Chapter 2
1. In the History of the Church given in the Acts of the Apostles, we learn that many of those who believed at Ephesus, after St. Paul's preaching, "came _confessing and declaring their deeds_. And many of those who had followed curious things brought their books together, and burnt them before all."[33] Here is a clear instance of contrition, confession, and determination of purpose.
Again, the incestuous Corinthian is judged by St. Paul, and sentenced in the strongest language: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one to Satan."[34] The offender repented, and lest he should "be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow," the Apostle reversed sentence, and forgave the wrong done, "in the _person of Christ_." A clearer case of retaining and remitting is unnecessary.
These instances are sufficient to show that the Apostles themselves exercised the power of the keys in binding and loosing.
2. Among the living Greek Communions are to be found descendants of those sects which either separated from or were cast off by the Church centuries ago. The Photians date back to the tenth century; the Nestorians, the Jacobites, the Abyssinians, the Copts, to the fifth and sixth centuries. Differing as these do in some points of doctrine, and parted by the bitterest antipathies, yet on the matter of absolution and confession they have the same teaching and practice. It is no question of unburdening a troubled conscience for peace and counsel, but confession is exacted as a necessary condition for obtaining pardon. In 1576, the patriarch Jeremias of Constantinople sent to the Protestant theologians of Tübingen a declaration of the belief of the Greeks. In it, among other doctrines, that of the absolute necessity of detailed confession to a priest is asserted. These sects then are, by their practice and teaching, witnesses to the truth concerning the sacrament of reconciliation as taught by Holy Church in our day.
3. Early heresies contribute, in like manner, their part to the mass of irrefragable evidence in support of the doctrine. As early as the second century, Eusebius says A. D. 171, the Montanists arose in Asia Minor. Among other things, Montanus, their founder, taught that were any to "commit grievous sin after baptism, to deny Christ, or have been stained with the guilt of impurity, murder, or like crimes, they were to be for ever cut off from the communion of the Church." While admitting that power to forgive sin was given by Christ to the Apostles and their successors, Montanus wished to restrict that power, excluding from its domain idolatry, impurity, and homicide.
Some eighty years later, two schisms were created: the one in North Africa, led by the priest Novatus, aided by the deacon Felicissimus, the other by the anti-pope Novatian, in Rome. Both were prompted by the question of receiving into the communion of the Church those who had lapsed into idolatry, or had denied the faith during the times of persecution. The African schism insisted on the laxest possible line of action, namely, to receive indiscriminately without proof of penitence. The schism in Rome pursued the most unyielding rigorism. "Whoever," said Novatian, its leader, "has offered sacrifice to idols, or stained his soul with the guilt of sin, can no longer remain within the Church; and if he be of those who have denied the faith, he can not again enter her communion: for her members consist only of pure and faithful souls."
These contentions had one great advantage: they brought into prominence the teaching of the Church concerning "the forgiveness of sin," and occasioned a more scientific and dogmatic statement of the doctrine concerning the Sacrament of Penance. In the controversy, figure the names of St. Cornelius, Pope, of St. Cyprian, of St. Athanasius, of St. Pacian, of St. Gregory Nazianzen, of Tertullian. Until the schismatics were driven to extremities, it is plain both sides take it for granted that the Ministry of Reconciliation was given to the Church by Jesus Christ, and that the exercise of the ministry consisted in pronouncing judicial sentence of pardon on those who had shown repentance and had confessed their grievous sins. Religious strife in this case produces the interesting evidence that, as early as the second and third centuries, Confession and Absolution were held and practised as necessary for the pardoning of sin under the Christian dispensation.
4. The Penitential Canons of the first ages of the Church are another evidence to the doctrine of Absolution and Confession. The Apostolic Constitutions,[35] and Tertullian,[36] give us a picture of the severe penitential discipline to which sinners were subjected. Many painful circumstances obliged the Church modify and almost abrogate these public penances.
The accounts of the suppression given by the historians, Socrates and Zozomen, afford ample proof of confession made publicly, of the retaining of certain deadly crimes until a long time had been spent in rigid penitential exercises, and, lastly, of the absolution finally granted by bishops and priests.
These authors, as well as many who come after them, are clear in discriminating between the _public_ confession, which is a matter of discipline, and confession the necessary condition for the pardon of sin. "Since," says Zozomen, the Greek ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century, "it is absolutely necessary to confess our sins in order to receive the pardon of them, it was thought too onerous and too painful to exact that this confession should be made in public, as in a theatre."
