The end for which Jesus Christ established His Church was the sanctification and salvation of souls. This end the Church was to obtain chiefly by preaching the Gospel which her Founder had revealed and by administering the sacraments which He had instituted.{1} Men were to be sanctified and prepared for eternity by holy living through the grace of God communicated to them principally by means of the sacraments. The Gospels contain a short summary of the general teaching of Jesus Christ; this is developed somewhat in certain directions in the other writings of the New Testament, but the preachers of the Word soon found it convenient to have by them brief summaries of the moral teaching of Our Lord by itself. This need was met by such works as the "Didaché," or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," composed about the end of the first century, and the "Pastor" of Hermas, written a little later. It would be utterly impossible to give even an outline of the ethical works of all the Fathers of the Church. Together they form a very voluminous and complete course of moral theology, and more than one such course has been put together by simply printing a consecutive selection of their works. Thus in 1791 an Italian priest, Angelo Cigheri, published at Florence his "Veterum Patrum Theologia Universa," in thirteen volumes quarto, of which the three last are devoted to morals. A fairly complete catalogue of ethical works by the Fathers will be found in the indices of Migne's "Patrology," arranged. under the separate headings which figure in our modern manuals of moral theology. All that we can do here is to select a few typical works which exhibit the gradual development of the science of Christian Ethics. The "Didaché" may be looked upon as the first handbook of morals which has come down to us, and it will be worth while to give a short analysis of its contents.
This first handbook of moral theology begins with the first general principle of ethics. All righteousness is summed up in the general precept to avoid evil and do good. The doing of good consists of the observance of the two great commandments of love for our God and for our neighbor. The golden rule is added to the statement of the general first principles of morality. "There are two ways," we read, "one of life and one of death and there is much difference between the two ways. Now the way of life is this: First thou shalt love God that made thee; secondly, thy neighbor as thyself; and all things whatsoever thou wouldest should not happen to thee, neither do thou to another." The rest of the first chapter is occupied with a development of the precept of love for our neighbor, expressed for the most part in the language of the Sermon on the Mount. The second chapter enumerates some of the principal negative duties toward our neighbor. A similar enumeration occupies the third chapter, but here there is an attempt to give the reason for the different prohibitions, as, for example: "Be not prone to anger, for anger leads to murder; neither a zealot, nor contentious, nor passionate; for from all these things murders are begotten." In the fourth chapter are set down the duties toward preachers of the Gospel, of making peace, of judging righteously, of almsgiving; duties toward parents, children, servants; of avoiding hypocrisy, and not adding to or taking away from the precepts of the Lord which they had been taught. The chapter concludes with, "This is the way of life."
The fifth chapter consists of a long enumeration of sins, and ends with the prayer, "May ye be delivered, children, from all these."
In the sixth chapter there is a warning against being led away from this teaching by any one, for such a one would not teach according to God. A distinction is drawn between what is required for perfection and what is morally possible. The faithful are bidden specially to beware of what has been sacrificed to idols.
A brief instruction on Baptism occupies the seventh chapter, and in the eighth Christians are taught to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, so that their fasting-days may be different from those of the Jews, who fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. They are told to say the "Our Father" three times a day. The ninth and tenth chapters give instructions on the celebration of the Eucharist, while the two following deal with the way in which prophets and strangers should be received. The thirteenth chapter prescribes the offering of first-fruits. In the next chapter the faithful are instructed to meet together on every Lord's Day, to offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice, after confessing their sins, so that their sacrifice may be pure. Enemies, too, should be reconciled lest the sacrifice be defiled. It was of this sacrifice that Malachias prophesied. The fifteenth chapter deals with the election of bishops and deacons and the respect which is due to them. The duties of fraternal correction, of prayer and almsdeeds, are enjoined as they are contained in the Gospel of Our Lord. The last chapter contains an exhortation to watch, and inculcates the necessity of faith and perseverance, for Antichrist will appear and seduce many. The treatise concludes with a short description of the signs of the last day.
The whole of the second Book of the "Pastor" of Hermas is a document of early Christian moral teaching very similar to the "Didaché," but more attempt may be observed in it to show the connection between one prohibition and another, and to give reasons and motives for their observance.
