A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

On the New Testament, we may refer to Hammond, Whitby, Burkitt, Doddridge, Bishop Pearce, Dr. Trapp, Bishop Porteus on St. Matthew, Biscoe on the Acts, Macknight, Bishop Fell, Bishop Davenant, Pyle on the Epistles, Archbishop Leighton on St. Peter, Mede, Daubeny, Lowman, Sir Isaac Newton, and Bishop Newton on the Apocalypse. We have omitted, in this list, contemporary writers, for obvious reasons, and we have referred to commentaries chiefly used by English churchmen; the more learned reader will, not without caution, have recourse to foreign critics also; of whom we may mention, as persons much consulted, Vitringa, Tittmann, Bengel, Olshausen, Tholuck, Wolfius, Raphelius, Calmet, and Hengstenberg. The “Catena Aurea” of Thomas Aquinas has lately been translated; but it is useful rather to the antiquarian and the scholar, than to those who wish to ascertain the exact meaning of Scripture; and in the quotations from the Fathers, Aquinas is not to be depended upon.

COMMENTATORS. “A complete history of commentators,” says Mr. Hartwell Horne, “would require a volume of no ordinary dimensions.” The reader who is desirous of prosecuting this subject, will find much interesting information relative to the early commentators in Rosenmüller’s “Historia Interpretationis Librorum Sacrorum in Ecclesiâ Christianâ, inde ab Apostolorum Ætate usque ad Origenem, 1795–1814.” This elaborate work treats exclusively of the early commentators. Father Simon’s “Histoire Critique de Vieux Testament,” 4to, 1680, and his “Histoire Critique des Principaux Commentateurs du Nouveau Testament,” 4to, Rotterdam, 1689, contain many valuable strictures on the expositors of the Old and New Testament up to his own time. In 1674 was published at Frankfort, in two volumes folio, Joh. Georg. Dorschei “Biblia Numerata, seu Index Specialis in Vetus Testamentum ad singula omnium Librorum Capita et Commenta.” It contains a list of commentators, 191 in number, who had illustrated every book, chapter, or verse of the Scriptures, with reference to the books, chapters, and pages of their several works. The merits and demerits of commentators are likewise discussed in Walchius’s “Bibliotheca Theologica Selecta;” in Ernesti’s “Institutio Interpretis Novi Testamenti;” in Morus’s “Acroases Academicæ.” Professor Keil, in his “Elementa Hermeneutices Novi Testamenti,” and Professor Beck, in “Monogrammata Hermeneutices, Librorum Novi Fœderis,” Seiler’s Biblical Hermeneutices, (translated from the German by Dr. Wright, 1835,)—respectively notice the principal expositors of the Scriptures.

COMMINATION, means a threat or denunciation of vengeance. There is an ancient office in the Church of England, entitled, “A Commination, or denouncing of God’s Anger and Judgment against Sinners, with certain Prayers, to be used on the first Day of Lent, and at other times, as the Ordinary shall appoint.” This office, says Mr. Palmer, is one of the last memorials we retain of that solemn penitence, which during the primitive ages occupied so conspicuous a place in the discipline of the Christian Church. In the earliest ages, those who were guilty of grievous sins were solemnly reduced to the order of penitents; they came fasting and clad in sackcloth and ashes on the occasion, and after the bishop had prayed over them, they were dismissed from the church. They then were admitted gradually to the classes of hearers, substrati, and consistentes, until at length, after long trial and exemplary conduct, they were again decreed worthy of communion. This penitential discipline at length, from various causes, became extinct, both in the Eastern and Western Churches: and, from the twelfth or thirteenth century, the solemn office of the first day of Lent was the only memorial of this ancient discipline in the West. The Church of England has long used this office nearly as we do at present, as we find almost exactly the same appointed in the MS. Sacramentary of Leofric, which was written for our Church about the ninth or tenth century; and year by year she directs her ministers to lament the defection of the godly discipline we have been describing.

The preface which the Church has prefixed to this office will supply the room of an introduction. It informs us that, “in the primitive Church, there was a godly discipline; that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious crimes were put to open penance, and punishment in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend.” The manner in which this discipline was inflicted, is thus recorded by Gratian: On the first day of Lent the penitents were to present themselves before the bishop, clothed with sackcloth, with naked feet, and eyes turned to the ground: and this was to be done in the presence of the principal clergy of the diocese, who were to judge of the sincerity of their repentance. These introduced them into the Church, where the bishop, all in tears, and the rest of the clergy, repeated the seven penitential psalms. Then, rising from prayers, they threw ashes upon them, and covered their heads with sackcloth; and then with mournful sighs declared to them, that as Adam was cast out of paradise, so they must be cast out of the Church. Then the bishop commanded the officers to turn them out of the church doors, and all the clergy followed after, repeating that curse upon Adam, “In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread.” The like penance was inflicted upon them the next time the sacrament was administered, which was the Sunday following. And all this was done, to the end that the penitents, observing how great a disorder the Church was in by reason of their crimes, should not lightly esteem of penance.

