The Treasury Christ Never Gave to Rome: Denzinger 2193

Denzinger part 76

Denzinger 2193, numbered DH 3670 in the later Denzinger-Hünermann arrangement, preserves a passage from Pope Pius XI’s Jubilee bull Infinita Dei Misericordia, promulgated on 29 May 1924 in preparation for the Universal Jubilee of 1925. The passage is important because it brings together several doctrines that must not simply be assumed to be apostolic merely because a pope presents them as established Catholic teaching. It links the Old Testament Jubilee to a Christian Holy Year administered by the Apostolic See; it teaches that merits and gifts lost through sin can be recovered through the prescribed Jubilee observances; it associates liberation from Satan with compliance with those prescriptions; and, most significantly, it declares that punishment due for sin can be fully remitted through the accumulated merits of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints. The modern numbering and attribution of the passage are confirmed as DH 3670 / Dz 2193.

The full Denzinger passage reads:

“Now when the Hebrews in the year of the Sabbath, after recovering their goods which had passed into the ownership of others, were returning ‘to their own possession,’ and the servants, now free, were betaking themselves ‘to their former family’ [Lev. 25:10], and the debt of the debtors was cancelled, all this more happily happens and is accomplished among us in the year of atonement. For, all who by doing penance carry out the salutary orders of the Apostolic See in the course of the great Jubilee, the same regain anew and receive that abundance of merits and gifts which they had lost by sinning, and they are so set free from the cruel domination of Satan that they regain the freedom ‘wherewith Christ has made us free’ [Gal. 4:31], and, finally, of all the punishment which they would have been obliged to pay for their faults and sins, because of the highly accumulated merits of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints, they are fully absolved.”

This teaching deserves careful examination precisely because it incorporates genuine biblical language. Leviticus speaks of liberty and restoration. Paul speaks of the freedom given through Christ. Scripture certainly teaches repentance, forgiveness, the communion of believers, prayer for one another, the spiritual value of faithful obedience, and consequences resulting from sin. The question is therefore not whether every word used by Pius XI is foreign to Christianity. The decisive question is whether the particular theological mechanism constructed from those biblical truths was taught by Christ or His Apostles. Can Scripture demonstrate that the Church possesses a treasury containing the transferable merits of Christ, Mary, and the saints; that this treasury was placed under ecclesiastical administration; that Peter received authority to dispense it; that this authority passed to the bishops of Rome; and that the temporal punishment owed before God may consequently be remitted through indulgences attached to acts specified by the Apostolic See? Those propositions require evidence in their own right.

The governing principle must remain Christ’s own declaration in John 12:48: “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” The question cannot finally be settled by saying that Clement VI declared a treasury, that Trent declared indulgences, that Pius XI exercised them, or that Paul VI reaffirmed them. Each declaration depends upon a prior claim of authority. That authority itself must be tested against the apostolic witness.

The first striking feature of Denzinger 2193 is its use of the Old Testament Jubilee. Pius XI argues from Leviticus 25 that Israel’s restoration of property, liberation of servants, and cancellation of debts find a superior spiritual counterpart in the Catholic Jubilee. The Vatican text of Infinita Dei Misericordia goes even further in its surrounding context. Pius XI explicitly explains that the Church adopted the Jubilee pattern from the Old Testament and gave it greater spiritual efficacy. He describes the Holy Year as an extraordinary ecclesiastical means for spiritual renewal and states that the faithful fulfilling its prescriptions may receive the Jubilee indulgence.

Yet when the New Testament itself interprets the Jubilee imagery, it directs attention not to a recurring papal institution but to Jesus Christ.

Christ entered the synagogue at Nazareth and read from Isaiah:

“And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” — Luke 4:17–19.

Jesus then declared:

“This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” — Luke 4:21.

This is the New Testament’s own great proclamation of Jubilee fulfilment. The liberty, restoration, release, and acceptable year converge upon Christ Himself. He does not announce that after His ascension His representatives will establish recurring ecclesiastical years in which a treasury of transferable satisfactions will be opened under special conditions. He announces Himself as the fulfilment.

