with minute descriptions of, and regulations for, their sprinklings and lustrations; and the Egyptians had their nocturnal as well as diurnal ablutions. The frequent washing of hands and utensils—that is, the undue attention to these matters, being the traditions of men, to the neglect of the express commandments of God-is objected by our Saviour to the Pharisees; and we hence learn how burdensome the practice of this ceremony had been, and at the same time the mischief that had arisen from an improper reliance on its efficacy. The first Christians, however, made use of ablutions before the communion; which the Roman church still continues before the celebration of the mass, and sometimes after it also.-See Guer. Mœurs des Pures, tom. i. lib. 2. Ablution is likewise used in the church of Rome for a sup of wine and water, anciently taken after the host; and sometimes we find it used to signify the water in which the priest who consecrated the host was accustomed to wash his hands.

ABOMINATION, in the language of Scripture, is generally applied to the worship of idols; and idols themselves are often described as abominations. See 1 Kings, xi. 5, 7; 2 Kings, xxiii. 13. And the abomination of desolation set upon the altar by Antiochus Epiphanes, 1 Mac. i. 54, is supposed to imply the statue of Jupiter Olympius, which that prince caused to be placed in the temple of Jerusalem. Thus the abominations foretold by the prophet Daniel as spread over the city of Jerusalem, even to the desolation thereof, allude to the ensigns and standards of the Roman legions, each standard bearing upon it the image of the titular god, to which they were accustomed to offer sacrifice. Dan. ix. 27. And the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Evangelists has evidently the same signification. St. Matt. xxiv. 15; St. Mark, xiii. 14.

ABRACADABRA, or ABRAXAS, a name given by the Basilidians to certain images, which they used as amulets or charms. Baronius supposes that the names of their three hundred and sixty-five heavens, answering to the like number of members in human bodies, were written upon them.-Baron. Ann. 120, n. 10. See Articles, Amulets, Charms, &c.

ABRAHAMITES, or ABRAHAMIANS, an order of monks, who derived their appellation from one Abraham, a native of Antioch; or, as the Arabs called him, Ibrahim. They were exterminated in the ninth century by the Emperor Theophilus upon some vague charge of idolatry.

A sect known by the name of Abrahamites is mentioned by an anonymous writer as existing in Egypt. They are stated to acknowledge no other law but that of nature, which God, they say, delivered to Abraham, from whom they

originally descended. They deny the divinity of Christ, and ridicule all the mysteries of the Christian religion, worshipping one Supreme Being, and him only. As these however have not been mentioned by any other author, there may be good reason to suspect the existence of any such sect.-See Hurd's Univ. Hist. 310.

ABSOLUTION, the remission of sins declared by ecclesiastical authority. Absolution, or the remission of sins by a priest or bishop, as taught by the see of Rome, took its origin from the doctrines of Penance and Confession, making together, according to that church, one Sacrament, viz. that of Penance. Confession, indeed, is considered by the Romish church as an essential part of penance, and indispensably necessary for receiving the effects of its salutary. power. It will be convenient, therefore, in the first place, to give a short historical account of penance, as practised in the primitive ages; of the various changes it has received; and of the different doctrines which have been entertained upon it, from the time it was first introduced into the church till it was raised, by the councils of Florence and Trent, to the rank of a sacrament; when all were anathematised who did not acknowledge it as such. All communities naturally possess the power of expelling delinquent or obnoxious members; and in the earliest ages of the church all such as committed any public and grievous sin after having been received into it by baptism, were expelled the congregation. The exercise of this power of expulsion was conceived to have been imposed upon the church by the injunction of the two apostles, St. Paul and St. John. In his first epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul says, "But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat." 1 Cor. v. 11. And in his second epistle to the Thessalonians he says, "If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed." 2 Thes. iii. 14. And St. John says, And St. John says, "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine (i. e. the doctrine of Christ), receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." 2 John, 10, 11. How far these declarations of the apostles may have authorised or justified the extreme measures taken by the church of Rome must be left to the reader to decide. In the writings of the Fathers this expulsion is styled "a driving away from the church,” “ a casting out from the community," "a killing with the spiritual sword," and the like; and all who were so expelled were looked upon as accursed by God,