5. We may now turn to the writings of the Fathers of the first five centuries. It will be seen that throughout, when treating of the forgiveness of sin, it is always assumed that the priests of Holy Church were endowed with the power of absolution, and exercised it on those who had sinned after baptism. The sacrament of pardon is constantly referred to under different names: "penance," "confession," "absolution," "exomologesis," "reconciliation," "the second baptism," "the laborious baptism," "the second plank after the shipwreck." Of these, "exomologesis" occurs very frequently. Its meaning varies: at one time it signifies manifestation of sin, whether in private or in public, and at another it expresses the public penance and confession in vogue in the first ages of the Church.
_At the end of the first century_, St. Clement of Rome, the third Pope after St. Peter, who died in the year one hundred, and whom St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Philippians, numbers among "his fellow-laborers whose names are in the book of life," writes, in the Second Epistle ascribed to him and addressed to the Corinthians: "As long as we are in this world, let us repent with our whole heart of the evil deeds which we have done in the flesh, that we may be saved by the Lord whilst we have time for repentance. For after that we have gone forth from this world, we are no longer able _to confess_ or repent there."[37]
_In the middle of the second century_, appeared the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," causing, at this moment, no small attention in the religious world. Its date is variously stated from 120 to 160 A. D. To it does St. Clement of Alexandria, who lived into the second decade of the third century, make reference. The text, together with a translation, is now published. Therein (Chap. IV) do we read: "Thou shalt by no means forsake the Lord's commandments, but shalt guard what thou hast received, neither adding thereto nor taking therefrom. In the Church thou shalt _confess thy transgressions_, and thou shalt not come forward for thy prayer with an evil conscience." And again (Chap. XIV): "But on the Lord's Day do ye assemble and break bread, and give thanks, after _confessing your transgressions_, that your sacrifice may be pure."
_In the latter part of the second century_, the pupil of the great St. Polycarp, St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, born about 120 A. D., and who died in 202, writing against the Valentinians and certain Gnostics led by Marcus, states explicitly that many of the women who had been led into heresy and impurity, and who afterwards returned to the Church, _confessed even publicly_, and wept over their defilement. "But others, ashamed to do this, and in some manner secretly despairing within themselves of the life of God, apostatized entirely."[38]
The same writer, styled "the Light of the Western Gauls," mentions that "Cordon who appeared before Marcion, he also under Hyginus, the eighth bishop, having come into the Church _and confessing_, thus completed his career."
_In the last decade of the second century_, and in the first twenty years of the third century, the famed Tertullian, who was born at Carthage about the year 160, and who lived and labored in Rome and North Africa, ending his life, it is variously stated, from 220 to 240, wrote, before joining the Montanist sect: "If thou drawest back _from confession (exomologesis), consider in_ thine heart that hell-fire which _confession shall quench for thee_; and first imagine to thyself the greatness of the punishment, that thou mayest not doubt concerning the adoption of the remedy. * * * When, therefore, thou knowest that against hell-fire, after that first protection of the baptism ordained by the Lord, there is _yet in confession (exomologesis) a second aid_, why dost thou abandon thy salvation? Why delay to enter on that which thou knowest will heal thee? Even dumb and unreasoning creatures know at the season the medicines which are given them from God. * * * Shall the sinner, _knowing that confession has been instituted by the Lord_ for his restoration, pass over that which restored the king of Babylon to his kingdom? * * * Why should I say more of _these two planks_, I may call them, for saving men?"[39]
_In the middle of the third century_, Origen, pupil of St. Clement of Alexandria, was born in that town about 184, labored there for a time, and afterwards at Cæsarea in Palestine. He died at Tyre in 253. Again and again does he make reference to confession of sin and its absolution by a priest. "Hear therefore now," says he, "how many are the remissions of sin in the Gospels. The first is this by which we are baptized unto the remission of sins. * * * There is also yet a seventh, although hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penitence when the sinner washeth his bed with tears, and his tears become his bread day and night, and when he is not _ashamed to declare his sin to the priest of the Lord, and seek a remedy_."[40] And commenting on the words of the Psalmist--"Because I declare my iniquity"--Origen writes: "Wherefore see what divine Scripture teaches us, that we must not hide sin within us. * * * But if a man become his own accuser, while he accuses himself and confesses, he at the same time ejects the sin, and digests the whole cause of the disease. Only look diligently round to whom then oughtest _to confess thy sin_. Prove first the physician, * * * that so in fine then mayest do and follow whatever he shall have said, whatever counsel he shall have given."[41] Again does Origen write: "For if we have done this, and revealed our sins not only to God, but also to _those who are able to heal our wounds and sins_, our sins will be blotted out by Him who saith: 'Behold, I will blot out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist.'"[42]
_In the first half of the third century_, flourished St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage. Born in North Africa, he became a Christian about 240, and was beheaded in 238 "as an enemy of the gods, and a seducer of the people." He repeatedly refers to the practice of confession and absolution. The following passage from his work "De Lapsis" will suffice to show his mind: "God perceives the things that are hidden, and considers those that are hidden and concealed. None can escape the eye of God: He sees the heart and breast of every person, and He will judge not only our actions, but also our words and thoughts. He regards the minds of all, and the wishes conceived in the hidden recesses of the breast. In fine, how much loftier in faith and in fear (of God) superior are they who, though implicated in no crime of sacrifice, or of accepting a certificate, yet because they have only had thought thereof, this very thing _sorrowingly and honestly confessing before the priests of God, make a confession (exomologesis) of their conscience_, expose the burthen of the soul, seek out a salutary cure even for light and little wounds, knowing that it is written 'God will not be mocked.'"
