THE QUESTION OF PRIVATE ABSOLUTION IN
THE EARLY CHURCH
This problem has been raised again in
recent years. The ground is clearer than it used to be, for it is generally
admitted now that public confession of the details of sin was never required in
the early Church, whilst excommunication and penitential exercises were also allowed
a considerable amount of privacy on occasion . . . The question then is, simply,
Was absolution ever given privately prior to the spread of the
Scoto-British system on the continent? . . . I summarize the arguments, adding
a few points by the way.
(a) Innocent I, ep. 25,
7 ad Decentium (MPL., xx, col. 559—the Maundy Thursday decree, supra,
pp. 278, 505), speaks of those ‘qui sive ex gravioribus commissis sive ex
levioribus, poenitentiam gerunt.’ Batiffol (Études d’Historie, etc., pp.
163-164, 189-191), by a judicious blend of this and the two following
testimonia, produces the theory that the ‘leviora’ were sins for which, though
not subject to canonical penance, the sinner voluntarily and without formality
undertook penance during Lent. He then mingled with the official penitents at
the Maundy Thursday reconciliation, and so received absolution, not as a rite
which could not be repeated, but as ‘une sorte de couple publique’ which might
be renewed each Holy Week. This reconciliation was not in itself private, but probably
led to private reconciliations by delegated priests under Leo’s approval (ib.,
pp. 192, 217).
Against this it is to be urged (i)
that ‘poenitentiam gerunt’ in this context must mean ‘formal penance’;
(ii) that ‘leviora’ need not mean ‘sins for which no canonical penance’ was
required. They might be either (a) ‘lighter’ relative to the ‘graviora’
alone, but not in relation to anything else—i.e. a survival of the old
distinction (supra, pp. 223, etc.), between sins for which penance was
necessary and reconciliation allowed (‘minora’ and ‘leviora’ in Cyprian
and Tertullian), and the three sins par excellence for which, in the
earliest system, though penance was allowed, absolution could not be given; (β) ‘occult’ sins
voluntarily brought forward as matter for penance by a conscientious Christian.
(b) Leo I, ep. 167 ad Rustic., inquis. 19 (MPL.,
liv, 1209):--persons guilty of the three sins par excellence ‘ad
communionem nisi per poententiam publicam non opertet admittere’; minor
(specified) sins ‘possunt jejuniis et manus impositone purgari.’ Batiffol (pp.
163, 164) takes this ‘amnus imposition,’ again of his supposed secondary
purpose of the Maundy Thursday reconciliation—the ‘coulpe publique,’ which he
regards as renewable. But there is no suggestion of renewability
anywhere in the text; we are probably dealing simply with public reconciliations
without any public penitential exercises (cp. supra, p. 505).
Poschmann’s suggestion (KB., pp. 73, 74) that this ‘manus impositio’ is
simply the rite of laying-on of hands on penitents during the course of their
penitential exercises (supra, p. 279), and that therefore Leo here
enjoins the sinners, without becoming official penitents or requiring official
(unrenewable) reconciliation to submit to some of the humiliations of public
penance as a temporary discipline, is possible; but seems untenable for lack of
other evidence.
(c) Leo’s Lenten sermons (Batiffol, pp. 183-187;
Poschmann, AK., 217-222) are full of exhortations to ‘poenitentia.’ They
are addressed to general congregations, among whom he mentions particularly the
catechumens, the penitents, Christians who are living ‘chastely and soberly’
together with sinners of various degrees (serm. 43, 4). But nothing is
said about their requiring, as a whole, formal reconciliation whether public or
private. The call to ‘poenitentia’ is therefore simply one to ‘repentance’ as a
spiritual state or activity—which in some cases, indeed, might waken the
conscience to the need for formal ‘penance’; but in the majority (where capital
sin was not in question) would lead only to works of charity and private
self-discipline, as for ‘venial’ sin. (So Poschmann, AK., pp. 219, 220);
Vacandard, in DTC., iii, col. 853).
Batiffol can only convey verisimilitude to his theory, that we have here
a call to (private) penitential exercise to be rewarded by the (public but
renewable) Maundy Thursday reconciliation, by printing and reading, almost as
if it was one of the sermons (pp. 187, 188), Leo, ep. 108 (ad Theodor.)
3. Here Leo sets out to describe canonical public penance—‘quid de poenitentium
statu ecclesiastica habeat regular non tecebo,’-and bases it on the dogma that
for ‘remissio criminum’ ‘indulgentia Dei nisi supplicationibus
sacerdotum nequeat obtineri.’ In a later paragraph of the letter, he says: ‘Every
Christian ought to examine his conscience lest he be putting off his
conversion from day to day, and postponing his satisfaction to his last
moments: for it is dangerous in our frail and ignorant human life . . . to depend
for the hope of divine mercy upon those few moments in which there may be
scarcely be time either for the penitent’s confession or the priest’s absolution.’