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and as members of Satan; and were therefore to be avoided by all others, even in civil commerce and common conversation, and were never re-admitted into the church until they had atoned for their misdoing by a public penance. To be admitted however to do penance was itself a favour not easily granted by the church. If any one, touched with remorse for the crime he had committed, was induced to sue for a reconciliation, it was necessary for him to solicit that favour in the most humble and abject manner. For the space of a whole year he was obliged to appear at the door of the church clad in sackcloth and ashes, prostrating himself at the feet of the faithful as they went in, begging their prayers and intercessions for him, and striving with his groans and tears to move to compassion the merciful church of Christ. Upon these visible marks of a sincere repentance, at the expiration of the year he was admitted to penance; that is, he was allowed to perform that penance which the church required before he could be re-admitted into a participation of its sacred mysteries. The party was now termed a penitent, and while he continued in that state he was to wear no ornament of dress, but still to appear at the meetings of the faithful in sackcloth and ashes, standing amongst the catechumens in the lower part of the church. He was also to abstain from feasting and all innocent diversions, and even from bathing; from pleading, trading, and serving in war; from marrying, if single, and from matrimonial commerce, if married. In such churches as had no Parabolani, whose office was to attend the sick and bury the dead, that duty was thrown upon the penitents. The public fasts of the church they were particularly enjoined to observe with the greatest strictness, appearing with a dejected countenance and a penitential mien, to atone, according to St. Cyprian, with their fasting and sorrow for having formerly tasted the devil's meat. Lastly, penitents were excluded for ever from the clerical order; and such of the clergy as had done penance were never restored to their former dignity.-The length of time during which a penitent was compelled to continue in that state depended upon the nature and quality of the offence, the visible grief and sorrow of the party, and the will and pleasure of the bishop, or rather, in the first ages of the church, of that of the whole congregation. This however was afterwards regulated by different canons of the church, affixing various periods of penance for particular crimes, from one or two years to thirty; which last period was appointed by St. Basil for wilful murder and adultery. And in some cases the offender was decreed to continue a penitent during life, being allowed only to partake of the sacred mysteries at the hour of death. St. Cyprian indeed says that many of his

predecessors had absolutely refused to admit adulterers to communion at their last hour, suffering them to depart without any manner of reconciliation with the church. This severity however, as savouring of Novatianism, was afterwards corrected, and the greatest sinners were allowed communion at the point of death upon their own request.

As soon as the penitent had humbly, patiently, and thankfully completed, as St. Cyprian calls it, "the legal and full time of satisfaction," he came into the church clad in sackcloth and covered with ashes, and threw himself at the feet of the congregation imploring their pardon and forgiveness. He was now, for the more manifest demonstration of his sorrow, to make a public confession of the sin, for which he had been expelled from the community, and to own himself worthy of the punishment which he had undergone. This confession was looked upon as the source of all true repentance, and is therefore recommended in the writings of the Fathers, as an indispensable preliminary to absolution. Confession having been thus made, the penitent kneeled down before the bishop and clergy, who laying their hands on his head, imparted their blessing to him, and thus restored him to the full communion of the faithful, received him into the peace of the church, and declared him to be again a partaker of all those privileges, which for a time he had forfeited by his crime. The well-known expressions of the Fathers and councils of "remitting sins, absolving sinners, loosing their bonds, granting them pardon," and the like, have all reference to this ceremony; whereby the sentence of excommunication, which had previously been passed upon a transgressor, was repealed, and the party himself restored to the communion of the church.

Penance as thus described was strongly recommended by many of the Fathers, and in the early ages of the church seems never to have been dispensed with in case of public and notorious sinners. It was not however considered absolutely necessary to salvation, nor was it required by the church for the purpose of absolving a transgressor from his sins; but only from the excommunication, which by his transgression he had incurred. The latter indeed is evident from the practice of St. Cyprian, who permitted a presbyter in the absence of a bishop, and even a deacon in the absence of a presbyter, to absolve a penitent; whereas the power of remission of sins was at no time allowed by the church to a deacon. It is equally evident that penance, and absolution thereon, was not considered as absolutely necessary to salvation; for in some churches persons guilty of idolatry, murder, or adultery, were excluded from penance and the peace of the church; and in general, if a sinner after

penance either relapsed into the same, or committed any other public and grievous sin, he was not admitted to the benefit of a second penance in order to be absolved again. Such offenders however were exhorted to repent in private, and to make confession of that and their other sins to God, that they might obtain of him that pardon and mercy, which the church thought fit not to bestow. It is manifest therefore that salvation was thought to be attainable without confession made to man, or any kind of sacerdotal absolution.

We have seen that penance was only enjoined by the church for public or enormous sins; such as either from their magnitude or their notoriety reflected particular disgrace on the Christian name and profession. Many however, for their greater satisfaction and ease of mind, humiliated themselves to the pains of a public penance, and to an open confession alone with regard to such sins and offences as were known to themselves. But this practice soon brought upon the church a greater scandal than the infliction of these pains had been intended to remove; for from the abundance of the zeal, and want of discretion of many of these penitents, such sins were often laid open to the public eye, as the church, mindful of its own honour, would have gladly kept in secret. To avoid this inconvenience, each church in about the middle of the third century appointed one of its presbyters, under the name of the Penitentiary Presbyter, to whom all persons, desirous of being admitted to public penance for private sins, were first to apply and make confession of them; and whose duty it was to adjudge whether the parties so applying should afterwards confess them in public, or atone for them by some private penance only, which he was empowered to enjoin. This however having soon also led to great abuses, the office of penitentiary presbyter about the latter end of the following century was suppressed, and the practice of private confession utterly abolished. This seems to have been first effected at Constantinople by Nectorius the bishop of that city, "permitting every man," according to the words of the historian, Socrates, "freely to partake of the holy mysteries according to the direction of his own conscience," words which plainly imply a total abolition of private, or as it has been since called Oral or Auricular Confession. The example of Nectorius was soon followed by almost all the bishops of the East; the office however of penitentiary priest was still kept up in the West, but the duties of it were limited to the preparing men for the public penance of the church. We have hence seen the origin of private or auricular confession, and it is manifest, that at the time of its first introduction it was not thought to have