To n. 439. - Appendix XI. Historical-Liturgical Matters Concerning the Sacrament of Penance

I. Historical development. In order that we may omit many things which are disputed among Catholics themselves (for example, concerning the interpretation of places in which confession made to God alone is commended), and hand down only those things which serve our purpose and plainly suffice, three epochs are conveniently distinguished concerning the administration and use of the sacrament of Penance.

The first epoch, from the beginnings up to the fourth century. Penance is exhibited as the second plank after shipwreck, as another Baptism, but one that is laborious. Grave fault makes the sinner a debtor toward the Church and toward God, if indeed the Church is one with Christ. Public confession for occult sins, as the Council of Trent itself testifies, was never commanded by the Church; but the arguments by which the use of private penance and secret confession is demonstrated from the first centuries are set forth at length by R. P. Galtier, S.J., Dict. d'Apol. d'Ales, v. Pénitence, from n. 311. Yet he who sought penance showed himself ready to take up the public state of penitents. Therefore the ordinary process embraced these parts:

a) the petition for penance, on account of grave faults, directed to the bishop or to a priest delegated by the bishop. The accusation or confession itself accompanied the petition;

b) after the accusation had been made, the reduction of the guilty party to the state of penance, and his exclusion from the offering of the sacrifice and its participation by Holy Communion. This exclusion (which in the East had various grades) was at first prolonged for several years, then, already from Innocent I (417), only up to Thursday in the Lord's Supper, unless grave sickness required a swifter reconciliation;

c) on Thursday in the Lord's Supper (the last liturgical day before Easter), reconciliation with the Church and thence with God. The one reconciled did not for that reason put off the state of a penitent; but, to the end of life, he had to persevere in the works of a holier life. Public penance was conceded only once. The reconciliation of a penitent who was not sick was per se reserved to the bishop. But by the very reconciliation with the Church the sinner was judged to have recovered the peace of Christ.

Nor, during the first three centuries, did there exist a special liturgical rite for conferring absolution. None, moreover, is required by the nature of this sacrament. For the sentence can be signified by the competent judge once every will of dismissing sins has been set forth (cf. d'Ales, Dict. d'Apologétique, Pénitence, III, col. 1791, or Xiberta, Clavis Ecclesiae, p. 32).

As is clear, an administration of penance of this kind supposes a relatively rare use. In the rite of admission to the state of a penitent, which otherwise is little known, there was a certain imposition of hands, a vestige of which can be discerned in the present rite, in which the priest, with his right hand raised toward the penitent, says: "May he have mercy on you... Indulgence, etc." A prayer also was said by the minister. In his treatise De Pudicitia, which Tertullian composed when he was already a Montanist, thus, reproving Pontiff Callistus on account of his indulgence, he describes the reconciliation of the penitent sinner thus: "You indeed, bringing the penance of the adulterer into the church to entreat the brotherhood, prostrate him in the midst, wrapped in sackcloth and ashes, arranged with dishonor and horror, before widows, before presbyters, invading the hems of all, licking the footprints of all, holding the knees of all; and over that exit of a man, with as many allurements of mercy as you can, good Pastor and blessed Pope, you preach, and in the parable of the sheep you seek your goats, and fill the other sheep also with fear lest your sheep again leap out of the flock, as if from then on that were lawful which was not lawful even once, especially while you are indulgent" (c. 13, P. L., II, 1003).

In the second epoch, from the fourth or fifth century to the twelfth-thirteenth, many catechumens deferred Baptism, and many baptized sinners deferred penance for a long time. Again, however, the more fervent faithful began to seek penance from devotion. The state of penance thus undertaken became honored and was regarded as very meritorious.

In the East, already in the fourth century, public penance seems to be removed by desuetude. And canonical epistles, for example those of St. Basil the Great, wished to order the manner of penance. In the West, although public penance persevered there to the eleventh century, the very custom of the barbarians of establishing for various delicts a compensation by a pecuniary fine (Wehrgeld) could contribute to changing ecclesiastical discipline, so that not a perpetual state of penance but definite expiations were prescribed. Hence also it was lawful to have recourse to penance several times. These expiations, first defined very severely in penitential books (in which they were contained; propagated from Great Britain into various parts of Europe, these books already had their beginnings from the fifth century), and at least in a broad sense prescribed for the confessor, subsequently had to be tempered, so that they were entrusted more to the prudent judgment of the priest.

