THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
consciousness of sin shows itself among the pious Israelites, with, at the same time, a danger of confidence in the power of external forms to express this spirit, or even of themselves to effect the removal of sin (Dan. iv. 27).
The redeemer, like his herald, John, begins the proclamation of his message by a call to repentance (Matt. hi. 2, iv. 17; Mark i. 15). How thorough
this inner change and purification must 2. Christie be is set forth by the act of immer- Teaching. sion; and Christian baptism is to be
with the Holy Spirit, who imparts new life from above. As part of the Gospel, the good tidings of the kingdom which he preaches, Jesus represents himself as " come to save that which was lost" (Matt, xviii. 11-14, ix. 10-13; Luke xv.). In the Sermon on the Mount he declares the nature of the righteousness which must characterize those who share in the blessings of the new kingdom, and begins with poverty of spirit, mourning, hunger and thirst, as expressions of sorrow for the previous state of sin. Dying upon the cross, he accepts the penitent thief who bows to his punishment and with beseeching faith turns toward him. He has nothing to say of fasting or other external performances as productive by their own value of forgiveness.
The preaching of the apostles calls for a change of heart, the possibility of and impulse to which is found in the exaltation of Christ as the savior
(Acts v. 31, xi. 18), and with this bap-
3. Apos- tism in his name is connected. The
tolic deepest expression of a fundamental
Teaching, moral change at the passage from a
state of sin into the communion of saints is found in Paul's conception of being buried with Christ, or of putting tiff the old man and putting on the new (Rom. vi. 2 sqq.; Col. ii. 12; Eph. iv. 22 sqq.), and in John's doctrine of the new birth from above (John i. 12, 13, iii. 3). Here appears the fundamental unity between real repentance and the process called Regeneration (q.v.). For those, however, who are at heart in the communion of the new life, but are still conscious of the rebellious motions of the flesh, Paul has an exhortation to a continuous renewing and putting on of Christ (Rom. xii. 2, xiii. 14); a fresh change of heart must take place when men have yielded to sinful desires or grown lax in the spiritual life (Rev. iii. 15-19). For this, however, the New Testament knows no different essential elements from those which constituted the primary repentance; forgiveness is once more imparted in virtue of the atoning blood and continued intercession of Christ (I John i. 7-9, ii. 1, 2).
II. Development in the Church: In considering the doctrine of repentance as it developed in the Church in the post>apostolic period, distinction must
be made between the repentance pre-
1. Develop- ceding baptism and that prescribed for
ment of Christians who had fallen into grievous
Penance, sin after baptism, and between the
conditions imposed in the two cases. In baptism complete forgiveness is imparted in virtue of the redeeming work of Christ, repentance being required of the subjects only in the sense of a
thorough change of heart. In the penance of baptized Christians, which is compared by Jerome and Ambrose, and even as early as Tertullian, to a plank grasped by a shipwrecked man, there are required on the one hand certain external works of penance by which the sinner is to be freed of his guilt, and on the other his readmission into the fold by an ecclesiastical , hierarchic body, whose priests hear the confession of sin, give absolution, and impose certain external acts by way of satisfaction (see Excommunication; Penitential Books; Keys, Power of the). At first this ecclesiastical action took place only in the case of grave sins, especially idolatry, adultery, and murder, and had reference to the scandal given to the Church and the necessity of its taking part in the act of readmission. This act occurred only after a prescribed period of public penance and the pronouncement (originally only in the form of an intercessory prayer) of the divine forgiveness. (For the controversies in regard to the restoration of penitents, see Cyprian; Lapsed; Montanism; Novatian.)
Public penance was abandoned, first in the East, with the general relaxation of discipline and of the ties of church life, about the end of the fourth century. It went on longer in the West, at 2. Penance least for notorious sins; a restoration of as a Sacra- the old discipline was attempted in the ment. Carolingian period. But from the end of the eleventh century its place was taken by the private penance which had long been growing up by the side of it and was now imposed by the Church. All grave sins were to be confessed to the priest, who was to pronounce forgiveness (though not until the thirteenth century in a declaratory formula), and impose a fitting satisfaction. This act is called a sacrament as early as Peter Damian. The combination of absolution and subsequent satisfaction is explained (especially, in early days, by Abelard) by the theory that absolution indeed remits the guilt and the eternal punishment of sin, but that there still remains a temporal punishment which must be worked off by these satisfactions. With this theory is allied that of Indulgences (q.v.). For any necessary satisfaction not made in this life, the suffering of Purgatory (q.v.) is provided. The sacrament of penance , as described by scholastic theologians from Peter Lombard down, and in the canons of the Council of Trent, consists of three distinct acts on the sinner's part — contrition, confession, and satisfaction. A distinction is made between true contrition, by which a man sorrows "for his sins because they have offended the good God, whom he loves, and attrition, or " that incomplete repentance which exists when a man fears the divine judgments, abhors the hideousness of sin, makes a firm resolution to sin no more, and begins to love God as the source of righteousness " (H. Klee, Katholische Dogmatik, 3 vols., Mainz, 1835-41). Most of the scholastic theologians, whose opinion was confirmed by the Council of Trent, maintained that the operation of the sacrament supplied what was lacking in such attrition — that the Holy Ghost was at work even in it, and that while it was not sufficient to justify a