CHAP. X. OF men's SHRINKING from THIS SEC- OND REPENTANCE AND EXOMOLOGESIS, AND OF THE UNREASONABLENESS OF SUCH SHRINK- ING.
Yet most men either shun this work, as • Utter confession.
2 For the meaning of " satisfaction," see Hooker Eccl. Pol. vi. 5, where several references to the present treatise occur. [Eluci- dation 1 1.1 3 Sordibus.
4Cf. Ps. xjiii. I (in LXX. xxii. 3), xxxviii. 8 (in the LXX.
5 Tertullian changes here to the second person, unless Oehler's " tuum" be a misprint for " suum."
being a public exposure- of themselves, or else defer it from day to day. I presume (as being) more mindful of modesty than of sal- vation; just like men who, having contracted some malady in the more private parts of the, body, avoid the privity of physicians, and so perish with their own bashfulness. It is in- tolerable, forsooth, to modesty to make satis- faction to the offended Lord! to be restored to its forfeited* salvation! Truly you are honourable in your modesty; bearing an open forehead for sinning, but an abashed one for deprecating! I give no place to bashfulness when I am a gainer by its loss; when itself in some sort exhorts the man, saying, " Respect not me; it is better that I perish through' you, /. e. than you throiigh me." At all events, the time when (if ever) its danger is serious, is when it is a butt for jeering speech in the presence of insulters, where one man raises himself on his neighbour's ruin, where there is upward clambering over the prostrate. But among brethren and fellow-servants, where there is common hope, fear,'° joy, grief, suffering, because there is a common Spirit from a common Lord and Father, why do you think these brothers to be anything other than yourself? Why flee from the partners of your own mischances, as from such as will deris- ively cheer them.? The body cannot feel gladness at the trouble of any one member," it must necessarily join with one consent in the grief, and in labouring for the remedy. Li a company of two'- is the church; '^ but the church is Christ. '•' When, then, you cast yourself at the brethren's knees, you are handling Christ, you are entreating Christ. In like manner, when they shed tears over you, it is Christ who suffers, Christ who prays the Father for mercy. What a son 's asks is ever easily obtained. Grand indeed is the reward of modesty, which the concealment of our fault promises us! to wit, if we do hide some- what from the knowledge of man, shall we equally conceal it from God? Are the judg- ment of men and the knowledge of God so put upon a par? Is it better to be damned in secret than absolved in public? But you say, " It is a miserable thing thus to come to exomologesis:" yes, for evil does bring to misery; but where repentance is to be made, the mis- ery ceases, because it is turned into something 6" Suse," which looks as if the " tuum" above should be 7 [Elucidation III.]
8 Prodacta;.
9 Per. But " per," according to Oehler, is used by Tertullian as = " propter" — on your account, for your sake.
'oMetus.
I- In uno et altero.
'3 See Matt, xviii. 20.
M i.e. as being His body.
'5 Or, " the Son." Conip. John xi. 41, 42.
CHAP. XII.]
ON REPENTANCE.
salutary. Miserable it is to be cut, and cauter- ized, and racked with the pungency of some (medicinal) powder: still, the things which heal liy unpleasant means do, by the benefit of the cure, excuse their own offensiveness, and make present injury bearable for the sake ' of the advantage to supervene.
uHAP. XI. — FURTHER STRICTURES ON THE S.\ME SUBJECT.
What if, besides the shame which they make the most account of, meri dread likewise the bodily inconveniences; in that, unwashen, sordidly attired, estranged from gladness, they must spend their time in the roughness of sackcloth, and the horridness of ashes, and the sunkenness of face caused by fasting? Is it then becoming for us to supplicate for our sins in scarlet and purple? Hasten hither with the pin for parting the hair, and the powder for polishing the teeth, and some forked implement of steel or brass for clean- ing the nails. Whatever of false brilliance, whatever of feigned redness, is to be had, let him diligently apply it to his lips or cheeks. Let him furthermore seek out baths of more genial temperature in some gardened or sea- side retreat; let him enlarge his expenses; let him carefully seek the rarest delicacy of fatted fowls; let him refine his old wine: and when any shall ask him, " On whom are you lavishing all this?" let him say, "I have sinned against God, and am in peril of etern- ally perishing: and so now I am drooping, and wasting and torturing myself, that I may reconcile God to myself, whom lay sinning I" have offended." Why, they who go about canvassing for the obtaining of civil office, feel it neither degrading nor irksome to struggle, in behalf of such their desires, with annoyances to soul and body; and not annoy- ances merely, but likewise contumelies of all kinds. What meannesses of dress do they not affect? what houses do they not beset with early and late visits? — bowing whenever they meet any high personage, frequenting no ban- quets, associating in no entertainments, but voluntarily exiled from the felicity of freedom and festivity: and all that for the sake of the fleeting joy of a single year! Do ive hesitate, when eternity is at stake, to endure what the competitor for consulship or praetorship puts up with?" and shall we be tardy in offering to the offended Lord a self-chastisement in food and raiment, which ^ Gentiles lay upon themselves when they have offended no one at all? Such are tliey of whom Scripture ' Or, " by the grace."
