Indulgence is the permission to sin?

Let's analyze what an indulgence is. Its definition is the complete or partial exemption from punishment for committed sins that the church gives to the believer. Repentance (this is the most absolution of sin) was given usually during confession. Why did you need to introduce such a complex concept? The believer will come to To the priest. Repenting. The priest will appoint him a punishment. The believer will fulfill. And all sins will be forgiven him. So it was in normal conditions. But more and more often there were such situations when the weekly visit to the Temple became impossible. For example, everywhere there were believers wishing to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Places. What to do in this case? Not to repent is unthinkable. But in the pilgrimage there is nothing that pleases God.

The notion of "indulgence" was invented

This is an original remission of sins in advance. That is, a person, having paid a certain amount, transferred the church his duty to atone for sins. For him it was already done by priests and monks, fulfilling his "punishment". At the same time, the believer was exempted from compulsory visiting the Church, since he had no such opportunities on the journey. It seems to be quite logical. The person paid to have his spiritual obligations fulfilled by the church Servants, while he himself will be occupied with other charitable deeds.

The meaning of the word indulgence

Latin indulgentia translates as "grace" or "forgiveness." This privilege was not granted for no reason. In order to get the scroll (and the indulgence was a written document), one had to have quite good reasons. If, at the initial stages, the reasons for which the believer asked for "mercy" were very seriously understood (such as the pilgrimage, participation in the crusades and some others), then it became possible to get an indulgence over time for anyone who wanted to pay a bribe. The money was donated to the needs of the church. Thus, over time it became possible to rephrase the concept somewhat: indulgence is the obtaining of the redemption of sin that has not yet been committed for a monetary reward. But this concept was not immediately acquired.

The heyday of the indulgence

Since the introduction of the concept, in fact, it has been used very rarely, believing that repentance must still be committed in person. Allow the shifting of this responsible action to other people's shoulders the Church did not want. Only in very rare cases a person could be given an indulgence. This was considered a kind of proof of the imperfection of man. He is weak and sinful. Infrequent cases of using indulgences, the Church only emphasized this fact. But in the days of the Crusades everything changed dramatically. Many warriors of the Church went to distant lands with a charity mission. Not only that they were deprived of the opportunity to perform repentance, so many sins accumulated during the campaign as well. Thus, anyone who went on a campaign in the name of Christ received from the Church the forgiveness of all the sins that he will commit during the journey.

Expansion of the concept

In the Middle Ages, "repentance" is already issued not only to travelers. Since, in a broad sense, "indulgence" is "mercy", it is used in less fundamental cases. So there is the opportunity to "buy" yourself the right to eat eggs in fasting. Special "mercy" received monastic orders. Over time, the very notion of indulgence has changed a lot. It was perceived not as a repentance, but as a permission of the Church to commit any sin. They began to believe that the document frees not only from redemption, but also from the most unfavorable act of God. This position caused great criticism from the enlightened minds.