Power to Forgive Sins — Proof from Tradition (I): Protestant Errors and the Teaching of the Fathers

Section 2: Proof from Tradition

Article 1: Protestant Errors vs. the Teaching of the Church

Up to the time of the so-called Reformation no one ever questioned the power of the Church to forgive sins. The ancient Montanists merely attempted to limit it unduly,¹ while the Cathari and the Waldensians erred with regard to those who exercise it.² It was reserved for the self-styled Protestant Reformers to deny that power in principle. This explains the thoroughness with which the Tridentine Council defined and explained the teaching of the Church on the subject of Penance.³

1. Protestant Errors. The Protestant symbolic writings recognize but two sacraments, viz., Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In Luther’s “Little Catechism” and in the Apologia of the Augsburg Confession, “absolutio, quae est sacramentum poenitentiae” is mentioned as the third sacrament after “Baptismus” and “Coena Domini.”⁴ But the Lutheran Church regards absolution as a “nuda declaratio,” a mere declaration of pardon without effect.

Calvin declared that Penance is a “repetition of Baptism” and that there is no essential distinction between the two Sacraments.⁵ His view soon obtained the upper hand among Protestants. To appreciate it at its true value, we must regard it in connection with the original Protestant theory of justification. Baptism, in the orthodox Lutheran sense, does not blot out original sin and the actual sins that spring from it, but merely covers them up with the cloak of the merits of Jesus Christ. All future sins are similarly covered up if the sinner piously recalls the grace of Baptism.⁶ Thus Penance is essentially nothing more or less than a repeated covering up of sin effected by fiduciary faith in the virtue of Baptism. In Luther’s own words, it is purely a “regressus ad baptismum.”

This fundamental error led the Protestant Reformers to propagate a series of erroneous doctrines with regard to Penance, which may be briefly summarized as follows:

1. As sins are never actually forgiven, but merely covered up by fiduciary faith, Penance as a Sacrament is superfluous.
2. What men call Penance is merely a recourse to Baptism.
3. “Absolution” is not a true forgiveness of sins, but merely a sermon-like declaration or announcement that God will forgive or has forgiven our sins through faith.
4. The imposition of penitential works is due to an arrogant belief in self-justification and derogates from the satisfaction given by Jesus Christ. In particular are penalties to be rejected because Christ has sufficiently atoned for our sins and paid all the penalties due to them.
5. The Church has no jurisdiction in the court of conscience, but merely the right to exercise external discipline; hence no one is obliged to confess his sins, and the so-called canonical penalties are null and void.

Thus under the Protestant system only two things remain of the Sacrament of Penance, viz.: contrition in the sense of the terror with which conscience is smitten upon being convinced of sin (terrores conscientiae), and fiduciary faith in the sense of a recourse to Baptism (regressus ad baptismum).

Modern Protestants are very much at variance in regard to confession. The high-church Anglicans believe in and practice auricular confession. The Lutherans think it sufficient if a sort of general acknowledgment of sinfulness is made by the whole congregation. The Rationalists reject confession altogether as a human invention.

2. The Teaching of the Church. The Council of Trent devotes the whole of its XIVth Session to an explanation, demonstration, and defense of the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrament of Penance. Its fifteen canons on the subject may be summarized as follows:

I. Penance is a true Sacrament, instituted by Christ for the forgiveness of post-baptismal sins.

II. Penance is a Sacrament distinct from Baptism.

III. The words of Christ recorded in John XX, 23, are to be understood of the power of forgiving and retaining sins in the Sacrament of Penance, not of preaching the Gospel.

IV. For the remission of sins there are required three acts by the penitent, which are as it were the matter of the Sacrament of Penance, viz.: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. The terrors with which the conscience is smitten upon being convinced of sin, and the fiduciary faith generated by the Gospel, are not sufficient to obtain forgiveness.

V. Imperfect contrition, which is acquired by means of the examination, recollection, and detestation of sins, is a true and profitable sorrow, and does not make a man a hypocrite and a greater sinner.

VI. Sacramental confession is of divine institution and necessary to salvation, and auricular confession is not a human invention.

VII. Auricular confession comprises by divine right all mortal sins, even those which are secret, and may lawfully extend also to venial sins.

