Confession and Absolution | Page 9

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,