A great advance is observable in the catechetical works of Clement of Alexandria. They are almost exclusively devoted to moral teaching, which their learned author illustrates and confirms by constant quotations from the Greek classical authors. With an enthusiastic and personal love for Jesus Christ, and faith in His teaching as a divine and full revelation of the truth to men, he combines a high esteem for reason and philosophy. According to Clement, philosophy was the pedagogue of the pagan world, preparing it for Christ and leading it to Him, as the law did the Jews. Philosophy is the handmaid of theology, he says, and the dictates of reason are but the promptings of the Word which illuminates every man that cometh into the world. This, of course, is but a development of ideas which we find in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and it is a natural consequence of Christian teaching concerning God and His relation to man and to the worid. It is a very superficial view which regards the action of Clement and other Fathers in the use they made of reason and philosophy as a corrupting influence in Christian teaching. With them, as with the scholastics in the Middle Ages, that action was the necessary result of a firm faith in the Gospel message, and the natural desire to understand it and penetrate its full meaning as far as possible. It was Fides quaerens intellectum, the moving spirit of Catholic theology from the beginning. Better than any lengthy exposition, an extract or two from Clement will show how far the science of moral theology had progressed at the end of the second century. The following extract is taken from an apologetic work entitled "An Exhortation to the Heathen."
"Wherefore, since the Word Himself has come to us from heaven, we need not, I reckon, go any more in search of human learning to Athens and the rest of Greece, and to Ionia. For if we have as our teacher Him that filled the universe with His holy energies in creation, salvation, beneficence, legislation, prophecy, teaching, we have the Teacher from whom all instruction comes; and the whole world, with Athens and Greece, has already become the domain of the Word. For you, who believed the poetical fable which designated Minos the Cretan as the bosom friend of Zeus, will not refuse to believe that we who have become the disciples of God have received the only true wisdom; and that which the chiefs of philosophy only guessed at, the disciples of Christ have both apprehended and proclaimed."{2}
The next extract from the "Paedagogus," a work containing instructions for recent converts, shows the place which reason or conscience holds in Christian ethics.
"Everything that is contrary to right reason is sin. Accordingly, therefore, the philosophers think fit to define the most generic passions thus: lust, as desire disobedient to reason; fear, as weakness disobedient to reason; pleasure, as an elation of the spirit disobedient to reason. If, then, disobedience in reference to reason is the generating cause of sin, how shall we escape the conclusion that obedience to reason, -- the Word, -- which we call Faith, will of necessity be the efficacious cause of duty? For virtue itself is a state of the soul rendered harmonious by reason in respect to the whole life. Nay, to crown all, philosophy itself is pronounced to be the cultivation of right reason; so that, necessarily, whatever is done through error of reason is transgression, and is rightly called sin."{3}
The "Stromata," or "Miscellanies," are a collection of materials for the ethical instruction and training of the Christian theologian. The philosophical and theological detail to which Clement descends in the treatment of his subject may be illustrated by an extract from the fourteenth chapter of the second Book of the "Stromata," on the different ways in which an act may be involuntary. The matter of course belongs to the treatise on Human Acts, sometimes said to be the last treatise which was added to our manuals of morals.
"What is involuntary is not matter for judgment. But this is twofold -- what is done in ignorance, and what is done through necessity. For how will you judge concerning those who are said to sin in involuntary modes? For either one knew not himself, as Cleomenes and Athamas, who were mad; or the thing which he does, as AEschylus, who divulged the mysteries on the stage, who being tried in the Areopagus was absolved on his showing that he had never been initiated. Or one knows not what is done, as he who has let off his antagonist, and slain his domestic instead of his enemy; or that by which it is done, as he who in exercising with spears having buttons on them, has killed some one in consequence of the spear throwing off the button; or knows not the manner how, as he who has killed his antagonist in the stadium, for it was not for his death but for victory that he contended; or knows not the reason why it is done, as the physician who gave a salutary antidote and killed, for it was not for this purpose that he gave it, but to save."{4}
As yet no attempt had been made in the Church to write a systematic treatise of morals by reducing the various virtues and vices to logical order under appropriate general principles. This step was taken by St. Ambrose at the end of the fourth century. This great Father and Doctor of the Church composed his work "De Officiis" for the instruction of the clergy of his church of Milan. He expressly tells us that he followed Cicero's work with the same title as his pattern. Cicero wrote his book for the instruction of his son; St. Ambrose desired to write for the instruction of his spiritual children. Although he followed Cicero closely in the arrangement and treatment of the matter, yet he never loses sight of what appears to have been the chief motive that he had in view in the composition of his work; namely, to demonstrate the superiority of Christian over pagan ethics.