Leviticus 25 similarly attributes the Jubilee directly to God’s covenantal ordinance. The Lord commanded:

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.” — Leviticus 25:10.

There is no treasury of accumulated human merits in the chapter. There is no transfer of one Israelite’s righteousness to another Israelite’s account. There is no high priest dispensing the excess merits of Moses, Aaron, Abraham, Sarah, or the righteous dead. The release occurs because God commanded the Jubilee. The land returns because it ultimately belongs to God, as Leviticus 25:23 explains: “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine.” The theological centre is therefore divine ownership and divine liberation, not an accumulated treasury of creaturely satisfactions administered by a sacerdotal hierarchy.

The cancellation of debts mentioned by Pius XI belongs especially to the sabbatical legislation of Deuteronomy 15, where again the remission rests upon God’s command: “At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release” (Deuteronomy 15:1). Nothing in that institution suggests that debt is cancelled because the righteousness of one Israelite has been transferred to another. To move from Israel’s divinely commanded economic and social release to a treasury in which the merits of saints remit punishment before God requires theological steps that the Old Testament text itself never makes.

The New Testament does speak repeatedly about release from spiritual bondage, but once again that release is located directly in Christ. Jesus says in John 8:36, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Paul says of believers in Colossians 1:13–14 that God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” Hebrews 2:14–15 explains that Christ through death destroyed the power of him who had the power of death and delivered those who through fear of death were subject to bondage.

The apostolic message is therefore extraordinarily consistent. Liberation from Satan occurs through Christ’s triumph, Christ’s blood, Christ’s Gospel, and incorporation into Christ. Acts 26:18 describes Paul’s commission as turning men “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins.” The means given to the Apostle is the proclamation of Christ. There is no apostolic Jubilee treasury operating beside that Gospel proclamation.

Denzinger 2193 nevertheless says that those who repent and “carry out the salutary orders of the Apostolic See” during the Jubilee regain what was lost and recover Christian liberty. The full bull shows what those conditions meant in practice. Pius XI prescribed confession and Communion, prayer according to the papal intention, and repeated visits to the four Roman basilicas of St Peter, St Paul Outside the Walls, St John Lateran, and St Mary Major. Romans and those resident in Rome ordinarily had to make the prescribed visits over twenty days, whereas pilgrims ordinarily did so over ten. The bull then granted the plenary indulgence under those conditions.

The issue is not whether confession of sin, receiving Communion, prayer, pilgrimage, or visiting places associated with Christian history may have devotional value. The issue is whether Christ gave an ecclesiastical officer authority to attach remission of punishment before God to a defined combination of such acts. That proposition requires something more than the fact that the acts themselves may be religious.

When the Apostles preached remission, they preached Christ. Peter declared:

“To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” — Acts 10:43.

Paul preached at Antioch:

“Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” — Acts 13:38–39.

Peter preached:

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.” — Acts 3:19.

John writes:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” — 1 John 1:9.

The apostolic pattern repeatedly directs the sinner toward God through Christ. It does not instruct believers to wait for specially proclaimed ecclesiastical years in which bishops possess expanded opportunities to apply accumulated merits against remaining punishment.

This becomes still more serious when Denzinger 2193 speaks of regaining “that abundance of merits and gifts which they had lost by sinning.” Catholic theology developed a sophisticated account of merit in which works performed in grace possess merit before God and in which mortal sin may prevent their reward until grace is restored. The question, however, is whether Scripture describes the believer’s relation to God as a stored account of meritorious works that disappears through sin and subsequently revives.

Paul deliberately contrasts grace and debt in Romans 4:4–5:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

He makes the same distinction in Romans 11:6:

“And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.”

Titus 3:5–7 is equally direct:

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

This does not mean that Christian obedience is irrelevant or unrewarded. Scripture repeatedly speaks of reward. It means that reward must not be converted into a transferable economy of salvific merit without biblical warrant. Jesus Himself tells His disciples in Luke 17:10, “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” The obedient servant has not accumulated a surplus beyond what obedience to God already required.

