgences, to be wasted on harlots and pimps, and saw themselves openly mocked by the pardon-sellers, yet they received indulgences with the highest veneration, venerated them, adored them. He adds last that “when the world allowed itself to know something, indulgences little by little began to grow cold and freeze.” But Calvin's first pronouncement is agreed to be so false that never was there a greater frequency of indulgences, never a greater devotion, never were they so ardently sought by Catholic peoples, as from the time when they began to be harried by Luther. For this reason the Council of Trent, session 25, published a decree on moderating indulgences, and Clement VIII, the Supreme Pontiff who now rules the Church, has most prudently judged that the excessive desire of indulgences, and the pious importunity of the powerful, must be restrained. But the arguments of Luther are so light, insipid and foolish that he does not seem able to have pleaded that cause more carelessly if he had wished from his heart to betray it. Certainly they are so laughed at by learned men that they judge indulgences not to be overthrown by them but established. But Luther nevertheless persuaded many. So he did; but he also persuaded them of other things far more absurd and gross, because he opened a broad way by which carnal men gladly enter. In the same way Mohammed too, without miracles, without wisdom, without probity of life, persuaded innumerable men of his new sect, by which he gave great licence to the flesh and the senses.
Calvin's second pronouncement sins in two things. For first he assigns a night of errors to the several centuries in which the doctrine of indulgences seems to have been more celebrated in the Church, namely from the year 1000 to 1500. But certainly those centuries, as they lacked the light of the Latin and Greek tongues, so they shone wonderfully with the light of doctrine and holiness, so that they seem to yield to no earlier centuries. Proof of this can be the most celebrated Councils held in each of these last centuries, the Lateran, Lyons, Vienne, Constance, Florence. Likewise holy men most famous for miracles: Bernard, Dominic, Francis, Anthony, Peter Martyr, Vincent, Bernardine, Nicholas of Tolentino, and very many others. Finally most learned men: Anselm, Hugh and Richard of Saint Victor, Alexander, Albert, Thomas, Bonaventure, Scotus, Henry, Durandus, and others almost innumerable, to pass over the jurists, physicians and historians who by their writings signally illuminated those centuries. Next, Calvin charges the abuses of the pardon-sellers to the Pontiffs themselves, when it is most plainly agreed that they were always condemned by the Pontiffs, as is clear from the decrees of Innocent III in the Lateran Council, of Innocent IV in the Council of Lyons, and of Clement V in the Council of Vienne. But so that the Calvinists may understand how undeservedly Calvin reproached the Pontiffs on this matter, I shall relate word for word part of the decree of Clement V and of the ecumenical Council of Vienne. “Desiring (so the decree begins), as far as is possible for us, to close the way to the abuses which some collectors of alms set forth in their preachings, to deceive the simple and to extort gold from them by subtle, or rather deceitful, cunning, since it turns to the peril of souls and the scandal of very many, we have declared, according to the statutes of the general council, that it is distinctly to be forbidden, etc.” And below: “Moreover, since some of these collectors, as has been brought to our hearing, not without much rashness of audacity and manifold deception of souls, grant indulgences to the people of their own motion and in fact, dispense over vows, absolve those confessing to them from perjuries, homicides and other sins, remit ill-gotten goods whose owner is uncertain on receiving some quantity of money, relax a third or a fourth part of the penances enjoined, draw out of purgatory (as they falsely assert) three or more souls of the parents or friends of those who give them alms and lead them to the joys of paradise, grant plenary remission of sins to the benefactors of the places whose collectors they are, and some of them absolve them, to use their own words, from punishment and fault: we, wishing altogether to abolish abuses of this kind, by which the ecclesiastical censure grows cheap and the authority of the keys of the Church is brought into contempt, more strictly forbid these things henceforth to be done or attempted by any collectors whatever.” It was not, then (as Calvin lies), by the Pope and his bull-carriers that profitable markets in the salvation of souls were carried on, and the price of salvation set at a few coins, and money squeezed out under this pretence to be shamefully spent on harlots and pimps and revels. But all these things, as manifest abuses, were reproved and forbidden by the Pontiffs and the Catholic Councils, as they are reproved and forbidden at this time also.
