# Urban II's speech at the Council of Clermont, 1095 - first mention of indulgences?



## Pergamum (Jul 1, 2013)

Here is Pope Urban II's speech at the Council of Clermont where he first campaigned for a crusade to Jerusalem: Medieval Sourcebook: Urban II: Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095, according to Fulcherof Chartres



> Most beloved brethren: Urged by necessity, I, Urban, by the permission of God chief bishop and prelate over the whole world, have come into these parts as an ambassador with a divine admonition to you, the servants of God. I hoped to find you as faithful and as zealous in the service of God as I had supposed you to be. But if there is in you any deformity or crookedness contrary to God's law, with divine help I will do my best to remove it. For God has put you as stewards over his family to minister to it. Happy indeed will you be if he finds you faithful in your stewardship. You are called shepherds; see that you do not act as hirelings. But be true shepherds, with your crooks always in your hands. Do not go to sleep, but guard on all sides the flock committed to you. For if through your carelessness or negligence a wolf carries away one of your sheep, you will surely lose the reward laid up for you with God. And after you have been bitterly scourged with remorse for your faults-, you will be fiercely overwhelmed in hell, the abode of death. For according to the gospel you are the salt of the earth [Matt. 5:13]. But if you fall short in your duty, how, it may be asked, can it be salted? O how great the need of salting! It is indeed necessary for you to correct with the salt of wisdom this foolish people which is so devoted to the pleasures of this -world, lest the Lord, when He may wish to speak to them, find them putrefied by their sins unsalted and stinking. For if He, shall find worms, that is, sins, In them, because you have been negligent in your duty, He will command them as worthless to be thrown into the abyss of unclean things. And because you cannot restore to Him His great loss, He will surely condemn you and drive you from His loving presence. But the man who applies this salt should be prudent, provident, modest, learned, peaceable, watchful, pious, just, equitable, and pure. For how can the ignorant teach others? How can the licentious make others modest>? And how can the impure make others pure? If anyone hates peace, how can he make others peaceable ? Or if anyone has soiled his hands with baseness, how can he cleanse the impurities of another? We read also that if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch [Matt. 15:14]. But first correct yourselves, in order that, free from blame , you may be able to correct those who are subject to you. If you wish to be the friends of God, gladly do the things which you know will please Him. You must especially let all matters that pertain to the church be controlled by the law of the church. And be careful that simony does not take root among you, lest both those who buy and those who sell [church offices] be beaten with the scourges of the Lord through narrow streets and driven into the place of destruction and confusion. Keep the church and the clergy in all its grades entirely free from the secular power. See that the tithes that belong to God are faithfully paid from all the produce of the land; let them not be sold or withheld. If anyone seizes a bishop let him be treated as an outlaw. If anyone seizes or robs monks, or clergymen, or nuns, or their servants, or pilgrims, or merchants, let him be anathema [that is, cursed]. Let robbers and incendiaries and all their accomplices be expelled from the church and anthematized. If a man who does not give a part of his goods as alms is punished with the damnation of hell, how should he be punished who robs another of his goods? For thus it happened to the rich man in the gospel [Luke 16:19]; he was not punished because he had stolen the goods of another, but because he had not used well the things which were his.
> 
> "You have seen for a long time the great disorder in the world caused by these crimes. It is so bad in some of your provinces, I am told, and you are so weak in the administration of justice, that one can hardly go along the road by day or night without being attacked by robbers; and whether at home or abroad one is in danger of being despoiled either by force or fraud. Therefore it is necessary to reenact the truce, as it is commonly called, which was proclaimed a long time ago by our holy fathers. I exhort and demand that you, each, try hard to have the truce kept in your diocese. And if anyone shall be led by his cupidity or arrogance to break this truce, by the authority of God and with the sanction of this council he shall be anathematized."
> 
> ...




Some questions:

-This (bolded above) is usually taken as the first mention of indulgences in the history of the church. But Pope Urban II mentions it without a lot of explanation here. If it was against the tenor of the teaching of the church, wouldn't it have been met with protest? If it was a new innovation, wouldn't he explain it more?

Also, Catholic apologists deny that indulgences forgive sin and seem to say that indulgences only erase the temporal penalties upon sin. But this is certainly not clear from Pope Urban II's speech, which merely says, "remission of sins" without clarifying that this is merely the temporal punishments.



