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Contrition — Attrition (Imperfect Contrition)

Section 2: Imperfect Contrition, or Attrition

Article 1: Attrition Defined

1. The Motives of Contrition in General. Perfect contrition can spring from only one motive, viz.: charity or perfect love of God. Imperfect contrition, or attrition, on the other hand, may be inspired by various motives. As not every form of attrition suffices for the valid reception of Penance, it is important to know what motives are insufficient or hardly sufficient for the Sacrament.

What causes a person to be sorry for his sins?

a) The Council of Trent1 declares that “contrition, which holds the first place among the … acts of the penitent, is a sorrow of mind and detestation for sin committed,” inspired by one of the following motives:

  1. perfect charity (caritas), which calls forth perfect contrition, or contrition proper;
  2. the “turpitude of sin” (turpitudo peccati);
  3. the “loss of eternal happiness and the incurring of eternal damnation” (amissio aeternae beatitudinis et aeternae damnationis incursus);
  4. the “fear of hell and of punishment” (gehennae et poenae).

The last three are expressly designated by the holy Synod as motives of “that imperfect contrition which is called attrition,”2 and which, “with the hope of pardon,” must “exclude the wish to sin.”3

A little reflection will show that the four motives enumerated by the Council may be reduced to three, namely, charity, fear, and hope.

b) That this enumeration is exhaustive appears from the following considerations:

A man who is sorry for his sins, is sorry either because sin is an evil done to God (malum Deo), or because it is an evil done to himself (malum homini). If his sorrow is inspired by the first-mentioned motive, i.e., perfect charity, which not only loves God as the highest good above all else, but likewise abhors whatever is opposed to Him, he has perfect contrition.4 All other kinds are necessarily imperfect.

The sorrow which a man feels because sin is an evil opposed to his own welfare, may be twofold, according as he regards sin as a malum culpae, i.e., guilt, or a malum poenae, i.e., an offense deserving of punishment. In the former case contrition arises from the turpitude of sin as opposed to the different virtues. Its leading motive is an imperfect love of God. In the latter case the detestation of sin is inspired by the fear of losing eternal happiness (poena damni), which forms the object of the theological virtue of hope, or by the fear of incurring eternal damnation (poena sensus) and other, temporal, punishments that inspire the human heart with a dread of divine justice.

c) It is to be observed that love, fear, and hope, as well as the motives inspired by them, cannot exist separately, but always go hand in hand, so that, when one is formally present, the other two are latent in the soul, only waiting to be called forth. We shall try to explain our meaning a little more fully.

2. The Three Stages of Contrition. Theologians distinguish three stages of contrition according to the form assumed by the underlying motives of love, fear, and hope.

a) The first is perfect contrition, inspired by that perfect love of God which is called charity par excellence. Perfect contrition reconciles the sinner with God before the Sacrament of Penance is actually received.5

As the love of God cannot be entirely separated from man’s love for himself and his own welfare, charity virtually includes the theological virtue of hope, though it is to be remarked that some of the greatest saints possessed charity in such a heroic degree that they were willing to give up all hope of heavenly beatitude and endure eternal torments if they could only continue to love God.6 In this stage fear, which is never entirely absent, assumes its highest form and becomes what theologians call timor filialis, dreading neither punishment nor pain, but solely the divine displeasure.

b) The second or intermediary stage of contrition is also based on the amor concupiscentiae, i.e., that love by which a creature is attracted to God as its greatest good (Deus summum bonum nobis).7

At this stage the hope of eternal happiness is uppermost in the soul. It is in this that the amor concupiscentiae, also called amor spei, essentially differs from perfect charity.8 To the sinner’s hope of eternal happiness corresponds the fear of losing heaven (poena damni), or suffering the torments of hell (poena sensus) and, possibly, other punishments of a temporal nature. This fear is not inspired by perfect charity and consequently cannot be regarded as timor filialis. It is akin to the fear that characterizes the servant, and is therefore termed timor simpliciter servilis. Note, however, that the object of this fear is not punishment as such, but God, in so far as He punishes, and is by His very nature compelled to punish, sin.