Paul’s own testimony in Philippians 3 is particularly important because if any apostle might have spoken in terms of accumulated religious merit, Paul had grounds to do so. Instead, after listing his religious attainments, he says:

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”

He then declares that he desires to “be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ” (Philippians 3:9). His confidence before God is not the accumulated quantity of his merits but being found in Christ.

The language of Denzinger 2193 should also be distinguished from the biblical teaching that God remembers faithful service. Hebrews 6:10 says, “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love.” Revelation 14:13 says of the blessed dead that “their works do follow them.” Scripture therefore affirms divine remembrance and reward. What Scripture does not thereby establish is that these works enter a transferable ecclesiastical treasury capable of satisfying another person’s temporal punishment.

That distinction becomes decisive in the final sentence of Denzinger 2193:

“and, finally, of all the punishment which they would have been obliged to pay for their faults and sins, because of the highly accumulated merits of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints, they are fully absolved.”

A fair examination must first state Catholic doctrine accurately. Catholicism does not teach that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ lacked sufficient intrinsic value and therefore needed Mary and the saints to complete an otherwise defective redemption. In fact, the medieval doctrine of the treasury explicitly affirmed the infinite sufficiency of Christ’s merits. The problem lies elsewhere. The problem is that Catholic theology went on to posit a treasury in which the merits and satisfactions of Mary and the saints also possess value that may benefit others, and that ecclesiastical authority can apply this treasury toward remission of temporal punishment.

The clearest medieval statement appears in Pope Clement VI’s Jubilee bull Unigenitus Dei Filius of 25 January 1343, preserved in Denzinger as DS 1025–1027, formerly Dz 550–552. Clement first emphasizes the immeasurable sufficiency of Christ’s blood and then says that the resulting treasury was entrusted “through blessed Peter, the keeper of the keys of heaven and his successors, his vicars on earth.” He further teaches that the “merits of the Blessed Mother of God” and the elect contribute to this treasury.

This is a crucial stage in the doctrine because the argument now depends upon several propositions that require separate demonstration. Christ must first have created such a treasury. Christ must then have committed authority over it to Peter. That authority must have been capable of transmission. Peter must then have transmitted it to his successors. Those successors must specifically be the bishops of Rome. The satisfactions or merits of other Christians must be capable of being applied against another believer’s temporal punishment. Finally, the Church must possess jurisdiction to make that application before God.

It is not enough for the final proposition to be asserted if every earlier proposition upon which it depends remains unproved.

This returns us to the question of apostolic and sacerdotal authority. If a bishop of Rome possesses a spiritual power by succession from the Apostles, the power must first have belonged to the Apostles. Succession cannot transmit an authority that the supposed predecessors themselves never possessed. A later ecclesiastical office cannot inherit backwards into the apostolic age a jurisdiction that Scripture nowhere shows Christ giving to His Apostles.

The laying on of hands does not solve this problem. The New Testament certainly records laying on of hands for appointments, commissioning, reception of spiritual gifts in particular circumstances, and ministry. However, the rite itself does not establish that Christ gave the Apostles a sacerdotal treasury of transferable merits, nor can the existence of ordination prove the content of an authority never shown to have been conferred. That broader question has been addressed elsewhere and need only be noted here.

The specific question before us is much narrower and therefore much more difficult to evade: where did Jesus tell Peter, the Twelve, Paul, or any other apostle that they possessed an inexhaustible treasury containing the satisfactions of holy believers and could distribute those satisfactions toward the remission of another person’s punishment before God?

Matthew 16:19 is commonly brought forward:

“And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Even granting the strongest Catholic understanding of Peter’s authority, the text still does not say what the later doctrine requires it to say. Jesus does not mention a treasury. He does not mention accumulated merits. He does not mention Mary’s future merits. He does not mention the satisfactions of saints. He does not distinguish guilt from a remaining temporal penal account. He does not explain that Peter may transfer the value of one Christian’s works to another. He does not say this power belongs to future Roman bishops.