VIII. The confession of all sins, as demanded by the Church, is not impossible, but a duty incumbent on all the faithful of both sexes.

IX. The sacramental absolution given by the priest is a judicial act, not a bare declaration, and must be preceded by confession on the part of the penitent.

X. Priests alone have the power of binding and loosing, and can exercise it even if they are in a state of mortal sin.

XI. Bishops have the right of reserving cases to themselves, and from such reserved cases no priest may absolve.

XII. God does not always remit the whole punishment together with the guilt of sin, and the satisfaction of penitents does not consist in the faith wherewith they apprehend that Christ has satisfied for them.

XIII. Satisfaction for sins, as to their temporal punishment, is made to God through the merits of Christ, by the punishments enjoined by the priest, and also by those voluntarily undertaken by the penitent himself, and consequently, Penance is more than merely a new life.

XIV. The works of satisfaction performed by the penitent do not obscure the doctrine of grace, the true worship of God, and the benefit of Christ’s death.

XV. The power of the keys which Christ gave to the Church is not merely the power to loose, but also to bind, and therefore enables priests to impose punishments on those who confess.

These canons bear the traces of a stormy period in the Church’s history and reflect many of the false accusations made by her enemies. We are at present interested only in that portion of the Tridentine teaching which asserts the existence in the Church of the power of forgiving sins.

Readings: Bellarmine, De Poenitentia, I, 1 sqq. — R. A. Lipsius, “Luthers Lehre von der Busse,” in the Jahrbuch für prot. Theologie, 1892, pp. 161 sqq. — Oswald, Die dogmatische Lehre von den hl. Sakramenten, Vol. II, 5th ed., pp. 24 sqq., Münster 1894. — Möhler, Symbolik, § 32 sq., Mayence 1900 (English translation by Robertson, pp. 218 sqq., 5th ed., London 1906).

Article 2: The Teaching of the Fathers

The Patristic teaching on the subject of Penance is related to the penitential discipline of the primitive Church as theory to practice. Both teaching and discipline can be adduced in support of the dogma that the Church has the power to forgive sins.

The teaching of the Fathers will be examined later in connection with the institution of the Sacrament of Penance. Here it will suffice to cite a few passages from St. Augustine and two or three other Patristic writers. Our main argument is based on the ancient penitential discipline.

Every century affords its sheaf of proofs for the existence in the Church of the power to forgive sins. If Patristic texts in support of our dogma are relatively few, this is due partly to the general scarcity of contemporary documents, partly to the discipline of the secret, and partly to the infrequency with which the faithful were wont to approach the tribunal of Penance.⁷ It is scarcely necessary to remark that the present practice of “devotional confessions” was entirely unknown in the infant Church.

1. The Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries. The Fathers and ecclesiastical authors of the fourth and fifth centuries reflect in their writings the controversies which the Church waged at that time against Novatianism.

a) St. Augustine (d. 430) warns the faithful against heretical teachers who lack the power of the keys. “Let us not listen to those,” he says, “who deny that the Church has the power to forgive all sins. These miserable wretches, refusing to acknowledge in Peter the rock, and to believe that the Church has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, have lost these same keys from their own hands.”⁸

But how are we to account for the fact that St. Augustine, in other passages of his writings, seems to limit the power of forgiving sins to Baptism? What does he mean, for instance, when, speaking of Baptism, he says in his treatise On Marriage and Concupiscence: “By its one only ministration it comes to pass that pardon is secured to the faithful of all their sins both before and after their regeneration”?⁹ The answer is to be found in the sentence immediately following: “For of what use would repentance, even before Baptism, be if Baptism did not follow? — or after Baptism, if it did not precede?”¹⁰ That Augustine regarded Penance as distinct from Baptism is evident from the following passage in another of his treatises: “If [homicide] has been committed by a catechumen, it is washed off in Baptism; if by a baptized person, it is healed through Penance and reconciliation.”¹¹

St. Jerome (d. 420) compares Baptism and Penance to “two doors” (duae portae), through which people enter and leave the Church,¹² and declares that both are equally efficacious. “Penance,” he says, “imitates the grace of Baptism by the unspeakable mercy of the Saviour.”¹³

