Unigenitus Dei Filius
The bull by which Clement VI proclaimed the jubilee of 1350. It describes the treasure of the church, formed by the merits of Christ and the saints, from which popes grant indulgences.
Clement VI issued the bull to announce that the Roman jubilee would be held every fifty years. In giving his reasons he states the teaching on which indulgences rest: Christ’s suffering won for the church an inexhaustible treasure; Christ entrusted it to Peter and his successors to dispense to those who are truly penitent and have confessed, for the full or partial remission of the temporal punishment due to sins; and the merits of Mary and of all the elect add to it.
The bull later stood in the collections of canon law. It is cited here as the church’s own statement of the doctrine that Martin Luther’s theses questioned in 1517.
Cited in
- 31 October 1517, firm date