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ABSOLUTION #1208/ 2008
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Paintings: Landscape 2 | | Medium: | Acrylic on non-stretched canvas | | Size (inches): | 68 x 38 | | Size (mm): | 1727 x 965 | | Catalog #: | PA_0135 | | Description: | Signed, titled, date, copyright in magic ink on the reverse.
Absolution -
Absolution is a traditional theological term for the forgiveness experienced in the traditional Churches in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolution
Absolution -
(Ab = from; solvere = to free)
Absolution is the remission of sin, or of the punishment due to sin, granted by the Church. (For remission of punishment due to sin, see CENSURE, EXCOMMUNICATION, INDULGENCE.)
Absolution proper is that act of the priest whereby, in the Sacrament of Penance, he frees man from sin. It presupposes on the part of the penitent, contrition, confession, and promise at least of satisfaction; on the part of the minister, valid reception of the Order of Priesthood and jurisdiction, granted by competent authority, over the person receiving the sacrament. That there is in the Church power to absolve sins committed after baptism the Council of Trent thus declares: "But the Lord then principally instituted the Sacrament of Penance, when, being raised from the dead, He breathed upon His disciples saying, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.' By which action so signal, and words so clear the consent of all the Fathers has ever understood that the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles, and to their lawful successors for the reconciling of the faithful who have fallen after baptism" (Sess. XIV, i). Nor is there lacking in divine revelation proof of such power; the classical texts are those found in Matthew 16:19; 18:18, and in John 20:21-23. To Peter are given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Sin is the great obstacle to entrance into the kingdom, and over sin Peter is supreme. To Peter and to all the Apostles is given the power to bind and to loose, and this again implies supreme power both legislative and judicial: power to forgive sins, power to free from sin's penalties. This interpretation becomes more clear in studying the rabbinical literature, especially of Our Lord's time, in which the phrase to bind and to loose was in common use. (Lightfoot, Horæ Hebraicæ Buxtorf, Lexicon Chald.; Knabenbauer, Commentary on Matthew, II, 66; particularly Maas, St. Matthew, 183, 184.) The granting of the power to absolve is put with unmistakable clearness in St. John's Gospel: "He breathed upon them and said, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins ye shall forgive they are forgiven them; and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained'" (20:22-23). It were foolish to assert that the power here granted by Christ was simply a power to announce the Gospel (Council of Trent, Sess. XIX, Can. iii), and quite as unwise to contend that here is contained no power other than the power to remit sin in the Sacrament of Baptism (Ibid., Sess. XIV); for the very context is against such an interpretation, and the words of the text imply a strictly judicialact, while the power to retain sins becomes simply incomprehensible when applied to baptism alone, and not to an action involving discretionary judgment. But it is one thing to assert that the power of absolution was granted to the Church, and another to say that a full realization of the grant was in the consciousness of the Church from the beginning. Baptism was the first, the great sacrament, the sacrament of initiation into the kingdom of Christ. Through baptism was obtained not only plenary pardon for sin, but also for temporal punishment due to sin. Man once born anew, the Christian ideal forbade even the thought of his return to sin. Of a consequence, early Christian discipline was loath to grant even once a restoration to grace through the ministry of reconciliation vested in the Church. This severity was in keeping with St. Paul's declaration in his Epistle to the Hebrews: "For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, have moreover tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come and are fallen away, to be renewed again to penance" etc. (vi, 4-6). The persistence of this Christian ideal is very clear in the "Pastor" of Hermas, where the author contends against a rigorist school, that at least one opportunity for penance must be given by the Church (III Sim., viii, 11). He grants only one such chance, but this is sufficient to establish a belief in the power of the Church to forgive sins committed after baptism. St. Ignatius in the first days of the second century seemingly asserts the power to forgive sins when he declares in his letter to the Philadelphians that the bishop presides over penance. This tradition was continued in the Syrian Church, as is evident from passages found in Aphraates and Ephrem, and St. John Chrysostom voices this same Syrian tradition when he writes "De Sacerdotio" (Migne P.G., LXVII, 643), that "Christ has given to his priests a power he would not grant to the angels, for he has not said to them, 'Whatsoever ye bind, will be bound,'" etc.; and further down he adds, "The Father hath given all judgment into the hands of his Son, and the Son in turn has granted this power to his priests."