St. Ambrose (d. 397) vigorously defends the power of the Church to bind and loose against the attacks of the Novatians.¹⁴ He says that this power is reserved to the priesthood, having been transmitted from the Apostles to the office of the priesthood,¹⁵ and that its exercise through either Sacrament is a mystery: for what does it matter whether the priests claim the right to remit sin through Penance or through the baptismal washing, since in Baptism there is remission of all sins, and one and the same mystery is at work in both.¹⁶ The sacerdotal power to bind or loose, he declares in another place, comprises all sins and all sinners without exception, for God makes no distinction, having promised His mercy to all and granted His priests the power of forgiving without any exception; the Lord excepts no crime, He who has forgiven all sins.¹⁷

St. Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona (d. 390), who refuted the Novatians in three letters addressed to Sympronianus, devoted the third of these to Penance. The Novatians claim, he says, “that it is not permitted to do penance after Baptism, that the Church cannot forgive mortal sins, nay that she herself would perish were she to readmit sinners.”¹⁸ He asks: who taught them this doctrine — Moses, St. Paul, or Christ? — and answers: no; Novatian, “after the rule of Decius, that is, almost three hundred years after the passion of our Lord. What then? Has he the gift of tongues? Has he prophesied? Can he raise the dead? Surely he ought to have the one or the other of these gifts in order to introduce the gospel of a new law.”¹⁹ The objection that God alone can forgive sins is answered by St. Pacian as follows: “This is true, but that which He does through His priests is also His own power. What is it that the Apostle says: whatsoever you shall bind on earth, etc.? Why should He speak thus if it was not permitted to men to bind and loose?”²⁰ St. Pacian also distinctly declares that the power of the keys conferred upon the Church by her Divine Founder comprises all sins without exception. “Whatsoever you shall loose, He says, excepting absolutely none; whatsoever, he says, whether large or small.”²¹

b) Cyril of Alexandria (d. 447) says: “The men who have received the breath of the Holy Ghost [i.e., the priests] forgive sins in a twofold manner: either by admitting the worthy to Baptism, or by forgiving the penitent children of the Church.”²²

The following passage from St. Chrysostom (d. 407) has become a veritable classic: “The dispensation of the things that are in heaven God hath not given to angels or to archangels; for not to these was it said, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind,’ etc. (Matth. XVIII, 18). They that rule on earth have indeed also power to bind, but the bodies only; whereas this bond reaches to the soul itself, and transcends the heavens. And what the priests do below, the same does God ratify above, and the Lord confirms the sentence of His servants. What then has He given them but all heavenly power? For, He saith, ‘Whose sins ye shall remit,’ etc. (John XX, 23). What power could be greater than this? … It would be manifest folly to contemn such a great power, without which we could obtain neither salvation nor the good things promised… . For not only when they regenerate us [in Baptism], but they [the priests] have also the power to forgive the sins committed after regeneration.”²³

The extent of this power is described as follows by Timothy, the second successor of St. Athanasius in the see of Alexandria (d. 384): “Which sins have no forgiveness? None; everything confessed before God will be forgiven.”²⁴

St. Athanasius (d. 373) puts the effects of Penance on a level with those of Baptism. “As one who is baptized by a priest,” he says, “is illuminated by the grace of the Holy Ghost, so he who confesses [his sins] in Penance, receives forgiveness through the priest because of the grace of Christ.”²⁵

2. The Fathers of the Second and Third Centuries. Besides Novatianism, the Fathers of the second and third centuries had to combat the Montanistic heresy, which arose about the year 150.

