RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Renewal Repentance
arm. Cyril adds a running commentary, in which the significance of the act in its several parts is given with reference to the life of the times.
The establishment of the formula is proved by its entrance into the church orders of the fourth century, sometimes varied slightly, as in the form: " I renounce thee, Satan, and all thy service and all thy (unclean) works." The " Testament of the Lord " (ii. 8) makes the candidate turn to the West and recite: " I renounce thee, Satan, and all thy (military) service (literally, " wills "), and thy shows (literally, " theaters "), and thy pleasures, and all thy works " {Testament of our Lord, ed. J. Cooper and A. J. Maclean, p. 126, cf. 213, Edinburgh, 1902). The Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 41) has a longer formula: " I renounce Satan, and his works, and his pomps, and his worships, and his angels, and his inventions, and all things that are under him " (ANF, vii. 476). While it is abundantly evident that the foregoing is primarily the utterance of adults in their own persons, it is also clear that sponsors took upon them these vows in behalf of children (Tertullian, De baptismate, xviii., ANF, iii. 678 — Tertullian is arguing in this place against the admission of children to baptism; " Canons of Hippolytus," " Testament of our Lord," ii. 8). The form in use at Rome at least as early as the eighth century consisted of a triple question and answer: " Dost thou renounce Satan? I renounce (him). And all his works? I renounce (them). And all his pomps? I renounce (them)." In the original English form there were also three questions and answers: " Dost thou forsake the devil and all his works? I forsake them all. Dost thou forsake the vain pomp desires of the
same? I forsake them all. Dost thou forsake the carnal desires nor be led by them? I forsake
them." (J. H. Blunt, Annotated Book of Common Prayer, p. 413, New York, 1908).
This usage is confirmed by the Missale Gallicanum and the missal of Sarum, and the formula occurs in the office of the Orthodox Eastern Church for making a catechumen. The Armenian form is: " We renounce thee, Satan, and all thy deceitfulness, and thy wiles, and thy service, and thy paths, and thy angels." Practical uniformity is preserved also in the Jacobite, Coptic, and Ethiopic rites (cf. Denzinger's work, in bibliography).
Bingham {Origines, XL, vii. 4-5) calls special attention to these facts: (1) the baptisteries contained two rooms, and it was in the anteroom that the renunciation was made; (2) the direction in which the catechumen faced was (invariably) the West; (3) the renunciation was emphasized by gesture and act — by extension of the hands (probably with a triple gesture of repulsion), by striking of the hands together (thrice), even by (triple) exsufflation or spitting (Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio, xl., De baptismate; Dionysius, De hierarchia ecclesiastica, ii. 3). Geo. W. Gilmore.
From the medieval baptismal rite renunciation came into Luther's Taufbuchlein, and thence into the Lutheran ritual of baptism. The validity of baptism, however, was not made dependent on the renunciation; it is missing in some sixteenth-century forms, as the Wurttemberg Kirchenordnung of
1536. It was wanting in Zwingli's form for baptism, from which all additions, not founded on the Scriptures, are omitted, and in the Geneva ordinances, but is retained in the English baptismal liturgy. Since the rise of rationalism an effort has been made among Lutherans to abolish the renunciation because of the denial of the devil's existence, the offense which the cultured took at the practise, and the fear of promoting superstition. Furthermore, it has been regarded as a species of Exorcism (q.v.). Toward the end of the eighteenth century clergymen began to relax in their strict observance of church ordinances, and the renunciation disappeared in many congregations of Germany, but was more generally retained in the country. Many of the modern liturgies either omit it altogether or retain it in modified form. W Caspari.
Bibliography: Cyril of Jerusalem, " Catechetical Lectures to the Newly Baptized," first lecture, Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., vii. 144-146; Apostolic Constitutions, vii. 41, Eng. transl. in ANF, vii. 476; S. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, xxvii., Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., viii. 42; Bingham, Origines, XI., vii. 1-5; J. Vicecomes, Observationes ecclesiastical in quo de antiquis baptismi ritibus agitur, II., xx., Paris, 1618; W Cave, Primitive Christianity, I., x., London, 1672, Oxford, 1840; J. S. Assemani, Codex liturgicus ecclesice universes, i. 174, ii. 211, Rome, 1749-66; W. Maskell, Monumenta ritualia ecclesiw Anglicans, i. 22-23, 3 voh., London, 1846-47; J. M. Neale, Hist, of the Eastern Church, ii. 945, 5 vols., ib. 1850-73; R. F. Littledale, Offices from the Service Books of the Eastern Church, p. 134, ib. 1863; H. J. D. Denzinger, Ritus Orientalium, i. 198, 223, 234, 273, 279, 304, 321, 340, 354, 385, 2 vols., Wiirzburg, 1863-64; F. E. Warren, Liturgy and Ritual of the Ante-Nicene Church, London, 1897; L. Duchesne, Christian Worship, pp. 304-334, ib. 1904; Rituale Armenorum, ed. F. C. Conybeare, Oxford, 1905; J. H. Blunt, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, pp. 412- 413, New York, 1908.
RENZ, rents, FRANZ: Roman Catholic; b. at Altenstadt (38 m. s.w. of Augsburg) Oct. 3, 1860. He received his education at the gymnasium and high school at Dillingen and at the University of Munich; was ordained priest in 1884 and served as city chaplain at Nordlingen, 1884-85; was prefect at the boys' seminary at Dillingen, 1885-91; subregent at the theological seminary at Dillingen, 1891-97; director of the boys' seminary there, 1899-1901 ; regent of the theological seminary at the same place, 1901-03; went to Minister as professor of dogmatic theology, 1903; and to Breslau in the same capacity, 1907 He is the author of Opfercharakter der Eucharistie nach der Lehre der Vdter und Kirchenschriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (Paderborn, 1892); and Die Geschichte des Messopfer-Begriffs, oder die alte Glaube und die neuen Theorien uber das Wesen des unblutigen Opfers (2 vols., Freising, 1901-02).