Furthermore, Matthew 18:18 gives binding and loosing language to the disciples in the context of church discipline: “Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Whatever binding and loosing entails, therefore, it cannot simply be treated as a self-evident synonym for an exclusively Roman treasury of indulgences.

John 20:22–23 is likewise important:

“And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”

This is undoubtedly a significant grant of authority connected with the apostolic mission. Yet the question remains what the Apostles themselves understood it to mean. Acts provides the historical record of their ministry after receiving the Spirit. In that record we repeatedly find them proclaiming repentance, faith, baptism, forgiveness through Christ, ecclesiastical discipline, and restoration. We never find Peter announcing an indulgence, calculating remaining temporal punishment, transferring the merits of another believer, drawing upon Mary’s merits, or claiming custody of an invisible treasury accumulated from the saints.

If John 20 necessarily contained the entire later indulgence system, one would reasonably expect some evidence of that interpretation in the apostolic exercise of the authority. Instead, the apostolic proclamation remains centred upon Christ’s name, Christ’s blood, repentance toward God, and faith toward Jesus Christ.

Even church discipline must be distinguished from indulgences. First Corinthians 5 demonstrates that the Church may exclude a grossly unrepentant offender from fellowship. Second Corinthians 2 shows Paul urging restoration when discipline has accomplished its purpose. Paul writes, “Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many” (2 Corinthians 2:6). The Church can therefore impose and relax ecclesiastical discipline. What does not follow is that relaxing ecclesiastical discipline amounts to remitting an independently existing temporal punishment before divine justice by transferring the merits of saints. Canonical penance and divine punishment are not automatically the same thing.

This distinction matters historically because later indulgence theology developed partly out of penitential practice. A bishop’s authority to regulate an ecclesiastical penance does not itself prove authority over God’s judicial accounting. A pastor can determine that a disciplinary sanction has served its purpose without thereby possessing power to transfer the righteousness or satisfaction of one Christian to another before God.

The Council of Trent nevertheless made the indulgence claim dogmatically explicit. In Session XXV, continued on 4 December 1563 under Pope Pius IV, the Council issued its Decree Concerning Indulgences. The decree begins with the assertion, “Whereas the power of conferring Indulgences was granted by Christ to the Church,” and proceeds to condemn those who deny the Church possesses that power. This is DS 1835, formerly Dz 989.

The theological problem is that the decree asserts precisely the proposition requiring proof.

Trent says Christ granted the power.

The New Testament evidence must therefore identify where He did so.

Saying that a council teaches that Christ gave the power cannot itself demonstrate that Christ gave it.

That circular reasoning is exactly what John 12:48 prevents. Christ’s word remains the judge.

Trent goes still further by condemning those who deny the power. The historical question then becomes particularly serious. If Christians can be anathematized for denying indulgences, the doctrine must be sufficiently apostolic to justify making belief in it binding. Yet no apostolic writing provides an exposition of indulgences remotely comparable to the later ecclesiastical definitions. There is no Pauline chapter on a treasury of merits, no Petrine instruction concerning the remission of temporal penalties by ecclesiastical grant, no Johannine teaching that the saints’ merits are available for transfer, and no pastoral epistle instructing bishops how to dispense satisfactions accumulated by the faithful.

Galatians provides an especially important standard for testing such authority claims. Paul writes:

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” — Galatians 1:8.

The significance of this verse goes beyond obvious heresy. Paul does not allow apostolic status to authenticate a message by itself. The Gospel authenticates the messenger. Even an apostle stands beneath the truth already delivered. Apostolic succession, therefore, cannot become a mechanism by which later teachings are automatically rendered apostolic. The doctrine itself must remain accountable to the apostolic Gospel.

Paul VI’s apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina, promulgated on 1 January 1967, is particularly revealing in this respect because it both strongly reaffirms indulgences and openly describes their historical development. Paul VI says that the conviction behind them “led gradually, in the course of the centuries” to their use and describes the process as a “progression in the doctrine and discipline.” He nevertheless insists that the development arose from revelation and continues the medieval doctrine that the Church authoritatively applies the merits of Christ and the saints.