Contrition inspired by such motives, either severally or combined, is called imperfect contrition or attrition.

c) The third and lowest stage of sorrow for sin is that inspired merely by hope of reward or fear of punishment.

The love that underlies this species of contrition is a naked self-love, or mere egoism. Theologians pertinently call it amor mercenarius. The sinner who feels this mercenary sorrow for his sins thinks only of himself and wishes to be saved by God’s grace because there is no other way. Were it possible, he would just as lief be saved without God. He has no other aim and object than his own gratification. If there is any real hope in his selfish heart, it is little more than a rude sensual longing for the pleasures of Heaven. The fear which corresponds to such a selfish love cannot be a true fear of God; it is merely a fear of being punished by Him. Theologians call this fear timor serviliter servilis, and compare it to the dread a dog feels when he sees the whip in his master’s hand.9 A sorrow based on such an ignoble motive cannot properly be called attrition and involves no true conversion or change of heart. Hence this species of sorrow is not a means of regaining grace, but rather a new sin, because it excludes God and makes man his own last end and purpose.

3. In What Attrition Proper Consists. It is plain from what we have said that attrition proper can be found only in the second stage described above. Its negative characteristics are: (1) absence of perfect charity; (2) absence of a desire to seek reward merely for reward’s sake; (3) absence of both the timor filialis and the timor serviliter servilis. Its positive characteristics are a true love and fear of God, though these need not always be formally present in the soul.

a) The love of God that is essential for attrition need not be a love of friendship (amor amicitiae). That imperfect love called amor concupiscentiae, which culminates in the theological hope of eternal happiness, suffices.

b) The fear of God involved in attrition, on the other hand, must be superior to the canine timor serviliter servilis. It may be described as a timor simpliciter servilis which fears nothing so much as to be eternally separated from God and thereby forever unhappy. The penitent who has this fear may have an eye to the turpitude of sin, but he is repelled by it not so much out of consideration of the infinite lovableness of God, as by such inferior motives as the violation of the moral order, the disfigurement of the soul, etc., which sin involves.

Sorrow for sin inspired by fear is called by Billuart attritio formidolosa. It occupies an important place in dogmatic theology because around it revolves the famous question what kind of sorrow is required for true conversion and the valid reception of the Sacrament of Penance.10 Hence it is necessary to inquire how the timor simpliciter servilis, which is sufficient for attrition, differs from the slavish fear called timor serviliter servilis.11

These two kinds of fear differ in four essential particulars:

  1. They are based upon different judgments of the intellect, the former regarding hell merely as an evil, whereas the latter considers it the greatest of all evils and therefore more dreadful than sin itself;
  2. They stand in a different relation to punishment, the former dreading punishment from a motive of ordinate and therefore moral self-love, whereas the latter is inspired by inordinate egoism, which sets its own welfare above God;
  3. They are inspired by different kinds of self-love, the former standing in (at least potential) relation to God, whereas the latter absolutely excludes God and rests in the Ego as its finis simpliciter ultimus;
  4. The timor simpliciter servilis is capable of developing into a higher form, whereas the timor serviliter servilis is utterly and hopelessly slavish.

Article 2: Imperfect Contrition Sufficient for the Validity of Penance

If, as we have shown,12 perfect contrition is not necessary for the validity of Penance, Penance requires a species of contrition which does not justify the penitent outside of the Sacrament. In other words, imperfect contrition or attrition is necessary and sufficient for the validity of Penance.

No one has ever doubted that attrition is sufficient for the validity of Penance when it is directly and formally inspired by imperfect charity or theological hope. For these two motives, severally and in conjunction, exclude the will to sin and inspire a salutary horror of offending God, and consequently produce a true change of heart.

The case is different when attrition is inspired solely by the fear of hell (metus gehennae). Lutherans and Jansenists have joined in denouncing this motive as unworthy and contemptible. They declare that attrition inspired by fear is not a true and profitable sorrow but makes a man a hypocrite and a greater sinner (Luther), keeping his hand from committing, but not deterring his heart from loving, sin (Quesnel). In opposition to this heretical teaching the Catholic Church insists: (1) that attrition inspired by the fear of hell is a good and salutary sentiment, and (2) that it suffices for the valid reception of Penance.