Calvin's third pronouncement truly lays open the cause of all the evils which have miserably ruined Germany and a great part of the whole North. “For he says that when the world allowed itself to know something, then at last indulgences began to grow cold and freeze, until at length they vanish.” For what is this, the world allowed itself to know something, unless that private men wished to be wise, against the precept of the Apostle in Romans 12, more than it behoves to be wise? Likewise, with no one sending, no one calling, they took upon themselves the office of teaching. The sheep, despising their shepherds, resolved to go forward to new pastures; the horses, having thrown their riders, to run through byways. This new presumption, then, by which every man, on Luther's authority, made himself the judge of all controversies, and scorned to hear the pastors and rulers set by God in the Church according to the Apostle in Ephesians 4, this, I say, is what has filled the North with dissensions and heresies. But still, as we said at the beginning, that is false, that “indulgences began to grow cold and freeze when the world allowed itself to know something.” For although, among those seduced by the heretics, the old serpent wickedly opening their eyes, not only indulgences but all good works and the true and Catholic faith itself have ceased to exist among the Lutherans, yet among Catholics indulgences, which in ancient times seemed to grow cold, after the rise of Luther's sect began, as if by reaction, to grow warm again, to revive and to flourish again; and so far is there any danger that they vanish, that rather thought has had to be given to moderating them and confining them within fixed limits. But now let us come to the arguments.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT II. Respondetur ad ea , quse adversus indulgentias Joannes Calvinus objicit in libro Instit. cap. 9. n. 38. Venio nunc ad objectionem Joannis Calvi¬ ni. Et quoniam nemo (quod sciam) ejus sen¬ tentias ex proposito discutiendas suscepit : respondebo ad omnia, quae scripsit in Insti¬ tutione cap. 9. a num. 38. usque ad 44. in quem locum congessit, quae de indulgentiis dicenda sibi esse judicavit. Initio igitur num. 38. more suo conviciis, et mendaciis ludit. Primum enim scribit, non multum sibi laborandum esse in indul¬ gentiis refellendis, cum eae sponte sua atque argumentis Lutheri, tamquam fortissimis ari¬ etibus concussae, ad inclinationem spectetre incipiant. Deinde addit, eas tamdiu salvas constitisse, quoniam tam alta errorum nocte immersi fuerunt aliquot saeculis homines, ut cum viderent, per indulgentias sibi emungi pecunias, quae in scorta, et lenones absume¬ rentur, et a quaestuariis se palam deludi, ta¬ men indulgentias summa veneratione exci¬ perent, venerarentur, adorarent. Adjungit postremo, « ubi orbis sibi sapere aliquid permisit, indulgentias paulatim frigere, et congelascere coepisse ». Sed primum Calvini pronunciatum adeo falsum esse constat, ut numquam major fuerit indulgentiarum fre¬ quentia, numquam majordevotio, numquam tam ardenter a populis Catholicis expetitae fuerint, quam ab eo tempore, quo a Luthero exagitari coeperunt. Hinc enim Tridentinum Concil. sess. 23. de Indulgentiis moderandis decretum edidit, et Clemens VIII Pontifex Maximus, qui nunc Ecclesiam regit, nimium desiderium indulgentiarum, et piam poten¬ tium importunitatem reprimendam esse pru¬ dentissime censuit. Argumenta vero Luthe¬ ri adeo levia, insulsa, inepta sunt, ut non vi¬ deatur negligentius causam istam agere po¬ tuisse, si ex animo praevaricari voluisset. Certe a doctis hominibus ita ridentur, ut per ea non everti, sed constitui indulgentias ar¬ bitrentur. At persuasit tamen Lutherus mul¬ tis. Ita est, sed persuasit etiam alia multo absurdiora, et crassiora, quia viam latam aperuit, per quam carnales homines libenter ingrediuntur. Quomodo etiam Mahumethes sine miraculis, sine sapientia, sine probitate vitae, novam suam sectam quo licentiam mag¬ nam carni, ac sensibus daret, innumerabi¬ libus hominibus persuasit. Alterum Calvini pronunciatum in duobus peccat, primum enim tribuit errorum noctem aliquot saeculis, in quibus doctrina de indul¬ gentiis celebrior in Ecclesia fuisse videtur, videlicet ab anno millesimo ad millesimum quingentesimum. At certe saecula ista ut ca- ruerunt luce linguarum Latinae et Graecae, ita luce doctrinae, et sanctitatis mirifice ful¬ serunt, ut nullis anterioribus saeculis cedere videantur. Argumento esse possunt Concilia celeberrima