1

would deny restoration altogether to those who were guilty of certain grievous sins. The Church at large was never committed to this extreme, but there are indications that it early adopted a strict code in dealing with offenders against its own sanctity. Several writers speak as though it were an accepted maxim, that only a single fall after baptism can claim any indulgence. "If any one," says Hermas, "is tempted by the devil, and sins after that great and holy calling in which the Lord has called his people to everlasting life, he has opportunity to repent but once." Tertullian in like manner observes that after baptism the door is opened but once to repentance.2 "In the graver kinds of crimes," says Origen, "place for repentance is granted only once." 3 The usual practice of the Church he represents to have been as follows: "The Christians lament as dead those who have been vanquished by licentiousness or any other sin, because they are lost and dead to God; and as being risen from the dead (if they manifest a becoming change) they receive them afterwards, at some future time, after a greater interval than in the case of those who were admitted at first, but not placing in any office or post of rank in the Church of God those who, after professing the gospel, lapsed and fell."4 A greater rigor was advocated by the Montanists, and found supporters in various quarters. As already stated, a canon of the Council of Elvira denied all hope of restoration to those who had sacrificed to idols. Tertullian, in the later, or Montan

1 Command., iv. 3.

2 De Pœnit., vii. Compare Clement of Alexandria, Strom., ii. 13. 3 Hom. in Lev., xv. 2. 4 Cont. Celsum, iii. 51.

ist, stage of his belief, affirmed that the Church is never authorized to restore those who have been expelled on account of such gross sins as adultery, fornication, murder, apostasy, and blasphemy. On the other hand, the Roman bishops in the time of Tertullian began to distinguish themselves as the advocates of mildness. According to Hippolytus, who favored severity, mildness degenerated into laxity in the case of the Roman bishop Callistus; and he credits him with comparing the Church to the ark of Noah, in which were all manner of unclean animals as well as the clean. Not long after Callistus, opposition to the milder régime culminated at Rome in the Novatian schism. Cyprian, who was contemporary with these developments at the great capital, inclined to an intermediate position. While he advocated suitable delay in the restoration of the lapsed, he would deny to none the hope of being ultimately admitted to the fellowship of the Church.

Confession of sins was a matter of frequent injunction. But in most cases the injunction had reference only to a penitential acknowledgment of sins before the congregation. Where the clergy were designated as the proper recipients of confession, they were so designated on the twofold ground that they were the most competent spiritual advisers and the proper overseers of discipline. Auricular confession to a priest, as the common obligation of all Christians, and the essential condition of absolution, was a thing foreign to the thought of the early Church. By absolution, apart from baptism, was understood, in the main, simply a loosing from ecclesiastical censures. In this, to be

1 De Pudicit., i., ii., xix.

2 Philos., ix. 7.

sure, the bishop took a leading part, but he did not stand alone: the whole congregation joined in the prayer for the penitent,1 after which the bishop gave the benediction as a fitting pledge of restoration and as an invocation of divine grace. Even Cyprian, who was perhaps more deeply tinged with sacerdotalism than any other prominent writer of the period, did not materially transcend this view of the episcopal, or priestly, absolution. He speaks only of those who had been cut off from the Church for known offences as having occasion to come to the priestly tribunal; and the prerogative which he assigns to the priest in relation to such, so far as their standing with God is concerned, is that of an intercessor offering sacrifices, which, as being well-pleasing to God, may solicit remission from Him. Beyond this, the priest stands between the penitent and God, only as he is the doorkeeper of the Church, and the Church is the way to God. No man, says Cyprian, can usurp the divine prerogative in the forgiveness of sins. "The Lord alone can have He alone can bestow pardon for sins which have been committed against Himself."2 Quite as remote from the theory of judicial absolution is the language of Firmilian. Among the occasions, he says, for the yearly assembling of prelates and priests is this, "that some remedy may be sought for by repentance for lapsed brethren, and for those wounded by the devil after the saving laver, not as though they obtained remission of sins from us, but that by our means they may be converted to the understanding of their sins, and may be compelled to give fuller satisfaction to the 1 Cons. Apost., ii. 41. 2 De Lapsis, xvii.

mercy.

Lord." It is in the light of this statement that the office of penitentiary presbyter, which, as we learn from the historian Socrates, had place in some of the churches after the Decian persecution, is to be interpreted.2 Origen, while he emphasized the principle that the priest should be consulted as a spiritual adviser, was far from conceding to him a power to absolve from sins in simple virtue of his office. Still, it must be allowed that the third century supplied in no small measure a basis for the later doctrine of priestly absolution. Not to speak of the general growth of sacerdotal conceptions, the stress which Cyprian and others placed upon the catholic unity was of the nature of such a basis. In proportion as they made union with the Catholic Church an indispensable condition of salvation, and assigned to the priest the position of doorkeeper in that Church, they inculcated the notion of dependence upon priestly mediation.

IV. SCHISMS CONNECTED WITH QUESTIONS OF

DISCIPLINE, -MONTANISM.

The schism of Novatus and Felicissimus, which arose in Carthage in the time of Cyprian, was due mainly to the spirit of faction. There was no very deep convic

1 Epist., lxxiv. 4 (or lxxv.), in works of Cyprian. Firmilian, it is true, in the same epistle speaks of the apostolic prerogative in the forgiveness of sins as having passed to the apostolic churches and their bishops. But, as the context shows, this is only another way of saying that the Catholic Church is the only true Church, the only one having a valid baptism, which is the rite of remission, the only one, therefore, which can give sure promise of remission. His words are no indication of an already existing sacrament of penance with its judicial

sentence.

2 A further consideration of this will be found in the next period. 8 In Matt. Tom., xii. 14; Hom. in Lev., v. 4.

tion back of the plea put forth by the schismatics for a less rigid discipline. They seem to have maintained themselves but a short time. The Novatian schism at Rome, near the same time, was born of much more earnest sentiments; Novatian and his followers having a hearty attachment to a stringent discipline, and accusing the Catholic party of unchristian laxity. The Novatian sect showed great persistence. It spread in various regions, and traces of it appear as late as the sixth century. The Meletian schism, which arose in Egypt in the early part of the fourth century, was precipitated by a disagreement between Meletius, Bishop of Lycopolis, and his metropolitan, Peter of Alexandria. Meletius is said to have championed the cause of strict discipline in the spirit of aggression and insubordination. The schism lasted upwards of a century. The separatists affiliated with the Arians.

The most interesting and important of the parties which fell into a sectarian position on account of their views of church discipline were the Montanists. This party derived its name from Montanus, a native of Phrygia in Asia Minor, who assumed the rôle of a prophet and reformer in that region in the last half of the second century. Two female associates, Prisca (or Priscilla) and Maximilla, claimed likewise to be organs of the Divine Comforter promised of Christ.

Among the causes which contributed to the inauguration of Montanism, were the imaginative and enthusiastic temper characteristic of the Phrygians, the excitements of persecution, the memory of the glorious charisms of the apostolic age, and a reaction against the growing ecclesiasticism or exaltation of official rank.