Thesis I: Attrition inspired by the fear of hell is a good and salutary sentiment. This proposition is de fide.

Proof. Luther asserted that a man who is sorry for his sins merely because he fears hell is a hypocrite and a greater sinner than he was before, and that “the more penitents are agitated by the fear of punishment and the pain of loss, the more they sin and are affected by their sins, which they are forced against their will to hate.”13 The younger Jansenius declared that fear of eternal punishment, being a product of “inordinate self-love,” cannot effect conversion.14 Quesnel taught that “fear restrains only the hand, while the heart remains addicted to sin, so long as it is not moved by the love of justice.”15 This false teaching was formally adopted by the Jansenists assembled in council at Pistoia. The Fathers of Trent solemnly rejected the error by defining: “As to that imperfect contrition which is called attrition, because it is commonly conceived either from the consideration of the turpitude of sin or from the fear of hell and punishment, [the holy Synod] declares that if, with the hope of pardon, it exclude the wish to sin, it not only does not make a man a hypocrite and a greater sinner, but is even a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Ghost.”16

The disjunctive phrase “either from the consideration of the turpitude of sin or from the fear of hell and punishment” shows that, according to the mind of the Tridentine Fathers, either kind of attrition, that inspired by the fear of hell and punishment as well as that based upon a consideration of the turpitude of sin, may be “a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Ghost.” This truth appears still more clearly from the Council’s fifth canon on the Sacrament of Penance: “If anyone saith that the contrition … whereby one thinks over his years … by pondering on the grievousness, the multitude, the vileness of his sins [or] the loss of eternal blessedness and the eternal damnation which he has incurred, … is not a true and profitable sorrow, … let him be anathema.”17

Hence it is an article of faith that imperfect contrition, inspired by the fear of hell, is “a true and profitable sorrow,” “a gift of God,” and consequently by no means hypocrisy and an additional sin.18

a) Sacred Scripture frequently appeals to the fear of God and His just retribution in order to deter men from sin. Thus Moses tells the Israelites: “God is come to prove you, and that the dread (terror) of him might be in you, and you should not sin.”19 The Royal Psalmist prays: “Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear: for I am afraid of thy judgments.”20

Our Divine Redeemer, far from banishing the motive of fear from the New Testament, employs it as a means of converting the wicked. “It is expedient for thee,” he says, “that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body go into hell.”21 And on another occasion: “Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.”22 These appeals show that the fear of hell and other punishments is essentially good and wholesome.

b) This conclusion is amply confirmed by Tradition. “When you withdraw from confession,” says e.g. Tertullian, “think of hell, which penance has extinguished for you, and imagine first the magnitude of the punishment, that you may not doubt as to the remedy which you have received.”23 St. Chrysostom says: “What is worse than hell? But nothing is more profitable than the fear thereof. For the fear of hell obtains for us the crown of Heaven… . If fear were not a good thing, Christ would not have delivered numerous and lengthy discourses on the future punishment and torments.”24 St. Augustine, in particular, was a herald, as of divine love, so likewise of the fear of God. “This fear,” he says in his homilies on the Psalms, “is not yet chaste… . He fears punishments. Whatever good he does, he does out of fear, moved not by fear of losing good, but by fear of suffering evil. He does not fear to lose the affection of the most beautiful Spouse, but he fears to be cast into hell. This fear is good and useful.”25

c) The Tridentine phrase “ex gehennae et poenarum metu”26 raises the question whether the fear of purely temporal punishments (poenae temporales), such as purgatory, famine, and war, is sufficient to inspire a wholesome supernatural attrition. Theoretically, it seems this question can be answered in the affirmative, as there are many pious Christians who have a great dread of purgatory. Moreover, the example of the Ninivites, quoted by the Tridentine Council, indicates that the fear with which these godless people were inspired by the impending destruction of their city was a wholesome sentiment which eventually brought about their conversion. Suarez says: “If [temporal punishments] be regarded as inflicted by God, and as indications of His wrath and, in a way, the beginning of His just retribution, unless we repent, they may, in this respect, move [us] to supernatural attrition, which is easily reduced to that which originates in the fear of hell.”27 De Lugo expresses himself in a similar strain.28 Vasquez, on the other hand, teaches that attrition must be inspired by “an eternal motive,” which can be supplied only by a consideration of the everlasting torments of hell.29