_In the early part of the fourth century_, Lactantius, who is said to have been converted about the year 290, and to have been put to death about 326, writes: "As every sect of heretics thinks its followers are above all other Christians, and its own the Catholic Church, it is to be known that is the true Catholic Church wherein _is confession and penitence_ which wholesomely heals the wounds and sins to which the weakness of the flesh is subject."[43]
_In the first half of the fourth century_, Eusebius, the well-known ecclesiastical historian and Bishop of Cæsarea, in Palestine, who was born about 270, flourished during the reigns of Constantine and Constantius, and died in 340, leaves on record that the Emperor Philip, who wished to join in the prayers of the Church, was not permitted to do so "until he made his _exomologesis_ (_confession_), and classed himself with those who were separated on account of their sins."[44]
_In the same century_, St. Hiliary, Bishop of Poietiers, in Gaul, who died in 368, writes: "There is the most powerful and most useful medicine for the diseases of deadly vices _in their confession_. * * * _Confession of sin is this_, that what has been done by thee thou confess to be a sin, through thy conviction that it is sin."[45]
_In the fourth century_, St. Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, born about the year 296, who lived till 373, and whose name is identified with the General Council of Nice, is equally explicit. "As man," says he, "is illuminated with the grace of the Holy Spirit by the priest that baptizes, so also _he who confesses in penitence receives through the priest_, by the grace of Christ, the remission of sin."
_In this same century_, St. Pacian, who died Bishop of Barcelona about 373, and who wrote on Baptism and Penance, asserts: "'But you will say you forgive sin to the penitent, whereas in baptism alone it is allowed you to loose sin.' Not to me at all, but to God only, who both in baptism forgives the guilt incurred, and rejects not the tears of the penitent. But what I do, I do not by my own right, but by the Lord's. * * * Wherefore, whether we baptize, whether we constrain to penitence, or _grant pardon to the penitent_, Christ is our authority. It is for you to see to it, whether Christ hath this power, whether Christ have done this. Baptism is the Sacrament of our Lord's passion; _the pardon of penitents is the merit of confession._"[46]
_In the latter half of this same century_, St. Ambrose, born in Gaul about 340, who lived till 397, the last twenty-two years Bishop of Milan, writes: "Sins are remitted by the word of God, of which the Levite is the interpreter and also the executor; they are also remitted by the _office of the priest and the sacred ministry._"[47]
"It seemed impossible," says this writer elsewhere, "that water should wash away sin. Then Naaman the Syrian believed not that his leprosy could be cured by water; but God, who has given so great a grace, made the impossible to be possible. In the same manner, it seemed impossible for _sins to be forgiven by penitence_. Christ _granted this_ to His Apostles, which has been from the Apostles _transmitted_ to the offices of the priests."[48]
And, in similar strain, does St. John Chysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, who was born about 344, and died in 407, comment on the words "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth," etc., etc.: " * * * this bond touches the very soul itself, and reaches even unto heaven; and _what the priests shall do below_, the same does God ratify above, and the Lord confirms the sentence of his servants."[49]
The great St. Jerome, born in 342, and after a life spent at Alexandria, at Rome as Secretary to Pope Damasus, in Syria, and finally in Bethlehem translating the Scripture, died in 420. He writes: "In the same way, therefore, that _there_ (among the Jews) the priests make the leper clean or unclean, so also here (in the Church) does the _bishop or priest bind and loose_ not those who are innocent or guilty, but, according to his office, after _hearing the various kinds of sins_, he knows who is to be bound and who loosed."[50]
And St. Augustine, born 354, who was converted by the preaching of St. Ambrose, mentioned above, who was later made Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa, and who died in 430, writes: "For this end are sins signified by these curtains, that they may be _expressed by confession_, and may, by the grace which _is given to the Church, be abolished_."[51]
This same Father says: "Let a man judge himself of his own will, whilst he has it in his power, and reform his manners, lest, when he shall have it no longer in his power, he be judged by the Lord against his will; and when he shall have passed upon himself the sentence of a most severe remedy, but still a remedy, let him come to _the prelates by whom the keys are ministered_ to him in the Church, and as one now beginning to be a good son, let him receive the manner (or amount) of his satisfaction from those who are set over the sacraments."[52]
Writer after writer continues in the same strain, in this and the following century. The passages cited clearly indicate that confession and absolution are assumed to be the ordinary channel whereby sin is pardoned. Throughout they, as the Fathers of the preceding centuries, make the true dispenser of forgiveness, God in general, or, at other times, Jesus Christ, or again, the Holy Spirit; but they are equally explicit in declaring the earthly visible organ whereby the pardon is exercised to be, the Bishop, the Priest, the Ministers of the Church. These Christian writers constantly prove the Ministry of Reconciliation by reference to the passages concerning loosing and binding, in the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew, and forgiving and retaining sin, in the twentieth chapter of St. John.