St. Cyprian (d. 258), who steered a middle course between the lax doctrines of Felicissimus and the rigorism of Novatian, reviewing his congregation after the Decian persecution, deplores the apostasy of so many,²⁶ and admonishes them to make amends for their crime by extraordinary works of penance, in order that they may receive reconciliation.²⁷ He exhorts them to confess their sins and says that no contrite sinner is deprived of the benefits of Penance.²⁸

His contemporary Origen (d. 254), who is our classic witness for auricular confession, after enumerating the different ways in which sins can be forgiven — Baptism, martyrdom, prayer, almsgiving, forgiving others, converting a sinner, and, hardest of all, Penance — adds: “There is a seventh [way], though hard and laborious, in which pardon can be obtained for sins, namely, through Penance, if the sinner washes his bed with tears, and bathes in tears day and night, if he is not ashamed to confess his sins to the priest of the Lord, and to seek medicine, as he who spake (Ps. XXXI, 5): ‘I said I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin,’ thereby fulfilling what the Apostle says (Jas. V, 14): ‘Is any one sick among you? Let him bring in the priests,’ etc.”²⁹

On the threshold of the third century we meet Tertullian (c. 160–240), who, when Pope Callistus protested against the rigorism that had begun to invade the Church, was among the first to raise the standard of revolt. Both as a Montanist and as a Catholic this trenchant writer is a valuable witness to the teaching and practice of the early Church. In his treatise De Poenitentia, composed between 200 and 206, when he was still in the Church, Tertullian says there is a twofold penance — one in preparation for Baptism,³⁰ the other, the so-called “canonical penance,” undertaken in order to obtain forgiveness of the “three capital crimes,” i.e., apostasy, murder, and fornication.³¹ He calls Baptism and Penance “so to speak the two light-houses of salvation,”³² but insists that God offers “second penance” only once.³³

In his treatise De Pudicitia, which he wrote after his secession (between 217 and 222), Tertullian contradicts his previous teaching. He draws a distinction between pardonable and unpardonable sins³⁴ and denies that the Church has power to forgive adultery and fornication. In his controversial writings he describes the Catholic position as follows: “If, they say, there is a penance without forgiveness, you must not undertake it at all, for nothing should be done in vain. But a penance without forgiveness is vain. Now, all penance must be done; therefore all penance obtains pardon, otherwise it would be done in vain.”³⁵ This evidently means that, according to Catholic teaching, penance presupposes absolution and would be vain and unprofitable without it.³⁶

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–202) tells of the seduction of Christian women by an emissary of the Gnostics. “In our neighborhood, too,” he says, “in the land of the Rhone, they have seduced many women, of whom some, when they saw their guilt, did penance publicly, while others, whom shame would not allow, were secretly driven to despair, and either fell away from the faith entirely or remained in a state of indecision.”³⁷

The Shepherd of Hermas, composed about the year 150, when Montanism was in its beginnings, gives us the first clear explanation of the mutual relationship between the penitential discipline and absolution. “Repentance” and “healing” are separated by a period of atonement. Penance is performed under the supervision of the Church. Bardenhewer summarizes the teaching of the Shepherd as follows: “The dogmatic interest of the work lies chiefly in its teaching concerning the possibility of the forgiveness of mortal sins, notably adultery and apostasy. It is only during the period of grace announced by him that the Shepherd admits a forgiveness of sins by penance; this period having elapsed, he believes there can be no forgiveness except in (the grace of) Baptism. The still open way of penance is said to be long and difficult. The Shepherd is the earliest witness to the ‘Stations,’ or degrees, of penitential satisfaction.”

St. Polycarp (d. c. 155), who was a personal disciple of St. John the Evangelist, admonishes priests to be merciful to sinners. “The presbyters,” he says, “should be compassionate, merciful to all, bringing back those that have gone astray, … refraining from unjust judgment, … knowing that we all owe the debt of sin. If then we pray the Lord to forgive us, we also ought to forgive, for we stand before the eyes of the Lord and of God, and we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, and each must give an account of himself.”³⁸

Footnotes

1. V. infra, Ch. 2, Sect. 1. ↩

2. Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, The Sacraments, Vol. I, pp. 166 sqq. ↩

3. Sess. XIV; v. infra, pp. 23 sqq. ↩

4. Apol., c. “De Num. Sacram.”: “Vere igitur sunt sacramenta baptismus, coena Domini, absolutio, quae est sacramentum poenitentiae.” ↩

5. Instit., IV, 19, § 14 sqq. ↩

6. On this teaching and the true doctrine opposed to it cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Grace, Actual and Habitual, pp. 310 sqq., St. Louis 1915. ↩