In view of this dissentient teaching it is not advisable in practice, especially for the priest sitting in the tribunal of Penance, to be satisfied with an attrition inspired by the fear of purely temporal punishments. A sinner who has no higher motive than that may possibly be actuated merely by a timor serviliter servilis and may regret the loss he has suffered or fears he will suffer in his body more than the injury inflicted on his soul by sin. Needless to say, penitents should be exhorted to base their sorrow on the highest possible motive, and to strive to attain to a perfect contrition, instead of resting content with the absolute minimum needed for the validity of the Sacrament.30

Thesis II: Attrition inspired by the mere fear of hell is sufficient for the validity of the Sacrament of Penance.

Proof. The term “fear” (timor, metus) here is not synonymous with timor serviliter servilis,31 but means that fear which St. Augustine, in a passage already quoted, calls “timor nondum castus” and which modern theologians designate as timor simpliciter servilis.32

It is also taken for granted, as a matter of course, that the attrition inspired by the fear of hell “excludes the wish to sin” and is accompanied by “the hope of pardon,” both of these factors being, according to the Tridentine Council, an indispensable condition for the validity of absolution.

In speaking of attrition inspired by a mere fear of hell, we wish to reject the contention of some theologians that attrition, in order to be sufficient for valid absolution, must be supplemented by a separate and distinct act of “initial charity.”

Though the Tridentine Council does not expressly inculcate our thesis, it can be cogently deduced from the wording of its Chapter IV, on Contrition and Attrition, and hence quite a number of modern theologians, despite the opposition of a few so-called Contritionists, treat it as a “theological conclusion.”

a) The first argument for our thesis may be briefly formulated as follows: speaking of attrition in general, and attrition based on the fear of hell in particular, the Council of Trent says: “Although this [attrition] cannot of itself, without the Sacrament of Penance, conduct the sinner to justification, yet it disposes him to obtain the grace of God in the Sacrament of Penance.”33

We maintain that disponit here is equivalent to sufficit. This can be proved as follows:

The Council says that attrition inspired by the fear of hell disposes the sinner to receive the Sacrament of Penance. A person may be disposed to receive a thing either remotely or proximately. The Council cannot have meant that attrition disposes the sinner for Penance merely in a remote manner. Consequently, the disposition of which it speaks must be proximate.

Proof of the minor: the Council cannot have meant that attrition disposes the sinner for Penance merely in a remote manner. For it had already declared it to be a remote disposition for Penance when, a little farther up in the text, it inculcated the wholesomeness of attrition in these words: “As to that imperfect contrition, which is called attrition, because it is commonly conceived either from the consideration of the turpitude of sin or from the fear of hell and of punishment, [the holy Synod] declares that … it is even a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Ghost, who does not indeed as yet dwell in the penitent, but only moves him, whereby assisted, the penitent prepares a way for himself unto justice.”34 It cannot reasonably be assumed that the Council meant to repeat itself in the sentence immediately following. Moreover, the opposition expressed by the grammatical antithesis of quamvis — tamen, between justification effected without the Sacrament and justification effected in and through the Sacrament, would be meaningless if attrition in conjunction with the Sacrament of Penance did not actually produce an effect which attrition without the Sacrament cannot produce. Consequently, attrition in conjunction with the Sacrament of Penance effects justification; in other words, attrition inspired by the fear of hell disposes the soul proximately for the valid reception of Penance. Again: the Tridentine Fathers oppose contrition to attrition by saying that the former, as a dispositio proxima, effects justification immediately without the Sacrament,35 whereas the latter, being merely a dispositio remota, cannot produce this effect outside of and anterior to the reception of the Sacrament. Consequently, attrition obtains its sin-forgiving effect only within the Sacrament of Penance, and in connection with the Sacrament this effect is certain. To express the same idea somewhat differently: attrition, while not, like contrition, sufficient for justification, is sufficient for the validity of Penance.

