§ 117. PENANCE AND INDULGENCES. 733
repentance," as the Germans call it.1 This state of the heart the Schoolmen found represented in the experience of the prodigal at the moment when the father went out to meet him. According to this doctrine, a man may be forgiven and saved who is actuated simply by the fear of hell and punishment and has neither faith nor filial love in his heart. All he is required to do is to diligently go through the other steps of the process of penance, and the priest's pardon will be forthcoming.2
2. Confession to the priest, the second element in penance, is defined by Thomas Aquinas as the making-known of the hidden disease of sin in the hope of getting pardon.3 Not even the pope has the right to grant a dispensation from it any more than he may offer salvation from original sin with out baptism.4 It covers mortal sins. For the remission of venial sins, confession is not necessary. The Church makes daily supplication for such offences and that is sufficient. They do not separate the soul either from God or the Church.5 They are simply a sluggish movement of the affections toward God, not an aversion to Him. They are removed by holy water and other minor rites.
By the action of the Fourth Lateran, 1215, confession to
1 Timor servilis principium est attritionis, Alex, of Hales quoted by Schwane, p. 664. Th. Aquinas, Supplem., I. 2, Migne, IV. 919, is much more moderate than Alexander, Bonaventura, and Duns. Csesar of Heisterbach calls "servile fear a gift of God," Koeniger, p. 31. At the close of the Mid dle Ages, Gabriel Biel took the position that attrition is changed by confes sion and absolution into contrition. See Seeberg, Dogmengesch., II. 121.
2 See Halm, p. 413 ; Schwane, p. 666. The council of Trent, XIV. 4 (Schaff 's Creeds, II. 145 sq.) , adopted the word ' ' attrition " and denned it as an imperfect contrition. The doctrine of attritio formed a centre of discussion in the warm debate over indulgences started by Janssen's work and partici pated in by Kolde, Kawerau, Dieckhoff, etc. Harnack is very severe upon the doctrine as the dry rot in the Catholic system, Dogmengesch., II. 482, 604 sqq.
8 Aquinas quotes Augustine's definition, Supplem., VII. 1, IX. 3, Migne, IV. 940, 954. 4 Migne, IV. 939.
6 Th. Aq., III. 87. 1, Migne, IV. 890; Supplem., VI. 1, 3, VIII. 3, Migne, IV. 934, 936, 945. With characteristic exhaustiveness, Thomas goes into the question whether a man can confess sins he has never committed, Migne, IV. 936.
734 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1291.
the priest at least once a year was made a test of orthodoxy. Beginning with Alexander of Hales, the Schoolmen vindi cate the positions that confession, to be efficacious, must be made to the priest, and that absolution by the priest is an essential condition of the sinner's pardon. Bonaventura, after devoting much time to the question, " Whether it is sufficient to confess our sins to God," answered it in the negative. At greater length than Peter the Lombard had done, he quoted the Fathers to show that there was no unanimity among them on the question. But he declared that, since the decision of the Fourth Lateran, all are to be adjudged heretics who deny that confession to the priest is essential. Before that decision, such denial was not heresy.1
Confession must be made to the priest as Christ's vicar. In case of necessity, no priest being available, a layman may also hear confession.2 By such confession the offender may be reconciled to God but not to the Church, and in order to be so reconciled and admitted to the other sacraments he must also, as opportunity offers, confess again to the priest.
Priests were forbidden to look at the face of a woman at the confessional, and severe punishments were prescribed for betraying its secrets, even to degradation from office and life-long confinement in a convent.3 The mendicant monks were confirmed by Clement IV. and Martin IV. in their right to shrive everywhere. A contemporary declared that the whole of the Jordan ran into their mouths.4
3. Satisfaction, the third element in penance, is imposed by the priest as the minister of God and consists of prayer, pilgrimages, fastings, payments of money, and other good works. These penal acts are medicines for spiritual wounds
1 In Sent., IV. 17. 2, Peltier's ed., V. 674, ante hanc determinationem hoc non erat heresis, etc. Albertus Magnus also declared it was not sufficient to confess to God only, Borgnet's ed. XXIX. 603.
2Th. Aq., Supplem., VII. 1, 2, Migne, IV. 943 sq.; Bonaventura, Sent., XVII. 3. 1, Peltier's ed., V. 695. Csesar of Heisterbach speaks of confession to an unbeliever as efficacious in the article of death, provided the unbeliever does not ridicule the sacrament, Koeniger, p. 73.
3 Fourth Lat., can. 21, synods of Treves, 1227, Canterbury, 1236, etc,
* See Hefelc, VI. 30,