TRACES OF PENANCE IN NON-REVEALED RELIGIONS.

One of the striking characteristics of the Christian religion, as of its precursor, the religion of Israel, is its care to keep alive the consciousness of sin and to lay stress on the corresponding need of repentance. The virtue of penance holds a prominent place among the religious virtues inculcated by the Old and New Testaments. The Christian religion is preeminently the religion of reconciliation of sinful man with the offended Lord and Creator.

While the practice of penance is found in its perfection only in the Christian religion, traces of it are not absent from religions that have no just claim to be regarded as revealed. For penance is a spontaneous outgrowth of the religious instinct, and hence is a virtue natural to the heart of man.

This is a truth we are sometimes apt to lose sight of. In contrasting the moral and religious condition of Christian peoples with what we find among those who have not known the saving truths of the Gospel, we are often disposed to assume that the latter have always been so hopelessly inured to moral transgressions as to be ignorant of the very idea of sin, and hence of the need of repentance.

The flagrant vices tolerated by the religious systems of Greece and Rome in the days of the Empire lend a certain color to this view. But it is well to bear in mind, first of all, that the moral decadence of the Roman world in the time of Christ by no means represents the best that man could do without the light of the Mosaic or Christian law. In such religions as ancient Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism, we find recognized a lofty moral standard that compares not unfavorably with that of the Old Testament. In these religions, emphasis was laid on rightness of thought, desire, volition, as well as on rightness of word and action. The consciousness of sin seems to have been keen, and so, too, the spirit of

penance.

But even where there is question of religions of a lower order, we should not be too hasty to infer that because morality is but imperfectly comprehended, the consciousness of sin must be entirely lacking. We should be careful to distinguish the Christian standard of morality from the varying and often grossly defective standards of pagan peoples. Much that is shocking to the moral sense of the Christian is done by peoples of inferior culture without the slightest consciousness of moral guilt. They even regard as virtue much that we hold to be crime. Yet they all have a standard, however crude, of right and wrong. And what their rudely developed conscience tells them to be wrong, they also generally conceive to be displeasing to one or more of the gods they hold in honor. Thus they have, with few exceptions, a notion at least elementary of sin, that is, of wrong-doing viewed as offensive to the deity or deities, and hence meriting divine punishment unless in some way atoned for. This consciousness of sin may exist in varying degrees of range and intensity, depending on the extent to which moral and religious duties are recognized, and on the character and amount of evil that their transgression is thought to involve. But even in a religion of low morality, there may still be a dim notion of sin. Where such notion exists, it is safe to conclude that the idea of penance is not altogether ignored.

Among peoples of low grades of civilization, recourse to penitential prayer seems rarely if ever to be had for the expiation of sin. Such outward expressions of contrition do not come natural to them. Nor do we find specific penitential rites of widespread use. The offering made in silence to the deity, often nothing more than a gift-compensation, a sort of wergild,-would seem to do service in most cases. To die fighting bravely in battle is reputed among warlike tribes to have the same atoning efficacy that the Christian attributes to the martyr's death.

Now and then penitential practices have been discovered in religions of a low order. The widespread notion that sickness is often a divine punishment for sins of the past has led in several known instances to the popular practice of confessing

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ones sins in serious sickness with a view to recovery. Father Dobrizhoffer tells in his interesting "History of the Abipones, a wild tribe formerly predominant in the southern parts of Brazil, that in a case of serious sickness, "at his first coming, the physician overwhelms the sick man with a hundred questions: Where were you yesterday?' says he. 'What roads did you tread? Did you overturn the jug and spill the drink prepared from the maize? What? Have you imprudently given the flesh of a tortoise, stag or boar to be devoured by dogs?' Should the sick man confess to having done any of these things, 'It is well,' replies the physician, 'we have discovered the cause of your disorder.' '"