To these three arguments may be added a fourth. According to the Tridentine teaching, true sorrow for sin, no matter whether it be perfect or imperfect, constitutes the quasi-matter of the Sacrament of Penance.36 Now, attrition inspired by the fear of hell is a true sorrow.37 Consequently, attrition may constitute the quasi-matter of Penance. For the validity of the Sacrament, therefore, all that is still wanting is the sacramental form, which consists in the absolution. Consequently, attrition is a proximate and sufficient disposition for the valid reception of the Sacrament. That this was the meaning of the Tridentine Council is evident from the concluding words of its chapter on Contrition and Attrition: “Falsely, therefore, do some calumniate Catholic writers, as if they had maintained that the Sacrament of Penance confers grace without any good motion on the part of those who receive it: a thing which the Church of God never thought or taught.”38 This sentence contains a defense of the theological doctrine that the “attritio ex metu gehennae” is a “good motion,” a “gift of God,” and “an impulse of the Holy Ghost.” The Council means to say that the writers who teach this doctrine demand just such an attrition for the valid reception of Penance, and consequently do not assert, as they are falsely accused of doing, that the Sacrament of Penance confers the grace of justification “without any good motion on the part of those who receive it.”

Pallavicini relates39 that the Tridentine Fathers substituted “disponit” for “sufficit” in the text of the decree as originally drawn. “Disponit” is a more general term than “sufficit,” and its substitution for the latter merely shows that the Council, in view of the controversies then raging among Catholic theologians, did not wish to give a formal definition. This assumption is confirmed by the absence of a corresponding passage in the canons on the Sacrament of Penance.40

b) The second argument for our thesis is based upon the authority of the many Tridentine and post-Tridentine theologians who appeal to the XIVth Session of the Council in confirmation of their teaching that attrition inspired by a mere fear of hell is sufficient for the validity of Penance.

α) Andreas de Vega, who took a prominent part in the preliminary discussion of the dogma of justification at Trent,41 says in his defense of that decree, published at Venice in 1548: “Absolution may effect justification, i.e., if one goes to confession without such a sorrow [a sorrow based on charity] or merely with a sorrow based on hell or other evils to be avoided… .”42 Antony of Cordova, who also participated in the deliberations, expresses himself in a similar manner. “One who has such attrition,” he says, “goes profitably to confession and is justified by virtue of the Sacrament, for thus must be understood the Tridentine decree when, towards the end, it says in express words that the aforesaid attrition disposes [the sinner] for the reception of grace in the Sacrament, and not outside of it.”43 The same view is held by the great Jesuit theologians Suarez, Vasquez, Gregory of Valentia, and De Lugo, by all post-Tridentine Scotists without exception, by the majority of Thomists, and, in fine, by nearly all moral theologians, including St. Alphonsus de’ Liguori.

β) How was this view, so generally held since the Council, regarded by the theologians of the pre-Tridentine epoch? Concina asserts44 that the doctrine of the sufficiency of “attrition without charity” originated simultaneously with Probabilism in 1577, at Salamanca. Berti45 claims that “Attritionism” was unknown before the Council of Trent. Both are mistaken. Morinus46 has demonstrated that the notion, nay the very term, attritio, occurs in Scholastic literature as early as 1230, and may probably be traced to Alanus ab Insulis, who died in the year 1200.47 “Attritionism” pure and simple was taught by no less an authority than St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), who says in his commentary on the Liber Sententiarum of Peter Lombard: “That a man may prepare himself for the reception of grace in Baptism, there is required as a preliminary condition faith — not, however, charity, because the preceding disposition suffices, though he have no contrition.”48 According to the testimony of Dominicus Soto (d. 1560), the majority of Thomist theologians concluded from this dictum of their master that, “if a man may approach Baptism with the consciousness of mortal sin, i.e., with attrition, knowing himself to be without contrition, he may in like manner receive the Sacrament of Penance without contrition.”49 This teaching was endorsed by Duns Scotus (d. 1308) and his school, and hence it may be truly said that Attritionism was the common teaching of the medieval Scholastics. It was precisely this belief in the efficacy of attrition that Luther cast up to the Catholics of the sixteenth century and denounced as “hypocrisy” and “an additional sin.”