The authors we have cited, and in whose writings many other passages are to be found, are representatives during the first five centuries of the Church in North Africa, in Egypt, in Asia Minor, in Palestine, in Greece, in Italy, in Gaul, and in Spain. They are unanimous in upholding the power of absolution and the necessity of confession.
6. But a most unexpected witness is to be found in one of the great Protestant Communions. The English Government, under the Tudor dynasty, threw off its allegiance in things ecclesiastical to the Holy See. The sovereigns of England then claimed that spiritual authority heretofore exercised by the Pope. Henceforth, the Church was not _in_, but _of_ England. It became a State Department, the archbishops and bishops receiving their appointment, care of souls, and jurisdiction, from the king, just as the judges, the officers of the army and navy, are commissioned to their circuits, their regiments, and their ships. The Crown is not only the fountain-head of all spiritual governing-power, but the Crown, aided later by its Council, became the final Court of Appeal in all disputes about doctrine.
The Established Communion, in its doctrinal code, the Thirty-nine Articles, which each clergyman declares he accepts _ex animo_, asserts that "Penance is not a sacrament of the Gospel." And in the Book of Homilies, which the said Articles commend as containing "good and wholesome doctrine," do we read: "We ought to acknowledge none other priest for deliverance from our sins but Jesus Christ. * * * It is most evident and plain that this auricular confession hath not the warrant of God's word. * * * I do not say but that, if any do find themselves troubled in conscience, they may repair to their learned curate or pastor, _or to some other godly learned man_, and show the trouble and doubt of their conscience to them, that they may receive at their hand the comfortable salve of God's word; but it is against the true Christian liberty that any man should be bound to the numbering of his sins, as it hath been used heretofore in the time of blindness and ignorance."[53] It is clear that both the Articles and the Book of Homilies deny the power of absolution and the necessity of confession as essential conditions, in the ordinary course of things, for the forgiveness of sin.
The Book of Common Prayer--the Liturgy of the Anglican Communion--in the office for visiting the sick, does urge the confession of the sick person, and gives the form of absolution to be used by the minister. It also bids the minister to exhort those approaching communion, who cannot quiet their conscience, to seek absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice. In the Book of Common Prayer used by the Episcopalians in the United States, these directions concerning confession and absolution are omitted.
The result of the teaching of the Articles was the complete destruction, in the mind of the people of England, during three centuries, of the need of confession and absolution. And, until some fifty years ago, it was unknown for Anglicans to go to confession. They lived and died without the faintest conception that such an ordinance was divinely instituted, or that it was necessary or even advisable. A change came, and certain of the clergy of the Established Communion began to teach the necessity of confession. This produced open revolt in their camp; the matter became so serious that the Convocation sitting in 1873 gave it consideration, and the Bishop of Salisbury boldly said: "Habitual confession is unholy, illegal, and full of mischief." The Bishop of Lichfield, in indignation, declared: "I would rather resign my office than hold it, if it was supposed that I was giving young men the right to practice habitual confession." The Archbishop of Canterbury said: "I am ready to revoke the license of any curate charged with hearing confessions." And the Bishop of Ely declared: "In no other communion would it be possible for a man to set himself up as the general confessor of a district, without any other authority than his own."
The assembled bishops, who of course represented the living teaching body of the Establishment, published a formal document, wherein they declare: "The Church of England, in the Twenty-fifth Article, affirms that penance is not to be counted for a sacrament of the Gospel, and, as judged by her formularies, knows no such words as Sacramental Confession." And in this same declaration, commenting on the two instances wherein the Book of Common Prayer recommends seeking the aid of a clergyman, is it said: "Thus special provision, however, does not authorize the ministers of the Church to require, of any who may resort to them to open their grief, a particular or detailed enumeration of their sins; or to require private confession previous to receiving the holy communion; or to enjoin, or even encourage, any practice of habitual confession to a priest; or to teach that such practice of habitual confession, or the being subject to what has been termed the direction of a priest, is a condition of attaining to the highest spiritual life." By far the greater majority of the clergy and laity endorse, heart and soul, this declaration.