- Quod securium virgarumque pedtto sustinel.
makes mention: "Woe to them who bind their own sins as it were with a long rope." * CHAP. XII. — FINAL CONSIDERATIONS TO INDUCE iO EXOMOLOGESIS, If you shrink back from e.xomologesii, con- sider in your heart the hell,^ which exomolo- gesis will extinguish for you; and imagine first the magnitude of the penalty, that you may not hesitate about the adoption of the remedy. What do we esteem that treasure-house of eternal fire to be, when small vent-holes'* of it rouse such blasts of flames that neighbour- ing cities either are already no more, or are in daily expectation of the same fate? The haughtiest' mountains start asunder in the birth-throes of their inly-gendered fire; and — which proves to us the perpetuity of the judg- ment— though they start asunder, though they be devoured, yet come they never to an end. Who will not account these occasional punish- ments inflicted on the mountains as examples of the judgment which menaces the impeni- tent? Who will not agree that such sparks are but some few missiles and sportive darts of some inestimably vast centre of fire? Therefore, since you know that after the first bulwarks of the Lord's baptism* there still remains for you, in exomologesis a second re- serve of aid against hell, why do you desert your own salvation? Why are you tardy to approach what you know heals you? Even dumb irrational animals recognise in their time of need the medicines which have been divinely assigned them. The stag, transfixed by the arrow, knows that, to force out the steel, and its inextricable lingerings, he must heal himself with dittany. The swallow, if she blinds her young, knows how to give them eyes again by means of her own swallow- wort.'' Shall the sinner, knowing that exomo- logesis has been instituted by the Lord for his restoration, pass that by which restored the Babylonian king '° to his realms? Long time had he offered to the Lord his repentance, working out his exomologesis by a seven years' squalor, with his nails wildly growing after the eagle's fashion, and his unkempt hair wearing the shagginess of a lion. Hard hand- ling! Him whom men were shuddering at, God was receiving back. But, on the other hand, the Egyptian emperor — who, after pur- 5 Gehennam. Comp. ad Ux. ii. c. vi. ad Jin.
6 Fumariola, i. e. the craters of volcanoes.
7 Superbissimi: perhaps a play on the word, which is connected with " super" and " superus," as " haughty" with " high."
8 For Tertuilian's distinction between "the Lord's baptism" and " John's" see de Bapt. x.
sOr "celandine," which is perhaps only another form of " chelidonia" (" C/:<f//<^o«/a major ^^ Linn.), •o Dan. iv. 25 sqq. See de Pa. ziii.
ELUCIDATIONS.
suing the once afflicted people of God, long denied to their Lord, rushed into the battle ' — did, after so many warning plagues, perish in the parted sea, (which was permitted to be passable to " the People " alone,) by the back- ward roll of the waves:- for repentance and her handmaid ^ exotnologesis he had cast away. Why should I add more touching these two ' Proelium.
3 " Ministerium," the abstract for the concrete: so " servitia " = slaves.
^ See c. iv. [ Tabula was the word in cap. iv. but here it be- comes planca, and planca post naufragiuni is the theological formula, ever since, among Western theologians.]
planks * (as it were) of human salvation, car- ing more for the business of the pens than the duty of my conscience? For, sinner as I am of every dye,* and born for nothing save repentance, I cannot easily be silent about that concerning which also the very head and fount of the human race, and of human of- fence, Adam, restored by exomologesis to his own paradise,'' is not silent.
SSee de Bapt. xii. sub init.
6 Lit. " of all brands." Comp. c. vi.: " Does the soldier...make satisfaction for his brands.
7 Of. Gen. iii. 24 with Luke xxiii. 43, 2 Cor. xii. 4, aud Rev. ii. 7. [Elucidation IV.]
ELUCIDATIONS.
(Such as have lapsed, cap. vii., p. 660.)