The work is divided, like Cicero's, into three Books. In the first he treats of what is honorable and dishonorable. He points out that the philosophic distinction between ordinary and perfect virtue has its counterpart in the Gospel, which distinguishes between what is matter of strict precept and of counsel. Certain elementary duties, as those toward parents and elders, are touched on, and then follows a discussion on the four cardinal virtues. The second Book treats of what is expedient with reference to eternal life. The third Book treats of what is honorable and expedient in conjunction, and the author has no difficulty in reconciling these conflicting principles according to Christian teaching. "For," he writes, "I said that nothing can be virtuous but what is useful, and nothing can be useful but what is virtuous. For we do not follow the wisdom of the flesh, whereby the usefulness that consists in an abundance of money is held to be of most value, but we follow the wisdom which is of God, whereby those things which are greatly valued in this world are counted but as loss. For this katorthôma which is duty carried out entirely and in perfection, starts from the true source of virtue. On this follows another, or ordinary duty. This shows by its name that no hard or extraordinary practice of virtue is involved, for it can be common to very many."{5} This principle of perfection is then applied to the pursuit of gain and other questions.
A very famous book of morals, somewhat more restricted in scope than the "De Officiis" of St. Ambrose, is the "Pastoral Care" of St. Gregory the Great. This, together with the same author's "Morals" on Job, was a favorite textbook in the Middle Ages. It lays down the qualities required in those who have the cure of souls, how they themselves should live, how they should instruct and admonish those subject to their authority. The book was brought to England by St. Augustine and translated into English by King Alfred for the benefit of the bishops and priests of his kingdom.
A word must here be said on Christian asceticism, which has been so utterly misunderstood and misrepresented by such writers as Lecky and Harnack, and whose true relation to Christian morals is so seldom perceived by non-Catholic authors.
Christ our Lord expressly taught that renunciation of self, of the world with its riches and pleasures, was in a certain sense a necessary condition of discipleship. This renunciation, however, admitted of different degrees, as is also plain from the Gospels. Some were called only to spiritual poverty and detachment, and these hoped to save their souls by remaining in the world without being of it. Outwardly they lived much like other people, but their affections were detached from this world and centered on God and eternity. They went to heaven by the way of the commandments. Others, on the contrary, voluntarily embraced the counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, given by Our Lord to those who were called, and who felt that they had the spiritual strength to follow the call. They made a special profession of following the counsels, and were assigned a place of honor in the Christian assemblies, but at first they seem to have lived in the bosom of their families. They soon, however, began to find it very difficult to persevere in their adopted form of life while exposed to the distractions and temptations of the world, and this, together with the violence of the persecutions, drove them into the desert. There they lived at first solitary lives as hermits, but before long they began to come together and put themselves under the authority of some ancient Father of the desert renowned for his prudence and sanctity. Their aim was to subdue their passions and ascend the heights of Christian perfection. The task is notoriously difficult both in theory and in practice, and many mistakes were made. The Church had not yet drawn up her minute code of laws for the regulation of religious life. Those writers, however, who industriously pick out the mistakes and the exaggerations of indiscreet fervor, and piece them together to produce a picture of Christian monachism and asceticism, only succeed in producing a caricature. To convince oneself of this it is sufficient to dip into the "Institutes of Monasteries" and the "Conferences" of Cassian, who was in the middle of a long life in the year 400. In the twelve Books of his "Institutes" Cassian describes the dress of the monks, their method of singing the divine office, the training of postulants and novices, and then he devotes the last eight Books to a minute account of the nature, causes, and remedies of the eight principal vices which bar the way to the summit of Christian perfection. He maps out every portion of the pilgrim's progress to his heavenly country, and shows what dangers and obstacles he will meet by the way. In brief, he says, progress toward perfection begins with the fear of God, from which arises a salutary sorrow for sin, which leads to renunciation and contempt of the world; this begets humility, from which springs mortification of the will, and by this all vices are subdued and extirpated. Then all virtues begin to flourish in the soul, which thus arrives at purity of heart and the perfection of apostolic charity.{6}
The vices to be overcome are classed under eight different heads by Cassian, and he says that the classification was admitted by all.{7} These principal or capital vices are typified by the seven peoples whom the Israelites were commanded by God to extirpate when they came into the land of promise. Egypt makes the eighth from which they had been delivered, and which, Cassian says, typifies gluttony. From this vice the monk is indeed delivered by his abandoning the world for the desert, but he may not extirpate it altogether; he should aim only at curbing its excesses. Gregory the Great adopted in substance the teaching of Cassian on the capital vices, but by making pride the queen of all the rest, and placing it in a category by itself, the other seven became the seven deadly sins which with their daughter vices were so famous in the literature of the Middle Ages, and figure in the books of morals and in the catechisms of Christian doctrine to the present day.
