Dist. 20, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 6
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/20/q/bon-sent-IV-d20-p2-a1-q6
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### Question VI. *Whether indulgences are worth as much as is preached.*

Sixth and last, it is asked how much these indulgences that are made are worth. And that they are worth as much as is preached seems so:

1. For Job, chapter thirteen: *God does not need our lie*: therefore it seems that the Supreme Pontiff ought not to lie in his letters: if therefore he speaks the truth, he grants as great an indulgence as he promises in his letters.

2. Likewise, one who promises some sum of money to another is bound to him, if he is able to pay; but the Supreme Pontiff and others who grant indulgences promise to relax some part of the penance: therefore if he is able, he is bound to pay. And that he is able is seen from what is said in Second Corinthians, chapter two: *If I have pardoned anything, in the person of Christ*; the Gloss: «As if Christ had pardoned it»; but Christ could pardon the whole: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, some bishop can make some indulgence, suppose of twenty days, or forty; but the Supreme Pontiff can do more than all the bishops, because he has the fullness of power over all: therefore he can give more than all: therefore it seems that he can pardon the whole: therefore if the whole, then consequently any part whatever.

4. Likewise, the Supreme Pontiff can make a general indulgence of one day: therefore to a hundred thousand he can give one day, so that to each one [day]: therefore by the same reasoning he can give to one what he distributes severally to all: therefore [he can] pardon the whole: therefore indulgences are worth as much as the pontifical letters make them [worth].

**Contra:**
1. If indulgences are worth as much as is said: therefore, since many and ample indulgences are made, and merits are now so few that a man can scarcely suffice for himself; it seems that by now the whole treasury of the Church would have failed long ago, and thus no indulgence would now be of any worth.

2. Likewise, if they are worth as much as is said, but in some indulgences, for help given to the fabric of the church or the like, [indulgences] of a third part of the penance are promised: therefore if first one denarius be given, and second a second, and third a third; it seems that he who has committed a thousand sins would, for three obols or denarii, be freed; which every upright soul judges to be not only false, but even worthy of mockery.

3. Likewise, if they are worth as much as is said, therefore if to a sinner who owes nine years a triennium is remitted; likewise to him who owes thirty, a third part is remitted, and thus a decade; it seems that he would derive advantage from his own wickedness.

4. Likewise, if they are worth as much as is said, therefore he who dwells next to the church, in which there is an indulgence of one year, in visiting the church has as much as he who is far off by ten days' journey; and the rich man offering one obol has as much as one poor little woman. But all these are abuses: therefore indulgences are not worth as much as the Church preaches.

### Conclusion

> **Conclusion.** Indulgences, as far as concerns the one who grants them, are worth as much as is promised; yet not so much for each one nor equally, but according to the estimation of the one granting them.

**I respond:** It must be said that commonly, according to the doctors, for indulgences or relaxations to be of any worth, a twofold condition is required on the part of the one giving, and a twofold on the part of the one receiving. On the part of the one giving there is required power, and there is required also an honest and reasonable cause. For an indulgence would not be thought to be of any value, if someone gave it to those going to watch tournaments. — On the part of the one receiving there is a twofold [condition], namely confession with true contrition and faith with true devotion, so that he is truly penitent of his sins and truly trusting that the pastor's indulgence avails him.

These things presupposed, some have said that such indulgences are of some worth, but never so much as is promised; but they are worth something small, according as faith and devotion merit. The Church nonetheless preaches this, so that by a certain good deception she may entice her sons to the good, just as a woman promises her child an apple which afterward she does not give. — But this is to disparage the Church, by saying that under a certain appearance she lies, and that the works she does are empty and childish and frivolous; which an upright mind abhors.

Others have said that they are simply worth as much as is promised: because here a purchase is not considered, but the largesse of the Church; and the condition here is equal, whoever he be who disposes himself. Hence just as a rich man, sending to the tavern, has as much wine as a poor old woman has, if he sends an equal price; so in the ecclesiastical [indulgence] they wish it to be understood. — But this position seems still to make too great a market of indulgences, and by this rather tends to their disparagement than to their praise.

A third group said that for these indulgences to be worth as much as is promised, a just estimation is necessarily required. And they called a just estimation [the case] when a man gives as much in alms for the relief of the Church as he would be willing to give in order that a third part of his penance be remitted, or as much as he ought to be willing to give. — But surely if it were so, there would be no relaxation in the world, but only a commutation, if one considers it.

We can therefore say that the quantity of an indulgence is reckoned with respect to the punishment, according as it has the character of a price or of a debt to be paid, not by way of an antidote or of the purging of the dross of sin, which must be removed by one's own punishment, namely by contrition, or by the bearing of some punishment. And this quantity is measured according to the right judgment of the Supreme Pontiff, or of him who makes the indulgences. And he who grants indulgences, when he bestows them, considers the cause for which he reckons one worthy of so great a grace; and according as men approach more or less to that cause, they share more or less in the indulgence; as, for example, the stations at Rome were instituted, where there are determined indulgences. These the holy Fathers instituted on account of the pilgrims who came from distant places; nor did they esteem him worthy of so great a grace who is born next to the church, as one who has come by a long road; hence he does not receive so great an indulgence, but some [lesser] amount.

I grant therefore that indulgences, as far as concerns the one giving, are worth as much as they promise, as the first reasons show. I grant nonetheless that they are not worth as much for each one nor

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equally for all, but according to the estimation of him who had, or ought to have had, [it] who made the indulgence; which it was not necessary to express, because all the faithful ought to presuppose in their heart that the gifts and mercies of the Holy Spirit are bestowed with an equal balance. Nor ought this to draw anyone away from these things, because they always avail more, if a man be in charity, than any service or anything else avails for which an indulgence is granted or given. — And from this all the objections are clear.