the other hand, Roman Catholic historians defend him as a learned and zealous servant of the
church. He has only an incidental notoriety, and our estimate of his character need not affect our
views on the merits of the Reformation. We must judge him from his published sermons and
anti-theses against Luther. They teach neither more nor less than the usual scholastic doctrine of
indulgences based on an extravagant theory of papal authority. He does not ignore, as is often
asserted, the necessity of repentance as a condition of absolution.^183 But he probably did not
emphasize it in practice, and gave rise by unguarded expressions to damaging stories. His private
character was certainly tainted, if we are to credit such a witness as the papal nuncio, Carl von
Miltitz, who had the best means of information, and charged him with avarice, dishonesty, and
sexual immorality.^184
Tetzel traveled with great pomp and circumstance through Germany, and recommended
with unscrupulous effrontery and declamatory eloquence the indulgences of the Pope to the large
crowds who gathered from every quarter around him. He was received like a messenger from
heaven. Priests, monks, and magistrates, men and women, old and young, marched in solemn
procession with songs, flags, and candles, under the ringing of bells, to meet him and his
fellow-monks, and followed them to the church; the papal Bull on a velvet cushion was placed on
the high altar, a red cross with a silken banner bearing the papal arms was erected before it, and a
large iron chest was put beneath the cross for the indulgence money. Such chests are still preserved
in many places. The preachers, by daily sermons, hymns, and processions, urged the people, with
extravagant laudations of the Pope’s Bull, to purchase letters of indulgence for their own benefit,
and at the same time played upon their sympathies for departed relatives and friends whom they
might release from their sufferings in purgatory "as soon as the penny tinkles in the box."^185
The common people eagerly embraced this rare offer of salvation from punishment, and
made no clear distinction between the guilt and punishment of sin; after the sermon they approached
with burning candles the chest, confessed their sins, paid the money, and received the letter of
indulgence which they cherished as a passport to heaven. But intelligent and pious men were
shocked at such scandal. The question was asked, whether God loved money more than justice,
and why the Pope, with his command over the boundless treasury of extra-merits, did not at once
empty the whole purgatory for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s, or build it with his own money.
Tetzel approached the dominions of the Elector of Saxony, who was himself a devout
worshiper of relics, and had great confidence in indulgences, but would not let him enter his territory
letter to Miltitz, Jan. 31, 1518. See Köstlin, I. 160 and 785, versus Körner and Kahnis. Kayser also (l.c. p. 15) gives it up, although he
comes to the conclusion that Tetzel was "ein unverschämter und sittenloser Ablassprediger" (p. 20).(^183) In Theses 55 and 56 of his first Disputation (1517), he says that the soul, after it is purified (anima purgata, ist eine Seele gereinigt),
flies from purgatory to the vision of God without hinderance, and that it is an error to suppose that this cannot be done before the payment
of money into the indulgence box. See the Latin text in Löscher, I. 509.
(^184) "Auch hatte er zwei Kinder." The letter of Miltitz is printed in Löscher, III. 20; in Walch, XV. 862; and in Kayser, l.c. 4 and 5.
Tetzel’s champions try to invalidate the testimony of the papal delegate by charging him with intemperance. But drunkards, like children
and fools, usually tell the truth; and when he wrote that letter, he was sober. Besides, we have the independent testimony of Luther, who
says in his book against Duke Henry of Brunswick (Wider Hans Wurst, p. 50), that in 1517 Tetzel was condemned by the Emperor
Maximilian to be drowned in the Inn at Innsbruck ("for his great virtue’s sake, you may well believe"), but saved by the Duke Frederick,
and reminded of it afterwards in the Theses-controversy, and that he confessed the fact.
(^185) Sobald der Pfennig im Kasten klingt,
Die Seel’ aus dem Fegfeuer springt."
Mathesius and Johann Hess, two contemporary witnesses, ascribe this sentence (with slight verbal modifications) to Tetzel himself.
Luther mentions it in Theses 27 and 28, and in his book Wider Hans Wurst (Erl. ed. xxvi. 51).