This admission should be taken seriously rather than caricatured. Catholic doctrine explicitly acknowledges development. Development alone is not disproof. The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, acquired increasingly precise terminology as controversies forced the Church to articulate what Scripture already taught. The relevant question is therefore whether indulgences represent clarification of an apostolic reality or the construction of a new mechanism not contained in the apostolic deposit.

That question can be tested.

The Trinity is demonstrable from scriptural premises concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost even before later technical vocabulary appears. By contrast, the indulgence treasury requires propositions for which the New Testament provides no corresponding mechanism: transferable satisfactions of saints, an ecclesiastically administered spiritual treasury, temporal penalties remitted through that treasury, papal jurisdiction over its application, and prescribed actions to which such remissions may be attached.

Calling the system “development” therefore does not answer the question. It identifies the historical process that must itself be examined.

Paul VI’s document also confirms that the system did not disappear after Pius XI. It defines an indulgence as remission before God of temporal punishment for sins whose guilt has already been forgiven and says the Church authoritatively dispenses the treasury of satisfactions won by Christ and the saints.

The current Catechism of the Catholic Church repeats the same theology in paragraphs 1471 and 1476–1479. Paragraph 1476 defines the Church’s treasury primarily in relation to the infinite value of Christ’s merits. Paragraph 1477 then states, “This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” and adds the prayers and works of all the saints. Paragraph 1478 teaches that through the power of binding and loosing the Church “opens for them the treasury” so that temporal punishment may be remitted.

Denzinger 2193 is therefore not an archaeological curiosity. The conceptual framework remains Catholic doctrine.

At this point the strongest biblical objection is not that Christians cannot help one another spiritually. They clearly can. Scripture commands intercession. James 5:16 says, “Pray one for another.” Paul repeatedly asks churches to pray for him. Christians bear one another’s burdens according to Galatians 6:2. One believer’s ministry can contribute profoundly to another believer’s perseverance and sanctification.

None of those truths, however, establishes a treasury of transferable punitive satisfaction.

Catholic theology sometimes appeals to Colossians 1:24, where Paul writes:

“Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church.”

This verse must be interpreted in light of everything Paul says about Christ’s redemption. Paul cannot mean that the atoning suffering of Christ was insufficient, because in the same epistle he says that believers have “redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14), and that Christ has “made peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). Paul’s sufferings are ministerial sufferings endured in carrying Christ’s Gospel to the Church. They are the continuing afflictions associated with service to Christ, not additional atoning value added to Calvary.

Second Corinthians 1:5–6 provides the parallel:

“For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation.”

Paul’s suffering benefits other Christians because his ministry, endurance, witness, preaching, and example serve them. Scripture never says that the penal value of Paul’s suffering is deposited into a treasury from which Peter or a future bishop can subtract punishment owed by another Christian.

The distinction becomes clearer in Hebrews, where the finality of Christ’s sacrificial work is stated with remarkable force. Hebrews 9:12 says:

“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”

Hebrews 9:26 says:

“But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Hebrews 10:10 declares:

“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

Hebrews 10:12 adds:

“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.”

Then comes perhaps the most decisive statement:

“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” — Hebrews 10:14.

The theological movement of Hebrews is toward concentration, not multiplication. There is one effective sacrifice, one High priest who remains forever, one blood that obtains redemption, and one offering that perfects the sanctified. Hebrews never turns after establishing this perfection and adds that the excess satisfactions of especially holy Christians form another ecclesiastical asset that may be applied to the punishment of others.

First Peter uses exactly the same centre:

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” — 1 Peter 1:18–19.

Revelation likewise says of Christ:

“Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.” — Revelation 1:5.

John says:

“The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” — 1 John 1:7.

Paul says:

“Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” — Romans 5:9.

The remarkable consistency of these passages matters. When the Apostles explain the effective basis upon which sinners are reconciled, cleansed, redeemed, justified, and brought near to God, they point to Christ and His blood. They do not present Christ’s merit as the central portion of a broader ecclesiastical treasury that also includes transferable creaturely merits.

