Thursday, April 18, 2024

Kenneth E. Kirk on the Question of Private Absolution in light of the writings of Innocent I and Caesarius of Arles

  

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)