# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1861_S187
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Literary Notices. 187

is. (See Rebhan, op. cit., chap. 2, p. 7.) Hence an inference is also wrongly
drawn from criminal cases to the act of public apology. 2. And since ecclesiastical
apology is customarily imposed, and is to be imposed, only for the sake of public
crimes, I do not see with what right the guilty party may be burdened with it on
account of a crime committed elsewhere; for a crime cannot be called public which,
because it was committed elsewhere, has not become known in the place where the
guilty party resides, or has come to the knowledge of only the very fewest, and is
there held to be a secret crime. Rightly, therefore, does Rebhan observe: „„Among
the secret sins belong finally also those which occur outside the congregation. If
someone in another place commits a gross public outrage and misdeed, and turns
away from thence to another place where nothing is known of his crime, etc.““ And
thereafter: „„For as Augustine writes: where the evil occurs, there let it die.““
Chap. 10, p. 139. 3. Moreover an offense — which in fact alone gives cause for
public apology — can hardly arise from a crime committed elsewhere, namely if it
is unknown to most; and so where the cause of it ceases, the apology itself also
ceases. If, however, a crime committed elsewhere should nevertheless have become
so well known that an offense in the congregation would have to be feared from it,
then my counsel would be that the people be assured publicly from the pulpit,
without a public apology by the guilty party, that he has done penance, and be
admonished not to take offense; by which not only is every scruple met, but the
parishioners are also stirred up to godliness and to a Christian life. Thus, then,
the upper consistory issues a rescript to the superintendent at Oschatz on May 18,
1625: „„We have had read to us your report, sent in together with that of the
pastor at Borna, concerning the church penance of Maria, daughter of Paul S. at N.
Since, then, she did not offend in these parts but here at Dresden, you shall
instruct the said pastor that in such circumstances he is to spare the delinquent
the church penance, etc.““ Further, it is said in a rescript to the superintendent
at Leisnig on November 19, 1619: „„We have had read to us your report sent in, in
the matter of Johann K. of Leipzig. Since, then, so much is to be gathered from it
that he did not offend at Leisnig and therefore committed no scandalum in this
congregation, we have for the present just scruples about excluding him from
communion or having him compelled to a deprecation.““ (Op. cit., pp. 820, 821.)

Literary Notices.

From the press of G. Mayer in Leipzig there has just appeared: the seventh volume,
for 1860, of the handbook General Church Chronicle, by Pastor