In this instance, it is the violation of purely religious customs and restrictions that form the subject-matter of confession. But other examples are known where ethical duties are included. Thus in former times in Tahiti, sickness was the occasion for the restoration of private property that the patient had stolen. Bancroft records that among the Tacullies of the Pacific Coast, it is customary in extreme sickness to send for the medicine-man and make a confession of sins. On the truth and accuracy of this confession depend the chances of recovery. Bancroft remarks that the crimes they generally confess are too revolting to be told in print. But this only goes to show that they are sadly deficient in moral sense, not that they are lacking in at least a dim conception of sin. Similar practices of confessing sins in time of sickness and calamity prevailed in Central America and Peru. "It is related by an old chronicler," says Bancroft, speaking of Guatemala, "that when a party of travellers met a jaguar or puma, each one immediately commended himself to the gods, and confessed in a loud voice the sins he had committed, imploring pardon. If the object of their terror still advanced upon them, they cried: "We have committed as many more sins, do not kill us!" and sat down, saying one to another, "One of us has done some grievous deed and him the wild beast will kill!''3

1 Jevons, "Introduction to the History of Religion," New York, 1896, p. 111. 2 Jevons, ibid.

3 H. Bancroft, "Works," Vol. III, pp. 143, 472, 486.

So, too, in ancient Peru, on the occasion of any local calamity, a rigorous inquiry was made into the conduct of the members of the community, and he whose sins were thought to be the cause, was compelled to make reparation.'

The comparatively high civilizations of ancient Peru, Central America and Mexico possessed religious systems remarkable for their penitential element. A prayer has been preserved which the Incas of Peru used to say, when on the occasion of a certain feast, they bathed in the river to wash away their sins: "O thou River, receive the sins which I have this day confessed unto the Sun; carry them down to the sea and let them never more appear."

Only those whose consciences were purged of guilt had a right to partake of the sacred Sancu, a maize pudding sprinkled with the blood of sheep, and distributed to the people on plates of gold with the greatest reverence. As it was about to be distributed, the high priest said: "Take heed how you eat this Sancu; for he who eats it in sin, and with a double will and heart, is seen by our father the Sun, who will punish him with grievous troubles. But he who with a single heart partakes of it, to him the Sun and the Thunder will show favor, and will grant . . . all that he requires."

The ordinary means of relieving the conscience burdened with the sense of guilt was confession of sins to the templepriests. In most places, sins were publicly confessed, except grave crimes meriting death, which were told to the priest in secret. Penances in keeping with the gravity of the sins confessed were imposed on the penitents. "The Yncas," relates Father Molina, "and the people of Cuzco always made their confessions in secret, and generally they confessed to those Indian sorcerers of Huaro who were employed for this office. In their confessions, they accused themselves of not having reverenced the sun, the moon, and the huacas (the sacred images), with not having celebrated the feasts of the Raymis, which are those in each month of the year, with all their hearts; with having committed fornication, against the law of the Ynca not to touch a strange woman or to seduce a virgin

1 Payne, "New World," I, p. 443.

unless given by the Ynca, and not because fornication was a sin. For they did not understand this. They also accused themselves of any murder or theft, which we hold to be grave sins.""

In ancient Yucatan, confession of sins "was much resorted to, the more so as death and disease were thought to be direct punishments for sin committed. Married priests were the regular confessors, but these were not always applied to for spiritual aid; the wife would often confess to her husband, or a husband to his wife, or sometimes a public avowal was made. ''2

In Nicaragua, confession was likewise a recognized institution.

"The confessor was chosen from among the most aged and respected citizens; a calabash suspended from the neck was his badge of office. He was required to be a man of blameless life, unmarried, and not connected with the temple. Those who wished to confess went to his house, and there standing with humility before him, unburdened their conscience. The confessor was forbidden to reveal any secret confided to him in his official capacity, under pain of punishment. The penance he imposed was generally some kind of labor to be performed for the benefit of the temple.""

More striking still was the practice of confession for purposes of penance among the Aztecs of Mexico. It is not a little surprising to find in a religion reeking with the blood of human victims and encouraging almost every form of idolatrous nature-worship, a lofty conception of a supreme deity, prayers of great spiritual depth and beauty, and coupled with penitential austerities, a most solemn and impressive rite of auricular confession. Yet these were characteristics of the ancient Aztec religion, as we learn from the absolutely reliable account which the early Franciscan missionary, Father Bernard de Sahagun, has left on record in his History of New

'Rivero and Tschudi, "Peruvian Antiquities," p. 180. Acosta, "Ind. Occid," B. V, Ch. 25. C. R. Markham, "Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas," London. Hakluyt Society, 1873, pp. 15, and 27.

2 Bancroft, III, p. 472.

› Bancroft, III, pp. 494–5.