Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/91

ABSOLUTION office (Alcuin, P. L., CI, 652–656; Benedict Levita, P. L., C, 357; Jonas of Orléans, P. L., CVI, 152; Pseudo-Egbert, P. L., LXXXIX, 415; Haymo of Halberstadt, P. L., CXVIII, 762 sqq.). Following the theologians, the canonists, such as Regino of Prüm, Burchard of Worms, Ivo of Chartres, furnish us with fuller proofs of the same power, and Harduin (Councils, VI, i, 544) cites the fifteenth canon of the Council of Troslé (909), which states expressly that penance through the ministry of Christ's priests is "fruitful unto the remission of sins". This epoch closes with St. Bernard, who takes Peter Abelard to task for daring to assert that Christ gave the power to forgive sins only to His disciples, and consequently that the successors of the Apostles do not enjoy the same privileges (P. L., CLXXXII, 1054). But while Bernard insists that the power of the keys given to the Apostles is lodged in the bishop and in the priests, he with equal stress insists that such power be not exercised unless the penitent make a full confession of wrong committed (ibid., 938). When the great scholastic epoch began, the doctrine which obtained was a power to absolve sins and this power distinctly recognized, in virtue of the power granted by Christ to His Apostles. On the part of the penitent, sorrow and a promise of better life were necessary, and also a declaration of sin made to him whom Christ had appointed judge.

—At the beginning of the scholastic age, special stress is laid upon the power of contrition to secure pardon. St. Anselm of Canterbury, in a commentary upon Luke xvii, 14, likens this power to that possessed of old by the Jewish priest in the case of leprosy (P. L., CLVIII, 662; ibid., 361–430). At first sight, the doctrine of St. Anselm seemed to annul the power to absolve which antiquity had granted to the priesthood, and to reduce the office of reconciliation to a mere declaration that sin had been forgiven. Hugo of St. Victor (1097–1141) took ground against Anselm, not because Anselm insisted on contrition, but because he seemingly left no place for the power of the keys. But how admit the one and not the other? Hugo says the sinner is "bound down by obduracy of soul, and by the penalty of future damnation"; the grace of God frees man from the darkness brought on by sin, while the absolution of the priest delivers him from the penalty which sin imposes—"The malice of sin is best described as obduracy of heart, which is first broken by sorrow, that later, in confession, the sin itself, i.e. the penalty of damnation, be remitted." There is some obscurity in the text, but Hugo seems inclined to hold that the priest absolves from the punishment due to sin, rather than from sin itself. The Master of the Sentences, Peter Lombard, took issue with Hugo, and asserted in clear terms that charity not only blotted out the stain of sin, but also freed the sinner from punishment due to sin. Not understanding, however, that penance as a sacrament is a moral unit, Peter Lombard in turn used language which is far from exact. He seems to hold that contrition takes away sin and its consequences, and when questioned concerning the power granted to the priest, he seems to recur to the opinion of Anselm that it is declarative. "They remit or retain sins when they judge and declare them remitted or retained by God" (P. L., CXCII, 888). He also grants to the priest certain power in reference to the temporal punishment due to sin (ibid.). Richard of St. Victor, though he speaks of the opinion of Peter Lombard as frivolous, in reality differs but little from the Master of the Sentences. Peter's opinion indeed exercised great influence over the minds both of his contemporaries and of the following generation. With William of Auvergne (who taught up to 1228, when he became Archbishop of Paris) comes the distinction between contrition and attrition in the Sacrament of Penance. Contrition takes away all stain of guilt, while attrition prepares the way for the real remission of sin in the sacrament. Theologians had recognized the distinction between contrition and attrition even before William of Paris, but neither Alexander of Hales nor Albert, the master of Aquinas, advanced much beyond the teaching of Peter Lombard. Both seemingly insisted on real contrition before absolution, and both also held that such contrition in reality took away mortal sin. They did not, however, deny the office of the minister, for they both held that contrition involved a promise of confession [Alb. Mag., IV Sent., Dist. xvi–xvii (Paris, 1894), XXIX, 559, 660, 666, 670, 700]. St. Bonaventure (IV, Dist. xvii) also admits the distinction between contrition and attrition; he asserts the power of contrition to take away all sin, even without the priest's absolution, confession being necessary only when possible. As regards the priest's power to pardon sin, he not only admits it, not only asserts that absolution forgives sin and its eternal consequences, but calls it the forma sacramenti. He even goes so far as to say that attrition is sufficient for pardon if accompanied by absolution (ibid., Dist. xviii). When questioned as to the manner in which absolution produces its sacramental effect, he distinguishes between two forms of absolution employed by the priest: the one deprecatory, "Misereatur tui" etc., and the other indicative, "Ego te absolvo". In the former the priest intercedes for the sinner, and this intercession changes his attrition into real contrition and secures pardon for sin committed. In the latter, which is indicative and personal, the priest exercises the power of the keys, but remits only a temporal punishment due still on account of sin. This after all is but a new way of putting the theory of Peter Lombard (ibid., Dist. xviii). St. Thomas Aquinas treats this subject in his Commentary on the Master of the Sentences (IV, Dist. xvii, xviii, xix; Summa Theologica III, QQ. lxxxiv–xc; Supplement, QQ. i–xx; Opuscula, Do Formâ Absolutionis). Taking the many distracted theories of the schoolmen with this partial truth, he fused them into a united whole. In the commentary on the "Libri Sententiarum" he shows clearly that the ministry of the priest is directly instrumental in the forgiveness of sin; for "if the keys had not been ordained for the remission of sin, but only for release from the penalty (which was the opinion of the elder scholastics), there would be no need of the intention to obtain the effect of the keys for the remission of sin"; and in the same place he clearly states: "Hence if before absolution one had not been perfectly disposed to receive grace, one would receive it in sacramental confession and absolution, if no obstacle be put in the way" (Dist. xvii, 2, I, art. 3, Quæstiuncula iv). He sees clearly that God alone can pardon sin, but God uses the instrumentality of absolution which, with confession, contrition, and satisfaction, concurs in obtaining forgiveness, in blotting out the stain, in opening the kingdom of heaven, by cancelling the sentence of eternal punishment. This doctrine is expressed again with equal clearness in the "Summa" and in the "Supplement". In the "Summa", Q. lxxxiv, art. 3, he states that the absolution of the priest is the forma sacramenti, and consequently confession, contrition, and satisfaction must constitute "in some way, the matter of the sacrament". When asked whether perfect contrition secured pardon for sin even outside the Sacrament of Penance, St. Thomas answers in the affirmative; but then contrition is no longer an integral part of the sacrament; it secures pardon because forgiveness comes from perfect charity, independently of the instrumentality of the sacramental rite (Supplement,