Excursus: Second Repentance Primitive Christian penitential practice is reflected in this passage at a relatively advanced state of development. In the pre-Johannine period and alongside the Johannine communities there was not yet any similar differentiation. Instead, decisions regarding sinners were made in individual cases, and there existed no institutional basis with its corresponding system of norms.28 Thus in a specific instance Paul recognizes the community’s right, as well as the necessity, to separate from a sinful member (1 Cor 5:1–13*). Characteristic of this early disciplinary advice is the charismatic and pneumatic nature of judgment within the community, the connection between law and spirit, the orientation of the means adopted to the last day, and their radical character, which may even aim at the physical death of the sinner and leaves no opportunity for repentance. In contrast, the evangelist Matthew already testifies to a more developed stage of institutionalization, in light of the vanishing hope of the immanent end of things. Adopting a halakic rule of his community, he hands on a fully formulated series of steps with a unified description of the procedure. According to this, a sinner is to be definitively excluded from the community only after three attempts to move him or her to repentance have failed.29 Both these cases (in the Pauline letter and the Gospel of Matthew) are to be assigned to the middle or end of the first century, and there is as yet no distinction drawn between light and serious sins. In each case the participation of the whole community in the disciplinary process is presumed.30 On the other hand, a differentiation within the category of sin is suggested by the Letter to the Hebrews, in a manner somewhat analogous to that in 1 John, when the author categorically denies the possibility of a second repentance for apostates (6:8*: They are, like a briar patch, “nigh unto a curse, whose end is burning,” κατάρας ἐγγύς, ἧς τὸ τέλος εἰς καῦσιν) and those who willfully persist in sin (6:6*: they “have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and holding him up to contempt,” παραπεσόντας, πάλιν ἀνακαινίζειν εἰς μετάνοιαν, ἀνασταυροῦντας…παραδειγματίζοντας) in 6:4–6*; 10:26–31*; 12:16–17*. As in 1 John, this rigoristic view is founded on the knowledge of the “already” of the glory of eschatological existence and the resulting obligation (“vertical eschatology”), but also, at the same time, on the establishment of Christian existence through the past Christ-event (9:26*) and the expectation of the “future day” that will bring the second coming of Christ, which necessitates mutual admonition and ethical behavior in the present (9:28*; 10:25*; 12:26*: “horizontal eschatology”). There is special emphasis placed on the importance of baptism for Christian life, on the uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice, which permits no repeated pardon,31 and on the OT and Jewish teaching on τόπος μετανοίας, according to which the sinner needs divine empowerment to be able to repent.32 With this rigorous limitation the author attempts to master the problem of increasing weakness of faith and apostasy in the postapostolic period. Around the turn of the third century the Montanists, and in the third century Novatian and his adherents, refused to accept the return of those who had fallen away.33 That such a rigorous position had to collide not only with the Christian commandment of agapē, but also with the factual situation of the communities is clear from the case of the Jewish Christian sectarian Elchasai (Syria, ca. 110), who preached that there was one opportunity for repentance of mortal sins.34 In a different way, the Roman author of the Shepherd of Hermas, writing around 140, offered the possibility of a second repentance, asserting that because of “the weakness of [human beings] and the subtlety of the devil” God offers this possibility to all sinners, except for the newly baptized and catechumens in the Christian community. This author, however, agrees in principle with the author of Hebrews in believing that baptism is the only means by which forgiveness of sins is offered to Christians, because although its pardon is applied to previous sins, it at the same time implies an obligation not to sin any more.35 Both these offers of repentance have an eschatological motivation; it is a question of a last, unusual “hour of grace” before the end comes. In contrast, Poschmann’s statement that the Shepherd of Hermas presents no special offer of grace that would modify a general rigor, but rather a pastoral announcement of a final repentance in preparation for the rapidly approaching parousia, is not very persuasive. The reference to rigorist teachers, the modes of revelation through a letter from heaven and an angel of repentance, which underscore the unusual character of the metanoia, and the joyful relief with which Hermas cries, as in Man. 4.3.7 (“I attained life when I heard these things”), cannot be explained in this way. Of course, the prophetic messages of Elchasai and the Shepherd of Hermas concerning a unique exception to rigorous practice in the expectation of the approaching end of the world could be nothing more than a provisional solution. The more the immediate future-eschatological expectation gave way to a linear conception of history or was combined with it, the more intense was the consciousness of general sinfulness as something not to be overcome, and of the daily need for forgiveness. Awareness of the reality of community life forced the question of the law of metanoia to recede before the emphasis on its absolute necessity, until finally, with the development of a clearly dominant clerical order, a claim could be made for the forgiveness of sins now and at all times, no matter what kind they might be. This progress toward a “catholic” penitential system is already echoed in the Pastoral Letters,36 is solidified in the Apostolic Church Fathers,37 and is found in a fully developed form in Dionysus of Corinth, about 170 (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 4.23.6), in Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, 180–200 (Adv. haer. 1.6.3; 13.5.7), and finally in the Catholic Tertullian in his tract De paenitentia, from the first years after 200. Here one finds testimony to the church’s practice of one-time repentance as a fixed institution. It is called a second planca salutis, which