The Catholic distinction between guilt and temporal punishment must also be considered fairly. Catholicism does not teach that an indulgence forgives an unrepentant sinner and substitutes for conversion. The modern definition specifically concerns temporal punishment remaining after guilt has been forgiven. Therefore, it would be inadequate simply to answer that forgiven Christians can never experience consequences after sin.

Scripture plainly shows otherwise. David was told after his sin, “The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die” (2 Samuel 12:13), yet painful consequences followed. Hebrews 12 teaches that God chastens His children:

“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” — Hebrews 12:6.

Yet neither passage establishes the indulgence mechanism. A consequence providentially permitted by God is not automatically a quantified penal debt stored in divine justice. Fatherly chastening is not the same as a transferable liability capable of cancellation through another saint’s accumulated satisfaction. Hebrews explicitly explains chastening as paternal training: “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10). If God Himself determines that a particular chastisement is spiritually beneficial to His child, it does not follow that an ecclesiastical authority possesses a treasury from which equivalent merit can be applied to remove it.

Romans 8 provides another necessary distinction:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” — Romans 8:1.

Paul does not deny discipline, suffering, or consequences. He denies condemnation for those in Christ. The believer’s standing is grounded in Christ. That makes it all the more necessary to demonstrate from Scripture any theory that introduces an additional post-forgiveness juridical debt before God that can then be remitted by ecclesiastical treasury.

The mediatorial question must therefore be faced directly. First Timothy 2:5 says:

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

Catholic theology will correctly respond that praying for another person does not automatically make every Christian a rival mediator to Christ, since the same chapter commands intercessory prayer. That response is valid as far as it goes. The issue in indulgence theology, however, goes considerably beyond ordinary intercession.

The Church claims authority to apply another Christian’s meritorious satisfactions toward remission of punishment before God. That assertion requires a distinct apostolic foundation.

When Paul asks fellow Christians for prayer, he never describes their prayers as entering a juridical treasury from which punishment may later be remitted. When James commands mutual prayer, he never establishes an office authorised to transfer excess satisfaction. When Revelation depicts the prayers of saints symbolically ascending before God, it never depicts the Church on earth calculating and dispensing their meritorious value.

Christ remains the unique basis of access:

“For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” — Ephesians 2:18.

Hebrews says:

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” — Hebrews 10:19.

Again:

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” — Hebrews 4:16.

The believer is directed through Christ to the throne of grace. No apostolic intermediary is described as controlling a treasury necessary to obtain remission of remaining punishment.

The papal authority involved in Infinita Dei Misericordia makes this absence even more significant. Pius XI did not present the Holy Year merely as optional spiritual encouragement. The bull invoked papal authority in continuity with previous Roman pontiffs, prescribed the acts to which the indulgence was attached, and portrayed Rome as the divinely appointed centre of Catholic unity. Remarkably, it even describes Rome as the “centre of his religion and perpetual seat of his Vicar.”

That claim itself demands New Testament evidence.

Where did Jesus choose Rome as the perpetual seat of His vicar?

Acts records Paul travelling to Rome as a prisoner. Romans contains a letter addressed to believers already living there before Paul arrives. Neither text states that Jesus selected the city as the permanent jurisdictional centre of Christianity. First Peter 5 does not declare a Roman throne. Revelation mentions Rome only indirectly if Babylon is interpreted as Rome, and certainly not as the perpetual seat through which heavenly remission must flow.

The same evidential rule therefore applies both to indulgences and to the Roman office said to administer them. A successor can possess only what was capable of succession. A chain of succession may transmit an office; it cannot create retroactively a power never entrusted to the originating office.

This is why the development from Clement VI to Trent, Pius XI, Paul VI, and the modern Catechism is so revealing. Clement VI articulated the treasury and attached its administration to Peter and his successors. Trent declared that Christ had given the Church the power of indulgences and anathematized its denial. Pius XI exercised that claimed authority through a Jubilee, connecting compliance with Apostolic See prescriptions to remission of punishment through the merits of Christ, Mary, and the saints. Paul VI reaffirmed the system while acknowledging that its practical and doctrinal form emerged gradually across the centuries. The Catechism continues to teach the treasury and its ecclesiastical application today.