To show how conservative the Catholic tradition has been even in the expression of doctrine I will give the following passage in St. Gregory's own words:
"Ipsa namque vitiorum regina superbia cum devictum plene cor ceperit, mox illud septem principalibus vitiis, quasi quibusdam suis ducibus devastandum tradit. Quos videlicet duces exercitus sequitur, quia ex eis proculdubio importunae vitiorum multitudines oriuntur. Quod melius ostendimus, si ipsos duces atque exercitum specialiter, ut possumus, enumerando proferamus. Radix quippe cuncti mali superbia est, de qua, Scriptura attestante, dicitur: Initium omnis peccati est superbia (Ecclus. x. 15). Primae autem ejus soboles, septem nimirum principalia vitia, de hac virulenta radice proferuntur, scilicet inanis gloria, invidia, ira, tristitia, avaritia, ventris ingluvies, luxuria. Nam quia his septem superbiae vitiis nos captos doluit, idcirco Redemptor noster ad spirituale liberationis proelium spiritu septiformis gratiae plenus venit.
"Sed habent contra nos haec singula exercitum suum. Nam de inani gloria inobedientia, jactantia, hypocrisis, contentiones, pertinaciae, discordiae, et novitatum praesumptiones oriuntur. De invidia, odium, susurratio, detractio, exsultatio in adversis proximi, afflictio autem in prosperis nascitur. De ira, rixae, tumor mentis, contumeliae, clamor, indignatio, blasphemiae proferuntur. De tristitia, malitia, rancor, pusillanimitas, desperatio, torpor circa praecepta, vagatio mentis erga illicita nascitur. De avaritia, proditio, fraus, fallacia, perjuria, inquietudo, violentiae, et contra misericordiam obdurationes cordis oriuntur. De ventris ingluvie, inepta laetitia, scurrilitas, immunditia, multiloquium, hebetudo sensus circa intelligentiam propagantur. De luxuria, caecitas mentis, inconsideratio, inconstantia, praecipitatio, amor sui, odium Dei, affectus praesentis seculi, horror autem vel desperatio futuri generantur. Quia ergo septem principalia vitia tantam de se vitiorum multitudinem proferunt, cum ad cor veniunt, quasi subsequentis exercitus catervas trahunt. Ex quibus videlicet septem quinque spiritalia, duoque carnalia sunt."{8}
The "Conferences" of Cassian are represented by him as the teachings of celebrated abbots on various questions of the spiritual life. They are partly speculative, partly practical. There are twenty-four in all, each being divided into a greater or less number of chapters. These two works have provided an ample store of moral and ascetical doctrine for all subsequent Catholic writers on the subjects treated in them.
A large portion of moral theology is taken up with the duties arising from the positive legislation of the Church. In this legislation we have the practical application of Christian moral principles to the varying requirements of time and place, and change and variety are here conspicuous. With the establishment of the Christian religion the positive precepts of the Mosaic law ceased to be binding, but the Church received from her divine Founder authority to make new laws for the sanctification and salvation of her children. The apostles used this legislative authority, as we see from the Epistles of St. Paul, especially from those to Timothy and Titus, and within twenty years after the Ascension we find them legislating in the Council of Jerusalem on the disputed question of legal observances. The decree which we have in the Acts{9} was a true positive law imposing a new obligation on the faithful concerned, as long as the peculiar circumstances of the time rendered its observance desirable and necessary.{10} This council of the apostles formed the type and pattern for the ecumenical and provincial councils of the Church which were to be held in the future. Innumerable laws and regulations have been enacted by these, affecting Catholic life, discipline, and worship. The Bishops, too, as successors of the apostles have continued in all ages to exercise the legislative authority committed to them by God and the Church. The Roman Pontiffs, especially, in the exercise of their jurisdiction over the whole Church in succession to Blessed Peter, have in all ages made wise laws for the peace and prosperity of the Christian people. As instances of this action of the Popes in the early centuries may be mentioned St. Clement's first epistle to the Corinthians in the first century, St. Victor's decision about the observance of Easter in the second century, St. Stephen's about the baptism of heretics in the third, and similar action on the part of Popes Liberius, Damasus, and Siricius. Subsequently papal decisions became frequent and notorious. Collections of the decisions issuing from all these sources of positive law began to be made in very early times. Of these some have survived the ravages of time. The "Didascalia of the Apostles" may in the judgment of the learned be ascribed to the first half of the third century, and the so-called "Constitutions of the Apostles" together with the "Canons of the Apostles" to the early part of the fifth century. The materials of which these collections are composed are, of course, still more ancient. At the beginning of the fourth century the decrees of the councils were collected and arranged at first in chronological order in the East. At the beginning of the sixth century systematic collections arranged under suitable titles began to appear. Of these early collections of canons the most celebrated is that of John the Scholastic. In the West, Dionysius Exiguus made his translation of Greek canons into Latin about the year 500. A copy of this collection was presented by the Pope to Charlemagne when he was in Rome, and he caused it to be received and approved by the clergy of his empire in 802 at the great Council of Aix la Chapelle. Collections of Church laws continued to grow in number and in bulk until in the twelfth century the monk Gratian issued his "Decretum" which became the most famous of them all, and still forms the first volume of the "Corpus Juris Canonici." It contains some 4000 decisions on law and morals taken from the decrees of Popes, the canons of councils both general and particular, the opinions of the Fathers, and even from the civil law.
