The Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church: Together With Its Declension to Its Present State. by a Presbyter of the Church of England N. Marshall. by N. Marshall. This item is unavailable.The Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church: Together With Its Declension to Its Present State. by a Presbyter of the Church of England N. Marshall. by N. Marshall

The Penitential Discipline Of The Primitive Church: Together With Its Declension To Its Present State. By A Presbyter Of The Church Of England N. Marshall. By N. Marshall. The work traces the historical development of penitential discipline in the early Christian Church and its later decline in the Western churches. Nathaniel Marshall argues that the Church was endowed with a genuine authority to bind and loose sins, exercised through Baptism, public and private penance, and absolution, and mediated by the ministry of bishops and priests. The text surveys patristic authorities—Clement of Rome, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Chrysostom, Basil, and others—to reconstruct the threefold structure of the discipline: confession, segregation, and absolution, and the Stations of penitents (mourner, hearer, prostrate). It discusses the transformation from public to private penance, the role of ecclesiastical officers, the rise of commutations and private penance, and the separation of jurisdiction from rite. Marshall addresses the Western departures from the primitive model, the potential revival of primitive discipline within Anglican polity, and the historical debates surrounding authority, practice, and ecclesiastical reform. The volume is deeply annotated with appendices and canonical sources.