the sacred edifice, the positions and
attitudes of the priest and the congregation, the order of service,
emphasize the mystery and the divine efficacy of the sacrament. The
worshipper feels himself in the immediate presence of God, and enters
into physical relations with him. Participation in the mass also
releases from guilt, as the Lamb of God offered up atones for sin and
intercedes with the Father in our behalf. Thus in this single act of
devotion both objects of all cults are attained.

Pollty.

As the teaching and person of Jesus were fitted into the framework of
the Greek philosophy, and the sacraments into the deeper and broader
forms of popular belief, so was the organization shaped by the polity of
the Roman empire. Jesus gathered his group of followers and committed to
it his mission, and after his resurrection the necessities of the
situation brought about the choice of quasi-officials. Later the
familiar polity of the synagogue was loosely followed. A completer
organization was retarded by two factors, the presence of the apostles
and the inspiration of the prophets. But when the apostles died and the
early enthusiasm disappeared, a stricter order arose. Practical
difficulties called for the enforcement of discipline, and differences
of opinion for authority in doctrine; and, finally, the sacramentarian
system required a priesthood. In the 2nd century the conception of a
Catholic Church was widely held and a loose embodiment was given it;
after the conversion of the empire the organization took on the official
forms of the empire. Later it was modified by the rise of the feudal
system and the re-establishment of the modern European nationalities
(see CHURCH HISTORY).

Penance.

The polity of the Church was more than a formal organization; it touched
the life of each believer. Very early, Christianity was conceived to be
a new system of law, and faith was interpreted as obedience. Legalism
was joined with sacramentarianism, doubling the power of the priest.
Through him Church discipline was administered, a complete system of
ecclesiastical penalties, i.e. penance, growing up. It culminated in the
doctrine of purgatory, a place of discipline, of purifying suffering
after death. The Roman genius for law strengthened and systematized this
tendency.

The hierarchy which centres in the pope constitutes the Church of which
the sacramental system is the inner life and penance is the sanction. It
is