EXCURSUS ON THE PUBLIC DISCIPLINE OR EXOMOLOGESIS 

OF THE EARLY CHURCH.

(Taken chiefly from Morinus, De Disciplina in Administratione 

Sacramenti Poenitentioe; Bingham, Antiquities; and Hammond, The 

Definitions of Faith, etc. Note to Canon XI. of Nice.)

"In the Primitive Church there was a godly discipline, that at the 

beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin 

were put to open penance, and punished in this world that their souls 

might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by 

their example, might be the more afraid to offend."

The foregoing words from the Commination Service of the Church of 

England may serve well to introduce this subject. In the history of the 

public administration of discipline in the Church, there are three 

periods sufficiently distinctly marked. The first of these ends at the 

rise of Novatianism in the middle of the second century; the second 

stretches down to about the eighth century; and the third period shews 

its gradual decline to its practical abandonment in the eleventh 

century. The period with which we are concerned is the second, when 

it was in full force.

In the first period it would seem that public penance was required only 

of those convicted of what then were called by pre-eminence "mortal 

sins" (crimena mortalia()), viz: idolatry, murder, and adultery. But in 

the second period the list of mortal sins was greatly enlarged, and 

Morinus says that "Many Fathers who wrote after Augustine's time, 

extended the necessity of public penance to all crimes which the civil 

law punished with death, exile, or other grave corporal penalty."() In 

the penitential canons ascribed to St. Basil and those which pass by 

the name of St. Gregory Nyssen, this increase of offences requiring 

public penance will be found intimated.

From the fourth century the penitents of the Church were divided into 

four classes. Three of these are mentioned in the eleventh canon, the 

fourth, which is not here referred to, was composed of those styled 

 sugklaiontes  , flentes or weepers. These were not 

allowed to enter into the body of the church at all, but stood or lay 

outside the gates, sometimes covered with sackcloth and ashes. This is 

the class which is sometimes styled  keimozomenoi  , 

hybernantes, on account of their being obliged to endure the 

inclemency of the weather.

It may help to the better understanding of this and other canons which 

notice the different orders of penitents, to give a brief account of the 

usual form and arrangement of the ancient churches as well as of the 

different orders of the penitents.

Before the church there was commonly either an open area surrounded 

with porticoes, called  mesaulion   or atrium, with a 

font of water in the centre, styled a cantharus or phiala, or sometimes 

only an open portico, or  propulaion  . The first variety 

may still be seen at S. Ambrogio's in Milan, and the latter in Rome at 

S. Lorenzo's, and in Ravenna at the two S. Apollinares. This was the 

place at which the first and lowest order of penitents, the weepers, 

already referred to, stood exposed to the weather. Of these, St. Gregory 

Thaumaturgus says: "Weeping takes place outside the door of the 

church, where the sinner must stand and beg the prayers of the faithful 

as they go in."

The church itself usually consisted of three divisions within, besides 

these exterior courts and porch. The first part after passing through "the great gates," or 

doors of the building, was called the Narthex in Greek, and Faerula in 

Latin, and was a narrow vestibule extending the whole width of the 

church. In this part, to which Jews and Gentiles, and in most places 

even heretics and schismatics were admitted, stood the Catechumens, 

and the Energumens or those afflicted with evil spirits, and the second 

class of penitents (the first mentioned in the Canon), who were called 

the  akowmenoi  , audientes, or hearers. These were 

allowed to hear the Scriptures read, and the Sermon preached, but 

were obliged to depart before the celebration of the Divine Mysteries, 

with the Catechumens, and the others who went by the general name 

of hearers only.

The second division, or main body of the church, was called the Naos 

or Nave. This was separated from the Narthex by rails of wood, with 

gates in the centre, which were called "the beautiful or royal gates." In 

the middle of the Nave, but rather toward the lower or entrance part of 

it, stood the Ambo, or reading-desk, the place for the readers and 

singers, to which they went up by steps, whence the name, Ambo. 

Before coming to the Ambo, in the lowest part of the Nave, and just 

after passing the royal gates, was the place for the third order of 

penitents, called in Greek  gonuklinontes  , or 

 upopiptontes  ,and in Latin Genuflectentes or 

Prostrati, i.e., kneelers or prostrators, because they were allowed to 

remain and join in certain prayers particularly made for them. Before 

going out they prostrated themselves to receive the imposition of the 

bishop's hands with prayer. This class of penitents left with the 

Catechumens.

