§ 87. Penance and Indulgence.
§ 87. Penance and Indulgence.
Nath. Marshall (Canon of Windsor and translator of Cyprian, d. 1729): The Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church for the first 400 years after Christ, together with its declension from the fifth century downward to its present state. London 1714. A new ed. in the "Lib. of Anglo-Cath. Theol." Oxford 1844.
Eus. Amort: De Origine, Progressu, Valore ac Fructu Indulgentiarum. Aug. Vindel. 1735 fol.
Muratori: De Redemtione Peccatorum et de Indulgentiarum Origine, in Tom. V. of his Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi. Mediol. 1741.
Joh. B. Hirscher (R.C.): Die Lehre vom Ablass. Tübingen, 5th ed. 1844.
G. E. Steitz: Das römische Buss-Sacrament, nach seinem bibl. Grunde und seiner gesch. Entwicklung. Frankf a. M. 1854 (210 pages).
Val. Gröne (R.C.): Der Ablass, seine Geschichte und Bedeutung in der Heilsökonomie. Regensb. 1863.
Domin. Palmieri (R.C.): Tractat. de Poenit. Romae 1879.
George Mead: Art. Penitence, in Smith and Cheetham II. 1586–1608. Wildt, (R.C.): Ablass, in Wetzer and Welte2 I. 94–111; Beichte and Beichtsiegel, II. 221–261. Mejer in Herzog2 I. 90–92. For extracts from sources comp. Gieseler II. 105 sqq.; 193 sqq.; 515 sqq. (Am. ed.)
For the authoritative teaching of the Roman church on the Sacramentum Poenitentiae see Conc. Trident. Sess. XIV. held 1551.
The word repentance or penitence is an insufficient rendering for the corresponding Greek metanoia, which means a radical change of mind or conversion from a sinful to a godly life, and includes, negatively, a turning away from sin in godly sorrow (repentance in the narrower sense) and, positively, a turning to Christ by faith with a determination to follow him.403 The call to repent in this sense was the beginning of the preaching both of John the Baptist, and of Jesus Christ.404
In the Latin church the idea of repentance was externalized and identified with certain outward acts of self-abasement or self-punishment for the expiation of sin. The public penance before the church went out of use during the seventh or eighth century, except for very gross offences, and was replaced by private penance and confession.405 The Lateran Council of 1215 under Pope Innocent III. made it obligatory upon every Catholic Christian to confess to his parish priest at least once a year.406
Penance, including auricular confession and priestly absolution, was raised to the dignity of a sacrament for sins committed after baptism. The theory on which it rests was prepared by the fathers (Tertullian and Cyprian), completed by the schoolmen, and sanctioned by the Roman church. It is supposed that baptism secures perfect remission of past sins, but not of subsequent sins, and frees from eternal damnation, but not from temporal punishment, which culminates in death or in purgatory. Penance is described as a "laborious kind of baptism," and is declared by the Council of Trent to be necessary to salvation for those who have fallen after baptism, as baptism is necessary for those who have not yet been regenerated.407
The sacrament of penance and priestly, absolution includes three elements: contrition of the heart, confession by the mouth, satisfaction by good works.408 On these conditions the priest grants absolution, not simply by a declaratory but by a judicial act. The good works required are especially fasting and almsgiving. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, Tours, Compostella, and other sacred places were likewise favorite satisfactions. Peter Damiani recommended voluntary self-flagellation as a means to propitiate God. These pious exercises covered in the popular mind the whole idea of penance. Piety was measured by the quantity of good works rather than by quality of character.
Another mediaeval institution must here be mentioned which is closely connected with penance. The church in the West, in her zeal to prevent violence and bloodshed, rightly favored the custom of the barbarians to substitute pecuniary compensation for punishment of an offence, but wrongly applied this custom to the sphere of religion. Thus money, might be substituted for fasting and other satisfactions, and was clothed with an atoning efficacy. This custom seems to have proceeded from the church of England, and soon spread over the continent.409 It degenerated into a regular traffic, and became a rich source for the increase of ecclesiastical and monastic property.
Here is the origin of the indulgences so called, that is the remission of venial sins by the payment of money and on condition of contrition and prayer. The practice was justified by the scholastic theory that the works of supererogation of the saints constitute a treasury of extra-merit and extra-reward which is under the control of the pope. Hence indulgence assumed the special meaning of papal dispensation or remission of sin from the treasury of the overflowing merits of saints, and this power was extended even to the benefit of the dead in purgatory.410
Indulgences may be granted by bishops and archbishops in their dioceses, and by the pope to all Catholics. The former dealt with it in retail, the latter in wholesale. The first instances of papal indulgence occur in the ninth century under Paschalis I. and John VIII. who granted it to those who had fallen in war for the defence of the church. Gregory VI. in 1046 promised it to all who sent contributions for the repair of the churches in Rome. Urban II., at the council of Clermont (1095), offered to the crusaders "by the authority of the princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul," plenary indulgence as a reward for a journey to the Holy Land. The same offer was repeated in every crusade against the Mohammedans and heretics. The popes found it a convenient means for promoting their power and filling their treasury. Thus the granting of indulgences became a periodical institution. Its abuses culminated in the profane and shameful traffic of Tetzel under Leo X. for the benefit of St. Peter’s church, but were overruled in the Providence of God for the Reformation and a return to the biblical idea of repentance.
