The early Church suffered a great confusion and distress
due to the era where it lost its identity because of the love of money. Challenges
like the task of building St Peters demanded lucrative amounts of money. The
church and the state relationship also contributed immensely to the corruption
that dominated the early Church. The fees charged by priests for ministering
sacraments, the introduction of indulgence and selling of church positions
through simony which were greatly challenged by reformers and contributed to
the call for reformation.
Although the Lateran council directed that no priest was supposed to
charge a fee for giving the service of sacraments, but the sacraments became
commodities for sale in the early church (Zigira, 1999). That is to say the
Catholic bishops were to speak what is regarded as the sacred commerce between
heaven and earth. They were considered as middlemen between men’s salvation and
God. Exuberant amount of money was paid to them for one to receive some
religious objects.
Those who could afford them were the only people who could have
them. Medieval priests were baptizing, hearing confessions, grant absolutions
and anointing the sick with oil which were sacraments of extreme unction for
money. It is clear that the less privileged were deprived the opportunity to
receive such lucrative services from priests. Only money made it possible for
people in the medieval Church era which compromised the teachings of the Bible
that the Gospel is free. The above acts later fuelled the reformation in the
early church.
The issue of indulgence is also core to the debate of
commercializing the Gospel by early church authorities. An indulgency was a
heresy that became popular during the time of purgatory ideology. They were
granted by Popes, Bishops and Archbishops sometimes (Broussard, 2012). It was a
piece of paper or certificate that one was given after paying or giving a
certain bulk amount of offering to the church. We have to bare it in our minds
that it was due to the demanding construction project of St Peter that also
contributed to this situation. Money was needed and a lot of revenue was needed
for that project.
The indulgence certificate was so popular and trending during this
time with sugar-coated teachings about it. They were said to have the authority
to cancel out previous sins. On this issue and in his response, Martin Luther
wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz tensely expressing his
dissatisfaction about this ideology. In that letter, he outpoured his emotions
and points out that souls were believing that they had to purchase the letter
of indulgence in order to be saved. He further posits that the casting of
contributions to the money-box was an automatically redemption of souls out of
purgatory and that indulgences had the power to undo every committed sin no
matter how big it was. For him this was in sharp contrary to the true teachings
of the church (Halsall, 1998). This clearly indicate how desperate the church
was to get money and how far they could go in compromising the Gospel. The
indulgence looked like a replacement of the blood of Jesus Christ to salvation
which later made reformers to stand up and challenge the church for this
ideology.
As though that was not enough, the selling of church offices in the
medieval church as common as taking a morning bath. That act is what is called
simony according to Zigira. Money was in total control in the medieval church
officials. Parishes were transacted to priests who were illiterate and clergy
who could afford even more that one parish. Even more than one diocese were
bought by bishops for themselves. Undeserving people stared occupying many
offices for power and to get more money that giving service to the church. The
worse of all was that even the papacy was up for sale to those who had money. A
reference is made of Rodrigo Borgia who got to papacy through simony. Pope’s
like Alexander in 1492 also ordained his son as a bishop and later as a
cardinal. This indicates how corrupt the church was and all that were pointers
to reformation which later took place to do a damage control.
Reformers like Martin Luther did not like the chaos they observed in
the church. They identified an immediate need for reformation. This was due to
the what (van Liere, 1999) calls the power-hungry popes and bishops, who
enriched themselves by collecting tithes from unfortunate peasants who were
misguided to the likes of indulgences. The reformation was a movement that was
aiming at reshaping the image of the church and bringing back its dignity and
trust. This was by correcting those errors it the church through castigation
and opposition of those immorality that dominated the medieval church.
In addition to that, reformation was trying to take the church back
to the scripture as having authority sola
scriptura not the popes and bishops as it was in this case. They were also
aiming at restoring the power and teachings of grace to salvation not through
indulgences. Bayer (2005) postulates that reformers like Luther fought
tirelessly against the Roman papacy. This fight was based on the arguments of
facts that proved to be varnishing away from the church due to immorality and
corruption. Halsall adds that Luther went as far as viewing the church
authorities as criminals.
The extent to which the situation had gone opened room for
reformation. It is why Barraclough (1968) alludes that reformers like Luther
are credited with bringing the church back to its original New Testament ideal.
This clearly shows how needed the reformation was in as far as correcting the
situation that existed in the medieval church was concerned. Reformers like
John Huss also challenged the church and called for changes. This includes the
depriving of the clergy their wealth and living an apostolic life. He further
argued that public sins like simony needed to be made subject to punishment.
This was because the church had gone too far trying to accumulate money for
itself and its officials which compromised the standard of the Gospel.
The Church could do anything to get money from all and sundry. This
includes indulgences and selling of church offices. These led to the church
becoming very rich and forgetting about its primary mandate. The situation led
to reformation where reformers responded to correct the situation that prevailed
within the medieval church. The movement was just a response to the situation
that was getting out of hand every single day within the church. This had a
clear agenda of restoring the church to its original doctrine of truth not the
compromise to accumulate wealth.
REFERENCES
Barraclough, G. (1968). The Medieval Papacy: History of
the European Civilization Library.
New York
Bayer, O. (2005). The reformation Theologians: An introduction
to Theology in the early
Modern period. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing
Broussard, K. (2012). The Corruption of the Catholic
Church. Accessed 26 February 2018
Halsall, P. (1998). Medieval Sourcebook: Martin Luther:
Letter to the Archbishop of Mainz,
1517.
Accessed 26 February 26, 2018
Halsall, P. (1998). Medieval Sourcebook: Petrarch:
Letter criticizing the Avignon Papacy.
Accessed 26
February 26, 2018
Luther, M. (n.d). The Babylonian Captivity of the
Church: A Prelude 1520, Jesus. Martin Luther,
Augustinian,
to his friend, Herman Tulich. Accessed 26 February 2018
van Liere, F. (1999). The ORB: On-line Reference Book
for Medieval Studies: “Was the
Medieval
Church Corrupt?” Accessed 26 February 26, 2018
Zigira, C.A.B. (1999).
The Reformation. Kwaluseni: University of Swaziland
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