The pentitential system of the Primitive days, referred to in our author, began to be changed when less public confessions were authorized, on account of the scandals which publicity generated. Changes were as follows: 1. A grave presbyter was appointed to receive and examine voluntary penitents as the Penitentiary of a diocese, and to suspend or reconcile them with due solemnities — circa 2. This plan also became encumbered with difficulties and was abolished in the East, 3. A discipline similar to that of the Anglican Church (which is but loosely maintained therein) succeeded, under St. Chrysostom; who frequently maintains the sufficiency of con- fession according to St. Matt. vi. 6. A Galilean author' says — " this is the period regarded by historians as the most brilliant in Church history. At the close of the fourth century, in the great churches of the Orient, sixty thousand Christians received the Eucharistic com- munion, in one day, in both kinds, with no other than their private confessions to Almighty God. The scandalous evil-liver alone was repelled from the Eucharistic Table." This continued till circa a.d. 700.
4. Particular, but voluntary confessions were now made in the East and West, but with widely various acceptance under local systems of discipline. The absolutions were precatory: "may God absolve Thee." This lasted, even in the West, till the compulsory system of the Lateran Council, a.d. 1215.
5. Since this date, so far as the West is concerned, the whole system of corrupt casuistry and enforced confession adopted in the West has utterly destroyed the Primitive doctrine and discipline as to sin and its remedy wherever it prevails. In the East, private confession exists in a system wholly different and one which maintains the Primitive Theology and the Scriptural principle. (1) It is voluntary; (2) it is free from the corrupt system of the casuists; (3) it distinguishes between Ecclesiastical Absolution and that of Him who alone "seeth in secret;" (4) it admits no compromise with attrition, but exacts the contrite heart ELUCIDATIONS. 667 and the firm resolve to go and sin no more, and (5) finally, it employs a most guarded and Evangelical formula of remission, of which see Elucidation IV.
II.
(The last hope, cap. vii. p. 662.)
How absolutely the Lateran Council has overthrown the Primitive discipline is here made manifest. The spirit of the latter is expressed by our author in language which almost prompts to despair. It makes sin " exceeding sinful" and even Ecclesiastical forgiveness the reverse of easy. The Lateran System of enforced Confession makes sin easy and res- toration to a sinless state equally so: a perpetual resort to the confessor being the only con- dition for evil living, and a chronic state of pardon and peace. But, let the Greek Church be heard in this matter, rather than an Anglican Catholic. I refer to Macarius, Bishop of Vinnitza and Rector of the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg, as follows: ' " It is requisite (for the effective reception of Absolution) at least according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church of the Orient, that the following conditions be observed: (i) Contrition for sins, is in the very nature of Penitence, indispensable; (2), consequently, there must be a firm resolution to reform the life; (3) also, faith in Christ and hope in his mercy, with (4) auricular confession before the priest." He allows that this latter condition was not ■primitive, but was a?naternal concession to penitents of later date: this, liowever, is voluntary, and of a widely different form from that of the Latin, as will appear below in Elucidation IV.
Now, he contrasts with this the system of Rome, and condemns it, on overwhelming considerations, i. It makes penances compensations^ or " satisfaction," offered for sins to divine Justice, this (he says) " is in contradiction with the Christian doctrine of justification, the Scripture teaching one full and entire satisfaction for the sins of the whole human race, once for all presented by our Lord Jesus Christ. This doctrine is equally in conflict with the entire teaching of the Primitive Church."
2. It introduces a false system of indulgences, as the consequence of its false premisses.
3. He demonstrates the insufficiency of attrition, which respects the fear of punishment, and not sin itself. But the Council of Trent affirms the sufficiency of attrition, and per- mits the confessor to absolve the attrite. Needless to say, the masses accept this wide gate and broad way to salvation rather than the strait gate and narrow way of hating sin and re- forming the life, in obedience to the Gospel.
III.
(Among brethren, cap. x., p. 662.)
A controversial writer has lately complained that Bp. Kaye speaks of the public confes- sion treated of by our author in this work, and adds — " Tertullian nowhere used the word public. " The answer is that he speaks of the discipline of Exomologesis, which was, in its own nature, as public as preaching. A Galilean writer, less inclined to Jesuitism in the use of words, says frankly: " When one studies this question, with the documents before his eyes, it is impossible not to confess that the Primitive discipline of the Church exhibits not a vestige of the auricular confession afterwards introduced." See \xt.x\'x,\x%. Adv. Hczres. Vol. I. p. 335, this Series. The Lii. of the canons called Apostolical, reflects a very simple view of the matter, in these words: " If any Bishop or Presbyter will not receive one who turns from his sins, but casts him out, let him be deposed: for he grieves Christ, who said, There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." The ascetic spirit of our author seems at war with that of this Canon.