Footnotes

  1. Sess. XIV, cap. 4; can. 5. ↩

  2. Sess. XIV, cap. 4. ↩

  3. Loco cit.: “si voluntatem peccandi excludat cum spe veniae.” ↩

  4. See above, on Perfect Contrition Defined. ↩

  5. See above, on Perfect Contrition as a Means of Justification. ↩

  6. Cfr. Rom. IX, 3. ↩

  7. See above, on Perfect Contrition Defined. ↩

  8. See above, on Perfect Contrition Defined. ↩

  9. Oswald, Die dogmat. Lehre von den hl. Sakramenten der kath. Kirche, Vol. II, p. 93. ↩

  10. See below, Article 2. ↩

  11. What later theologians call timor serviliter servilis Peter Lombard simply terms timor servilis, in contradistinction to timor initialis. ↩

  12. See above, Article 1. ↩

  13. Serm. de Poenit., 22: “Haec contritio [ex metu gehennae] facit hypocritam, imo magis peccatorem… . Imo quo magis timore poenae et dolore damni sic conteruntur, eo magis peccant et afficiuntur suis peccatis, quae coguntur, non autem volunt odisse.” ↩

  14. De Gratia Christi, l. V. ↩

  15. Prop. 61: “Timor nonnisi manum cohibet, cor autem tamdiu peccato addicitur, quamdiu ab amore iustitiae non ducitur.” (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1411). ↩

  16. Sess. XIV, cap. 4: “Illam vero contritionem imperfectam, quae attritio dicitur, quoniam vel ex turpitudinis peccati consideratione vel ex gehennae et poenarum metu communiter concipitur, si voluntatem peccandi excludat cum spe veniae, declarat [s. Synodus] non solum non facere hominem hypocritam et magis peccatorem, verum etiam donum Dei esse et Spiritus Sancti impulsum.” (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 808). ↩

  17. Sess. XIV, can. 5: “Si quis dixerit, eam contritionem, … qua quis recogitat annos suos … ponderando [vel] peccatorum suorum gravitatem, multitudinem, foeditatem, [vel] amissionem aeternae beatitudinis et aeternae damnationis incursum, … non esse verum et utilem dolorem … , anathema sit.” (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 915). ↩

  18. Against Quesnel see Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1411 sq.; against the Jansenists of Pistoia, ibid., n. 1525. ↩

  19. Ex. XX, 20. ↩

  20. Ps. CXVIII, 120; cfr. Ps. XXXIII, 14; Ecclus. I, 27 sq.; II, 19 sqq. ↩

  21. Matth. V, 30. ↩

  22. Matth. X, 28; cfr. Luke III, 7; XIII, 3; John V, 14. ↩

  23. De Poenit., c. 12: “Si de exomologesi retractas, gehennam in corde considera, quam tibi exomologesis extinguit, et poenae prius magnitudinem imaginare, ut de remedii adeptione non dubites.” ↩

  24. Hom. ad Popul. Antioch., 15. ↩

  25. In Ps., 127, n. 8: “Ille timor nondum castus … poenas timet. Timore facit, quidquid boni facit, non timore amittendi bonum illud, sed timore patiendi illud malum. Non timet, ne perdat amplexus pulcherrimi sponsi, sed timet, ne mittatur in gehennam. Bonus est iste timor, utilis est.” On the Jansenistic misinterpretation of this teaching of St. Augustine see Palmieri, De Poenit., thesis 29. Many other Patristic texts on the subject in Alb. a Bulsano, Theol. Dogmat. Special., ed. Gottfr. a Graun, Vol. III, pp. 70 sq., Innsbruck 1896. ↩

