Dante's Commedia by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: 2016-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

[This is the reason why, though seven Psalms of penitents are taught in the book, it has become customary in the Church that whenever pardon for sins is sought, the Lord is entreated through this one, and rightly. First, because in no psalm is such virtuous humility—an attitude particularly necessary for penitents—displayed, that a powerful king, set on a prophet’s pedestal, hastened to lament his sins as the most abject of men; second, because after the promise of forgiveness he bound himself with such constraints of tears as if he had not been forgiven at all…. Perhaps a further meaning is to be grasped here: that the psalmist said in this psalm: Let me teach the unjust thy ways, and the wicked shall be converted to thee, because he foresaw that in the future people would through this psalm seek the gifts of most abundant repentance.]

Both in his deeds and in his words, David provides all Christians with a model of repentance that instructs others to imitate his example of true contrition. It is not surprising to find that the image of David as a penitent sinner is central to the medieval doctrine concerning penitence. Penitence was of fundamental importance to medieval life, and, as Gillian Evans puts it, “almost every baptised person in the mediaeval West would accept that all human beings are sinners who deserve to be punished, by a God whose justice may express itself in mercy and prove to be full of surprises, but cannot compromise the divine and ultimate standard.”12

The ritual action of the faithful asking forgiveness from God has taken place throughout the history of Christianity; but the precise form of the sacrament of confession took shape only at the end of the Middle Ages. During Dante’s lifetime this doctrine was still evolving, and it contained aspects that could be found throughout Western Christendom alongside many regional idiosyncrasies. Thomas Tentler identifies the four consistent elements of the doctrine: “First, to be forgiven, sinners have always been required to feel sorrow at having lapsed. Second, they have consistently made some kind of explicit confession of their sins or sinfulness. Third, they have assumed, or had imposed on them, some kind of penitential exercises. And fourth, they have participated in an ecclesiastical ritual performed with the aid of priests who pronounce penitents absolved from sin or reconciled with the communion of believers.”13

The doctrine of private penance and auricular confession that was predominent in the later Middle Ages represented a significant modification of previous systems. In this doctrine, “penances were made lighter and more arbitrary; contrition became the essential element for the penitent and pushed penitential exercises into a subservient position; private confession, already accepted as a necessary part of the forgiveness of sins, was declared universally obligatory by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215; and the meaning of the priest’s role was more carefully defined and its importance in the process of forgiveness radically enhanced.”14 Omnes utriusque sexus, canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, came to be one of the most influential documents of church history.

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