'^Theol. Dogmat.Orthodoxe, pp. 529-541, etc. "Ceuc. Trident. Sess. liv. cap. 8.
668 ELUCIDATIONS.
IV. (Exomologesis, cap. xii., p. 663.)
To this day, in the Oriental Churches, the examination of the presbyter who hears the voluntary confession of penitents, is often very primitive in its forms and confined to general inquiries under the Decalogue. The Casuistry of (Dens and Liguori) the Western Schemata Fractica has not defiled our Eastern brethren to any great extent.
In the office ' ('A/coAot;0/a tuv i^ofiolavyoviikvuv) we have a simple and beautiful form of prayer and supplication in which the following is the formula of Absolution: " My Spiritual child, who hast confessed to my humility, I, unworthy and a sinner, have not the pmuer to forgive sins on Earth; God only can: and through that Divine voice which came to the Apostles, after the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying — ' Whosesoever sins, etc.,' we, therein confiding, say — Whatsoever thou hast confessed to my extreme humility, and whatsoever thou hast omitted to say, either through ignorance or forgetfulness, God for- give thee in this present world and in that which is to come."
The plural [We therein confiding) is significant and a token of Primitive doctrine: i.e. of confession before the whole Church, (II. Cor. ii. 10.): and note the precatory form — "God forgive thee." The perilous form Ego te absolvo is not Catholic: it dates from the thirteenth century and is used in the West only. It is not wholly dropped from the An- glican Office, but has been omitted from the American Prayer-Book.
'The Great Euchologioa, p. 220, Venice, 1851.
II.
ON BAPTISM.
[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.]
CHAP. I. — INTRODUCTION.
TREATISE.
ORIGIN OF THE Happy is our ' sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early l)Hndness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life! A treatise on this matter will not be superfluous; instructing not only such as are just becoming formed (in the faith), but them who, content with having simply be- lieved, without full examination of the grounds- of the traditions, carry (in mind), through ignorance, an untried though prob- able faith. The consequence is, that a viper (jf the Cainite heresy, lately conversant in this quarter, has carried away a great number with her most venomous doctrine, making it her iirst aim to destroy baptism. Which is quite in accordance with nature; for vipers and asps and basilisks themselves generally do affect arid and waterless places. But we, little fishes, after the example of our ixers^ Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor have we safety in any other way than by permanently abiding in water; so that most monstrous creature, who had no right to teach even sound doc- trine," knew full well how to kill the little fishes, by taking them away from the water!
chap. II. THE VERY SIMPLICITY OF GOD'S MEANS OF WORKING, A STUMBLING-BLOCK TO THE CARNAL MIND.
Well, but how great is the force of pervers- ity for so shaking the faith or entirely pre- venting its reception, that it impugns it on the very principles of which the faith con- 2 Rationibiis.
3 This curious allusion it is impossible, perhaps, to render in our language. The word IX0Y2 (ikhihus) in (Ireek means " a fish;" and it was used as a name for our Lord Jesus, because the initials of the words 'I)7(Toii5 Xpio-rbs ®€o£i Yibs 2<oTj)p (i.e. Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour), make up that word. Oehler with these remarks, gives abundant references on the point. [Dr. AUix suspects Montanism here, but sec Kaye, p. 43, and Lardner, Credib. II. p. 335. We may date it circa A. D. 193.]
4As being a woman. See i Tira, ii. 11, la.
sists! There is absolutely nothing which makes men's minds more obdurate than the simplicity of the divine works which are vis- ible in the act^ when compared with the grandeur which is promised thereto in the effect;_^o\\\2i\. from the very fact, that with so great simplicity, without pomp, without any considerable novelty of preparation, finally, without expense, a man is dipped in water, and amid the utterance of some few words, is sprinkled, and then rises again, not much (or not at all) the cleaner, the consequent attain- ment of eternity 5 is esteemed the more in- credible. I am a deceiver if, on the contrary, it is not from their circumstance, and prepar- ation, and expense, that idols' solemnities or mysteries get their credit and authority built up. Oh, miserable incredulity, which quite deniest to God His own properties, simplicity and power! What then? Is it not wonderful, too, that death should be washed away by bathing? But it is the more to be believed if the wonderfulness be the reason why it is not believed. For what does it behove divine works to be in their quality, except that they be above all wonder?^ We also ourselves wonder, but it is becaicse we believe. Incre- dulity, on the other hand, wonders, but does not believe: for the simple acts it wonders at, as if they were vain; the grand results, as if they were impossible. And grant that it be just as you think, ^ sufficient to meet each point is the divine declaration which has fore- run: "The foolish things of the world hath God elected to confound its wisdom;"* and, " The things very difficult with men are easy with God. "9 For if God is wise and power- ful (which even they who pass Him by do not deny), it is with good rea.son that He lays the material causes of His own operation in the S Consecutio jeternitatis.
