Note 158 — Chapter XVIII · RETRIBUTION.
Reading edition
The penitentiary system of the early Church will be better described in any volume that embodies the antiquity of the second period of ecclesiastical history, that of The Church of the Basilicas. It is well known, especially from the writings of St. Cyprian, that those who proved weak in persecution, and were subjected to public penance, obtained a shortening of its term,—that is, an indulgence,—through the intercession of confessors, or of persons imprisoned for the faith.