The continuity of the later Catholic tradition is therefore not in serious question.

The question is continuity with the Apostles.

The New Testament church unquestionably had pastors, elders, overseers, teachers, prophets, evangelists, and apostles. It exercised discipline. It preached forgiveness. It baptised believers. It celebrated the Lord’s Supper. It prayed for the sick. It appointed elders. It confronted false teachers. It received offerings for the poor. What it never demonstrably operates is a treasury of surplus merits.

Peter never says that he is keeper of such a treasury. Paul never asks Peter to draw upon it. James never instructs elders to apply it. Timothy and Titus receive extensive pastoral instructions but no directions for calculating or dispensing indulgences. The churches addressed in Revelation are rebuked and called to repentance directly by Christ without being told to obtain remission from an accumulated treasury of saints.

Christ’s message to the church at Ephesus is:

“Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works.” — Revelation 2:5.

To Laodicea He says:

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” — Revelation 3:19.

The remedy is repentance and return to Christ.

The text never introduces a sacerdotal distribution of accumulated merits.

Peter himself instructs fellow elders in strikingly non-monarchical terms:

“The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder.” — 1 Peter 5:1.

He tells them to feed the flock:

“Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.” — 1 Peter 5:3.

The New Testament certainly gives real authority to ministers, but that authority remains ministerial and accountable to Christ. Paul similarly writes in 2 Corinthians 1:24, “Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy.”

This makes the historical enlargement of ecclesiastical jurisdiction particularly important. An institution may legitimately develop administrative structures needed to govern an expanding community. Administrative development, however, is different from claiming a supernatural power over punishment before God.

The latter requires divine institution.

Denzinger 2193 also produces a profound tension by invoking Christian liberty. The passage says that Jubilee participants regain the freedom “wherewith Christ has made us free.” In the Catholic Vulgate tradition this language is associated with the end of Galatians 4 and beginning of Galatians 5; in the King James Version the familiar expression occurs in Galatians 5:1:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

Paul’s argument concerns liberation through Christ from a religious order in which standing before God is placed under the bondage of prescribed observances. His warning is not an argument against Christian obedience, but it is emphatically an argument against allowing religious regulation to occupy the place belonging to Christ’s finished work.

This makes the use of the verse in a papal Jubilee particularly striking. Pius XI invokes the liberty given by Christ while connecting complete remission of punishment with fulfilment of conditions specified by the Apostolic See. The comparison does not by itself prove contradiction, because Catholic theology insists that indulgences presuppose grace rather than purchase it. Nevertheless, the burden of proof remains unavoidable.

If Christ’s liberty includes an ecclesiastical system through which remaining punishment is remitted under conditions established by Rome, the Apostles should provide evidence of that system. They do not.

The deepest problem with Denzinger 2193 is therefore not simply the language of Mary and the saints. It is the architecture of authority behind the sentence. The passage presupposes a spiritual economy of merit, a distinction between forgiven guilt and remissible punishment, a treasury containing satisfactions, creaturely contributions to that treasury, Petrine custody over it, succession of that custody, identification of the successors with Roman bishops, and papal authority to prescribe acts through which its benefits are applied. Each proposition rests upon the others. Remove the claimed apostolic treasury and the papal indulgence loses its object. Remove the supposed Petrine jurisdiction and Rome loses its unique authority to dispense it. Remove the transferability of saintly satisfactions and the reference to the merits of Mary and the saints loses its function.

Yet none of those necessary components is explicitly taught by Christ.

None is explicitly taught by Peter.

None is explicitly taught by Paul.

None is explicitly taught by John.

None appears as an operating institution in Acts.

The historical documents show instead an increasingly elaborate theological construction.

This is not merely an accusation made from outside Catholicism. Paul VI himself acknowledged gradual development over the centuries. The real dispute concerns whether that development legitimately unfolds something already contained in revelation or whether it introduces a substantive mechanism for which the apostolic writings provide no demonstrable foundation.

On the evidence examined here, the latter conclusion is considerably stronger.

