3. CORRECTIVE DISCIPLINE IN POST-APOSTOLIC TIMES. In the early Church corrective discipline was a very prominent function. Here, too, it was, first of all, not official but personal. "Let us then also pray," says Clement of Rome, "for those who have fallen into any sin, that meekness and humility may be given to them."" As to official discipline, almost no information has been transmitted from the sub-apostolic period. Yet a generation or two later it may be seen in vigorous operation. It was felt to be an indispensable object that the peace and purity of the Church should be preserved. The Christian community must be kept from contamination by the corrupt pagan society that surrounded it, a stainless light, a salt full of savor.*

'Clement continues: "Let us receive correction, beloved, on account of which no one should feel displeased. Those exhortations by which we admonish one another are both good [in themselves] and highly profitable, for they tend to unite us to the will of God." (To the Corinthians, c. 56.)

Cf. the Didache, c. 15: "And reprove one another, not in anger but in peace, as ye have it in the Gospel; but to every one that acts amiss against another, let no one speak, nor let him hear aught from you till he repent." Which, however, is not the New Testament teaching (2 Thess. iii. 14, 15). "The following passages represent almost all the direct information on the subject:

"Submit yourselves to the presbyters, and receive correction so as to repent. . . For it is better for you that ye should occupy a humble but honorable place in the flock of Christ, than that, being highly exalted, ye should be cast out from the hope of his people." (Clement of Rome, c. 57.)

"Who are those whom they reject and cast away? These are they who have sinned, and wish to repent. On this account they have been thrown from the tower, because they will yet be useful in the building if they repent." (Hermas, Vis. III., c. 5.)

"For with a great gravity is the task of judging carried on among us, as befits those who feel assured that they are in the sight of God; and you have the most notable example of judgment to come when any one has sinned so grievously as to require his severance from us in prayer, in the congregation, and in all sacred intercourse. The tried men of our elders preside over us, obtaining that honor not by purchase but by established authority." (Tertullian, Apol., c. 39.)

'Tertullian makes discipline one strand of the threefold cord that binds the Christians of his day together: "We Christians are one body, knit together by a common religious profession, by a unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common vow." (Apology, 39.)

Cf. Hatch, "Organization of Early Christian Churches," pp. 69-72.

In the administration of discipline, so far as the records show, the sovereignty of the congregation as a whole was maintained. The proper officers must preside, but the infliction of punishment was not their act alone; it was congregational.'

Two principal grades of ecclesiastical penalty were pronounced against offenders. The lesser excommunication was inflicted for the less heinous sins, which came to be designated as "venial." It excluded from the sight of the celebration of the Lord's Supper.

The greater excommunication was inflicted for the more heinous sins, such as theft, blasphemy, adultery, idolatry, murder, which came to be called "mortal;" and with these were classed heresy and schism. It excluded from attendance at all church services and even from ordinary social intercourse with the faithful. On repentance, however, properly shown by prayers, tears, fasting, almsdeeds, avoidance of sins, for a reasonable length of time-one, two, six, even twenty years-the outcast might be restored to communion."

But there was one exception. Relapse into idolatry was felt to be a sin of so great turpitude as not to be pardonable by the Church. Even though it were committed, which was likely to be the case, under stress of severe persecution, in the face of torture and death, and even though the offender should show unmistakable signs of repentance, he was no more to approach the Lord's table. He could, indeed, be received as a catechumen, but not as a communicant. God might forgive him; the Church could

not.

'Note again Tertullian, Apology, c. 39.

An indication of the origin of this penalty appears as early as the Didache (c. 14): "If any have a quarrel with his fellow, let him not join you [in the celebration of the Lord's Supper] until they are reconciled."

Might he be restored after a second lapse? According to some teaching of the age, he could not. "If any one 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. But if he should sin frequently after this, and then repent, to such a man his repentance will be of no avail; for with difficulty will he live." (Hermas, Pastor, "Commandments," IV., 3.)

