Chapter 5: Of Chrism, Sacramental Confession, Penance, Absolution, Marriage, Divorces, and Single Life in the Clergy

Of Chrisme, Sacramentall Confession, Penance, Absolution, Marriage, Divorces, and single life in the Clergie.

That the Irish did baptize their infants without any consecrated Chrisme, Lanfranc maketh complaint in his letters to Terdeluacus (or Tirlagh) the chiefe King of that country. And Bernard reporteth, that Malachias in his time (which was after the daies of Lanfranc and Pope Hildebrand) did of the new institute the most wholesome use of Confession, the sacrament of Confirmation, and the contract of marriages: all which he says the Irish before were either ignorant of, or did neglect. Which, for the matter of Confession, may receive some further confirmation from the testimonie of Alcuinus: who writing to the Scottish (or, as other copies read, the Gothish) and commending the religious conversation of their laity, who in the midst of their worldly imployments were said to leade a most chaste life; condemneth notwithstanding another custome, which was said to have continued in that country. For it is said (quot he) that no man of the laity will make his confession to the Priests; whom we beleeve to have received from the Lord Christ, the power of binding and loosing, together with the holy Apostles.

They had no reason indeed to hold (as Alcuinus did) that they ought to confesse to a Priest all the sinnes they could remember: but upon speciall occasions, they did (no doubt) both publikely and privately make confession of their faults, aswell that they might receive counsaile and direction for their recovery, as that they might bee made partakers of the benefit of the keyes, for the quieting of their troubled consciences. Whatever the Gothish did herein (by whom wee are to understand the inhabitants of Languedok in France, where Alcuinus lived) sure wee are, that this was the practice of the ancient Scottish and Irish. So wee reade of one Fiachna or Fechnaus, that being touched with remorse for some offence committed by him, he fell at Saint Colmes feet, lamented bitterly, and confessed his sinnes before all that were there present. Whereupon the holy man, weeping together with him, is said to have returned this answer: Rise up, Sonne, and bee comforted, your sinnes which you have committed are forgiven; because (as it is written) a contrite and an humbled heart God does not despise. We reade also of Adamanus, that being very much terrified with the remembrance of a grievous sinne committed by him in his youth; he resorted to a Priest, by whom hee hoped the way of salvation might bee shewed to him, hee confessed his guilt, and intreated that hee would give him counsell, whereby hee might flee from the wrath of God that was to come.

Now the counsell commonly given to the Penitent after Confession, was; that hee should wipe away his sinnes by meet fruits of repentance: which course Bede observeth to have beene usually prescribed by our Cuthbert. For penances were then exacted, as testimonies of the sincerity of that inward repentance which was necessarily required for obtaining remission of the sinne: and so had reference to the taking away of the guilt, and not of the temporall punishment remaining after the forgivenesse of the guilt; which is the new found use of penances, invented by our later Romanists. One old Penitentiall Canon wee finde laid downe in a Synod held in this country about the yeere our Lord 450, by Saint Patrick, Auxilius, and Isserninus: which is as followeth. A Christian who has kild a man, or committed fornication, or gone to a Southsayer after the manner of the Gentiles, for every of those crimes shall doe a yeere of Penance: when his yeere of penance is accomplished, he shall come with witnesses, and afterward hee shall be absolved by the Priest. These Bishops did take order (we see) according to the discipline generally used in those times, that the penance should first be performed; and when long & good proofe had bin given by that means of the truth of the parties repentance, they wished the Priest to impart to him the benefit of Absolution. Whereas by the new device of sacramentall penance the matter is now far more easily transacted: by vertue of the keyes the sinner is instantly of attrite made contrite, and thereupon as soon as hee has made his Confession hee presently receiveth his Absolution: after this, some sorry penance is imposed, which upon better consideration may bee converted into pence; and so a quicke end is made of many a foule businesse.

But for the right use of the keys, we fully accord with Claudius: that the office of remitting and retaining sins which was given to the Apostles, is now in the Bishops and Priests committed to every Church. Namely, that having taken knowledge of the causes of such as have sinned, as many as they shall behold humble and truly penitent, those they may now with compassion absolve from the fear of everlasting death; but such as they shall discern to persist in the sins which they have committed, those they may declare to be bound over to never ending punishments. And in thus absolving such as be truly penitent, we willingly yield, that the Pastors of God's Church do remit sins after their manner, that is to say, ministerially and improperly: so that the privilege of forgiving sins properly and absolutely, be still reserved to God alone. Which is at large set out by the same Claudius; where he expounds the history of the man sick of the palsy, that was cured by our Savior in the ninth of Saint Matthew. For, following Bede upon that place, he writes thus. The Scribes say true, that none can forgive sins but God alone; also forgiveth by them, to whom he has given the power of forgiving. And therefore is Christ proved to be truly God because he forgives sins as God. They render a true testimony to God: but in denying the person of Christ, they are deceived. And again: If it be God that, according to the Psalmist, removes our sins as far from us, as the East is distant from the West; and the Son of man has power upon earth to forgive sins: therefore he himself is both God and the Son of man. That both the man Christ might by the power of his divinity forgive sins; and the same Christ being God, might by the frailty of his humanity die for sinners. And out of Saint Jerome: Christ shows himself to be God, who can know the hidden things of the heart; and after a sort holding his peace he speaks. By the same majesty and power, whereby I behold your thoughts, I can also forgive sins to men. In like manner does the author of the book of the wonderful things of the Scripture observe these divine works in the same history: the forgiving of sins, the present cure of the disease, and the answering of the thoughts by the mouth of God who searches all things. With whom, for the property of beholding the secret thoughts, Sedulius also does concur, in those sentences. God alone can know the hidden things of men. To know the hearts of men, and to discern the secrets of their mind, is the privilege of God alone.

