A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

683Not long before our time the case is told of a certain man who,having been taken captive, was carried far away [cf. Dialog.,IV, 57], and because he was held a long time in chains his wife,since she had not received him back from that captivity, believedhim to be dead and every week she had the sacrifice offered forhim as already dead. And as often as the sacrifice was offered byhis spouse for the absolution of his soul, the chains were loosedin his captivity. For having returned a long time after, greatlyastonished he told his wife that on certain days each week hischains were loosed. His wife considered the days and hours,and then knew that he was loosed when, as she remembered, thesacrifice was offered for him. From that perceive, my dearestbrothers, to what extent the holy sacrifice offered by us is ableto loose the bonds of the heart, if the sacrifice offered by one foranother can loose the chains of the body.§ 103. The Foundation of the Mediæval Penitential SystemThe penitential system, as it was organized in the Western Churchin the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, was but the carryingout of principles which had appeared elsewhere in Christendomand were involved in the primitive method of dealing with moraldelinquents by the authorities of the Church. [See the epistles ofBasil the Great to Amphilochius (Ep. 189, 199, 217) in PNF, ser.II, vol. VIII.] Similar problems had to be handled everywherewhenever the Church came to deal with moral conduct, and muchthe same solution was found everywhere. There is, however,no known connection between the earliest penitentials of theWestern Church, those of Ireland, and the similar books of theEast. There is no need of supposing that there was a connection.But in the case of the works attributed to Theodore of Tarsus,archbishop of Canterbury, himself a Greek and probably a na- [625]tive of Tarsus, there is a provable connection which is evidentto any one reading his work, as he refers to Basil and others.