However, this rule, too, admitted of one exception. In some churches at least it was held that if a trusted prophetic teacher, a martyr (a Christian who had suffered tortures for the faith, and had not recanted), or a confessor (a Christian who had been brought to trial but not tortured, and had proved faithful), should declare it to be God's will that the penitent be restored, this might be done. The word of the Lord, through the mouth of one thus empowered by the Spirit of truth to utter it, might open, even to the penitent idolater, the door of readmission into the Christian fold.1

I have been speaking here of the second century and the earlier years of the third. About the middle of the third century this question of the restoration of "lapsed" Christians presented itself in an extremely acute form, especially in the city of Carthage. In fact, it here reached its culminating point, and was settled forever. It was the time of the great Decian persecution (249-251). Many Christians—perhaps more than half of the Carthaginian Church-had sought to purchase safety by dishonor. Some participated in the pagan sacrifices; some bribed the proper officials to give them a written statement to the effect that they had so participated. Their hearts had failed them; the bitterness of death was too dreadful to be voluntarily endured even for Christ's sake; and so they denied their Lord. But ere long a goodly number of these recreants heartily repented of their apostasy. What should they do to get back into the Church? In the prisons were confessors not a few, standing fast in their integrity. To these, therefore, went the penitents and begged for letters recommending their restoration to church fellowship. And

'Some, not able to find this peace in the Church, have been used to seck it from the imprisoned martyrs. And so you ought to have it dwelling with you, and to cherish it, and to guard it, that you may be able perhaps to bestow it upon others. (Tertullian, "To the Martyrs," I.)

"They [martyrs] absolved all, but bound none." (Letter from Gaul, quoted by Eusebius, H. E., Bk. V., ii., 5. See also Bk. V., xviii., 7, in which it is scoffingly asked concerning certain pretenders, whether the "prophet" forgives the sins of the "martyr," or vice versa.)

some were admitted to the Lord's table on such recommendations.

But through the determined efforts of the chief ecclesiastical statesman of the age, Thascius Cæcilius Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, this practice was discontinued. The restoration of the lapsed was declared to be too serious a matter to be decided by the mere word of kind-hearted and importuned martyrs or confessors. A long and severe probation for the renewal of church membership should be required; and the office bearers were the proper persons to decide all such cases."

But this is nothing more than would be expected when it is remembered that the power of the office bearers, and especially of the bishops, in the churches generally, had been increasing through the years. The bishop was coming to be universally regarded as a priest, and thereby, as well as for other imaginary reasons, entitled to the exercise of absolute governing authority. Accordingly the whole matter of the restoration of excommunicated persons to membership in the Church, whatever the offense for which they had been excommunicated, fell into the hands of the priest-pastor, or bishop.

And this restoration of penitent backsliders now became a very elaborate process. It was similar to the process of reception to membership through the catechumenate, though more severe. Outcasts must do penance by abstaining from pleasant things and by doing good works, both which observances were supposed to be meritorious-chiefly by fasting and almsgiving. But, in addition to this, they must do public penance by appearing as distressed penitents before the congregation and making open confession of their sins. There was thus developed the system of Penitents' Stations. Penitents must occupy four stations on their

'It was against this official as opposed to a prophetic absolution that Tertullian, who had become a Montanist, protested: "Exhibit therefore even now to me, apostolic sir, prophetic evidences, that I may recognize your divine virtue, and vindicate to yourself the power of remitting such mortal sins. The Church, it is true, will forgive sins; but it will be the Church of the Spirit, by means of a spiritual man, not the Church which consists of a number of bishops." (Tertullian. "On Modesty," XXI.)

wav back to fellowship with their brethren in the Church.

And

they were divided accordingly into four classes: (1) The "mourners," who were permitted to stand just outside the church door, clad in mourning garments, but not to enter; (2) the "hearers," who might stand within, so as to hear the sermon and the Scripture reading; (3) the "kneelers," who might enter the church and take a kneeling posture; (4) the "co-standers," who might take their places standing with the rest of the congregation.'

At.the end of this course of penitential observances, the returning backslider must make confession of his sin before the congregation. For as yet confession was apparently not even thought of as an auricular, or private, practice; it was publicmade not in the ear of any one man, but to the whole assembly of Christ's people. Then the pastor would lay his hands on the penitent's head with a prayer for the blessing of God upon him, the congregation would greet him with the kiss of reconciliation, and he was thus restored to the communion of the Church.

4. CORRECTIVE DISCIPLINE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES.

The next stage of development, which we are forced to characterize as a still further departure from "the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ," was in the line of multitudinism and sacerdotalism, as in the case of the conditions of membership. That is to say, when everybody was received into the Church, which now became practically indistinguishable from the world, and when unapproachably above the people rose the priest, whether bishop or presbyter, with the magical powers that had superseded the New Testament offices of ministration, the method of discipline that gradually came to be adopted was that of private confession and penance. By the close of the eighth century public penance had been completely discarded, except in the case of

'The observance of the Penitents' Stations, beginning in the early part of the fourth century, continued in the East for about two hundred years, and in the West perhaps twice as long. Its decline was gradual, but cannot be accurately traced. (See Smith and Cheatham's "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," Art. Penitence.)