No attempt of course can be made in this short sketch to trace the varying phases through which the innumerable positive laws of the Church have passed. It will be sufficient for our purpose to trace in outline those chief precepts which bind all Catholics and which are specially known as the precepts of the Church. They are usually reckoned six in number: the due observance of Sundays and feast-days, the days of fasting and abstinence, confession and communion, the support of pastors, and the prohibition of marriage within certain degrees of kindred and of its solemnization at certain times of the year.
The observance of the Sunday and its substitution for the Sabbath appears to be due to apostolic institution. There are traces of it in the New Testament; in the "Didaché" the faithful are bidden to come together on the Lord's Day, as it was called even then in honor of the Resurrection, and offer the eucharistic sacrifice after confessing their sins, In the second century the custom of observing the Lord's Day was universal throughout the Church. The chief duty to be performed on that day was to hear Mass. Very soon particular provincial laws began to be enacted urging the obligation and imposing penalties on transgressors. At the beginning of the fourth century the Council of Elliberis in Spain decreed that any one who might be absent from Mass on three successive Sundays should be deprived of communion. The Council of Agde at the beginning of the sixth century prescribed that all were to hear an entire Mass on Sunday and not leave until after the blessing of the priest on pain of a public reprehension by the Bishop.
It was natural that when Sunday became the Christian Sabbath it should be kept much in the same way as the Jews kept their Sabbath. While knowing from the teaching of Our Lord Himself that pharisaic exaggeration was to be avoided in this matter, and from St. Paul that the sabbatical rest was no longer of obligation, still St. Caesarius of Aries in the sixth century expressly says that the Doctors of the Church decreed to transfer all the honor of the Sabbath to the Lord's Day. The very necessity of hearing Mass on that day made a certain abstention from work also necessary. Tertullian testifies to the Christian custom of his day in this respect. Constantine prescribed that judges and artisans in towns should abstain from work on the Sunday, but that agriculture should be allowed on account of necessity. The strictness with which the Sunday repose was observed varied somewhat according to time and place in the period with which we are dealing.
Besides the Sunday other feast-days began gradually to be observed in the same manner by hearing Mass and abstaining from servile work. Easter and Pentecost were assigned to movable Sundays, but the days on which renowned martyrs suffered for the Faith, those on which churches were dedicated, Ascension Day, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany, were soon added to the list. The letter of the Church of Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of St. Polycarp in the middle of the second century expresses the intention of celebrating the anniversary of the day of martyrdom with joy, both in memory of those who had suffered and as a preparation for those who survived.{11}
As the Christian Church took over the Jewish Sabbath but changed the day on which it was observed and rejected the exaggerations of the Pharisees in its observance, so, too, it adopted the Jewish practice of fasting at stated times. As we have seen from the "Didaché" the fast of Monday and Thursday was changed into one on Wednesday and Friday. The obligation of fasting on all Wednesdays and Fridays ceased almost entirely about the tenth century, but the fixing of those days by ecclesiastical authority for fasting, and the desire to substitute a Christian observance at Rome for certain pagan rites celebrated in connection with the seasons of the year, seem to have given rise to our Ember Days. In the time of St. Leo, in the middie of the fifth century, the Ember Days were a settled institution, though the time at which they fell varied somewhat at different times and in different places.
The earliest indication that we have of the fast of Lent is contained in a short extract from Irenaeus which has been preserved for us by Eusebius.{12} Writing to Pope Victor about the middle of the second century, St. Irenaeus says that the controversy in the East was not merely about the proper time of celebrating Easter but also about the manner of fasting. "For some think," he says, "that they ought to fast only one day, some two, some more days; some compute their day as consisting of forty hours night and day; and this diversity existing among those that observe it is not a matter that has just sprung up in our times, but long ago among those before us, who perhaps not having ruled with sufficient strictness, established the practice that arose from their simplicity and inexperience, and yet with all these maintained peace, and we have maintained peace with one another; and the very difference in our fasting establishes the unanimity of our faith." At the time this was written the Lenten fast was obviously very short, and there was no uniformity even in its duration. Tertullian, fifty years later, refers to the Lenten observance as the fulfillment of the words of Our Lord: "But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them -- then shall they fast in those days."
