Opening Comments

The Mercy Seminar 2021, Term 2.4 Opening Comments We saw that week that in the first four centuries of the Christian movement, there was a widespread consensus that just as there was one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, before which one must repent, so there is one repentance for the forgiveness of sins after one has been baptized. It is also clear that the early Christians distinguished between lesser and greater sins, or between sins and crimes, and it is only the latter for which one could only repent once. These major sins or crimes were idolatry, apostasy, murder, and adultery. We can see the beginnings of this kind of distinction in the first letter of John. On the one hand, the epistle tells us, ”8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” On the other hand, we hear in the same epistle, ”6No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. 9Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God.” At the end of the letter, we hear a way by which this contradiction may be resolved: ”16If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say that you should pray about that. 17All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal.” So the Christian tradition in the first four centuries took the bold stand of insisting that there was one repentance for mortal sin, even though First John and Hebrews seem to indicate that there is no forgiveness for such sins when committed by the baptized. It is also clear that very early on, the bishop comes to play a central role in restoring the fallen sinner to the church. The one who commits a major sin must confess that sin, or those sins, to the bishop, who will then impose on the penitent person the course of repentance she must undergo, including the length of time she must spend repenting of the sin. The confession of sin seems to have been done in private, but the repentance itself must be done publicly. As Augustine says, “Still, since the sorrow of one heart is mostly hid from another, and does not come to notice through words and other such signs—even when it is plain to Him of whom it is said, ‘My groaning is not hid from thee’—times of repentance have been rightly established by those set over the churches, that satisfaction may also be made in the Church, in which the sins are forgiven.” This satisfaction for sin must be performed publicly, and it involves the visible sorrow for sin as well as the voluntary humiliation of the penitent one. It is also clear that it is this public act of confession that atones for sin. As Tertullian says, “This act, which is more usually expressed and commonly spoken of under a Greek name, is ἐξομολόγησις [public confession], whereby we confess our sins to the Lord, not indeed as if He were Mercy Seminar 2021, Term 2.4 |Opening Comments 2 ignorant of them, but inasmuch as by confession satisfaction is settled, of confession repentance is born; by repentance God is appeased.” Tertullian goes on to say that the temporal mortifications of the penitent “expunge eternal punishments.” Cyprian makes the same point: “Let us return to the Lord with our whole heart. Let us appease His wrath and indignation with fastings, with weeping, with mourning, as He Himself admonishes us.” Cyprian also includes the good works of the penitent which remove sin: “be earnest in righteous works, whereby sins may be purged; frequently apply yourself to almsgiving, whereby souls are freed from death.” As we saw with the canons of the early councils, the length of time for such public confession of sin could be as much as twelve years. And it is quite clear that if the person were to commit a serious sin after having made satisfaction for the previous sin, he or she would be permanently excluded from the church. But note that the bishop now plays the central mediating role, so that the way that Jesus wanted us to seek to be forgiven—namely, by forgiving those who sin against us—disappears from view. As Ignatius says, “To all them that repent, the Lord grants forgiveness, if they turn in penitence to the unity of God, and to communion with the bishop.” According to the Didascalia, the bishop restores the penitent to the church by laying hands on her and restoring to her the gift of the Holy Spirit. “And afterwards, as each one of them repents and shows the fruits of repentance, receive him to prayer after the manner of a heathen.” Between the fourth century and the thirteenth century, a major change took place in the practice of repentance in the Latin church. As I indicated last week, it becomes clear that the practice of penance in the early church leads directly to the establishment of the monastic life, which would see the highest Christian calling as a life of penitential self-denial in the hope of leaving all earthly ties behind in order to inherit eternal life. We see this already in the description of repentance in Ambrose: “Does anyone think that that is penitence where there still exists the striving after earthly honours, where wine flows, and even conjugal connection takes place? The world must be renounced; less sleep must be indulged in than nature demands; it must be broken by groans, interrupted by sighs, put aside by prayers; the mode of life must be such that we die to the usual habits of life. Let the man deny himself and be wholly changed.” Between the fifth century and the Fourth Lateran Council the practice of public penance drops away in the church, and the practice of continual penance in the monastery dramatically increases. This is especially true in Celtic monasticism, which was highly self-denying and penitential, in which the monks would confess the sins with which they still struggled to their abbot, and he would impose on them private penance for the healing of their souls and the satisfaction of their sins. In particular, they developed a three-part schema of contrition, confession, and satisfaction, followed by absolution, which has parallels in the early church though it was not as clearly formulated then. Lay people came to admire the monks for this kind of practice, and wanted to have their own form of private confession and penance, and so the monastic practice spread to the parishes of the British Isles, and then to the European continent. By the time of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, this practice was mandated for all baptized Catholics, upon the penalty of excommunication. “All the faithful of either sex, after they have reached the age of discernment, should individually confess all their sins in a faithful manner to their own priest at least once a year, and let them take care to do what they can to perform the penance imposed on them.” The council also mandates communion at least once a year, at Easter, and so Lent Page 2 of 4 Mercy Seminar 2021, Term 2.4 |Opening Comments 3 became a time of penitential self-denial in preparation for one’s annual confession during Holy Week, followed by one’s annual communion at Easter, between which one was to fast and pray to avoid falling back into sin. This is the context into which Martin Luther was born, and this is the practice to which he would respond directly, by proposing a major reformation of the definition and practice of penance. To understand why, it is important to look at Luther’s own spiritual development. In his youth, Luther experienced terrors of conscience on account of his sin, which he called Anfechtung, in which his conscience accused him of sin, and thus concluded that he was rightly subject to death, wrath, and hell. The church of Luther’s time and place told him that if he did all that was within him, God would give him grace, and this grace would remove sin by pouring love for God into his heart, which would remove the terror of sin from his conscience. Luther deeply believed this teaching, and when lay penitential practices were not enough, he decided to enter the monastery, not only because it was seen as a life of perfection by means of its poverty, celibacy, and obedience, but also because the monastic vow had come to be seen as a second baptism, in which all previous sin was forgiven. However, even as a monk, Luther’s efforts to do what was within him did not remove the sense of sin, death, wrath, and hell from his conscience, but rather intensified these feelings. As he says in one of his autobiographical statements later in his life, “Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience.

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