singulis his postremis saeculis acta, Lateranensia, Lugdunensia, Viennen¬ sia, Constantiensia, Florentina. Item viri sancti miraculis clarissimi, Bernardus, Do¬ minicus, Franciscus, Antonius, Petrus Mar¬ tyr, Vincentius, Bernardinus, Nicolaus To- lentinus, aliique quam plurimi. Denique viri doctissimi, Anselmus, Hugo, et Richardus Victorini, Alexander, Albertus, Thomas, Bo- naventura, Scotus, Henricus, Durandus, ali¬ ique prope innumerabiles, ut omittam jure¬ consultos, medicos, historicos, qui scriptis suis, ista saecula egregie illustrarunt. Deinde Calvinus abusus quaestuariorum in ipsos Pon¬ tifices refert, cum apertissime constet a Ponti¬ ficibus semper fuisse damnatos, ut perspicu¬ um est ex decretis Innocentii III, in Concilio Lateranensi. Innocentii IV, in Concilio Lug¬ dunensi, et Clementis V, in Concilio Vien¬ nensi. At ut intelligant Calviniani, quam im¬ merito de hac re Calvinus Pontifices repre¬ henderit, referam ad verbum partem decre¬ ti Clementis V, et Concilii oecumenici Vien¬ nensis. « Abusionibus (ita decretum incipit) quas nonnulli eleemosynam quaestores in su¬ is proponunt praedicationibus, ut simplices decipiant, et aurum subtili, vel fallaci potius ingenio extorqueant ab eisdem, cum in ani¬ marum cedat periculum, et scandalum plu¬ rimorum, viam, prout nobis possibile, prae¬ cludere cupientes, juxta statuta concilii ge¬ neralis, diximus prohibendum distincte etc. » . Et infra : « Ad haec cum aliqui ex hujusmo¬ di quaestoribus, sicut ad nostram audien¬ tiam est perlatum, non sine multa temerita¬ tis audacia, et deceptione multiplici anima¬ rum, indulgentias populo, motu suo proprio CAPUT III. 61 de facto concedant, super votis dispensent, a perjuriis, homicidiis, et peccatis aliis sibi confitentes absolvant, male ablata incerta data sibi aliqua pecunia3 quantitate, remit¬ tant, tertiam aut quartam partem de poeni¬ tentiis injunctis relaxent, animas tres vel plu- res parentum vel amicorum illorum, qui ele¬ emosynas eis conferant, de purgatorio (ut as¬ serunt mendaciter) extrahant, et ad gaudia paradisi perducant, benefactoribus locorum, quorum quaestores existunt, remissionem plenariam peccatorum indulgeant, et aliqui ex ipsis eos a poena et culpa ut eorum ver¬ bis utamur, absolvant, nos abusus hujus¬ modi, per quos censura vilescit ecclesiastica, et clavium Ecclesiae auctoritas ducitur in contemptum, omnimode abolere volentes, ea per quoscumque quaestores fieri, vel atten¬ tari de caetero districtius inhibemus». Non igitur (ut Calvinus mentitur) a Papa, et su¬ is bulligerulis quaestuosae ,nundinationes de salute animarum exercebantur ; pauculis nummis salutis pretium taxabatur hac spe¬ cie pecuniae, quae in scorta et lenones, et com- messationes turpiter insumerentur, emunge¬ bantur. Sed haec omnia tamquam manifesti abusus, a Pontificibus, et Conciliis Catholicis reprehendebantur, et prohibebantur, ut eti¬ am hoc tempore reprehenduntur, et prohi¬ bentur. Tertium Calvini pronunciatum causam ve¬ re aperit omnium malorum, quae Germaniae, et totius Septentrionis magnam partem mi¬ sere perdiderunt. « Dicit enim, cum orbis sibi sapere aliquid permisit, tunc demum coe¬ pisse indulgentias frigere et congelascere, donec tandem evanescant » . Quid enim est, orbis sibi sapere aliquid permisit ? nisi pri¬ vati homines sapere voluerunt, contra prae¬ ceptum Apostoli Rora. xn. plusquam sapere oportere. Item nullo mittente, nullo vocante, officium sibi docendi desumpserunt. Oves contemptis pastoribus ad nova pascua pro¬ gredi, equi sessoribus excussis per devia cur¬ rere decreverunt. Haec igitur nova praesum¬ ptio, qua unusquisque, Luthero auctore, ju¬ dicem se controversiarum omnium fecit, ac pastores et rectores a Deo positos in Eccle¬ sia, juxta Apostolorum ad Ephes. iv. audiere contempsit, haec, inquam, est, quae dissidiis, et hacresibus Septentrionem replevit. Sed il¬ lud tamen, ut initio diximus, falsum est, «In¬ dulgentias frigere, et congelascere coepisse, cum orbis sibi aliquid sapere permisit » . Quamvi,; enim serpente antiquo male ocu¬ los aperiente seductis ab haereticis, non so¬ lum indulgentiae, sed omnia bona opera, et ipsa fides vera et catholica apud Lutheranos esse desierint, tamen apud catholicos indul¬ gentiae, quae antiquis temporibus frigere vi¬ debantur, post exortam Lutheri sectam, qua¬ si per antiperistasim recalescere, revirescere, ac refiorere coeperunt, tantumque abest ut periculum sit, ne evanescant, ut potius de moderandis, et intra certos terminos coer¬ cendis cogitandum fuerit. Sed jam ad argu¬ menta veniamus.