Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/694

 PENANCE

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PENANCE

First Epistle about a. d. 9G, exhorting them: "Be subject in obedience to tiie priests [presbyteris] and receive disciphne [correct ionem] unto penance, bending the knees of your liearts" (Ep. I "Ad Cor.", Ivii). At tlie close, tlierefore, of the first century, the per- formance of penance was required, and the nature of that penance was determined, not by the penitent himself, but by ecclesiastical authority. (See Ex-

COMMfNICATION.)

Three kinds of penance are to be distinguished: canonical, prescribed by councils or bishops in the form of "canons" for graver offences. This might be either private, i. e., i)erformed secretly, or public, i. e., performed in the presence of bishop, clergy, and people. When accompanied by certain rites as pre- scribed in the Canons, it was solemn penance. The public penance was not necessarily canonical; it might be undertaken by the penitent of his own ac- cord. Solemn penance, the most severe of all, was inflicted for the worst offences only, notably for adul- tery, murder, and idolatry, the "capital sins". "The name of penitent was applied especially to those who performed public canonical penance. "There is a harder and more grievous penance, the doers of which are properly called in the Church penitents; they are excluded from participation in the sacraments of the altar, lest by unworthily receiving they eat and drink judgment unto themselves" (St. Augustine, "De util- itate agendse pcenit.", ser. cccxxxii, c. iii).

The penitential process included a series of acts, the first of which was confession. Regarding this, Origen, after speaking of baptism, tells us: "There is a yet more severe and arduous pardon of sins by pen- ance, when the .sinner washes his couch with tears, and when he blushes not to disclose his sin to the priest of the Lord and seeks the remedy" (Homil. "InLevit.", ii, 4, in P. G., XII, 418). Again he says: "They who have sinned, if they hide and retain their sin within their breast, are grievously tormented; but if the sinner becomes his own accuser, while he does this, he discharges the cause of all his malady. Only let him carefully consider to whom he should confess his sin; what is the character of the phj-sician; if he be one who will be weak with the weak, who will weep with the sorrowful, and who understands the discip- line of condolence and fellow-feeling. So that when his skill shall be known and his pity felt, you may follow what he shall advise. Should he think your disease to be such that it should be declared in the assembly of the faithful — whereby others may be edified, and yourself easily reformed — this must be done with much deliberation and the skilful advice of the physician" (Homil. "In Ps. xx.xvii", n. 6, in P. G., XII, 1.386). Origen here states quite plainly the relation between confession and public penance. The sinner must first make known his sins to the priest, who will decide whether any further manifesta- tion is called for.

Public penance did not necessarily include a public avowal of sin. As St. Augustine also declares, "If his sin is not only grievous in itself, but involves scandal given to others, and if the bishop [antisles] judges that it will be useful to the Church [to have the sin pubhshed], let not the sinner refuse to do penance in the sight of many or even of the people at large, let him not resist, nor through shame add to his mortal wound a greater evil" (Sermo cli, n. 3). It was therefore the duty of the confessor to determine how far the process of penance should go beyond sacramental confession. It lay with him also to fix the quality and duration of the penance: "Satisfac- tion", says Tertullian, "is determined by confession; penance is bom of confession, and by penance God is appeased" (De poenit., viii). In the East there existed from the earliest times (Sozomen, H. E., VII, xvij, or at least from the outbreak of the Nova- tianist schism (Socrates, H. E., V, xix) a functionary

known as presbyter penitentiarius, i. e., a priest spe- cially appoinTed on account of his prudence and reserve to hear confessions and imjjose public penance. IT the confessor deemed it necessary, he oliliged the peni- tent to appear before the bishop and his council (pres- bylerium) and these again decided whether the crime was of such a nature that it ought, to be confessed in presence of the people. Then followed, usually on Ash Wednesday, the imposition of public penance - whereby the sinner was excluded for a longer or shorter period from the communion of the Church and- in addition was obliged to perform certain penitential - exercises, the exomologcsis. This term, however, had various meanings: it dcsignat'cd .sometimes the entire process of penance (Tertullian), or again the avowal of sin at the beginning, or, finally, the public avowal which was made at the end — i. e., after the perform- ance of the iH'iiitential exercises.

The naf ure of t hcse exercises varied accordingipjlie sin for which they were prescribed. According to ^ Tertullian (De pcenit., IX), " Exomologesis is the dis- cipline which obliges a man to prostrate and humiliate himself and to adopt a manner of life that will draw down mercy. As regards dress and food, it prescl'tbes that he shall lie in sackcloth and ashes, clothe his body in rags, plunge his soul in sorrow, correct his faults by harsh treatment of himself, use the plainest meat and drink for the sake of his soul and not of his belly: usually he shall nourish prayer by fasting, whole days and nights together he shall moan, and weep, and wail to the Lord his God, cast himself at the feet of the priests, fall on his knees before tlibse who are dear to God, and beseech them to plead in his behalf". At a very early period, the exomologesis was divided into four parts or "stations", and the penitents were grouped in as many different classes according to their progress in penance. The lower class, the fienles (weeping) remained outside the church door and besought the intercession of the faithful as these passed into the church. The audi- entes (hearers) were stationed in the narthex of the church behind the catechumens and were permitted to remain during the Mass of the Catechumens, i. e., until the end of the .sermon. The subslrati (prostrate), or genuflectentes (kneeling), occupied the space be- tween the door and the ambo, where they received the imposition of the bishop's hands or his blessing. Finally, the consistentes were so called because they were allowed to hear the whole Mass without commu- nicating, or because they remained at their place while the faithful approached the Holy Tal)le. This group- ing into .stations originated in the East, where at lea.st the three higher groups are mentioned about A. D. 263 by Gregory Thaumaturgus, and the first or lowest group by St. Basil (Ep. cxcix, c. xxii; ccxvii, c. Ivi). In the West the classification did not exist, or at any rate the different stations were not so clearly marked; the penitents were treated pretty much as the cate- chumens, s

The exomologesis terminated with the reconciliation, ) a solemn function which took place on Holy Thursday ' just before Mass. The bishop presided, assisted by his priests and deacons. A consultation (concilium) was held to determine which of the penitents deserved readmission; the Penitential Psalms and the htanies were recited at the foot of the altar; the bishop in a brief address reminded the penitents of their obliga- tion to lead henceforth an upright lifej the penitents, lighted candles in hand, were then led mto the church ; prayers, antiphons, and responses were said, and, finally, the public absolution was given. (Sea Schmitz, "Die BussbUcher u. die Bussdisciplin d. Kirche", Mainz, 1.883; Funk in "Kirchenlex. ", s. v. "Bussdisciplin"; Pohle in "Kirchl. Handlcx.", s. v. "Bussdisciplin"; Tixeront, "Hi.st. des dogmes", Paris, 190.'5; Eng. tr., St. Louis, 1910.) Regardingthe nature of this absolution given by the bishop, vavious