reestablishes the state of grace given in baptism. It is an opus with the power of satisfaction; for sinners must publicly humiliate themselves in sackcloth and ashes, with prayer, fasting, and tears, before the clerics, the martyrs, and the whole community, in order to present satisfactio to God and the church. This practice was confirmed in the third century by the Roman bishop Callistus (†222) and Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (†258), and not least by Cornelius, the episcopal opponent of Novatian in Rome (ca. 251). The development of second repentance in the early Christian church can be represented schematically as follows: Paul (charismatic law) Matthew (fixed process in three stages) Right of repentance not viewed as problem Pastorals/2 Thessalonians Hebrews Rigorism Apostolic Fathers (except Hermas) One-time, final offer of repentance Echasai (ca. 110) Shepherd of Hermas (ca.140) 1 John Apocryphal Acts (John, Thomas) Dionysus of Corinth (ca. 170) Nag Hammadi Texts Gos. Thom./ Ap. John/ Gos. Phil./ Ap. Jas. Church penance Irenaeus (180–200) Early Montanism Catholic Tertullian (before 203) Montanist Tertullian (after 203) Callistus (†222) Cyprian (†258) Novatian Cornelius (251) (251) Our text distinguishes itself from the other two central passages in 1 John that also speak thematically of the subject of ἁμαρτία (1:7–2:2* and 3:4–10*) by its introduction of two classes of sins. In 1:8–10* the universality of ἁμαρτία and ἀδικία is confirmed by the universality of the Christ-event that frees us from sins. In that instance, the author is concerned with individual sins. On the one hand, the existence of offenses allows one to conclude to the offenders’ not being in the truth (v. 8*); on the other hand, existence in the truth also means being free from sin. This is not only true of the single action of baptism. The community in the course of its history, like the individual Christian, is placed under a demand not to sin. They must continually realize anew the “cleansing” from sin given them in the Christ-event.38 Whereas this section describes the fundamental link between Christ’s atoning sacrifice and Christians’ freedom from sin and emphasizes the ethical consequences of this situation, 3:4–10* also stands within a parenetic context. Here there is also reference to the Christ-event (v. 5*: Jesus as the sinless one), but this time a dualistic contrast is derived from it: (1) Sinlessness is predicated of the one who abides in Christ (v. 6*). This is escalated to a statement that one who is born of God cannot sin (v. 9*: οὐ δύναται ἁμαρτάνειν); instead, the one born of God “does what is right” (v. 7*). (2) Anyone who sins has not known Christ (v. 6*). Such a person is “from the devil,” and the devil is the one who “has been sinning from the beginning” (v. 8*). Obviously, the author does not refer to any physically based distinction between sinners and righteous. Within the context of parenesis he wishes to emphasize that Christians must make a decision in favor of doing what is right, namely, loving the sisters and brothers (v. 10*). The assertion of non posse peccare39 is not a statement of an unchangeable situation but is connected with the condition of being born of God. Being born of God, in turn, is a historical possibility, namely, an eschatological reality actualized through faith. The section at 3:4–10* therefore offers a parenesis directed to fundamental principles, not an abstract reflection on the difference between the mode of existence of the children of God and the children of the devil (v. 10a*). The author thus does not minimize sin. It is as all-encompassing as ἀδικία, which is also equated with ἁμαρτία in 1:9*.40 In the passage now under discussion, however, he distinguishes two kinds of sins. Is this the expression of a different standpoint from what is found elsewhere in 1 John, and should one conclude from it that this section is secondary? In this line Rudolf Bultmann, on behalf of his theory that the concluding section should be attributed to the “ecclesiastical redaction,” postulated an irreconcilable contradiction to 1:5–7* and 3:4–6*. While those passages presume a dialectical interpretation of Christian existence, namely, that being a Christian is determined by the gift of forgiveness of sins, this dialectic is said to be abandoned in 5:16–17*. The either-or between the gift of sinlessness on the one hand and the call to decision and admonition to do what is right on the other hand is completely destroyed by the distinction between pardonable and unpardonable sins.41 One must ask, however, whether that kind of unrestricted dialectic can be posited as representing the author’s conception, and whether it is not true instead that not only are 5:16–17* to be interpreted on the basis of 1:5–7* and 3:4–6*, but that the two latter passages are to be read in light of 5:16–17*. It is certainly true that the distinction of two classes of sins contradicts an unrestricted dialectic of Christian existence, and it appears that as a result the universality of the revelation of the agapē of God is narrowed. But the eschatological demand that is part and parcel of the mission of the Son of God would be impermissibly neutralized if it did not also leave room for the risk of an irreversible failure to meet the demand.42 And the dialectic between sin and righteousness within which the Christian is placed would lose its proper force, would even be eliminated in principle, if it were not determined by the two fundamental elements: hope in an ultimate passage to an all-embracing life and the expectation of a judgment that effectively demonstrates that death is the payment for sin.43 From the fact that the concept of “mortal sin” is not defined it is evident how little the conception of 1 John in this regard has been institutionalized, and how strongly it preserves the freedom of human decision founded on the Christ-event.44 The line between pardonable and unpardonable sins cannot be drawn once and for all. This leaves room for the self-knowledge that is demanded of the community, which sees itself as a unified whole confronted by God’s claim, and also for love’s action on behalf of the sisters and brothers who are falling into error.45 Strecker, G., & Attridge, H. W. (1996). The Johannine letters: a commentary on 1, 2, and 3 John (pp. 203–208). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 20:18:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015