  26. Sess. XIV, cap. 4. ↩

  27. De Poenit., disp. 5, sect. 2, n. 15: “Si considerantur [poenae temporales] ut inflictae a Deo et ut nobis indicant iram eius et quodammodo inchoant divinum supplicium, nisi emendemur, sub ea ratione possunt movere ad supernaturalem attritionem, quae optime reducitur ad illam, quae est ex metu gehennae.” ↩

  28. De Poenit., disp. 5, sect. 9, n. 137 sq. ↩

  29. Comment. in S. Theol., III, qu. 92, art. 2, dub. 3. ↩

  30. On the exemplary practice of the Middle Ages see N. Paulus, “Die Reue in den deutschen Sterbebüchlein des ausgehenden Mittelalters,” in the Innsbruck Zeitschrift für kath. Theologie, 1904, pp. 682 sqq. ↩

  31. See above, Article 1, nos. 2 and 3. ↩

  32. See above, Article 1. ↩

  33. Sess. XIV, cap. 4: “Quamvis sine sacramento poenitentiae per se ad iustificationem perducere peccatorem nequeat, tamen eum ad Dei gratiam in sacramento poenitentiae impetrandam disponit.” ↩

  34. Sess. XIV, cap. 4: “Illam vero contritionem imperfectam, quae attritio dicitur, quoniam vel ex turpitudinis peccati consideratione vel ex gehennae et poenarum metu communiter concipitur … declarat [Sancta Synodus] … donum Dei esse et Spiritus sancti impulsum, non adhuc quidem inhabitantis, sed tantum moventis, quo poenitens adiutus viam sibi ad iustitiam parat.” ↩

  35. See above, on Perfect Contrition as a Means of Justification. ↩

  36. See above, on the Matter of the Sacrament. ↩

  37. See above, Thesis I. ↩

  38. Sess. XIV, cap. 4: “Quamobrem falso quidam calumniantur catholicos scriptores, quasi tradiderint sacramentum poenitentiae absque bono motu suscipientium gratiam conferre, quod nunquam Ecclesia Dei docuit nec sensit.” ↩

  39. Historia Conc. Trident., XII, 10, 25. ↩

  40. That the Council, though not formally defining the doctrine, mediately taught that attrition based on mere fear of hell is sufficient for the validity of Penance, is shown by the careful analysis of its decree made by Palmieri, De Poenit., thes. 30. Cfr. also Tepe, Inst. Theolog., Vol. IV, pp. 443 sqq. ↩

  41. On De Vega see the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XV, p. 320. ↩

  42. De Iustific., XIII, c. 24: “Absolutio potest primo iustificare, vid. quum quis sine tali dolore [ex caritate] vel cum solo dolore de peccatis propter gehennam vel alia mala evitanda … ad confessionem accedit.” ↩

  43. Quaest. Theol., I, qu. 2, opin. 3: ”… talis attritus et fructuose confitetur et virtute sacramenti iustificatur; nam non potest decretum Tridentinum aliter intellegi, quum in ultimis verbis expresse dicat, quod in sacramento, et non extra, illa attritio ad gratiam obtinendam disponit.” For additional testimonies of the same kind see Palmieri, De Poenit., pp. 327 sqq. ↩

  44. De Insufficientia Attritionis Servilis, c. 4. ↩

  45. Discipl. Theol., Vol. VII, l. 8, qu. 3. ↩

  46. Opusc. de Contrit. et Attrit., c. 1. ↩

  47. Cfr. Rütten, Studien zur mittelalterlichen Busslehre, pp. 15 sq., Münster 1902. ↩

  48. Comment. in Sent., IV, dist. 6, qu. 1, art. 3: “Ad hoc quod homo praeparet se ad gratiam in baptismo percipiendam, praeexigitur fides, sed non caritas, quia sufficit dispositio praecedens, etsi non sit contritus.” ↩

  49. Comment. in Sent., IV, dist. 18, qu. 1, art. 3: ”… quod sicut S. Thomas dixit posse quempiam accedere cum conscientia peccati mortalis ad baptismum, scil. cum attritione, cognoscens se non esse contritum, possit pariter [accedere] et ad poenitentiam.” ↩