of the Holy Spirit is required, which cannot be secured except from God," as Augustine proves in many places, as I have shown in my Tract on Indulgences. And the Master of Sentences, 1: 14 [Migne's ed., p. 49], concludes from these words of Augustine and says, "Therefore no men, however holy, can give the Holy Spirit," and the same reasoning applies to the active remission of sins.[1]
Hence in a unique sense the Baptist said of Christ: "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world," John 1:29. On these words Augustine says, Hom. on John, 4 [Nic. Fathers, 7: 28]: "Let no one presume and say of himself that he takes away the sins of the world. Now, observe the proud against whom John lifted his finger were not yet heretics and yet they were already shown to be such against whom he cried from the river." Wherefore the Jews often ascribed blasphemy to Christ because, esteeming him, though falsely, to be a mere man, they said he was not able of himself to forgive sins, because sin is not forgiven by a mere word except only as the offense against God is relaxed. But who forgives an injury except the person against whom it is done or against whose subject it is done? For God, in giving power of this kind, first forgives the injury against Himself before His vicar can forgive. Hence on this point Ambrose says: "He alone forgives sins who alone died for us. The Word of God forgives sins. The priest is the judge. The priest performs his function and does not exercise the
- ↑ The Treatises on Papal Indulgences, Mon., 1: 215–237, was called forth by John XXIII's two bulls, calling for a crusade against Ladislaus, king of Naples, 1412, and promising liberal indulgence for participation in the campaign. The bulls created a great sensation in Prague, where the billets of pardon were openly sold at three different places. Huss attacked the whole system of wars against fellow Christians started at the pope’s instance, and entered into the question of papal and priestly absolution. He declared that if the pope had the right to give indulgences, he was a criminal if he did not empty purgatory. He took up the same position as here that the priest cannot ab solve whom God has not before absolved, and that the priest's power is essentially the same as the priest's power under the O, T. in pronouncing a leper clean. See Huss, Super IV. Sent., 606 sqq., and Introd. to this volume.