Then also, on account of the greater frequency of confessions, the entire administration of the sacrament was permitted to priests who shared episcopal jurisdiction by delegation or office.

The juridic formula of absolution was not yet well determined, since the efficacy of remission was attributed indiscriminately to the whole rite. Thus the deprecatory formulas, which were then circulated, are more easily explained, such as the following: "Holy Lord, Almighty Father, eternal God, who through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord deigned to heal our wounds, we humbly ask and beseech you, we your humble priests, that you deign to incline the ear of your goodness to our prayers, and remit all crimes and forgive all sins, and give to this your servant, for punishments pardon, for sorrow gladness, for death life" (from Morin, Commentarius historicus de disciplina in administratione sacramenti paenitentiae, where, in book VIII, c. 7 ff., several examples are found).

Around the sixth century, as we learn from the Gelasian Sacramentary (ed. Wilson, p. 14), at Rome penitents on Wednesday of Ashes were received by the priest; over them, covered with haircloth, prayer was poured out, and they were shut up in a monastery until Thursday in the Lord's Supper.

On Thursday in the Lord's Supper they were solemnly reconciled. Mass was begun without the Introit and without Dominus vobiscum. After a preliminary prayer of the priest, the penitents, brought in by the deacon, lay on the ground in the church. In their name the deacon, using a rather long but very beautiful formula, sought reconciliation for those who by their tears had merited pardon. An exhortation of the Pope or priest followed. The ceremony ended with prayer and eucharistic prayer.

In the Mozarabic rite, however, reconciliation, which was called Indulgence, took place on Friday in Parasceve. After the preludes in which are found the Reproaches, "My people, what have I done to you," the office was begun with three readings: a prophetic one, from Isaiah 52, 53; an apostolic one from 1 Cor. 5, 6; and an evangelical one, of the Lord's Passion composed from the four Gospels. Afterward those assisting, who are all addressed by the names of penitents, are invited three times to prostrate themselves and implore divine mercy. Then the archdeacon, turning himself to the whole assembly of clerics and faithful, exhorts them to cry out: Indulgence. When silence has been restored, the same archdeacon sets forth the image of the Good Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep, and then invites them to pray. The bishop expresses the prayer of the kind of rhythmic litanies, to which, with new cries, Indulgence is answered (We beseech you, Lord, Indulgence, etc.). There follows the collect, which the bishop alone recites in the name of all, imploring divine clemency in favor of the penitents. Again Indulgence is cried out; the same prayer of the bishop follows with other formulas, the same order nevertheless being preserved. A third series of cries and prayers is had. In this third recitation the final prayer is omitted, and the Office of the Adoration of the Cross and the Mass of the Presanctified is continued (Duchesne, Origines du culte chrétien, pp. 463-465).

In the third epoch, from the twelfth-thirteenth century, the theological construction of the sacrament was made, which the Council of Trent authentically sanctioned. But the very necessity of submitting sins to the keys of the Church seems to preserve the primitive notion of reconciliation with the Church, which signifies reconciliation with God. And even now the prayer Misereatur, etc., can be called a vestige of the deprecatory formulas which formerly were used. The present formula of absolution is to be traced back to the thirteenth century, although even then it varied accidentally.

II. The names of confession. The words by which, in various languages, access to the sacrament of Penance is designated are of the same origin: Confessio, Confession (in French and English), Biecht (in Flemish), Beicht (in German); they indicate spontaneous accusation.

III. In the administration of penance, besides the bishop and priests, deacons intervene in an extraordinary manner, and also, in the East, monks. St. Thomas also testifies to us to the usage of confessing to a layman, when a priest is lacking. But then, as is clear, what is had is not the sacrament but a certain sacramental. Several synods after the thirteenth century forbade deacons to impart absolution.

E. DE M., S. F.