Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/508

 486 PENANCE tion of apostasies and compromises than any of the others, and the rise of Novatianism within two years, in protest against the leniency exercised towards the lapsed. Although the church rejected the extreme theories of rigid discipline which Xovatian formulated, yet it was tacitly admitted that he did but exaggerate a truth, and the reins began to be drawn tighter from that time forward. Much in formation regarding the practical working of the system in the third century can be gathered from the epistles of Cyprian, and from his treatise On the Lapsed ; but the fact that he had to struggle against a lax party in Africa, at the very time when laxity was preponderant in the Italian Church, proves that no uniform system had yet been evolved. The 4th century is the period when broad general rules, intended to apply to all cases, begin to be laid down, and when the distribution of penitents into fixed classes or grades is clearly evident. The Eastern Church took the lead in this development, and canons of Ancyra and Xeo-Ca?sarea in 314 refer to the grades of penance in terms which imply their general recognition as already established. They are first defined in an epistle ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus about the year 258, and are as under : (1) Weepers, forbidden to. enter a church, and permitted merely to assemble at the doors to ask the prayers of those entering ; (2) Hearers, suffered to come in for the Scripture lessons and the minor offices, but obliged to depart before the eucharistic office began ; (3) Kneelers, allowed to attend the earlier part of the eucharistic office, as far as the close of the introductory portion, but obliged to withdraw then along with the catechumens ; (4) Standers, who might remain throughout the entire rite, but were not suffered to communicate. This minute subdivision does not seem to have made good a footing in Western Christendom, where the first of these degrees is not found on record (Morinus, De Penitent., vi. 8), nor did it hold its ground very long in the East itself, disappearing as it does during the 5th century. The penitential observances usually imposed on those who were admitted to these grades were public confession of their offence in presence of the congregation, and that, in the case of the lowest grade, several times over ; the disuse of all ornaments, and the assumption of a sackcloth garb, with the streAving of ashes on the head (Euseb., If. U., v. 28) ; men had to cut off their hair and shave their beards ; women to wear their hair dishevelled and to adopt a special veil ; all had to abstain from baths, festivals, and, gener ally speaking, all physical enjoyments, and fasting on bread and water was often enjoined ; they were bound to much more frequent and regular attendance at all religious assem blies than the faithful or the catechumens (Cone. Carthag. IV., c. 81); if possessed of means, they were required to give largely in alms, or to assist actively in works of charity ; and they were, for the first ten centuries, incapable of being admitted to ordination. One result of the crowds of peni tents which had to be dealt with after the lull that followed the Decian persecution was that the bishops were no longer sufficient in numbers to deal with each case separately, though under the earlier system the bishop alone (even when the presbyters acted as his assessors) could put to penance, as he continued for a long time to be the only officer who could reconcile and readmit those who had per formed their appointed penance. A practice arose, therefore, of appointing certain presbyters to confer with all persons applying for admission to penance, and to receive their confessions privately, in order to prepare them for the public confession which made an integral part of penance, and indeed to decide whether they could be admitted thereto at all. These officers, known as &quot;penitentiaries,&quot; were abolished in the church of Constantinople by the patriarch Xectarius about 390 (Socrat., If. E., v. 19 ; Sozom., //. E., vii. 16), and his example was followed throughout nearly the whole East ; but the office continued in the AYest, with various modifications necessitated by the gradual change of discipline. The main difference between the earlier and later systems lies in the fact that penance was for some centuries restricted to certain very grave sins, to wit, idolatry, adultery, and murder, with such lesser offences as were closely allied (as, for instance, the delivery of the sacred books to pagan inquisitors, that traditio which has given the words &quot;treason&quot; and &quot;traitor&quot; to modern diction); nor does it appear that any distinction was made between the treatment of those penitents whose guilt was notorious and those whose own voluntary confession alone made it manifest. Minor offences were punished with suspension of communion and with refusal of oblations at the hands of the offender, and many Avere left wholly to the indi vidual conscience. But the catalogue of canonical offences was much enlarged at the time when the penitential system Avas developed and codified, theft, usury, false Avitness, polygamy, habitual drunkenness, and some others being included amongst those Avhich had to be publicly expiated. Yet it Avas this increased severity Avhich led to the almost total abrogation of public penance, because of the scandal given by the publication of the numerous offences on the IICAV list, Avhereas the cases under the older rule Avere necessarily feAV, hoAvever serious. It is clearly stated by both Socrates and Sozomen that the motive of Xectarius in abolishing the office of penitentiary Avas to avoid the recurrence of an uproar occasioned by the public confession of a lady of high rank, implicating others in a disgraceful fashion, so that he judged it better to leave the question of communion to be settled in private by penitents Avith their religious advisers, and not to be made matter of general publicity. This became the rule at once in the East, but public penance held its place in the West for many centuries longer, and in fact has never become entirely obsolete. There AA r as, hoAvever, a considerable innovation introduced after the 7th century, in that offences privately committed Avere put in a different category from public sins, and Avere no longer made liable to public penance, but might be, and soon Avere, dealt with by private confession and penance only. Not only so, but, Avhereas the accusation of any person to the bishop as an offender Avas the usual mode of bringing his case under ecclesiastical cognizance in the earlier Christian centuries, on the other hand the discipline introduced in the Middle Ages Avas to exact public penance from such alone as had been convicted on trial before secular judges. The first beginnings of this innovation on Western usage are attributed by Morinus Avith much probability to Theodore of Tarsus, the Greek archbishop of Canterbury, Avho sat from 668 to 690, and whose Penitential (or code of ecclesiastical discipline), though not the earliest even noAV extant in the British Isles, soon achieved wide acceptance throughout the West, not- Avithstanding that it folloAved the then long- established Eastern usage in favour of private as opposed to public confession. A more serious innoA T ation, fraught with dangerous consequences, made its appearance somcAvhat later, that of buying off a penance by a money payment to be expended in alms, a system in full force in the 9th century, as attested by the capitularies of Hincmar of Kheims and Herard of Tours. Another custom Avhich tended to break doAvn the efficiency of the earlier discipline was that of resorting to Home to have the more serious cases adjudicated on by the pope. At first this Avas an exceptional mode of dealing with difficult matters, regarded as too serious or too intricate for local decision, but by the llth century it had become a fashion, so that offenders of any rank or Avealth refused habitually to submit to