Scripture teaches the communion of saints, but not a treasury of surplus saintly satisfaction. Scripture teaches rewards for faithful works, but not an ecclesiastically transferable bank of merit. Scripture teaches consequences and fatherly chastening after sin, but not a quantified temporal punishment removable through indulgence. Scripture teaches binding and loosing, but never identifies those words with distribution of Mary’s and the saints’ merits. Scripture gives the Apostles authority, but never records them exercising the authority later claimed for papal indulgences. Scripture teaches succession in ministry and appointment of elders, but no laying on of hands creates an authority that Christ never first conferred. Scripture teaches repentance and forgiveness, but directs sinners through Christ to God rather than to a periodically opened treasury administered from Rome.

Most importantly, Scripture repeatedly presents Christ’s own work as complete.

“By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” — Hebrews 9:12.

“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” — Hebrews 10:10.

“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” — Hebrews 10:14.

“The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” — 1 John 1:7.

“There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” — 1 Timothy 2:5.

“Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” — Ephesians 2:18.

These are not isolated proof texts. Together they describe the theological architecture of the New Testament. Christ is the only High priest. Christ is the sacrifice. Christ is the mediator. Christ’s blood is the cleansing blood. Christ opens the way into the holiest. Christ gives liberty. Christ obtains redemption. Christ reconciles sinners to God. The Holy Ghost indwells the believer. The whole people of God become “a spiritual house, an holy priesthood” and “a royal priesthood” according to 1 Peter 2:5 and 2:9.

Against that apostolic architecture, Denzinger 2193 introduces something that must be proved rather than presumed: an institutionally administered treasury in which the merits of Christ are joined with those of Mary and the saints and from which punishment before God is remitted through fulfilment of papally prescribed conditions.

The question is not whether Pius XI sincerely believed this system represented the inheritance of the Apostles. The question is whether the Apostles themselves taught it.

They did not leave instructions for it.

They did not describe it.

They did not administer it.

They did not tell bishops to perpetuate it.

They did not tell believers to seek it.

They did not identify Rome as the perpetual repository of such power.

For that reason, Trent’s later assertion that Christ granted the Church the power of indulgences cannot settle the matter merely by being conciliar. Clement VI’s declaration that the treasury was entrusted to Peter cannot establish that entrustment merely by stating it. Pius XI’s exercise of the supposed power cannot prove its apostolic origin merely by exercising it. Paul VI’s description of the doctrine as development cannot create an apostolic foundation where the apostolic writings do not reveal the mechanism.

The final test remains the one Christ Himself supplied:

“He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” — John 12:48.

That standard places every bishop, council, pope, theologian, and Christian beneath the words of Christ rather than above them. Apostolic succession cannot manufacture apostolic doctrine. Ecclesiastical development cannot substitute for divine institution. Sacerdotal power cannot be passed down from the Apostles if Christ never gave that power to the Apostles in the first place.

The biblical Jubilee therefore returns us not to Rome but to Christ.

He is the One who proclaimed liberty to the captives. He is the One who delivers from the power of darkness. He is the One whose blood obtains redemption. He is the One who opens access to the Father. He is the One who has made His people free.

The decisive weakness of Denzinger 2193 is consequently not that it values repentance, good works, Christian communion, or holiness. Scripture values all of them. Its weakness is that it places those genuine Christian realities inside a later juridical and sacerdotal structure which the apostolic writings never establish: a papally administered treasury of transferable merits capable of remitting punishment before God.

That structure can be traced historically from medieval papal doctrine through Trent, Pius XI, Paul VI, and the modern Catechism. What cannot be traced with the same clarity is the one link upon which every later claim depends: Christ giving that power to the Apostles in the first place.

Without that link, succession cannot supply what the Apostles never received, and ecclesiastical authority cannot become its own proof.

Todays verses for reflection:

“But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” — 2 Corinthians 4:3–4, KJV

"and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.” —

Revelation 13:2, KJV

“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” — Revelation 12:9, KJV

“And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” — Revelation 16:13, KJV

“For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” — Revelation 16:14, KJV