Confession and Absolution | Page 6

principle of sin is the will." It is in
the recesses of the knowledge and liberty which the soul has, that the
guilt of sin is to be sought. Who then but the individual offender can
know the sins for which forgiveness is asked? The disclosure can only
come from the wrong-doer. Clearly then, confession, in the ordinary
course of things, is the necessary and preliminary condition for seeking
absolution from sin. Whether this confession be made in public or in
private is a mere matter of convenience, to be decided by those who
absolve. The honest humble accusation of all deadly sins constitutes the
essential character of such confession or avowal of transgressions. "If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all iniquity."[32]

That interior and supernatural contrition is to be followed by the
judicial sentence of a duly-appointed priest, to whom confession of all
deadly sins has been previously made, is the unanimous teaching of the
Christian writers from the earliest date. The existence of Penance as the
Sacrament of Reconciliation, at all times in the Church, is permanent
evidence to the belief and practice of early Christians.
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