Actually the power of the keys was exercised by the whole clerical body, under the presidency of the bishop. In formal inquisitorial proceedings, the fact of the com- mission of a mortal sin was determined either by the voluntary confession of the perpetrator or by indictment and hearing of witnesses, followed, in case of established guilt, by the declaration of excommunication ; but the excommunicated retained the privilege of praying for admission to the exercise of penance in the Church. This last, in early days, was in all cases public, especially after the time of Augustine, at least in cases of public crime; but after the beginning of the 4th centurj' it was regiUated by steps corresponding to catcchumcnical grades. Upon the expiration of tlie term of penance, the length of which, in the early Church, was discretionarj- v.-ith the bishop, but in later times was determined by ecclesiastical laws, the excommunicated was again re- ceived into Church membership. This act, which was consummated by imposition of hands, prayer, and the kiss of peace hv the bishop, with the assistance of the clergy before tlie altar (ante apsidem), in presence of the membership of the Church, was called reconciliation, or the bestowal of peace (pacem dare). Penitent souls, however, in danger of immediate death, coidd be recon- ciled even before the expiration of their period of pen- ance, in presence of the bishop, by any presbyter, or, if such a one was not accessible, even bj^ a deacon (Cyp- rian, Epist. xviii, 1 ; Cone. Eliberit. can. 32) ; a practice which we find even as late as the Middle Ages, and which clearly proves that in the early Churcli reconcil- iation was more an act of jurisdiction than of order.
KEYS, POWER OF THE
62
KEYS, POWEll OF THE
In the earliest days of the Church, the exercise of its prerogative of the ])ower '• to loose," in reconciliation, coincided completely witli (ihsolution, except that to this term there was not fciven the meaning which it re- ceived in tlie Middle Ages. Above all, it must not be forgotten tliat the Church fathers did not place the atoning power in the reconciling activity of the Church, but in the activitj' of the penitent himself; from the Church the penitent received only instruction how to heal the wound he had created by sin : hence they fre- quently designated penance as the medicine, and the clerus imposing it as the physician ; he (the penitent) was to repair himself from his crime by his good -works, anil merit the divine forgiveness. Thus must be un- derstood Cyprian's frequent demand of "justa pceniten- tia," which consists in the congruity of the guilt with the penance offered as reparation. That God alone ab- solved from sin was the accepted axiom of the early Church. Yet the Church hesitated not to consider it- self one of the means of grace, competent to assist in the work of salvation, acting upon the theory laid down by Cyprian: "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus." So long as the mortally sinning one saw himself inwardl}' and outwardly separated from the Church, the absolute way to salvation, divine forgiveness, seemed to him inacces- sible ; there was no need of judgment by the courts, he was already judged. If the Church again admitted him to, membership among the purified, he was not nec- essarily among the number of the saved, but he had at least the prospect of salvation ; he now belonged to the number of those over whom the Lord on the final day woidd sit in judgment, from whom he would select his own. Upon this point Cyprian (Ep. Iv, 15, 24) and Pa- cian {Epkl. ad Si/mpron. in tine) are very clear. As the absolving judgment of the Church thus becomes rather luicertain, depending upon approval or rejection in the final judgment, there was need of further elucidation. Reconciliation was therefore joined with prayer by a petition that God would forgive the penitent his sins, accept as sufficient his repentance, which of course could only afford a limited satisfaction for the committed of- fence, and restore to him the lost sjiiritual gifts. For tliis reason the act was accompanied by the imposition of hands ; compare Augustine, Be Baptism, iii, c. IG, who says of this ceremony that it is " oratio super hominem," i. e. the sj-mbolic pledge that the answer of prayer should benefit the penitent, and that with it was be- stowed the gift of the Holy Ghost. In this sense Cyp- rian speaks of a "remissio facta per sacerdotes apud Dominum grata" — for he knows only a forgiving activ- ity of God; and with him all alisolving action of the ("nurch confines itself to the restitution of external com- munion, and the prayerful intercession of the Church, viz. of tlie priests, martyrs, and believers. However greatly I'acian and Ambrosius may differ in their de- fence against the Novatians on the right of the priest to absolve from sin, they never claimed for the priest more than the power of intercession — a privilege which they believed lie held in common with the congregation.
It is in the Augustinian period that wo first discover an endeavor to delinc the jjiace of the priest in the ex- ercise of the power of the keys. The older fathers, Cyp- rian and Amlirose, had limited the effect of mortal sins by holding that they infiicted a mortal wound upon the fallen— calling to mind the man who, on his way from .leni-iakMn to .lericho. fell among murderers; and so ec- cli'siastical penance was regarded simjily as a remedy for the atHicted. In the Augustinian jieriod, however. sin was held to be a deatli-intlicting agent, implying that the fallen was dead, and had to be restored to life. But, as the Church did not possess this power, a change of heart was supjjosed to precede the exercise of the p )W('r of the keys — in slKtrt, th'at a divine intluence vis- it ;'d the heart before any human agency could be effec- tually applied. Augustine, in several passages of his v.-ritings ( e. g. Traci 22 in Ei: Joh. ; Tract. 40, No. 24") finds the process exemplified in the resurrection of Laz-