II. Doctrine of the Patristic Period. — The misconcep- tion of the meaning of the power to hind and to loose was early manifested in the Chiu"ch. The Jewish-Christian Clementine Homilies, it is true, stiE. evince a knowledge of the original signification of the words to hind and to loose, inasmuch as they stQl supply — in the N.-T. sense — simply an impersonal object; but,withal, they have so far enlarged iqion the meaning of the expression as to find comprehended in tlie power to which it alludes all privileges of the episcopal ofrice as a continuation of the apostolical office (iii, 72). Quite the opposite was held in the Gentile-Christian Church of the 2d centurj-. It interjireted the power " to bind and to loose" as author- ity to retain and to forgive sin, and supplied the two verbs with personal objects; yet regarded— in the sp^it of the apostolic Church — as the authorities vested with the power to bind and to loose, the society (Church), and not the bishop.
In so far as from a heathen-Christian stand-point the power of the " keys" v:as identified with the power " to bind and to loose," the f<irmer was held to express in one conception both the latter acts, viz. excommunication and readmittance to the Church; but as the keys of Peter were taken also to comprehend all rights of Church government, and especially of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, we need not wonder that among the Church fathers of the patristic period all these different views were some- what mixed (comp. Tcrtullian, De Pudic. 21 ; Cj'prian, iJe unit, eccles. cap. 4). It was in the period of scholas- ticism that a really strict distinction was aimed at, and yet to this day Koman Catholics have failed to recog- nise generally this discrimination.
The whole Church was at first regarded as bearers of the keys, i. e. of the power to Mud and to loose, evidently because Christ works and has his abode there. (For this reason, also, the martyrs were accorded the position of "prrecipua ecclesia; membra," in whom Christ is active for his own glorification. Comp. Eusebius, v, 2, 5 ; Ter- tuUian, T)e Pudic. ; Idem, Apolor/. 39).
The first decided change of view is found among the Montanists. TertuUian (in his De Pudicitia) limits the promise of ^Matt. xvi, 18 sq. simply to the person of Pe- ter as the apostolical founder of the Church ; the power to forgive sin he regards as the right of the Church in so far as she is identical with the Holy (ihost. The bearer of this right he holds to be the spiritual man (spiritualis homo), but that the latter, in the interests of the Church, abstains from exercising this prerogative. His opponent, the Koman bishop, however, interpreted it in favor of all the bishops (bishopric = numcrus epis- coporum, chap. xxi). This thought Cj-prian enlarged upon ^^-ith a free use of the Montanistic thesis, holding that the episcopate is the inheritor (heir) of the aj^os- tolic power, the seat and the organ of the Holy Ghost, and therefore possessed of power to hind or to loose of its own accord. Of course, from such a stand-point. Cyprian was forced to reject as presumption the claim of the
martjTS to the power of the keys ; he only conceded to them the right of intercession for the fallen. To prove the ideal unity of the Church, Cyprian advances the ar- gument that the power of the ke3'S was first intrusted by Christ to Peter, and only afterwards to the other apostles {De unit, eccles, cap. iv). In the writings of Optatus Milevitanus this thought takes the form that Christ intrusted the keys to Peter, and that Peter him- self surrendered them to the other apostles. The power of the keys in this sense evidently denotes the episcopal power in aU its extent, i. e. the ecclesiastical govern- ment. AMth Cyprian, to bind and to loose already means to retain or forgive sins forever, yet he only uses these expressions when speaking of the forgiveness of sins by baptism (e. g. Epist. 73, c. 7). Later, however, they are used in a narrower sense, and refer to great sins com- mitted after baptism ; in short, they denote the right of exercising penance-discipline, a power in principle con- ceded to the bishop, but which actually he was permit- ted to exercise only in union with aU his clergy. Not all sins committed after baptism were subject to the power of the keys, only the greater ones, as Augustine has it, " committed against the Decalogue" (Serm. 351, i, "De poenit." c. 4). This declaration, however, is to be taken with the exception of all inward sins, i. e. tress- passes against the ninth and tenth commandments; moreover, in the older practice, onl}- the different species of idolatry, murder, and unchastity were punished by ecclesiastical courts. It is incorrect to argue, as has been done on the part of Protestants, that only the pub- lic sins — those which caused trouble to the Church, were taken account of by the Church. As to the sins alluded to above, whether committed in secret or publicly, it was supposed that they did injurj' to the gifts of regen- eration, and entangled the soul in the meshes of spirit- ual death ; they were therefore called pecccita (delicta or crimina) moi-talia, also cajntcdia ; the others were regard- ed as simply daily experiences of the remains cf weak- ness cleaving to the believer, of which it seems almost impossible to be rid in this life. For the former only the power of the keys and the exercise of penance were regarded as in force ; the latter, on the other hand, were supposed to be atoned for by the daily penance of a be- lieving heart, by the fifth request in the Lord's Prayer, by oblation and the eucharist, etc. They were called iieccata renialia.