382 FOUKTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
For the authoritative teaching of the Roman church on the Sacramentum Pcenitentice see Cone. Trident. Sess. XIV. held 1551.
The word repentance or penitence is an insufficient rendering for the corresponding Greek metanoia, which means a radical change of mind or conversion from a sinful to a godly life, and includes, negatively, a turning away from sin in godly sorrow (repentance in the narrower sense) and, positively, a turning to Christ by faith with a determination to follow him.1 The call to repent in this sense was the beginning of the preaching both of John the Baptist, and of Jesus Christ.2
In the Latin church the idea of repentance was externalized and identified with certain outward acts of self-abasement or selfpunishment for the expiation of sin. The public penance before the church went out of use during the seventh or eighth century, except for very gross offences, and was replaced by private penance and confession.3 The Lateran Council of 1215 under Pope Innocent III. made it obligatory upon every Catholic Christian to confess to his parish priest at least once a year.4
Penance, including auricular confession and priestly absolu tion, was raised to the dignity of a sacrament for sins committed
1 Penitence is from the Latin pcenitentia, and this is derived from pozna, KOIVTJ (compensation, satisfaction, punishment}. Jerome introduced the word, or rather retained it, in the Latin Bible, for /ueTdvoia, and poenitentiam agere for fieravoetv. Hence the Douay version : to do penance. Augustin, Isidor, Rabanus Maurus, Peter Lombard, and the R. Catholic theologians connect the term with the penal idea (pozna, punitio) and make it cover the whole penitential discipline. The English repentance, to repent, and the German Basse, Bussethun follow the Vulgate, but have changed the meaning in evangelical theology in conformity to the Greek /uerdvoia.
2 Matt. 3 « 2 ; 4 : 17 ; Mark 1. 15. Luther renewed the call in his 95 Theses which begin with the same idea, in opposition to the traffic in in dulgences.
3 Pope Leo the Great (440-461) was the 'first prelate in the West who sanc tioned the substitution of the system of secret humiliation by auricular con fession for the public exomologesis. Ep. 136. Opera I. 355.
4 Can. 21 : " Omnis utriusque sexus fidelis, postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit, omnia sua solus peccata confiteatur fideliter, saltern semel in anno, proprio sacerdoti." Violation of this law of auricular confession was threatened with excommunication and refusal of Christian burial. See Hefele V. 793.
\ 87. PENANCE AND INDULGENCE. 383
after baptism. The theory on which it rests was prepared by the fathers (Tertullian and Cyprian), completed by the schoolmen, and sanctioned by the Roman church. It is supposed that bap tism secures perfect remission of past sins, but not of subsequent sins, and frees from eternal damnation, but not from temporal punishment, which culminates in death or in purgatory. Penance is described as a " laborious kind of baptism/' and is declared by the Council of Trent to be necessary to salvation for those who have fallen after baptism, as baptism is necessary for those who have not yet been regenerated.1
The sacrament of penance and priestly absolution includes three elements : contrition of the heart, confession by the mouth, satisfaction by good works.2 On these conditions the priest grants absolution, not simply by a declaratory but by a judicial act. The good works required are especially fasting and alms giving. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, Tours, Compostella, and other sacred places were likewise favorite satisfactions. Peter Damiani recommended voluntary self-flagellation as a means to propitiate God. These pious exercises covered in the popular mind the whole idea of penance. Piety was measured by the quantity of good works rather than by quality of character.
Another mediaeval institution must here be mentioned which is closely connected with penance. The church in the West,
1 Cone. Trid. Sess. XIV. cap. 2 (Schaff's Creeds I. 143). The Council went so far in Canon VI. (II. 165) as to anathematize any one "who denies that sacramental confession was instituted or is necessary to salvation, of divine right ; or who says that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the church has ever observed from the beginning (?), and doth observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ, and is a human inven tion."
2 Contritio cordis, confessio ori*, satisfactio operis. See Cone. Trid. Sess. XIV. cap. 3-6 (Creeds, II. 143-153). The usual Koman Catholic definition of this sacrament is: " Sacramentum poenitentla'. csf sacramentam a Christo in*iitutuw,quo homini contrito, cnnfesso ct sntisfacturo (satisfacere volenti) per juridicam s<icerdoti* absolutionem peccata post baptismum commissa remittnntur." Oswald, Die dogmat. Lehre von den htil. Sacramenien der katholischen Kirche, II. 17 (3rd ed. Mtinster 1870).