The first allusion to a period of forty days' fast occurs in the fifth canon of the Council of Nicaea (325). In the time of St. Leo in the fifth century the period was sufficiently well established to be referred by him to apostolic institution. The period was six weeks, but omitting Sundays the actual fasting days were only thirty-six in number. The four days before the first Sunday of Lent were added sometime in the seventh century. The fasts assigned to certain vigils arose from the practice of the early Christians of assembling on the eve of a feast and spending the night in prayer, fasting, and reading the Scriptures. By degrees matins took the place of the night office, and the vigil office was moved back to the Saturday morning, as we see to this day from the morning office of Holy Saturday. The fast was thus prolonged through the Saturday till after the morning office of the feast of next day.
The fast which used to be observed on the rogation days took its rise in France at the close of the fifth century and by degrees spread to other Churches. The interrupted fast of Advent was introduced as a preparation for Christmas toward the end of the fourth century. The manner of fasting has varied greatly at different times and in different places. At first the fast seems to have been absolute and continuous. During the days of the bridegroom's absence the faithful neither ate nor drank anything. When the period was lengthened such a total fast became impossible, but at least in the East food was restricted on fast days to one meal of bread, salt, and water, taken in the evening, or at least not before three in the afternoon. In the time of St. Gregory fish was allowed at the single meal in the West. Flesh meat was never allowed on fasting days.
The essence of fasting is still placed by theologians in the single meal, but many relaxations have crept in by degrees. The monks while listening to a Collatio of Cassian before going to bed introduced the practice of drinking an acidulated liquor called posca. By degrees fruits and lighter kinds of food in limited quantity were added, and when about the thirteenth century the full meal began to be taken at twelve midday, the evening collation became an established practice.
In the thirteenth century it was an accepted principle that liquid does not break the fast, and this became the source of another relaxation. A little wine, or coffee, or chocolate, was taken sometimes in the morning, with candied fruits (electuaria) on occasion. The practice was not condemned when the Sacred Penitentiary was asked about it in 1843, provided that the solid food taken then did not exceed two ounces in weight.
At first all seem to have fasted except children and those who were sick. St. Thomas' opinion that those who are still growing are not bound to fast, and that in general the period of growth lasts till the completion of the twenty-first year, has prevailed. Exemptions in favor of workmen and others were soon admitted, and toward the close of the Middie Ages dispensations from the law of fasting began to be granted. The Lenten indult is now an established custom.
The precept of abstinence from flesh meat which is still observed on Fridays is a survival of the obligation of fasting on that day which obtained in the primitive Church. As we have seen, the "Didaché" prescribed fasting on all Wednesdays and Fridays, and to this fast all the faithful except mere children and the sick were formerly bound. About the tenth century the obligation of the Friday fast was reduced to one of abstinence from flesh meat, and the Wednesday fast after being similarly mitigated gradually disappeared altogether.
While in the East Saturday was observed as a festival in honor of the creation,{13} at Rome and in other Churches of the West it began in early times to be observed as a fasting day. On account of the difference of discipline on this point great difficulties arose in the fourth century, as we know from the correspondence of St. Augustine and St. Jerome. St. Ambrose said that he kept festival on Saturday when he was at Milan and a fast when at Rome, and he advised St. Augustine to follow the same rule. About the eleventh century the Saturday fast was reduced to an obligation of abstinence, and this is the common law of the Church today, but many countries are dispensed from its observance. A dispensation from abstinence on Saturdays, the feast of St. Mark, and on Rogation Days was granted for England by a rescript of Propaganda, May 29, 1830.
The Sundays in Lent were never observed as fasting days, but they early became days of abstinence as they are to this day, though usually a dispensation is granted to eat meat on them.
Annual confession and communion was first made a positive universal law of the Catholic Church in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). As we know from the Gospel of St. John{14} both confession and communion were prescribed by Our Lord, but He determined neither precept in detail. The practice of the different Churches in the early ages was various in respect to both precepts. We will first trace in outline the history regarding the precept of annual communion.
From the earliest times, as we have seen, Mass was celebrated for the assembled faithful on Sundays, and all who were present appear to have received holy communion. In some places it was the practice for the faithful to take home with them consecrated particles and communicate themselves therewith out of Mass. Many at Rome, in Spain, and in Africa received communion daily. This was a common practice at the end of the fourth century, as we learn from the letters of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. The latter interprets the daily bread for which we ask in the Lord's Prayer as holy communion. The Council of Agde (506) decreed that those who did not communicate at least on the feasts of the Nativity, Easter, and Whit-Sunday were not to be reckoned as Catholics. In subsequent centuries this became a general rule in the Western Church; in the East, according to Theodore of Canterbury, the law was much stricter. The Greeks, he says, both laity and clerics, communicate every Sunday, and any one who omits to do so on three Sundays is excommunicated. A synod held 747 at Cloveshoe in England prescribed that innocent youths and those in whom years had cooled the ardor of passion should be exhorted to communicate very frequently. A synod held under St. Patrick in the fifth century decreed that the Eucharist was to be received at all events at Easter, and that any one who neglected this duty was not a member of the Church. Robert Pullen, an Englishman who wrote in the middle of the twelfth century, tells us that in his day some communicated more frequently, others less so, but that even laymen followed the rule of the Fathers and communicated at least three times a year. So that when the Lateran Council established the universal law that all who had come to years of discretion were bound to communicate at least at Easter, it made no new rule; it merely enforced by universal statute the least that was expected of any one who called himself a Catholic.
