Article I. On the Notion of Penance

306. Some derive the Latin name of penance from "to hold punishment" (poenam tenere), because the penitent imposes punishment upon himself in order to make satisfaction to the one offended. Others think that this name signifies to feel something "deeply" (penitus), that is, inwardly in the heart, and indeed weariness or sorrow of soul. In Greek penance is called μετάνοια, which is the same as a change of mind or resipiscence, that is, a return to right-mindedness.

The Greeks, however, in calling penance μετάνοια do not intend to say, as Luther did, that its whole essence consists in resipiscence, but that resipiscence is an evident sign of true penance. Lactantius already refuted Luther's error.³ The Greeks sometimes also call penance ἐξομολόγησις, that is, confession.

1. The profane senses of the name penance signify weariness, displeasure, and sorrow. Penance is employed both concerning good and concerning evil. Thus, for example, Cicero says concerning old age: "If then he had lived to his hundredth year, would he have regretted his old age?"

2. Theological senses. The word penance is taken by theologians principally in a threefold sense: a) for the moral virtue of penance; b) for the sacrament of penance; c) for that part of this sacrament which is also customarily called satisfaction. Penance taken in the first sense is rightly called interior penance by the Roman Catechism; but taken in the other two senses it is called exterior penance. Both penances, however, are intimately connected, so that in the present order of things neither can exist without the other. For the true virtue of penance includes the desire for the sacrament of penance, because the sinner cannot make satisfaction to God by his own powers, but needs the sacrament of penance for this. On the other hand, the sacrament of penance cannot be validly received unless an act of the true virtue of penance is present, namely, contrition or attrition. For although confession and satisfaction can be absent in a case of necessity, for example, in a man deprived of his senses, an act of the virtue of penance is altogether a condition without which someone cannot be validly absolved. This internal penance joined at the same time with external penance is customarily called by the Holy Fathers laborious baptism, or also the second plank after shipwreck. For the first plank of salvation after the shipwreck of original sin is baptism.

³ Inst. div. VI, 24 (Migne, Patr. lat. 6, 722 ff.).