of 1 John, set forth in 1531. After speaking of Baptism as "the very sacrament of repentance (or, if they will so have it called, penance)," he proceeds to trace the course of history

Whereupon the Bishops that succeeded the Apostles, when men had done any open sins, enjoined them penance... by the authority of the congregation and governors thereof. . . and with the willing consent of the trespassers, to tame the flesh . . . and all to slay the worldly mind of the flesh: which manner, when once received by custom, it became a law. And the Bishops, by little and little, gat it whole into their own hands. When the Bishops saw that . . . they began to set up their crests... and to enjoin sore penance for small trifles... and beat some sore, and spared other, and sold their penance to the rich, and overladed the poor, until . . . the people would bear it no longer. For by this time. . . the cause why the people were disobedient unto wholesome counsel was, that the word of God was sore darkened, and nowhere purely preached. And therefore the prelates, loath . . . to let the people go free of their yoke, began to turn their tale, and sing a new song, how that this penance was enjoined to make satisfaction to God for the sin committed: . . . saying moreover, if we would not do such penance here at their injunctions, we must do it in another world: and so feigned purgatory, where we must suffer seven years for every sin. . . . [At last to the Pope] was given this prerogative, to sell whom he would from purgatory."

Tindale then describes the three parts of Pen

ance

"Contrition, sorrow for thy sins: Confession, not to God and them whom thou hast offended, but tell thy sins in the priest's ear: Satisfaction, to do certain deeds enjoined of them to buy out thy sins.”

Hooker

It will be thought by some, that by imputing motives Tindale does not strengthen his plain statement of facts; but the passage fairly illustrates the view of history current at the eve of the Reformation. Tindale adds, what is plain matter of history: "Hereof ye may see how out of this open penance came the ear-confession, satisfaction of works, purgatory, and pardons turning binding and loosing with preaching God's Word, unto buying and selling sin for money." These things, to be true," he says, our prelates know by open histories, as well as that when it is noon the sun is flat south."1

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Our second example is from Hooker, whose sixth book of Ecclesiastical Polity must have been written close to the end of the sixteenth century.2

"The course of discipline in former ages reformed open transgressors by putting them into offices of open penitence, especially confession, whereby they declared their own crimes in the hearing of the whole Church, and were not from the time of their first convention capable of the holy mysteries . . . till they had solemnly discharged this duty.

"Offenders in secret, knowing themselves altogether as unworthy to be admitted to the Lord's Table, as the others which were withheld: being also persuaded, that if the Church did direct them in the offices of their penitency, and assist them win public prayers, they should more easily obtain that they sought, than by trusting wholly to their own endeavours Imade it not nice

1 Tindale, ii. 161-163.

2 Hooker died in 1600.

to use1 some one of the ministers of God, by whom the rest might take notice of their faults, prescribe them convenient remedies, and in the end, after public confession, all join in prayer for them."

Hooker next traces the wide acceptance of Christianity, the growing corruption of professing Christians, the ceasing of persecution, and the consequent evils which peace and security tend to produce.

As a result," there was not now that love which before kept all things in tune. . . Whereupon, forasmuch as public confessions became dangerous. . . to the safety of well-minded men, and . . . advantageous to the enemies of God's Church, it seemed first unto some, and afterwards generally, requisite, that voluntary penitents should surcease from open confession.

"Instead whereof, when once private and secret confession had taken place with the Latins, it continued as a profitable ordinance, till the Lateran Council had decreed that all men once in a year at the least should confess themselves to the priest. So that being a thing thus made both general and also necessary, the next degree of estimation, whereunto it grew, was to be honoured and lifted up to the nature of a Sacrament: that as Christ did institute Baptism to give life, and the Eucharist to nourish life, so Penitency might be thought a sacrament ordained to recover life, and Confession a part of the Sacrament. They define therefore their private penitency to be a sacrament of remitting sins after baptism."3

1 I.e. "had no scruple in using." Cf. Shakespeare, King John, iii. 4. "Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up." Harding's Edition of Book VI. (Murray,) p. 42.

2 A.D. 1215.

3 Hooker, VI. iv. 2 ff. The action of the Greek Church

History of the word Penance

Latin Influence

They are men," Hooker pertinently exclaims, "that would seem to honour antiquity, and none more to depend upon the reverend judgment thereof. I dare boldly affirm, that for many hundred years after Christ, the Fathers held no such opinion; they did not gather by our Saviour's words any such necessity of seeking the priest's absolution from sin by secret, and (as they now term it) sacramental confession. Public confession they thought necessary by way of discipline, not private confession, as in the nature of a sacrament, necessary."

Hooker follows the history with much detail : we must content ourselves for the present with the above extracts, which are enough to show with what accuracy of knowledge, and calmness of judgment, this great divine justified the position taken by the Reformers.

The word "Penance" has an instructive history. Nothing more aptly illustrates the dominant influence which the Latin Versions and the writings of the Latin Fathers had upon the phraseology of the whole Western Church. Teu

and the story of Nectarius and Eudaemon, with the abolition of the penitentiary priest at Constantinople are told in § 9, as related by Socrates and Sozomen. Many other of the writers under notice refer to the same story.

1 Ib. § 6. Many features in the ancient system of public penance are traced by Hooker, as for instance the primitive custom of imposition of hands, and the several orders of penitents, Flentes, Audientes, Substrati, Consistentes. VI. iv. 13 and v. 8.

tonic Christianity expresses itself largely in terms of Latin Theology.1

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Jerome, following the old Latin Version, translated μετάνοια by poenitentia, and μετανοεῖν by poenitere or agere poenitentiam.2 Now μετάνοια means after-thought," "change of mind and purpose" and the Reformers rightly contend that this meaning holds good in every place in which the words are used by the sacred writers. But poenitentia came to mean far more than this: it was made to include "painful or penitential

1 Even words originally Greek have come to us through a Latin channel: such as Bishop, Presbyter or Priest, Clergyman or Clerk. But many of our most familiar terms are of purely Latin origin, e.g. Justification, Sanctification, Regeneration, Conversion, Sacrament, and many others. Even in a language so far off from Latin influence as that still spoken in the Isle of Man, we find Aspick (Episcopus) for Bishop, Saggyrt (sacerdos) for Priest and for Church, either Agglish (Ecclesia) or Kiel (Cella), the former for the Body, the latter for the Building. Similar forms are found in other Celtic dialects.

2 Beza and other writers use resipiscere and resipiscentia. Latimer, in one of his sermons, thus appeals to his hearers: "Resipiscentia Resipiscentia / Repenting and amending is a sure remedy," i. 263. See Art. xvi. (Of sin after Baptism.) "We may amend our lives" (resipiscere): "to such as truly repent" (vere resipiscentibus). Note also "place of forgiveness (locum poenitentiae), "place of penitentes" (1553). Nowell (p. 58) speaks of "Poenitentia, quam Resipiscentiam quidam malunt appellare."