The precept of annual confession is intrinsically connected with that of Easter communion both in the Church's legislation and in its own nature. For, as the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches,{15} the power of order, although primarily it refers to the consecration of the Eucharist, yet also comprises all that is necessary to dispose the faithful to receive the Eucharist worthily and profitably. It comprises, then, the power to forgive sins, inasmuch as no one who is conscious of mortal sin may receive holy communion without previous confession and absolution. The Council of Trent{16} teaches that the words of St. Paul, "Let a man prove himself," have always been understood in the Church of the necessity of sacramental confession and absolution before holy communion when there is consciousness of mortal sin. The law of the Lateran concerning annual confession and communion is thus one law, confession being ordinarily a necessary preparation for holy communion in those who rarely communicate. That the Church always understood this is witnessed to by Alcuin in the eighth century,{17} by St. Leo in the fifth,{18} St. Augustine in the fourth,{19} and St. Cyprian in the third.{20} We have the same conjunction of confession and communion in the sentence of the "Didaché": "But on the Lord's day do ye assemble and break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions, in order that your sacrifice may be pure."{21} In all probability the confession here spoken of should be interpreted as meaning sacramental confession to a priest. The Council of Trent, then, was justified in saying that before receiving holy communion it had always been considered a duty to go to confession when there was consciousness of mortal sin, In the fifth or sixth century a practice sprang up which was the forerunner of the Lateran law of annual confession. At the beginning of Lent public penance was imposed on those who had been guilty of great and notorious crimes. In some of the Penitential Books{22} the priest is bidden to invite all who are conscious of mortal sin, and even all who by any sin whatever have soiled their baptismal robe, to make humble confession to their own priest on Ash Wednesday, and accept the penance enjoined according to the canons. If there was any special reason for granting absolution at once, that was done, otherwise absolution was deferred till Maundy Thursday when, the penance having been performed, the penitent was absolved and admitted to communion. This was a mitigation of the earlier discipline of some Churches, especially in the East, according to which public penance sometimes lasted for years.{23} The name of Shrove Tuesday, and the custom of receiving ashes on the head on Ash Wednesday, still remind us of the old discipline of the Catholic Church. It was natural, then, that when the Church made it obligatory on all to receive holy communion at least every Easter, it should also impose the obligation of annual confession. The law indeed does not indicate Easter as necessarily the time for the annual confession, but in practice it follows the time for the annual communion. Originally the annual confession had by law to be made to the parish priest or to the Bishop of the penitent, but for centuries it has been lawful to make it to any priest who has approbation for hearing confessions in the place.
The faithful are bound by natural and divine law according to the teaching of St. Paul{24} to contribute to the support of their pastors. For some centuries the revenues of the Church derived from the offerings of the faithful and from other sources constituted one fund, and this was administered by the Bishop. The support of the poor, the maintenance of public worship, as well as the support of the clergy and other needs were all supplied from the common fund. According to a decretal of Pope Gelasius (501) the Church revenues were to be divided into four portions, one for the Bishop, another for the clergy, a third for the relief of the poor and strangers, the fourth for the Church fabrics. In his celebrated answers to St. Augustine, Gregory the Great tells the first archbishop of Canterbury that as he was a monk he did not need a separate portion, and should be content to share in common with his clergy. For several centuries no positive law of the Church was needed to compel the faithful to do their duty in this matter. The Fathers who occasionally urge the obligation are content to appeal in support of it to the teaching of St. Paul or to the law of tithes under the Mosaic dispensation. The Penitential attributed to St. Theodore enjoins that the custom of the province should be observed relative to contributions to the Church, but that the poor were not to be subjected to violence for the sake of tithes or other matters. Positive ecclesiastical laws, however, began to appear both on the continent and in England in the eighth century. Thus the seventeenth article of the legatine council held in Engiand by the authority of Pope Adrian I (785-787) contained the following provision: "Wherefore also we solemnly lay upon you this precept, that all be careful to give tithes of all that they possess, because that is the special part of the Lord God; and let a man live on the nine parts, and give alms." At first there was some variety in the appropriation of tithes, but when the parochial system was introduced, between the tenth and thirteenth century, the appropriation of tithes to the parish priest became the settled rule. In modern times, at least in English-speaking countries, the offerings of the faithful constitute almost the only source of Church revenues as they did in the early ages of Christianity, and their apportionment and distribution are regulated by special laws.{25}
As marriage was raised to the dignity of a sacrament by Christ our Lord, and the Church alone has jurisdiction over the administration of the sacraments, it follows that Christian marriage is subject exclusively to the laws of God and of the Church. There are several passages in the Epistles of St. Paul{26} which show that the Church was conscious of her authority in this matter, and that she used it from the earliest times. St. Ignatius in his letter to St. Polycarp says that it is proper that Christians should contract marriage according to the judgment of the Bishop, and Tertullian asserts that marriages which were contracted without being previously notified to the Church were in danger of being considered as no better than adulteries and fornications. The history of the many laws relating to Christian marriage is too large a subject to be treated here even in outline. We will confine ourselves to the impediments of consanguinity and close time.
