Fulke here and elsewhere insists that the external testimonies to repentance, its outward expression in act, its "discipline" as distinct from its 66 virtue," are not properly parts of repentance but rather the exercises and tests thereof. Such changes of meaning are common to the histories of many words, and we need not wonder that the Fathers fell into the later usage of the word " penance." But the change cannot be ignored, since the equivocal use of terms is the most fruitful source of error. In fact, this distinction is one of the highest importance, and lies very close to the centre of our discussion. Fulke lays down this excellent canon in defending the new translation of μετάνοια "How the Fathers of the Church have used words, it is no rule for translators of the Scripture to follow: who oftentimes used words as the people did then take them, and not as they signified in the Apostles' times: as μeтávola for a public testification of repentance, which we call penance.'" 1 The following instances will suffice to illustrate this less accurate patristic use 66 1 Ib. i. 162. Cf. the use of “ penance in our Commination Service, and Articles. This definition of what the Reformers usually meant by " penance," viz. a public testification of repentance," is important for a true understanding of many passages where the mediaeval idea of penance has been assumed, but where the older meaning is clearly the right one. See Pusey's comment on Parker, p. 127. "In the Greek Church they that were catechumeni and energumeni were called ἐν μετανοίᾳ ὄντες.1 . .. The discipline of the Church appointed an outward exercise of praying, fasting, and other humbling for a trial and testimony of true and hearty repentance, which was sometimes called by the name of repentance by a metonymia signi: which he that will enforce by that name to be parts of true and inward repentance, is as wise as he that will contend the ivy-bush to be part of wine, because some men, seeing it hang over the house, will say, Lo, here is wine."2 Again, Sozomen, when speaking of the discipline which excluded those under penance from the 1 Cf. Dion. Areop. Eccles. Hier. c. iii. 2, 3, § 7 (i. 187, 192). "For penitents he (Dionysius) saith in the Greek, οἱ ἐν μετανοίᾳ ὄντες, that is, such as were in their course of penance." Martin ap. Fulke, i. 431. Fulke remarks that "Denis . was no more St. Paul's disciple "(as Martin stated), than he was St. Paul himself." Cf. Sozomen, vii. 16, who speaks of there being, in the Church of Rome, a manifest and known place for the penitents"; (τôv év μeravoią övrwv) Fulke reads TWV μeтavoоÚvтWV. See also August. Serm. ccclii. 8 (v. 2031d). He speaks of poenitentia gravior atque luctuosior, by which penitents are "removed from partaking of the sacrament of the altar." 2 Fulke, i. 257 f. Cf. Shakespeare, As You Like It. Epil. "Good wine needs no bush," i.e. no advertising, and Marmion, iii. 2. "On through the hamlet as they paced, Lord Marmion drew his rein." In Brittany inns are still marked by a bush of ivy or mistletoe. Some trace the custom to the fact that the ivy was sacred to Bacchus. holy mysteries, says that "the Bishop, weeping also with compassion. . . . after a certain time enjoined, absolveth them from their penance.' No Bishop could absolve from Scriptural μετάνοια, he could only absolve from the external tokens of repentance, when the Church was satisfied." The best comment on the distinction thus traced is to be found in the words of Hooker. The passage is a typical instance of his exact scholastic style, and bears the impress of a mind trained to logical methods. He starts from the premiss that we must appease those whom we offend. 1 Sozomen, vii. 16, quoted by Martin ap. Fulke, i. 431. 2 Martin charges Fulke with ignoring the phrase ποιεῖν μετάνοιαν in a Greek rubric to the liturgy of St. Chrys., to which Fulke replies, that he " I may well omit that which beareth no credit of antiquity. The liturgy is not so ancient as he whose name it beareth: the rubric much less." Martin also points out that "Ausonius, the Christian poet, useth this Greek word so evidently in this sense, that Beza saith, he did it for his verse sake." The lines referred to are "Sum dea, quæ facti non factique exigo poenas : Nempe ut poeniteat, sic Metanoea vocor." -Epig. in Simulacrum Occasionis et Poenitentiae. (Migne, vol. xix.) Beza thinks that Ausonius would have used μerapéλela had the pentameter allowed it: perávola he holds nunquam ponitur nisi in bono. So that the verse makes nothing for Penance." Bezae Nov. Test. in Matt. iii. 2, p. 8 (Basil, 1559). Fulke, i. 434 f. C.A. He next proceeds to point out that sin is an offence, both against God, and against our neighbour and the Church; and so he demonstrates the need of reconciliation to both. His words need no further comment "We are by repentance to appease whom we offend by sin. For which cause, whereas all sin deprives us of the favour of Almighty God, our way of reconciliation with Him is the inward secret repentance of the heart; which inward repentance alone sufficeth, unless some special thing, in the quality of sin committed, or in the party that hath done amiss, require more. For besides our submission in God's sight, repentance must not only proceed to the private contentation (i.e. satisfying) of men, if the sin be a crime injurious: but also further, where the wholesome discipline of God's Church exacteth a more exemplary and open satisfaction. Now, the Church being satisfied with outward repentance, as God is with inward, it shall not be amiss, for more perspicuity, to term this latter always the virtue, the former the discipline, of repentance."1 as 1 Hooker, VI. iii. 1. Hooker also speaks of repentance a name which noteth the habit and operation of a certain grace or virtue in us." (VI. v. 3.) This is the scholastic use of the word "habit," as when Pearson says "Faith is a habit of the intellectual part of man": "The belief of the heart is the internal habit residing in the soul." With the Schoolmen, as with Aristotle, their great master, the word “habit" meant the acquired mental state or condition which makes certain actions natural to us. Virtue is a habit. To the Christian, divine grace is able to implant in the soul that love of virtue which is otherwise only acquired by a repetition of virtuous actions. What philosophers spoke of as acquired, the Schoolmen therefore taught could be Thus, what others distinguish as Repentance and Penance, Hooker terms the virtue and the discipline of Repentance. The latter had been developed at the expense of the former; inward change had given place to what might be mere outward formalism; repentance had become absorbed in the penalty of satisfaction. Such teaching Fulke affirms to be "A lewd slander out of France, from the traitorous seminary at Rheims but no part of the divinity of England, allowed by the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford." 1 66 1. (b) The " Sacrament of Penance" (generally). Jewel marks two stages in the growth of Penance. Repentance is with him the true Scriptural μeTávola; but "some of late years have changed it into Penance and thereof have also made a Sacrament." The first of these stages we have fully considered. We now proceed to the latter. Penance was exalted into a Sacrament from several causes. Partly, because of the exaggerated idea of the heinousness of post-baptismal sin : partly again, from an artificial estimate of the infused. Thus regarded grace is a habit : faith is a habit: repentance is a habit. Christ was raised" to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance unto Israel." (Acts v. 31.) See Boultbee, XXXIX. Articles, p. 93 f. 1 Fulke, i. 441. 2 Jewel, ii. 1131. Penance exalted to a Sacrament Reasons for this |