^Admirationem.
7 i.e. that the simple be vain, and the grand impossible.
*i Cor. i. 27, not quite exactiy quoted.
9 Luke xviii. 27, again inexact.
ON BAPTISM.
[chap. IV.
contraries of wisdom and of power, that is, in foolishness and impossibility; since every virtue receives its cause from those things by which it is called forth.
CHAP. III. WATER CHOSEN AS A VEHICLE OF DIVINE OPERATION AND WHEREFORE. ITS PROMINENCE FIRST OF ALL IN CREATION.
Mindful of this declaration as of a conclu- sive prescript, we nevertheless proceed to treat the question, " Yiow foolish and impossible it is to be formed anew by water. In what re- spect, pray, has this material substance merited an ofifice of so high dignity?" The authority, I suppose, of the liquid element has to be examined.' This,- however, is found in abundance, and that from the very beginning. For water is one of those things which, before all the furnishing of the world, were quies- cent with God in a yet unshapen^ state. " In the first beginning," saith Scripture, "God made the heaven and the earth. But the earth was invisible, and unorganized,* and darkness was over the abyss; and the Spirit of the Lord was hovering s over the waters."* The first thing, O man, which you have to venerate, is the age of the, waters in that their substance is ancient; the second, their dig?nty, in that they were the seat of the Divine Spirit, more pleasing to Him, no doubt, than all the other then existing elements. For the darkness was total thus far, shapeless, without the ornament of stars; and the abyss gloomy; and the earth unfurnished; and the heaven unwrought: water ^ alone — always a perfect, gladsome, simple material substance, pure in itself — supplied a worthy vehicle to God. What of the fact that waters were in some way the regulating powers by which the disposition of the world thenceforward was constituted by God? For the suspension of the celestial firmament in the midst He caused by "dividing the waters;"^ the sus- pension of " the dr}'^ land " He accomplished by " separating the waters." After the world had been hereupon set in order through its elements, when inhabitants were given it, "the waters " were the first to receive the precept "to bring forth living creatures. "» Water was the first to produce that which had life, that it might be no wonder in baptism if waters know how to give life.'° For was not the work of fashioning man himself also ' Compare the Jews' question, Matt. xxi. 23. " Its authority. 3 Impolita. ■» Incomposita. 5 Ferebatur.
achieved with the aid of waters? Suitable material is found in the earth, yet not apt tor the purpose unless it be moist and juicy; which (earth) "the waters," separated the fourth day before into their own place, temper with their remaining moisture to a clayey con- sistency. If, from that time onward, I go forward in recounting universally, or at more length, the evidences of the "authority " of this element which I can adduce to show how great is its power or its grace; how many ingenious devices, how many functions, how useful an instrumentality, it affords the world, I fear I may seem to have collected rather the praises of water than the reasons of baptism; although I should thereby teach all the more fully, that it is not to be doubted that God has made the material substance which He has disposed throughout all His products " and works, obey Him also in His own peculiar sacraments; that the material substance which governs terrestrial life acts as agent likewise in the celestial.
CHAP. IV. THE PRIMEVAL HOVERING OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD OVER THE WATERS TYPICAL OF BAPTISM. THE UNIVERSAL ELEMENT OF WATER THUS MADE A CHANNEL OF SANCTIFI- CATION. RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THE OUT- WARD SIGN AND THE INWARD GRACE.
But it will suffice to have thus called at tht outset those points in which withal is recog- nised that primary principle of baptism, — which was even then fore-noted by the very attitude assumed for a type of baptism, — that the Spirit of God, who hovered over (the waters) from the beginning, would continue to linger over the waters of the baptized." But a holy thing, of course, hovered over a holy; or else, from that which hovered over that which ivas hovered over borrowed a holi- ness, since it is necessary that in every case an underlying material substance should catch the quality of that which overhangs it, most of all a corporeal of a spiritual, adapted (as the spiritual is) through the subtleness of its substance, both for penetrating and insinuat- ing. Thus the nature of the waters, sanctified by the Holy One, itself conceived withal the power of sanctifying. Let no one say, " Why then, are we, pray, baptized with the very waters which then existed in the first begin- ning?" Not with those waters, of course, except in so far as the genus indeed is one, but the species very many. But what is an attribute to the genus reappears '^ likewise in the species. And accordingly it makes no " Rebus.
'2 Intinctorum.
»3 Redundat.
CHAP, v.]