The natural and divine law prohibits marriage in the first degree of the direct line, and most probably in all degrees indefinitely in the same line, In the collateral line, also, it most probably forbids marriage at least in the first degree. With respect to further degrees in the collateral line the Church adopted the Mosaic legislation, and there are no traces of her having exercised further the independent power which she certainly possessed to enlarge or restrict the limits of kindred before the fourth or fifth century. The Council of Epaon (517) forbade marriages between second cousins, Gregory II (721) prohibited marriage with relations in general, and from the eighth to the eleventh century the prohibition was extended to the seventh degree according to the canonical mode of reckoning. The fourth Council of Lateran (1215) restricted the prohibition to the fourth degree, and this law still remains in force.
As the solemn celebration of marriage is not in keeping with penitential exercises, a council of Laodicea in the fourth century forbade the celebration of marriage during Lent. Subsequently the solemnization of marriage was forbidden from Septuagesima Sunday till the octave of Easter, during three weeks before the feast of St. John Baptist, and from Advent till after the Epiphany. There was a dispute as to the three weeks before the feast of St. John Baptist, and Clement III, at the end of the twelfth century, decided that the period was to be interpreted as extending from the Rogation Days till the Sunday after Pentecost. The Council of Trent{27} decreed that close time for the solemnization of marriage was to extend from Advent till after the Epiphany, and from Ash Wednesday till after Low Sunday, and this is the modern discipline.
We must not leave this first period in the history of Moral Theology without saying something about the Penitential Books which began to appear in the sixth century and subsequently became very numerous. They were intended as a help to Bishops and priests in their duty of imposing canonical penances on sinners and reconciling them to God and the Church. At first they were little more than lists of sins with the appropriate canonical penance annexed to each sin. The quality and length of penance assigned were derived from the councils or from the canonical letters of St. Basil, St. Peter of Alexandria, St. Athanasius, and other Fathers of the Church. Afterward chapters were added containing short moral rules on a great variety of subjects, the method of receiving and dealing with penitents, and the method of reconciling them. They are of importance in the history of Moral Theology as furnishing a standard by which the malice of various transgressions was measured according to a great variety of circumstances. They fell into disuse with the gradual cessation of public penance in the Church.
{1} Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.
{2} Exhortation to the Heathen, c. 11.
{3} Paedagogus, i, c. 13.
{4} Stromata, ii, c. 14.
{5} De Officiis, iii, c. 2.
{6} De Coenobiorum Institutis, lib. iv, c. 43.
{7} Collatio v, c. 18.
{8} Moralium, lib. xxxi, c. 45.
{9} Acts xv. 28, 29.
{10} It ceased to bind in the Latin Church about the ninth century.
{11} Cf. A. Villien, Histoire des Commandements de l'Église, 1909.
{12} Historia ecclesiastica, v, c. 24.
{13} Apostolic Constitutions, vii. 23.
{14} John vi. xx.
{15} Pt. ii, c. 7, q. 6.
{16} Supra, p. 106.
{17} De Psalmorum Usu, P. L. C. i. 499.
{18} Epist. 108, P. L. liv. 1011.
{19} Serm. 278, P. L. xxxviii. 2273.
{20} Epist. 10, P. L. iv. 254; Epist. 11, ib. 257; De Lapsis, xvi. ib. 479.
{21} C. xiv.
{22} Schmitz, Bussbücher, i, 776.
{23} Duchesne, Christian Worship, p. 435.
{24} 1 Cor. ix, Gal. vi. 6.
{25} Constitution of Leo XIII, Romanos Pontifices.
{26} 1 Cor. v, vii; 2 Cor. vi. 14.
{27} Sess. xxiv, c. 10.