In the other parts of the Nave stood the believers or faithful, i.e., those 

persons wire were in full communion with the Church, the men and 

women generally on opposite sides, though in some places the men 

were below, and the women in galleries above. Amongst these were 

the fourth class of penitents, who were called 

 sunestwtes  , consistentes, i.e., co-standers, because 

they were allowed to stand with the faithful, and to remain and hear 

the prayers of the Church, after the Catechumens and the other 

penitents were dismissed, and to be present while the faithful offered 

and communicated, though they might not themselves make their 

offerings, nor partake of the Holy Communion. This class of penitents 

are frequently mentioned in the canons, as "communicating in 

prayers," or "without the oblation;" and it was the last grade to be 

passed through previous to the being admitted again to full 

communion. The practice of "hearing mass" or "non-communicating 

attendance" clearly had its origin in this stage of discipline. At the 

upper end of the body of the church, and divided from it by rails which 

were called Cancelli, was that part which we now call the Chancel. 

This was anciently called by several names, as Bema or tribunal, from 

its being raised above the body of the church, and Sacrarium or 

Sanctuary. It was also called Apsis and Concha Bematis, from its 

semicircular end. In this part stood the Altar, or Holy Table (which 

names were indifferently used in the primitive Church), behind which, 

and against the wall of the chancel, was the Bishop's throne, with the 

seats of the Presbyters on each side of it, called synthronus. On one 

side of the chancel was the repository for the sacred utensils and 

vestments, called the Diaconicum, and answering to our Vestry; and 

on the other the Prothesis, a side-table, or place, where the bread and 

wine were deposited before they were offered on the Altar. The gates 

in the chancel rail were called the holy gates, and none but the higher 

orders of the clergy, i.e., Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, were allowed 

to enter within them. The Emperor indeed was permitted to do so for 

the purpose of making his offering at the Altar, but then he was 

obliged to retire immediately, and to receive the communion without.

 (Thomassin. Ancienne et Nouvelle Discipline de l'Eglise. Tom. I. 

Livre II. chap. xvj. somewhat abridged.)

In the West there existed always many cases of public penance, but in 

the East it is more difficult to find any traces of it, after it was 

abolished by the Patriarch Nectarius in the person of the Grand 

Penitentiary.

However, the Emperor Alexis Comnenus, who took the empire in the 

year , did a penance like that of older days, and one which may 

well pass for miraculous. He called together a large number of bishops 

with the patriarch, and some holy religious; be presented himself 

before them in the garb of a criminal; he confessed to them his crime 

of usurpation with all its circumstances. They condemned the Emperor 

and all his accomplices to fasting, to lying prostrate upon the earth, to 

wearing haircloth, and to all the other ordinary austerities of penance. 

Their wives desired to share their griefs and their sufferings, although 

they had had no share in their crime. The whole palace became a 

theatre of sorrow and public penance. The emperor wore the hairshirt 

under the purple, and lay upon the earth for forty days, having only a 

stone for a pillow.

To all practical purposes Public Penance was a general institution but 

for a short while in the Church. But the reader must be careful to 

distinguish between this Public Penance and the private confession 

which in the Catholic Church both East and West is universally 

practised. What Nectarius did was to abolish the office of Penitentiary, 

whose duty it had been to assign public penance for secret sin;() a 

thing wholly different from what Catholics understand by the 

"Sacrament of Penance." It would be out of place to do more in this 

place than to call the reader's attention to the bare fact, and to supply 

him, from a Roman Catholic point of view, with an explanation of why 

Public Penance died out. "It came to an end because it was of human 

institution. But sacramental confession, being of divine origin, lasted 

when the penitential discipline had been changed, and continues to 

this day among the Greeks and Oriental sects."() That the reader may 

judge of the absolute can-dour of the writer just quoted, I give a few 

sentences from the same article: "An opinion, however, did prevail to 

some extent in the middle ages, even among Catholics, that confession 

to God alone sufficed. The Council of Chalons in  (canon xxxiij.), 

says: 'Some assert that we should confess our sins to God alone, but 

some think that they should be confessed to the priest, each of which 

practices is followed not without great fruit in Holy Church. ... 

Confession made to God purges sins, but that made to the priest 

teaches how they are to be purged.' This former opinion is also 

mentioned without reprobation by Peter Lombard (In Sentent. Lib. iv. 

dist. xvij.)."