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Medicine for Sin as Prescribed in the Penitentials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John T. McNeill
John T. McNeill
Affiliation:
Divinity School of the University of Chicago
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Extract

During the past century the textual criticism and literary history of the Penitentials have received considerable attention, but the investigation of their actual function in social and church life has only begun. Yet the field is inviting. The Penitentials have, for instance, notable legal and economic aspects; they offer considerable information on ascetic practices, they have a bearing on ritual developments; and the relation of their relaxations, compositions and commutations of penance to the development of Indulgences is itself an important question. It is not the purpose of the present article to investigate any of these, but to suggest still another angle of approach. I wish to present some elementary considerations toward the answer to a question which is perhaps more basic than any of those just suggested. The question may be stated thus: What did the Penitentials contribute, and what were they designed to contribute, to the cure of souls? The cure of souls (cura animarum ) means of course the general ministry of religion in the care, and only incidentally the healing, of souls. But the penitent was regarded as one morally diseased and ill, and his treatment is, in the Penitentials, repeatedly, even habitually, referred to as the task of the moral physician. His sins are the symptoms of disease. The penalties enforced are “medicamenta,” “remedia,” “fomenta”—measures designed to restore his moral and spiritual health.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 1932 , pp. 14 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1932

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References

1 Where not otherwise indicated, editions of the penitentials here referred to will be found in Wasserschleben, F. W. H, Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche, Halle, 1851.Google Scholar They are also contained in the volumes by Schmitz, H. J., Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, Mainz, 1883Google Scholar, and Die Bussbücher und das kanonische Bussverfahren, Düsseldorf, 1898.Google Scholar

2 See for instance: Oakley, T. P., English Penitential Discipline and Anglo-Saxon Law (Columbia University Studies), New York, 1923Google Scholar, and the present writer's The Celtic Penitentials and their Influence on Continental Christianity, Paris, 1923Google Scholar, of which four chapters appeared in Revue Celtique, XXXIX, (1922). 257–300;Google ScholarXL, (1923) 51–103; 320–341.Google Scholar

3 Of the works consulted for this part of the study, the following have proved the most useful: Buck, A. H.The Growth of Medicine … to about 1800. New Haven. 1917.Google ScholarCumston, C. G.An Introduction to the History of Medicine, New York, 1927.Google ScholarFort, G. B.Medical Economy in the Middle Ages. New York, 1883.Google ScholarGarrison, F. H.An Introduction to the History of Medicine. Philadelphia, 1924.Google ScholarHoeser, H., Lehrburch der Geschichte der Medizin. 3rd edition, 3 vols. Jena, 1875.Google ScholarLambert, L. W. and Godwin, G. M.Medical Leaders from Hippocrates to Osler. Indianapolis, 1929.Google ScholarMoon, R. O.The Relation of Medicine to Philosophy. New York, 1909.Google ScholarMoulton, C. W.The History of Medicine. New York, 1905.Google ScholarNeuburger, M.The History of Medicine. (tr. Playfair, ). 2 vols. London, 1910.Google ScholarPower, Sir D'Arcy, and Thompson, C. J. SChronologia Medico. London, 1923.Google ScholarScheller, E.Aldus Cornelius Celsus über die Arzneiwissenschaft, 2nd edition (W. Friehols), 2 vols. Braunsweig, 1906.Google ScholarWalsh, J. J.Old Time Makers of Medicine. New York, 1911.Google Scholar

4 Neuburger, , I, 107.Google Scholar

5 Neuburger, , I, 209.Google Scholar Cf. Cumston, , pp. 124ffGoogle Scholar The relation of Themison to Asclepiades is somewhat differently viewed by Moulton, , pp. 243 ff.Google Scholar, but the point is not of importance here. Some writers regard Asclepiades as the founder of the Methodists, Cf. Moon, , p. 28.Google Scholar

6 Lambert, , p. 58;Google ScholarNeuburger, , I, 308–9.Google Scholar

7 Cumston, , p. 133;Google ScholarLambert, pp. 52, 57.Google Scholar

8 Tertullian, , de Anima, vi, viii, xiv, xliv.Google Scholar Soranus appears from these passages to have taught that the soul itself has a physical existence, and is not merely dependent on the functioning of the bodily organs. He does not, however, teach its indestructibility; but Tertullian uses him to confute still more negative views.

9 Contra Julianum, V, 51Google Scholar (“Soranus medicinae auctor nobilissimus”). Retractationes, II, lxii.Google Scholar

10 Policraticus, ed. Webb, C. C. J., Oxford 1909, Vol. I, p. 29.Google Scholar

11 Cumston, p. 134.Google Scholar

12 Caelius has been placed in the second, but more generally in the fourth or fifth century. See Cumston, pp. 134–5Google Scholar and especially Hoeser, I, 321–334.Google ScholarPower and Thompson, , p. 41Google Scholar, date him about 400.

13 Quoted by Walsh, p. 46.Google Scholar

14 Moon, , p. 65.Google Scholar

15 Budge, E. A. W, The Paradise of the Holy Fathers, London, 1917, Vol. I, p. 100.Google Scholar

16 Penitentiale Vinniai, 28, 29.Google Scholar

17 Poenitentiale Columbani, A, 12, and B, introductory paragraph.Google Scholar

18 Vita S. Columbani, 17.Google Scholar He has already remarked on the virtual absence of “Poenitentiae medicamenta” in Gaul before Columban. Ibid. Ch. 11.

19 “Das Poenitentiale Cummeani,” Zeitschr. f. katholisches Kirchenrecht, LXXXII (1902), 501–540.Google Scholar

20 “luxuria”, “excess”.

21 Octavius, xxii.Google Scholar

22 Poenit. Col., B. 30.Google Scholar

23 Tr. Brink, L., New York, 1929. 2 vols.Google Scholar

24 The sinner, or the neurotic, has ways of punishing himself, as severe as those authorized in the church, and much less helpful. My friend, Professor S. B. Sniffen, who has given me valuable suggestions on this section of the article, has remarked to me at this point: “It is probable that neurotic difficulties, particularly of a compulsive and depressive nature, were forestalled by the availability of the ecclesiastical mechanism for punishment.”

25 It seems unnecessary here to supply the word “inopia”, as Haddam and Stubbs suggest (Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents I, 113)Google Scholar, obviously with the idea that the “celestial medicine” is the Eucharist from which the penitent was excluded. The text is clear as it stands, and quite intelligible in the light of the common phraseology of the Penitentials.

26 Wasserschleben, H., Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche, p. 250.Google Scholar

27 Zettinger, , op. cit., p. 540.Google Scholar

28 Medicine, Magic and Religion, London and New York. 1924, p. 143.Google Scholar

29 Psychological Healing, tr. Paul, E. and Paul, C., London and New York, 1925. I, 485 ff.Google Scholar

30 Which, by the way, is a light comedy rendering of Deut. 25:2.