Clement of Alexandria, who perhaps received his inspiration from the "Pastor" of Hermas, tells the story of the young bandit whom St. John went after and brought back to God, and in the story he speaks of the "Angel of Penance", meaning the bishop or priest who presided over the public penance. Following Clement in the Catechetical school of Alexandria was Origen (230). In the commentary on the words of the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses", he alludes to the practice of penance in the Church, recalling the text of John, xx, 21. He asserts that this text is proof of the power to pardon sin conferred by Christ upon His Apostles and upon their successors. True it is that in writing of the extent of the power conferred, he makes exception for the sins of idolatry and adultery, which he terms irremissible, although Dionysius of Corinth (170) years before held that no sin was excepted from the power of the keys granted by Christ to His Church (Eusebius, Church History IV.23). In the Alexandrian Church we have also the testimony of Athanasius, who in a fragment against the Novatians pointedly asserts: "He who confesses his sins, receives from the priest pardon for his fault, in virtue of the grace of Christ (just as he who is baptized)." Asia Minor is at an early date witness of this power to absolve. St. Firmilian, in his famous letter to St. Cyprian, asserts that the power to forgive sins was given to the Apostles and to their successors (Epistle 75 of Cyprian), and this tradition is more clearly expressed both in Basil and Gregory Nazianzen (P.G., XXXI, 1284; XXXVI, 356, 357). The Roman tradition is clear in the "Pastor" of Hermas, where the power to forgive sins committed after baptism is defended (Sim., viii, 6, 5; ibid., ix, 19). This same tradition is manifest in the Canons of Hippolytus, wherein the prelate consecrating a bishop is directed to pray: "Grant him, O Lord, the power to forgive sins" (xxii). This is still more clearly expressed in the "Constitutiones Apostolicæ" (P.G., I, 1073): "Grant him, O Lord Almighty, by Thy Christ the fulness of Thy spirit, that he may have the power to pardon sin, in accordance with Thy command, that he may loose every bond which binds the sinner, by reason of that power which Thou hast granted ThyApostles." (See also Duchesne, "Christian Worship", 439, 440.) True, this power seems to Hermas to be strangely limited, while Origen, Tertullian, and the followers of Novatian principles were unwilling to grant that the Church had a right to absolve from such sins as apostasy, murder, and adultery. However, Calixtus settled the question for all time when he declared that in virtue of the power of the keys, he would grant pardon to all who did penance — Ego . . . delicta pœnitentiâ functis dimitto, or again, Habet potestatem ecclesia delicta donandi (On Pudicity 21). In this matter, see Tertullian, "De Pudicitiâ", which is simply a vehement protest against the action of the Pope, whom Tertullian accuses of presumption in daring to forgive sins, and especially the greater crimes of murder, idolatry, etc. — "Idcirco præsumis et ad te derivasse solvendi et alligandi potestatem, id est, ad omnem Ecclesiam Petri propinquam." Tertullian himself, before becoming a Montanist, asserts in the clearest terms that the power to forgive sins is in the Church. "Collocavit Deus in vestibulo pœnitentiam januam secundam, quæ pulsantibus patefaciat [januam]; sed jam semel, quia jam secundo, sed amplius nunquam, quia proxime frustra" (De Pœnitentiâ, vii, 9, 10). Although Tertullian limits the exercise of this power, he stoutly asserts its existence, and clearly states that the pardon thus obtained reconciles the sinner not only with the Church, but with God (Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I, note 3, 407). The whole Montanist controversy is a proof of the position taken by the Church and the Bishops of Rome; and the great Doctors of the West affirmed in the strongest terms the power to absolve granted to the priests of the Church by Christ. (Leo the Great, P.L., LIV, 1011-1013; Gregory the Great, P.L., LXVI, 1200; Ambrose, P.L., XV, 1639; XVI, 468, 477, etc.; Augustine, P.L., XXXIX, 1549-59.)
From the days, therefore, of Calixtus the power to absolve sins committed after baptism is recognized as vested in the priests of the Church in virtue of the command of Christ to bind and loose, and of the power of the keys. At first this power is timidly asserted against the rigorist party; afterwards stoutly maintained. At first the sinner is given one opportunity for pardon, and gradually this indulgence is extended; true, some doctors thought certain sins unpardonable, save by God alone, but this was because they considered that the existing discipline marked the limits of the power granted by Christ. After the middle of the fourth century, the universal practice of public penance precludes any denial of a belief in the Church's power to pardon the sinner, though the doctrine and the practice of penance were destined to have a still further expansion.
Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Knight
-www.newadvent.org/cathen/01061a.htm
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