RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Keys, Power of the
nevertheless, the priest, as the medium between the sinner and God, being the spokesman both of the sinner and of God, was deprecator and judge in one. Eternal punishment can not be remitted by the priest, but only by God. On the other hand, the " power of the keys " extends to temporal punishment, since the priest is a divinely appointed judge; while purgatory is remitted only per accidens, the priest being able to change the pains of purgatory into temporal punishment, and thus into penance.
On this basis Thomas Aquinas completed the Roman Catholic doctrine of the " power of the keys." He distinguished between the clavis ordinis and the clavis jurisdictionis (Summa, qusestio 19, art. 3, resp.), the former, received by the priest in his ordination, opening heaven immediately to individuals through sacramentary absolution; and the latter having this effect only through excommunication and absolution before the forum of the Church. The clavis ordinis alone having a sacramental nature, laymen and deacons may possess the clavis jurisdictionis, which also includes the granting of indulgences (qusestio 25, 4. The art. 2 ad 1 m.). The exercise of the Twofold clavis ordinis presupposes the posses- Key and sion of the clavis jurisdictionis; but, Thomas on the other hand, the clavis ordinis be- Aquinas. comes effective only through the clavis jurisdictionis (qusestio 20, art. 1-2, resp.), so that by depriving schismatics, heretics, and the like of the clavis jurisdictionis, a bishop may withdraw from them the . power of exercising the clavis ordinis (qusestio 19, art. 6, resp.). The sacramental clavis ordinis finds its exercise in priestly absolution, and it was through Thomas Aquinas that the individual elements of the sacrament of penance were united in the Roman Catholic doctrine of the "power of the keys." He bases his view on the concept that God alone remits sin and eternal punishment as a return for a contrition which is perfected by fulness of love and by a desire for sacramental confession and absolution. Such a penitent has the grace given him increased by the " power of the keys "; and in case his contrition is not sufficiently deep, the same power removes the obstacles to the entrance of the atoning grace, provided the sinner himself sets up no opposing barriers. The "power of the keys" remits a portion of the temporal punishment, the residue being atoned for by the prayers, alms, and fasting prescribed to the penitent by the priest as satisfaction (qusestio 18, art. 2-3). These latter, moreover, may be remitted by the clavis jurisdictionis through indulgences (qusestio 25, art. 1, resp.), which, in view of the concept of vicarious satisfaction on which they are based, may be used for the benefit of souls in purgatory. This development of the " power of the keys " essentially changed the form of absolution; for although Alexander of Hales states that in his time the deprecatory formula was followed by the indicative, the latter must have been an innovation, since until thirty years before Thomas Aquinas the formula used by all priests had been Absolutionem et remissionem tibi tribuat Deus. He himself defended the use of Ego te abselvo on its analogy to the other sacraments, and
as exactly expressing the effect of the sacrament of penance and the " power of the keys," even though retaining the deprecatory formula as a prayer before the indicative, a usage still followed by the Rituale Romanum.
The teaching of Thomas Aquinas on the " power of the keys " was essentially adopted by Eugene IV. at the Council of Florence (1439) and still more fully by the fourteenth session of the Council of Trent (Nov. 25, 1551). While the Decree (cap. 6) and the Canons (9-10) of the Council
5. The of Trent declare that the absolution is Tridentine not a mere statement of forgiveness, but
Decree, is a judicial and sacramental act, the Roman Catechism makes the " power of the keys " extend to all sins without exception (i. 11, 5), while the absolution pronounced by the priest, who represents in all sacraments the person of Christ, actually effects the forgiveness of sins (ii. 5, 10, 11, 17). While, moreover, in contrition, confession, and satisfaction the penitent is active (opus operans), he is absolutely passive and receptive toward absolution, which works entirely ex opere operato.
From another point of view, the Roman Catholic priest is essentially a judge, not only in foro ecclesiw, but in foro Dei. In this capacity he investigates the sins of the penitent to determine their proper punishment, and considers the spiritual state of him who makes confession, that he may know whether to bind or loose. Since, however, on the one hand, the formula Ego te absolvo implies that the absolution is infallible and absolute; while, on the other hand, the possible error
6. The of the priest, the infrequency of his Problem of ability to know completely the state of
Priestly his penitent's soul, and the insufE- Fallibility. ciency of confession as a substitute for omniscience, render his decision only conditional, Roman Catholic dogmatics wavers as a result of the combination, without true union, of the two courses of development sketched above. Practically, however, the entire remission of sins requires from the penitents only contrition (repentance made perfect in love), confession, and satisfaction. For contrition is substituted attrition (mere fear of punishment), and what it lacks in earnestness and depth is made up by confession in its entirety and by absolution. The latter transmutes eternal punishment into temporal, and temporal into penance, this being remitted by indulgences. Thus the infallible judgment of the priest becomes fallible only in the case of the deliberate hypocrite; and the one firm and immutable result of the confused course of development here sketched is the infallibility of the power of the Church to bind and loose, the single unalterable kernel of the entire dogma of the " power of the keys " and of the sacrament of penance.
In the Greek Church private confession was introduced for the monks by Basil (d. 379); and from about the end of the iconoclastic controversy (see Images and Image Worship, II.) until the middle of the thirteenth century the "power of the keys" was vested exclusively in the monks according to their ecclesiastical grade. Collision with the priest-
Keys, Power of the Kief