Though this discipline was severe, yet the many good consequences of it showed it worthy the imitation of the Church in succeeding ages; so that it was anciently exercised in our own, as well as in foreign churches. But in latter ages, during the corruption of the Church of Rome, this godly discipline degenerated into a formal and customary confession upon Ash Wednesdays, used by all persons indifferently, whether penitents or not, from whom no other testimony of their repentance was required, than that they should submit to the empty ceremony of sprinkling ashes upon their heads. But this our wise reformers prudently laid aside as a mere shadow and show; and not without hearty grief and concern, that the long continuance of the abominable corruptions of the Romish Church, in their formal confessions and pretended absolutions, in their sale of indulgences, and their sordid commutations of penance for money, had let the people loose from those primitive bands of discipline, which tended really to their amendment, but to which, through the rigour and severity it enjoins, they found it impracticable to reduce them again. However, since they could not do what they desired, they desired to do as much as they could; and therefore, till the said discipline may be restored again, (which is rather to be wished than expected in these licentious times,) they have endeavoured to supply it as well as they were able, by appointing an office to be used at this season, called “A Commination, or denouncing of God’s Anger and Judgments against Sinners;” that so the people, being apprized of God’s wrath and indignation against their wickedness and sins, may not be encouraged, through the want of discipline in the Church, to follow and pursue them; but be moved, by the terror of the dreadful judgments of God, to supply that discipline to themselves, by severely judging and condemning themselves, and so to avoid being judged and condemned at the tribunal of God.

2. But, besides “the first day of Lent,” on which it is expressly enjoined, it is also supposed, in the title of it, to be used “at other times, as the ordinary shall direct.” This was occasioned by the observation of Bucer; for it was originally ordered upon Ash Wednesdays only, and therefore in the first Common Prayer Book, it had no other title, but “The First Day of Lent, commonly called Ash Wednesday.” But Bucer approving of the office, and not seeing reason why it should be confined to one day, and not used oftener, at least four times a year, the title of it was altered when it came to be reviewed; from which time it was called, “A Commination against Sinners, with certain Prayers to be used at divers times in the Year.” How often, or at what particular times, we do not find prescribed; except that Bishop Cosin informs us from the Visitation Articles of Archbishop Grindal for the province of Canterbury, in the year 1576, that it was appointed three times a year; namely, on one of the three Sundays next before Easter, on one of the two Sundays next before Pentecost, and on one of the two Sundays next before Christmas; that is, I suppose the office was appointed yearly to be used on these three days, as well as on Ash Wednesday. For that Ash Wednesday was then the solemn day of all, and on which this office was never to be omitted, may be gathered from the preface, which is drawn up for the peculiar use of that day. And accordingly we find, that, in the Scotch Common Prayer, a clause was added, that it was to be used “especially on the first day of Lent, commonly called Ash Wednesday.” However, in our own liturgy, the title stood as above, till the last review, when a clause was added for the sake of explaining the word commination; and the appointing of the times on which it should be used was left to the discretion of the bishop, or the ordinary. So that the whole title, as it stands now, runs thus: “A Commination, or denouncing of God’s Anger and Judgments against Sinners, with certain Prayers to be used on the first Day in Lent, and at other Times, as the Ordinary shall appoint.” The ordinaries, indeed, seldom or never make use of the power here given them, except that sometimes they appoint part of the office, namely, from the fifty-first Psalm to the end, to be used upon solemn days of fasting and humiliation. But as to the whole office, it is never used entirely but upon the day mentioned in the title of it, namely, “the first day of Lent.”—Wheatly.

The Commination properly means that part of the special service which precedes the Psalm; the rest coming under the title of “certain prayers;” and it would seem that the latter are alone to be used at other times that the ordinary shall appoint.—Jebb.

COMMISSARY, is a title of jurisdiction, appertaining to him that exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in places so far distant from the chief city, that the chancellor cannot call the people to the bishop’s principal consistory court without great trouble to them.

Chancellors, or bishops’ lawyers, were first introduced into the Church by the 2nd canon of the Council of Chalcedon, and were men trained up in the civil and canon law, to direct bishops in matters of judgment relating to ecclesiastical affairs.

Whatever the extent of the chancellor’s authority as a judge may be, throughout the diocese, with relation to the bishop’s, it is quite clear that the commissary’s authority extends only to such particular causes, in such parts of the diocese, for which he holds the bishop’s commission to act.