PAULUS, NIKOLAUS. — Theologian, born at Krautergersheim (Alsace) on 6 November 1853, died in Munich on 23 January 1930. He studied at Strasbourg and was ordained a priest in 1878. After a period of ministry, he withdrew to Munich (1885) and devoted himself entirely to study, earning a doctorate in theology in 1896. He investigated the problem of indulgences, exposing, on the basis of sources that were for the most part unpublished, inaccuracies, rumors, and falsehoods handed down in the writings of Protestants and Catholics.
Among his works, the following are particularly noteworthy: J. Tetzel, der Ablassprediger (Mainz 1899): the life and doctrine concerning indulgences of Luther’s famous contemporary; Die deutschen Dominikaner im Kampfe gegen Luther, 1518-63 (Freiburg im Breisgau 1903); Hexenwahn u. Hexenprozess vornehmlich im 16. Jahrhundert (ibid. 1910): a study of the conduct of the Reformers and Catholics with regard to witches; Protestantismus u. Toleranz im 16. Jahrhun-
dert (ibid. 1911): religious tolerance is the fruit not of Protestant theories, but of the circumstances created following the schism, favored by the cultural milieu of the Renaissance and fully matured at the time of the French Revolution. Of particular importance were the studies that P. published successively on the nature and history of indulgences, beginning with: Der Ablass für Verstorbene (in Zeitschr. für kathol. Theol., 24 [1900], pp. 1-36, 249-66), in which he demonstrates that in 1457 the faculty of applying an indulgence to the dead was granted for the first time; Die Ablässe der Kreuzsogenach (in Theologie u. Glaube, 5 [1913], pp. 1-15): he disputes the authenticity of certain indulgences granted to pilgrims to holy places; Zum Verständnis eigentümlicher Ablassurkunden (in Histor. Jahrbuch, 34 [1913], pp. 295-327): by an indulgence, the popes do not intend to remit guilt, but only the penalty due on account of it; Der erste Jubiläumsablass (in Theol. u. Glaube, 5 [1913], pp. 461-74); Das Jubiläum vom Jahre 1350 (ibid., pp. 532-41); Vollkommene Ablässe auf Grund des sogenannten Beichtbriefes (ibid., pp. 724-38): from the so-called confessionalia or litterae indulgentiales, and from the absolution a culpa et a poena granted by the confessor, who possessed the faculty of applying a plenary indulgence, the opinion may have arisen that, even outside the Sacrament, the application of the indulgence remitted both the penalty and the guilt; Die Anfänge des Sterbesablasses (ibid., 6 [1914], pp. 8-25): a history of the indulgence in articulo mortis; these partial investigations were crowned by Geschichte des Ablasses im Mittelalter (3 vols., Paderborn 1922-23): a complete history of this important chapter of Catholic theology.