Treasury of Merits?

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Can anyone please tell me where in the Bible or in Sacred Tradition (particularly in the Church Fathers) can I find the notion of a treasury of merits?
 
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mikeledes:
Can anyone please tell me where in the Bible or in Sacred Tradition (particularly in the Church Fathers) can I find the notion of a treasury of merits?
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19"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, 20but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Matthew 6:19-20; also see Luke 12:33)

21Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21; also see Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22)
 
Della said:
Here you go! 🙂
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That’s an anti-Catholic article and is FULL of theological errors. I’m glad you detracted it and made an honest mistake. Those articles like that are so beyond rational, Scriptural and historical truth that only the most extreme fundamentalists write them. The treasury of merit is based on reward NOT strict earning. Only Christ can earn anything in the strict sense, we earn in an analogous sense. When the word “merit” was being translated into Latin from the Greek the Church specifically used a term meritum (I may have spelled it incorrectly) that means “REWARD” and NOT strict earning. We don’t earn our salvation, we are rewarded it as obedient children of God.

The treasury of merits involves and is made up of the excess merits of Christ and merits (rewards) of the Saints. Christ merited our salvation since He couldn’t sin and was God, yet He even went extremely beyond true love and suffered, died and rose again for our sins; a total and perfect sacrifice. The Saints, although with sin went well beyond what God would have required from them to acheive their salvation and what they did was in cooperating with Gods grace. Salvation isn’t a strict formula for everyone, as some receive much more than others and are required of much more than others and without argument some go well beyond others in obedience.

The Saints went beyond the virtue we have that gives us eternal life. They had supernatural virtue which are excesses of merit (reward given to them by God for their obedience). The Catholic Church by virtue of the power to bind and loose, Mt 16:18,18:18 and the power of the “keys of the kingdom” given to Peter which are powers of authority over the universal Church, give the Church the ability to tap into those “rewards” from Christ and the Saints to declare the sins that we have already been forgiven for to be free of the sin of guilt, yet under strict conditions, i.e. sometimes even venial sins can’t be a part of a full indulgence. It requires penence and sacrifice.

This is an article that explains more in detail what is the treasury of merit and indulgences.

newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm
 
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