Note.
The charge is frequently made against the papal court in the middle ages that it had a regulated scale of prices for indulgences, and this is based on the Tax Tables of the Roman Chancery published from time to time. Roman Catholic writers (as Lingard, Wiseman) say that the taxes are merely fees for the expedition of business and the payment of officials, but cannot deny the shameful avarice of some popes. The subject is fully discussed by Dr. T. L. Green (R.C.), Indulgences, Sacramental Absolutions, and the Tax-Tables of the Roman Chancery and Penitentiary, considered, in reply to the Charge of Venality, London (Longmans) 1872, and, on the Protestant side, by Dr. Richard Gibbings (Prof. of Ch. Hist. in the University of Dublin), The Taxes of the Apostolic Penitentiary; or, the Prices of Sins in the Church of Rome, Dublin 1872. Gibbings reprints the Taxae Sacrae Poenitentiariae Romanae from the Roman ed. of 1510 and the Parisian ed. of 1520, which cover 21 pages in Latin, but the greater part of the book (164 pages) is an historical introduction and polemical discussion.
See the passages in Gieseler IL 55 (Harpers’ ed.) The Synodical courts were called Sendgerichte (a corruption from Synod).
Liber Poenitentialis, Poenitential, Confessionale, Leges Poenitentium, Judicia Peccantium.
By Prof. Wasserschleben of Halle, 1851 (from several Continental MSS.), and Canon Haddan and Prof. Stubbs, Oxford, 1871, (III. 173-203) from a Cambridge MS. of the 8th century. The texts of the earlier editions of Theodori Poenitentiale by Spelman (1639), D’Achery (1669), Jaques Petit (1677, reprinted in Migne’s Patrol. 1851, Tom. 99), Thorpe (1840), and Kunstmann (1844) are imperfect or spurious. The question of authorship and of the MS. sources is learnedly discussed in a note by Haddan and Stubbs, III. 173 sq. See extracts in the Notes.
Both are given in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc. III. 326 sqq. and 413 sqq.
This is the view of Wasserschleben, while Schmitz thinks that the Poenitentiale Romanum was originally intended for the Roman church, and that the Westem Penitentials are derived from it.
But during the papal schism, the rival popes excommunicated each other, and the Council of Constance deposed them.
Aegidius (Aijgivdio"); Italian: Sant Egidio; French: S. Gilles. He was an abbot and confessor in France during the reign of Charles Martel or earlier, and much more celebrated than reliably known. He is the special patron of cripples, and his tomb was much visited by pilgrims from all parts of France, England and Scotland. Almost every county in England has churches named in his honor, amounting in all to 146. See Smith and Wace I. 47 sqq.
Bened. Papae VIII. Epist. 32 (ad Guillelmum Comitem). In Migne’s Patrol. T. 139, fol. 1630-32. Lea translates it in part, l.c. p. 337. "Benedict Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to Count William and his mother, the Countess Adelaide, perpetual grace and apostolic benediction .... Let them [who a tempted to rob the monastery] be accursed in their bodies, and let their souls be delivered to destruction and perdition and torture. Let them be damned with the damned: let them be scourged with the ungrateful; let them perish with the proud. Let them be accursed with the Jews who, seeing the incarnate Christ, did not believe but sought to crucify Him. Let them be accursed with the heretics who labored to destroy the church. Let them be accursed with those who blaspheme the name of God. Let them be accursed with those who despair of the mercy of God. Let them be accursed with those who he damned in Hell. Let them be accursed with the impious and sinners unless they amend their ways, and confess themselves in fault towards St. Giles. Let them be accursed in the four quarters of the earth. In the East be they accursed, and in the West disinherited; in the North interdicted, and in the South excommunicate. Be they accursed in the day-time and excommunicate in the night-time. Accursed be they at home and excommunicate abroad; accursed in standing and excommunicate in sitting; accursed in eating, accursed in drinking, accursed in sleeping, and excommunicate in waking; accursed when they work and excommunicate when they rest. Let them be accursed in the spring time and excommunicate in the summer; accursed in the autumn and excommunicate in the winter. Let them be accursed in this world and excommunicate in the next. Let their lands pass into the hands of the stranger, their wives be given over to perdition, and their children fall before the edge of the sword. Let what they eat be accursed, and accursed be what they leave, so that he who eats it shall be accursed. Accursed and excommunicate be the priest who shall give them the body and blood of the Lord, or who shall visit them in sickness. Accursed and excommunicate be he who shall carry them to the grave and shall dare to bury them. Let them be excommunicate, and accursed with all curses if they do not make amends and render due satisfaction. And know this for truth, that after our death no bishop nor count, nor any secular power shall usurp the seigniory of the blessed St. Giles. And if any presume to attempt it, borne down by, all the foregoing curses, they never shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, for the blessed St. Giles committed his monastery to the lordship of the blessed Peter."
