§ 117. PENANCE AND INDULGENCES. 729
ing an altar, on which they placed the sacred morsel. All the bees from the neighborhood were attracted and sang beautiful melodies. The rustic went out, expecting to find the hives overflowing with honey but, to his amazement, found them all empty except the one in which the host had been deposited. The bees attacked him fiercely. He repaired to the priest, who, after consulting with the bishop, went in procession to the hive and found the miniature church with the altar and carried it back to the village church while the bees, singing songs, flew away.
These stories, which might be greatly multiplied, attest the profound veneration in which the host was held and the crude superstitions which grew up around it in the convent and among the people. The simple and edifying communion meal of the New Testament was set aside by mediaeval theology and practice for an unreasonable ecclesi astical prodigy.
§ 117. Penance and Indulgences.
The sacrament of penance was placed in close connection with baptism by the Schoolmen, as it was later by the coun cil of Trent, which called it a "sort of laborious baptism." 1 Baptism serves for the deletion of original sin; penance for the deletion of mortal sins committed after baptism. Using Tertullian's illustration, the Schoolmen designated penance the second plank thrown out to the sinner after shipwreck as baptism is the first.2 In daily religious life, penance became the chief concern of the people and also the chief instrumentality of the priesthood in securing and strengthen ing its authority. The treatment given to it by the School-
1 Duns Scotus had spoken of the " satisfaction which is the doing of a labo rious work," quce est executio operis laboriosi. Report IV. 16. 1, quoted by Schwane, p. 669.
2 Tertullian, de Poen, XII. So also Jerome. See the Lombard, Sent., XIV. 1, Migne, 868; Bonaventura, Sent., XIV. 1, Peltier's ed., V. 553 ; Breml., VI. 10, VII. 323; Th. Aq., III. 84. 6, Migne, IV. 862; Supplem., VI. 3. 936; Alb. Magnus, In Sent., Borgnet's ed., XXIX. 404 sq.
730 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
men is even more elaborate than the treatment they give to the eueharist.1
One feature in which this sacrament differs from the others is the amount of positive activity it requires from those who seek the grace involved in it. Contrition, confes sion to the priest, and the performance of good works pre scribed by the priest were the conditions of receiving this grace. Everything depends upon God, and yet everything depends upon the subjection of the penitent to the priest and his act of absolution. It is in connection with this sacrament that the doctrine of the keys comes to its full rights. Here a man is absolved from sin and reunited with the Church, and reconciled to Christ through the mediation of the sacer dotal key.2
Two perversions of Scripture were the largest factors in developing the theory of meritorious penance. The first was the false interpretation of John 20 : 23, " Who soever sins ye forgive they are forgiven, and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained." The passage was interpreted to mean that Christ conferred upon the Apostles and the Church judicial authority to forgive sins. The Protestant theory is that this authority is declarative. The second factor was the Vulgate's translation of the New Testament for the word " re pent," posnitentiam agite, " do penance," as if repentance were a meritorious external exercise, and not a change of disposi tion, which is the plain meaning of the Greek word ^era^oeo), " to change your mind." 3
1 The Lombard devotes two and a half times the space to penance that he does to the eueharist ; Migne's ed., pp. 868-899, as against pp. 856-868 on the eueharist ; Hugo of St. Victor, Migne's ed., 550-578, as against 462-471 on the eueharist ; Th. Aquinas, Migne's ed., 852-1023, as against 695-852 on the eu eharist, and Bonaventura nearly four times as much space devoting to pen ance, Peltier's ed., vol. V. 533-709, vol. VI. 1-129, and to the eueharist, vol. V. 415-533.
2 Absolvitur homo a peccato, et reunitur ecclesice et reconciliatur Christo, mediante clam xacerdotali, Bonaventura, BreviL, VI. 10, Peltier's ed., VII. 323.
3 The Rheims Version translates the word " do penance," though not uni formly, thereby utterly confusing the English reader who involuntarily puts into the New Testament word the Church's sacramental invention.