Also, linked below seem to be pre-Pope Urban II indulgences:

Internet History Sourcebooks Project

Internet History Sourcebooks Project


Also, even before that, Cyprian the bishop of Carthage wrote:

'God can set down to the sinner's account whatever the martyrs have asked and the bishops have done for them.'" But I am not sure exactly what he means here.


So, when did indulgences actually begin? Most historians trace it to the time of the Crusades.... but what about Pre-Urban II instances of indulgences?


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## Pergamum (Jul 2, 2013)

The Catholic Enclyclopedia traces the "libellus pacis" to the beginnings of indulgences, stating:



> During the persecutions, those Christians who had fallen away but desired to be restored to the communion of the Church often obtained from the martyrs a memorial (libellus pacis) to be presented to the bishop, that he, in consideration of the martyrs' sufferings, might admit the penitents to absolution, thereby releasing them from the punishment they had incurred.



and further:




> Tertullian refers to this when he says (To the Martyrs 1): "Which peace some, not having it in the Church, are accustomed to beg from the martyrs in prison; and therefore you should possess and cherish and preserve it in you that so you perchance may be able to grant it to others." Additional light is thrown on this subject by the vigorous attack which the same Tertullian made after he had become a Montanist. In the first part of his treatise "De pudicitia", he attacks the pope for his alleged laxity in admitting adulterers to penance and pardon, and flouts the peremptory edict of the "pontifex maximus episcopus episcoporum". At the close he complains that the same power of remission is now allowed also to the martyrs, and urges that it should be enough for them to purge their own sins — sufficiat martyri propria delicta purgasse". And, again, "How can the oil of thy little lamp suffice both for thee and me?" (c. xxii). It is sufficient to note that many of his arguments would apply with as much and as little force to the indulgences of later ages.
> 
> During St. Cyprian's time (d. 258), the heretic Novatian claimed that none of the lapsi should be readmitted to the Church; others, like Felicissimus, held that such sinners should be received without any penance. Between these extremes, St. Cyprian holds the middle course, insisting that such penitents should be reconciled on the fulfillment of the proper conditions. On the one hand, he condemns the abuses connected with the libellus, in particular the custom of having it made out in blank by the martyrs and filled in by any one who needed it. "To this you should diligently attend", he writes to the martyrs (Epistle 15), "that you designate by name those to whom you wish peace to be given." On the other hand, he recognizes the value of these memorials: "Those who have received a libellus from the martyrs and with their help can, before the Lord, get relief in their sins, let such, if they be ill and in danger, after confession and the imposition of your hands, depart unto the Lord with the peace promised them by the martyrs" (Epistle 13). St. Cyprian, therefore, believed that the merits of the martyrs could be applied to less worthy Christians by way of vicarious satisfaction, and that such satisfaction was acceptable in the eyes of God as well as of the Church.




So, it appears that the martyrs during the early persecutions considered their own sufferings enough for themselves AND others such that they would fill out blank letters to give to other penitents so that their sufferings may be enough to forgive them (the penitent) also of their sins? 

Am I understanding this correctly and is there evidence of that in other writings?


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## py3ak (Jul 2, 2013)

Bavinck traces the seeds of the idea back to Cyprian, but its development to the Middle Ages, and its thorough defense to Alexander of Hales. In a footnote, he adds that the history had not yet been entirely clarified.


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## Pergamum (Jul 2, 2013)

Yes, its origins seem murky. It seems that the first mention of penances/temporal punishments for sin being absolved on the basis of others' works or on the basis the treasury of merit from the Church was during the persecutions during which time the martyrs granted these libellus pacis letters. So, I guess I need to research this particular area deeper.


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## R. Scott Clark (Jul 2, 2013)

Pergamum said:


> Yes, its origins seem murky. It seems that the first mention of penances/temporal punishments for sin being absolved on the basis of others' works or on the basis the treasury of merit from the Church was during the persecutions during which time the martyrs granted these libellus pacis letters. So, I guess I need to research this particular area deeper.



There's no evidence that the fathers had anything like a treasury of merit or indulgences. These are both distinctly medieval ideas. Fair minded Roman scholars admit this. Partisans read much later practice back into the earlier periods.

Here's some background on indulgences.

http://heidelblog.net/2009/03/selling-indulgences/

http://heidelblog.net/2013/03/the-treasury-of-the-churcha-satanic-mockery/

http://heidelblog.net/2007/12/in-case-youre-worried-about-purgatory/


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