PAULUS, Nikolaus. - Theologian, b. at Krautergersheim (Alsace) on 6 Nov. 1853, d. at Munich on 23 Jan. 1930. He studied at Strasbourg and was ordained priest in 1878. After a period of ministry, he retired to Munich in 1885 and devoted himself entirely to study, obtaining a doctorate in theology in 1896. He investigated the problem of indulgences, dismantling, on the basis of largely unpublished sources, inaccuracies, rumors, and falsehoods propagated in writings by Protestants and Catholics.
Among his works, the following are particularly noteworthy: J. Tetzel, der Ablassprediger (Mainz 1899); Leben und Lehre vom Ablass des berühmten Zeitgenossen Luthers; Die deutschen Dominikaner im Kampfe gegen Luther, 1518–63 (Freiburg in Br. 1903); Hexenwahn und Hexenprozess vornehmlich im 16. Jahrhundert (ibid. 1910): a study of the attitude of the Reformers and Catholics toward witches; Protestantismus und Toleranz im 16. Jahrhundert (ibid. 1911): religious tolerance is not the fruit of Protestant theories but of circumstances arising from the schism, fostered by the cultural environment of the Renaissance and fully matured at the time of the French Revolution.
Of particular importance were the studies that P. published progressively 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 was granted for the first time to apply an indulgence for the dead; Die Ablässe der Kreuzwegandacht (in Theologie und Glaube, 5 [1913], pp. 1–15): he contests the authenticity of certain indulgences granted to pilgrims of the Holy Land; Zum Verständnis eigentümlicher Ablassurkunden (in Hist. Jahrbuch, 34 [1913], pp. 295–327): with the indulgence, the popes did not intend to remit guilt but only the penalty due; Der erste Jubiläumsablass (in Theol. und 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 “confessional” or “litteral” indulgences, and from the absolution a culpa et a poena of the confessor endowed with the faculty to grant a plenary indulgence, there may have arisen the opinion that, even outside the sacrament, the application of the indulgence remits both guilt and penalty; Die Anfänge des Sterbesablasses (ibid., 6 [1914], pp. 8–23): the history of the indulgence in articulo mortis; these partial researches culminate in Geschichte des Ablasses im Mittelalter (3 vols., Paderborn 1922–23): a complete history of this important chapter of Catholic theology.