RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Keys, Power of the
sins was somewhat uncertain (cf. Tertullian, De pudidtia, 19; Adversus Mareionem, iv. 9; Augustine, Sermo cccli. 4; Pacianus, Parcenesis ad poenitentiam, 3), practically idolatry, murder, and adultery were from the very first the chief 4. Sins objects of ecclesiastical discipline.
Controlled The passages supposed to prove that
by the in the Greek Church the belief was
Power, early prevalent that all sins might be
forgiven (Clement, Stromata, ii. 13;
Origen, Contra Celsum, iii. 51; Dionysius of Corinth
in Eusebius, Hist, eccl., iv. 23, 6) are too vague to
admit of this interpretation; and while it is clear,
from Tertullian's De pudidtia that no rigid rule
was followed with respect to carnal sins, he states
as a general principle (De pudidtia, 12; cf. 22 and
Origen, De oratione, xxviii.) that idolatry and
murder were considered unpardonable.
The Western Church, on the other hand, steadily extended pardon to all sins, thus connecting the " power of the keys " more closely with the episcopal office. After 250 even the lapsed (see Lapsi) were admitted to pardon, thus postulating forgiveness for idolatry, although in many regions the more rigid practise was retained as
5. Treat- in Spain at the beginning of the fourth
ment of century and at Caesarea in Cappadocia.
the Lapsed Pardon for a second lapse, however,
and was forbidden by Pope Siricius and
Penitent, was unknown to Augustine (Epist. cliii. 7), besides being rejected by the eleventh canon of the third Synod of Toledo, although Sozomen had already declared his conviction that " God has decreed that pardon should be extended to the penitent, even after many transgressions " (Hist, eccl., vii. 16).
As a matter of fact the " power of the keys " was exercised by the clergy under the supervision of the bishop, and the laity took no further part as early as the middle of the third century (cf. Cyprian, Epist., xix. 2, xlix., lix. 15; Augustine, Sermo cccli.). After excommunication and penance for a mortal sin, the penitent was again received into the Church. This act was termed reconciliation, and was performed by the laying on of hands, prayer, and the kiss of peace by the bishop, assisted by the clergy before the altar in the presence of the congregation. The pardoning power of the Church thus coincided with absolution (see Confession), though not in the medieval sense, since the atoning force of penance rested in the act of the penitent himself, not in the reconciling power of the Church. While God alone forgave sins, the Church, as his merciful institution, could not refuse her cooperation, but pointed out to the penitent the way in which the wound of sin might be healed. Then evolved the attitude represented by Cyprian: " Outside the Church there is no salvation," even though the absolving power of the Church was not final, but must be confirmed at the Last Judgment, thus requiring prayer and the laying on of hands.
Beginning with Augustine, the tendency arises to bring the priest's activity in the exercise of the " power of the keys " into closer connection with divine grace; and the sinner is no longer considered as a wounded man to be healed, but as a corpse
to be revived. Since this is impossible for the Church, a preliminary working of grace in the heart is assumed, which is later to be completed by the operation of the " power of the keys." While Augustine bases forgiveness in reconciliation simply on the petition of the congregation of the faithful, Leo the Great regards the priests 6. The as the specific intercessors for the Power fallen, basing his view on Matt, xxviii. and the 20, which he restricts to the clergy Priesthood. (Epist., lxxxii.; Ad Theodorum, 2). The Roman Catholic concept of a clerical priesthood independent of the laity, and with whose mediation all works of grace are connected, thus received sharp and conscious expression, and the accretions of later times are but the development of the basal idea of Leo. There was, however, as yet no formal pronouncement of absolution. An entirely different view is advanced by other Fathers. On the basis of Lev. xiv. 2 sqq., Jerome (Commentary on Matthew, iii.) held that ecclesiastical authority possessed merely the right to decide that they were set free whom the inward grace of God had freed, and that they were bound whom divine grace had not set free. Very similar are the terms used by Gregory the Great (Homilia xxvi. in Evangelia, 6), but it is clear from his own statements how little this theoretic distinction practically implied.
III. The Middle Ages and the Roman Catholic Doctrine: The primitive Church distinguished between three classes of members — the faithful, catechumens, and penitents. The " power of the keys " was established chiefly for the third class, though in some respects also for the second; for these two classes alone stood in need of ecclesiastical reconciliation or absolution. Early in the Middle Ages, however, a tendency arose among the newly converted Germanic peoples to make penance, which originally was a special institution for special occasions, a general characteristic of the 1. Penance, whole Church, and to establish the "power of the keys," which originally dealt with penitents only, as a general court of judicature above all the faithful. The first indication of this tendency was that, through monastic discipline, sins in thought gradually became subject to the "power of the keys," deviating herein from the practise of the early Church. In the monasteries it was considered a rule of discipline to confess to the brethren even the slightest occurrences of sinful emotions. The penitential of the Irish Vinnians prescribes for sins in thought a rigid fast for half a year, and abstinence from wine and meat for a whole year. The Anglo-Saxon penitential, which bears the name of Theodore of Canterbury, prescribes from twenty to forty days' fast for feeling lust. This system was introduced into the Frankish Church by St. Columban of Luxeuil (q.v.) and his pupils, and received the support of the Frankish bishops, as is evidenced by the eighth canon of the Synod of Chalon-sur-Saone (after 644). It must also be noted, however, that as early as the fifth century, Johannes Cassianus of Marseilles (q.v.), a semi-Pelagian influenced by Eastern monasticism, had postulated eight " principal sins " of thought,
Keys, Power of the