That the contract of marriages, was either unknown or neglected by the Irish, before Malachias did institute the same anew among them (as Bernard does seem to intimate) is a thing almost incredible. Although Giraldus Cambrensis does complain, that the case was little better with them after the time of Malachias also. The licentiousness of those ruder times, I know, was such, as may easily induce us to believe, that a great both neglect and abuse of God's ordinance did get footing among this people. Which enormities Malachias, no doubt, did labor to reform: and withal peradventure brought in some new matters, not known here before; as he was very desirous his countrymen should generally conform themselves to the traditions and customs of the Church of Rome. But our purpose is here only to deal with the doctrine and practice of the elder times: in which, first, that marriage was not held to be a sacrament, may be collected from Sedulius, who reckons it among those things, which are gifts indeed, but not spiritual.

Secondly, for the degrees of consanguinity hindering marriage, the Synod attributed to Saint Patrick seems to refer us wholly to the Levitical law; prescribing therein neither less nor more than the Law speaks: and particularly, against matching with the wife of the deceased brother (which was the point so much questioned in the case of King Henry the eighth) this Synodical decree is there urged. The brother may not ascend into the bed of his deceased brother: the Lord having said, They two shall be one flesh. Therefore the wife of your brother, is your sister. Whereupon we find also, that our Kilianus did suffer martyrdom for dissolving such an incestuous marriage in Gozbertus Duke of Franconia: and that Clemens Scotus for maintaining the contrary was both by Boniface Archbishop of Mentz, and the Council held at Rome by Pope Zacharie in the year 745, condemned as a bringer in of Judaism among Christians. Yet how far this condemned opinion of his prevailed afterward in this country, and how foul a crime it was esteemed to be by others abroad (notwithstanding the Pope does now by his Bulls of dispensation take upon him to make a fair matter of it) may easily be perceived by this censure of Giraldus: Moreover, says he, which is very detestable, and most contrary not only to the faith, but also to common honesty; brethren in many places throughout Ireland do, I say not marry, but mar rather and seduce the wives of their deceased brothers, while in this sort they filthily and incestuously have knowledge of them: cleaving herein not to the marrow but to the bark of the Old Testament, and desiring to imitate the ancient in vices more willingly than in virtues.

Thirdly, touching divorces, we read in Sedulius; that it is not lawful, according to the precept of our Lord, that the wife should be put away, but for the cause of fornication, and in the Synod ascribed to Saint Patrick. It is not lawful for a man to put away his wife, but for the cause of fornication, as if he should say; for this cause, he may. From where if he marry another, as it were after the death of the former, they forbid it not. Who they were, that did not forbid this second marriage, is not there expressed: that Saint Patrick himself was of another mind, would appear by this constitution following; which in another ancient canon-book I found cited under his name. If any man's wife have committed adultery with another man: he shall not marry another wife, as long as the first wife shall be alive. If per adventure she be converted, and do penance: he shall receive her; and she shall serve him in the place of a maid-servant. Let her for a whole year do penance in bread and water, and that by measure: neither let them remain in the same bed together. Fourthly, concerning single life, I do not find in any of our records, that it was generally imposed upon the clergy; but the contrary rather. For in the Synod held by Saint Patrick, Auxilius, and Isserninus; there is a special order taken, that their wives shall not walk abroad, with their heads uncovered. And Saint Patrick himself confesses (at leastwise the Confession which goes under his name says so; and Probus, Iocelinus, and others that write his life, agree therewith) that he had to his father Calphurnius a Deacon, and to his grandfather Potitus a Priest. For that was no new thing then among the Britons: whose Bishops therefore Gildas does reprehend (as for the same cause he did the chief of the laity) that they were not content to be the husbands of one, but of many wives, and that they corrupted their children by their evil example: whereas the chastity of the fathers was to be esteemed imperfect, if the chastity of their sons were not added thereunto.

Nennius, the eldest historiographer of the Britons which we have after him (who in many copies also bears his own name) wrote that book which we have extant of his, to Samuel the child of Benlanus the Priest, his master: counting it a grace, rather than any kind of disparagement to him, to be esteemed the son of a learned Priest. Which makes him in the verses prefixed before the work to say: Christe, tribuisti patri Samuelem,

But about 60 or 70 years after, I find some partial eclipse here (and the first, I think, of this kind, that can be showed among the Britons) in the laws of Howel Dha: where it is ordered, that if a Clerk of a lower degree should match with a woman, and have a son by her, and that Clerk afterward having received the order of Priesthood, should have another son by the same woman; the former son should enjoy his father's whole estate, without being bound to divide the same with his other brother. Yet these marriages for all that were so held out, that the fathers not content their sons should succeed them in their temporal estate alone, prevailed so far that they continued them in the succession of their spiritual promotions also. Which abuse Giraldus Cambrensis complains to have been continued in Wales to his time; and out of Hildebertus Cenomanensis shows to have prevailed in little Brittaine also: from where he infers, that this vice was of old common to the whole British nation as well on this side as on the other side of the sea. Whereunto for Ireland also we may add the letters written by Pope Innocent the third to Iohannes Salernitanus the Cardinal, his legate, for abolishing the custom there, whereby sons and grand-children did use to succeed their fathers and grand-fathers in their ecclesiastical benefices.