THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
still in use: " Receive the Holy Ghost, safeguard and shelter against all malice, strength and help toward all good, from the gracious hand of God the Father."
But this rite gained ground in only a few
3. Practise districts of the Lutheran jurisdiction, of the Re- since during the transitional negotia-
f ormers. tions this modi fied confirmatio fell under suspicion of being an unju3tified concession to the Church of Rome, and was on that account rejected by the opposers of the Interim. Hence for a long time the rite was not instituted in some of the Lutheran districts, though it readily gained admission with the Calvinists. Among the Lutherans it was customary to observe only the so-called private confirmation; the catechumen, in his later boyhood, was brought by his sponsors before the quahfied minister, by him examined, and thereupon, if found competent, admitted to communion. The general adoption of public confirmation was expedited by the desire to enhance the effect of catechetical instruction by a ceremonial conclusion; by the endeavor to counteract the inroads of the Roman propaganda, and by the effort to implant religion in the child's receptive nature. Since, however, the introduction of public confirmation coincided in part with a time when the existing liturgies were no longer binding, the rite was frequently shaped according to the preference of individual ministers.
Now that confirmation has become in the Lutheran churches a generally solemnized ecclesiastical rite, and also a church rite which even the outer world notices with deference to family ties and friendship, theologians have naturally attempted to account for its nature and meaning. It has been regarded as supplementary to baptism
4. Modern (Schleiermacher), or as an act of re- Lutheran ception into the confessional church
Teachings. (Wegschneider, Bretschneider) ; as a testin^onial of majority in the case of those baptized as children (Nitzsch, Dorner); as reception into the congregation of adults; ae a means of constituting a more limited congregation upon which devolves the direction of the life of tlie Church, but which also alone enjoys the privilege of communion (J. C. C. von Hofmann); as a consummation of the state of a baptized catechumen and as a renewal of the baptismal bond on the subjective side; as a lay ordination and reception into the communing congregation (Zezschwitz); as a cliarismal communication of the Spirit through tlie laying on of hands (Vilmar). To all these explanations there are weighty objections. The theory of modern times, that confirmation in so far as it bestows the right to communion should be deferred, is subject to the objection that a potential participation in the Eucliarist is compatible with such penitent and faithful reception as may be presupposed in the case of baptized and instructed children. So it is best to bestow the right to commune upon baptized and instructed children, by solemn confirmation or laying on of hands before the assembled congregation. W Caspaui.
In the Anglican Church there has been a widespread popular tendency to look upon the rite in the light of a formal admission to communion, the
rubric in the Prayer-book reading: "And there shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion until such time as he be confirmed, or be
5. The An - ready and desirous to be confirmed."
glican and But the latter alternative shows tHat Roman no essential connection exists between Catholic the two; and, as a matter of fact, there
Churches, is no practical difference between the teaching of at least the High-church party and that of the Roman Catholic Church on this subject. The definition in Article XXV., which includes confirmation as among " those five commonly called sacraments," but " not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel," seems to place it with the things which " have grown of the corrupt following of the Apostles " — as regards, that is, the medieval form. Omitting the chrism, and emphasizing the laying on of hands, the Anglican Church goes back to the New Testament record; but it is contended by Roman Catholic theologians that the contact with the bishop's hand in the act of unction, to say nothing of the blow upon the cheek (intended to symbolize the conferring of the character of a soldier of Christ, who must be ready to " endure hardness "), is quite sufficient to cover this point.
Bibliography: Bingham, Origines, book xii.; E. Martfene, De antiquis ecclesice ritibus, vol. i., chap, i., Antwerp, 1736; J. F. Bachmann, Die Confirmation der Catechumenen, 3 vols., Berlin, 1852; F. X. Kraus, Realencyklopddie, article " Salbung," Freiburg, 1882-86; H. Hurter, Theologice dogmaticce compendium, vol. iii., Innsbruck, 1893; KL, iv. 1506-14; DCA, i. 424-425.
CONFITEOR : The name applied, from its first word in Latin, to the formula used for public confession in the Roman Catholic missal and breviary, and also usually employed to begin a private confession. It consists of an acknowledgment of sin primarily to God, and then also to the Virgin Mary and other saints and to the priest or congregation present, as all injured in some degree by the sins acknowledged (I Cor. xii. 26); and of a request addressed to the same persons to pray God for the sinner. The oldest sacramentaries and Ordines Romani do not contain this formula; the first trace of it appears with Egbert, archbishop of York (735), and Chrodegang, bishop of Metz (d. 743), as an introduction to sacramental confession. Thereafter it appears in various forms and uses, until the revised missal of Pius V. finally introduced uniformity.
CONFLICT OF DUTIES: A term which usuuUy covers a larger ground than that strictly and
logically falling under it. It actually Origin. means the coincidence of ethical
demands which exclude each other and thus excite a conflict in the person whose actions they claim. Under the influence of classical antiquity, especially of Cicero, the doctrine of virtue, combined with the doctrine of duties, became the fundamental basis of ethics, and the conflict of duties became a favorite theme. Where ethics was developed essentially in the form of a doctrine of duties the question became inevitable how various demands could exist side by side and what should