Corresponding to the Cherem, as distinct from Niddui (i.e. separation), in the Jewish Synagogue. See J. Lightfoot, De Anathemate Maranatha, and the commentators on Gal. 1:8, 9 (especially Wieseler).
Interdictum orprohibitio officiorum divinorum, prohibition of public worship. A distinction is made between interd. personale for particular persons; locale for place or district; and generale for whole countries and kingdoms.
Aug. Ep. 250, § 1; Leo, Ep. X. cap, 8—quoted by Gieseler, and Lea, p. 301. St. Basil of Caesarea is sometimes quoted as the inventor of the interdict, but not justly. See Lea, p. 302 note.
Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc. VIII. 31.
Conc. Lemovicense II. See Mansi XIX. 541; Harduin VI. p. 1, 885; Hefele IV. 693-695; Gieseler II. 199 note 12.
See the graphic description of the effects of this interdict upon the state of society, in Hurter’s Innocenz III., vol. I. 372-386.
403 Penitence is from the Latin poenitentia, and this is derived from poena, poivnh (compensation, satisfaction, punishment). Jerome introduced the word, or rather retained it, in the Latin Bible, for metavnoia, and poenitentiam agere for metanoei'n Hence the Douay version: to do penance. Augustin, Isidor, Rabanus Maurus, Peter Lombard, and the R. Catholic theologians connect the term with the penal idea (poena, punitio) and make it cover the whole penitential discipline. The English repentance, to repent, and the German Busse, Bussethun follow the Vulgate, but have changed the meaning in evangelical theology in conformity to the Greek metavnoia.
404 Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15. Luther renewed the call in his 95 Theses which begin with the same idea, in opposition to the traffic in indulgences.
405 Pope Leo the Great (440-461) was the first prelate in the West who sanctioned the substitution of the system of secret humiliation by auricular confession for the public exomologesis. Ep. 136. Opera I. 355.
406 Can. 21: "Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis, postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit, omnia sua solus peccata confiteatur fideliter, saltem semel in anno, proprio sacerdoti."Violation of this law of auricular confession was threatened with excommunication and refusal of Christian burial. See Hefele V. 793.
407 Conc. Trid. Sess. XIV. cap.2 (Schaff’s Creeds I. 143). The Council went so far in Canon VI. (II. 165) as to anathematize any one "who denies that sacramental confession was instituted or is necessary to salvation, of divine right; or who says that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the church has ever observed from the beginning (?), and doth observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention."
408 Contritio cordis, confessio oris, satisfactio operis. See Conc. Trid. Sess. XIV. cap. 3-6 (Creeds, II. 143-153). The usual Roman Catholic definition of this sacrament is: "Sacramentum poenitentiae est sacramentum a Christo institutum, quo homini contrito, confesso et satisfacturo (satisfacere volenti) per juridicam sacerdotis absolutionem peccata post baptismum commissa remittuntur." Oswald, Die dogmat. Lehre von den heil. Sacramenten der katholischen Kirche, II. 17 (3rd ed. Münster 1870).
409 Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury is the reputed author of this commutation of penance for a money-payment. See his Penitential I. 3 and 4, and the seventh penitential canon ascribed to him, in Haddan and Stubbs III. 179, 180, 211. "Si quis"says Theodore, "pro ultione propinqui hominem occiderit, peniteat sicut homicida, VII. vel X. annos. Si tamen reddere vult propinquis petuniam aestimationis, levior erit penitentia, id est, dimidio spatii."The Synod of Clove-ho (probably Abingdon), held under his successor, Cuthbert, for the reformation of abuses, in September 747, decreed in the 26th canon that alms were no longer to be given for diminishing or commuting the fastings and other works of satisfaction. See Haddan and Stubbs, III. 371 sq.
410 This theory was fully developed by Thomas Aquinas and other schoolmen (see Gieseler II. 521 sq.), and sanctioned by the Council of Trent in the 25th Session, held Dec. 4, 1563 (Creeds II. 205 sq.), although the Council forbids "all evil gains" and other abuses which have caused "the honorable name of indulgences to be blasphemed by heretics." The popes still exercise from time to time the right of granting plenary indulgences, though with greater caution than their mediaeval predecessors.