A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

PENANCE. (Pœnitentia, Latin.) As repentance is the principle and inward feeling of sorrow for sin, which we are determined to forsake, so penance is the outward profession of that sorrow. An account of penance in the primitive Church may be seen in Bingham, and more concisely in Coleman, from whom we shall quote in this article. Penance, in the Christian Church, is an imitation of the discipline of the Jewish synagogue; or, rather, it is a continuation of the same institution. Excommunication in the Christian Church is essentially the same as expulsion from the synagogue of the Jews; and the penances of the offender, required for his restoration to his former condition, were not materially different in the Jewish and Christian Churches. The principal point of distinction consisted in this, that the sentence of excommunication affected the civil relations of the offender under the Jewish economy; but in the Christian Church it affected only his relations to that body. Neither the spirit of the primitive institutions of the Church, nor its situation, nor constitution in the first three centuries, was at all compatible with the intermingling or confounding of civil and religious privileges or penalties.

The act of excommunication was, at first, an exclusion of the offender from the Lord’s supper, and from the agapæ. The term itself implies separation from the communion. The practice was derived from the injunction of the apostle, 1 Cor. v. 11, “With such an one no not to eat.” From the context, and from 1 Cor. x. 16–18; xi. 20–34, it clearly appears that the apostle refers, not to common meals, and the ordinary intercourse of life, but to these religious festivals.

Examples of penitence or repentance occur in the Old Testament; neither are there wanting instances, not merely of individuals, but of a whole city or people, performing certain acts of penance,—fasting, mourning, &c. (Nehem. ix. and Jonah iii.) But these acts of humiliation were essentially different, in their relations to individuals, from Christian penance.

We have, however, in the New Testament, an instance of the excommunication of an offending member, and of his restoration to the fellowship of the Church by penance, agreeably to the authority of St. Paul, 1 Cor. v. 1–8; 2 Cor. ii. 5–11. This sentence of exclusion from the Church was pronounced by the assembled body, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. By this sentence, the offender was separated from the people of the Lord, with whom he had been joined by baptism, and was reduced to his former condition as a heathen man, subject to the power of Satan, and of evil spirits. This is, perhaps, the true import of delivering such an one up to Satan.

A similar act of excommunication is described briefly in 1 Cor. xvi. 22, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.” The μαράν ἀθὰ corresponds, in sense, with the Hebrew חרם, and denotes a thing devoted to utter destruction; (which, however, is by some supposed to be the Syro-Chaldaic מרנא אתה, expressed in the Greek character, meaning, “The Lord cometh.”) (See Maranatha.) The whole sentence implies that the Church leaves the subject of it to the Lord, who cometh to execute judgment upon him. All that the apostle requires of the Corinthians is, that they should exclude him from their communion and fellowship; so that he should no longer be regarded as one of their body. He pronounces no further judgment upon the offender, but leaves him to the judgment of God. “What have I to do to judge them that are without?” (ver. 12,) i. e. those who are not Christians, to which class the excommunicated person would belong. “Do not ye judge them that are within?” i. e. full members of the Church. But them that are without God judgeth; or rather will judge, κρινεῖ, as the reading should be. It appears from 2 Cor. ii. 1–11, that the Church had not restored such to the privileges of communion, but were willing to do so; and that the apostle very gladly authorized the measure.

It is important to remark that, in the primitive Church, penance related only to such as had been excluded from the communion of the Church. Its immediate object was, not the forgiveness of the offender by the Lord God, but his reconciliation with the Church. It could, therefore, relate only to open and scandalous offences. De occultis non judicat ecclesia—the Church takes no cognizance of secret sins—was an ancient maxim of the Church. The early Fathers say expressly, that the Church offers pardon only for offences committed against her. The forgiveness of all sin she refers to God himself. Omnia autem, says Cyprian, Ep. 55, remisimus Deo omnipotenti, in cujus potestate sunt omnia reservata. Such are the concurring sentiments of most of the early writers on this subject. It was reserved for a later age to confound these important distinctions, and to arrogate to the Church the prerogative of forgiving sins.

The readmission of penitents into the Church was the subject of frequent controversy with the early Fathers, and ancient religious sects. Some contended that those who had once been excluded from the Church for their crimes, ought never again to be received to her fellowship and communion. But the Church generally were disposed to exercise a more charitable and forgiving spirit.

PENANCE. In the law of England, penance is an ecclesiastical punishment or penalty, used in the discipline of the Church of England, by which an offender is obliged to give a public satisfaction to the Church for scandal done by his evil example. For small offences and scandals, a public satisfaction or penance is required to be made before the minister, churchwardens, and some of the parishioners, as the ecclesiastical judge shall think fit to decree. These penances may be moderated at the discretion of the judge, or commuted for money to be devoted to pious uses. In the case of incest or incontinency the offender is sometimes enjoined to do public penance in the cathedral, the parish church, or the market-place, bare-legged, bare-headed, and in a white sheet, and to make open confession of his crime in a form of words prescribed by the judge. This sort of punishment, however, being contrary to the spirit of the age, and the profligate being found to make parties to abet the offender, it has fallen into desuetude.

PENANCE, THE SACRAMENT OF. The Romanists define penance a sacrament, wherein a person, who has the requisite dispositions, receives absolution at the hands of the priest, of all sins committed since baptism. (See Auricular Confession, Satisfaction, Purgatory, Absolution.)

The Council of Trent (sess. 14, can. 1) has expressly decreed, that every one is accursed who shall affirm that penance is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ in the universal Church, for reconciling those Christians to the Divine majesty who have fallen into sin after baptism; and this sacrament, it is declared, consists of two parts—the matter and the form: the matter is the act of the penitent, including contrition, confession, and satisfaction; the form of it is the act of absolution on the part of the priest. Accordingly it is enjoined, that it is the duty of every man, who hath fallen after baptism, to confess his sins once a year, at least, to a priest; that this confession is to be secret; for public confession is neither commanded nor expedient; and that it must be exact and particular, including every kind and act of sin, with all the circumstances attending it. When the penitent has so done, the priest pronounces an absolution, which is not conditional or declarative only, but absolute and judicial. This secret or auricular confession was first decreed and established in the fourth Council of Lateran, under Innocent III., in 1215 (cap. 21). And the decree of this council was afterwards confirmed and enlarged in the Council of Florence, and in that of Trent, which ordains that confession was instituted by Christ; that, by the law of God, it is necessary to salvation, and that it has always been practised in the Christian Church. As for the penances imposed on the penitent by way of satisfaction, they have been commonly the repetition of certain forms of devotion, as Paternosters or Ave-Marias, the payment of stipulated sums, pilgrimages, fasts, or various species of corporeal discipline. But the most formidable penance, in the estimation of many who have belonged to the Roman communion, has been the temporary pains of purgatory. But, under all the penalties which are inflicted or threatened in the Romish Church, it has provided relief by its indulgences, and by its prayers or masses for the dead, performed professedly for relieving and rescuing the souls that are detained in purgatory.