This passage is irrelevant for the matter of the Lenten sermons, and
even so does not establish the case. It merely says, at best, that since all ‘crimina’
require formal penance and reconciliation, every Christian ought to examine
himself to see whether he has committed any, and if so whether he is
deliberately postponing his reconciliation. Batiffol, by ignoring the reference
to ‘crimina’ suggest that all Christians need official reconciliation;
and by inserting the letter into the context of the sermons, that such
reconciliation should be (or may be) an annually renewable one on Maundy
Thursday. In one of the three ‘testimonia’ hitherto considered is there any
evidence for this renewable reconciliation by the priest which Batiffol very sketchily
(pp. 192, 193) suggests grew out of it.
(d) Caesarius Arel. [Aug.] app. serm. 261, 1—on the
heroism of one who undertakes public penance—‘et ille quidem qui poenitentiam
publice accepit, poterat eam secretius agree; sed credo, considerans
multitudinem peccatorum suorum videt se contra tam gravia mala solum non posse
sufficere; ideo adjutorium totius populi cupit expetere.’
Tixeront (Hist. Dogm., iii, pp. 397-399; but contrast Watkins, op
cit., p. 557; Poschmann, AK., pp. 138, 225) thinks that this refers
to private penitential exercises with (? renewable) Maundy Thursday absolution
(as Batiffol). Poschmann (loc. cit.) on the other hand, holds that it
refers to the possibility of retiring to a monastery (‘conversio’—supra,
p. 510). Even this is not necessary. Caesarius may be referring to the heroic
act of a conscientious person who does public penance for non-canonical sins
(for which such penance would not normally be required) out of personal humility
and sense of weakness. Or the ‘agere poenitentiam’ may be used, as in other
instances from Caesarius (see next paragraph, e), of private penitential
exercises, where in good faith, and on grounds of severe inconvenience alone,
formal penance has been postponed to a later occasion. It is even possible that
the ‘credo’ and the ‘poterat eam secretius agere’ are both sarcastic, and that what
Caesarius means is ‘he might have tried to satisfy God and his conscience
by private penance’—like Augustine’s adulterer (supra, p. 504) who says ‘occulte
ago, apud Deum ago.’
(e) Caesarius more than once deals with hard cases of persons who
have made themselves liable to public penance, but find it morally impossible
to undertake it (soldiers, young married persons, etc.). In general he allows
them to postpone formal penance (‘accipere poenitentiam’) till their
death-beds, provided that they ‘agunt poenitentiam’ daily throughout
their lives. So serm. 256, 1—the Christian gulty of capital sins may discipline
himself and perform works of charity:--‘qui haec fideliter implore voluerit,
etiamsi poenitentiam non accipat, quia semper illam fructuose et
fideliter egit bene hinc exiet; et si eo tempore, quo moriturus est, eam
acceperit . . . non solum eum veniam
peccatorum crediumus obtinere, sed etiam praemia aeterna percipere’; ib.
4, of ‘illa poenitentia quae per omnem vitam a bonis Christianis agitur
per quam omnia et capitalia criminal damnatur et minira peccata
jugiter redimmuntur’ . . . ‘cum enim omnes homines poenitentiam velint in
finem vitae suae accipere . . . quare non quotidie ipsam poenitentiam
agimus? . . . ‘ (The same advice also given explicitly to the young, serm.
249, 6; implicitly to soldiers, serm 258, 2; but in neither case is the distinction
between ‘accipere’ and ‘agere’ employed).
Tixeront (in L’Université Catholicique, cited Poschmann, AK.,
pp. 117, 224) here also appears to assume a private penance for capital sin.
But the inference is out of the question; for (i) this ‘poenitentia’ is
performed by all good Christians; (ii) daily or throughout
their lives; and (iii) leads to no specific absolution (other than that of
death-bed penance); for capital sins can only be ‘redeemed’ by absolution after
public penance (serm. 104, 7; 262, 1); whilst tis ‘daily’ penance (of
self-discipline, love and almsgiving) avails only to ‘redeem’ lesser
sins and can only condemn capital sins—i.e. bring the offender into a state
of mind in which he realizes their heinousness (supra, p. 551). (Kenneth E. Kirk, The Vision of God: The
Christian Doctrine of the Summum Bonum—The Brampton Lectures for 1928
[London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1931], 534-37)