7. Cfr. Oswald, Die dogmatische Lehre von den hl. Sakramenten, Vol. II, 5th ed., p. 48, Münster 1894. ↩

8. De Agon. Christ., c. 3: “Nec eos audiamus, qui negant Ecclesiam Dei omnia peccata posse dimittere. Itaque miseri, dum in Petro petram non intellegunt et nolunt credere datas Ecclesiae claves regni caelorum, ipsi eas de manibus amiserunt.” ↩

9. De Nupt. et Concup., I, 33: “Quia ipso [baptismo] quod semel datur, fit, ut non solum antea, sed etiam postea quorumlibet peccatorum venia fidelibus impetretur.” ↩

10. “Quid enim prodesset vel ante baptismum poenitentia, nisi baptismus sequeretur, vel postea, nisi praecederet?” ↩

11. De Adult. Coniug., II, 16: “Si [homicidium] a catechumeno factum est, baptismate abluitur; et si a baptizato, poenitentia et reconciliatione sanatur.” Cfr. F. Hünermann, Die Busslehre des hl. Augustinus, Paderborn 1914. ↩

12. In Soph., I, 10. ↩

13. Adv. Pelag., I, 33: “Poenitentia imitatur baptismi gratiam per ineffabilem clementiam Salvatoris.” ↩

14. De Poenit., I, 2, 6: “Sed aiunt, se Domino deferre reverentiam, cui soli remittendorum criminum potestatem reservent. Imo nullam maiorem iniuriam faciunt, quam qui eius vellent mandata rescindere, commissum munus refundere.” ↩

15. De Poenit., II, 2, 12: “Impossibile videbatur per poenitentiam peccata dimitti: concessit hoc Christus Apostolis suis, quod ab Apostolis ad sacerdotum officia transmissum est. Factum est igitur possibile, quod impossibile videbatur.” ↩

16. De Poenit., I, 8: “Cur baptizatis, si per hominem dimitti non licet? In baptismo utique remissio peccatorum omnium est: quid interest, utrum per poenitentiam an per lavacrum hoc ius sibi datum sacerdotes vindicent? Unum in utroque mysterium est.” ↩

17. De Poenit., I, 8, 10: “Deus distinctionem non facit, qui misericordiam suam promisit omnibus et relaxandi licentiam sacerdotibus suis sine ulla exceptione concessit.” — Ibid., I, 1: “Dominus nullum crimen excipit, qui peccata donavit omnia.” ↩

18. Ep. ad Sympronian., 3, 1: “Verum quod post baptismum poenitere non liceat, quod mortale peccatum Ecclesia donare non possit, imo quod ipsa pereat recipiendo peccantes.” ↩

19. Ep. ad Sympr., 1, 6, continued. ↩

20. Ep. ad Sympr., 1, 6: “Verum est, sed et quod per sacerdotes suos facit, ipsius potestas est. Nam quid est illud, quod Apostolus dicit: Quae ligaveritis in terris, etc.? Cur hoc, si ligare et solvere hominibus non licebat?” ↩

21. Ep. ad Sympr., 3, 12: “Quaecunque solveritis, inquit, omnino nihil excipit. Quaecunque, inquit, vel magna vel modica.” ↩

22. In Ioan., I, 12 (Migne, P. G., LXXIII, 722). ↩

23. Cfr. Hom. in Matth., LX (al. LXI), 3; De Sacerdotio, III, 5 sq. ↩

24. Resp. can., 36, apud Pitra, Iur. Eccles. Graecor., Vol. I, p. 63. ↩

25. Fragm. Contra Novat. (Migne, P. G., XXVI, 1315). ↩

26. De Lapsis, c. 4–12. ↩

27. De Laps., c. 29: “Confiteantur singuli, quaeso vos fratres dilectissimi, delictum suum, dum adhuc qui deliquit in saeculo est, dum admitti confessio eius potest, dum satisfactio et remissio facta per sacerdotes apud Deum grata est.” ↩

28. Ep. ad Antonian., 55: “Neminem putamus a fructu satisfactionis et spe pacis arcendum, quum sciamus iuxta scripturarum divinarum fidem auctore et hortatore ipso Deo et ad agendam poenitentiam peccatores redigi et veniam atque indulgentiam poenitentibus non denegari.” Cfr. Poschmann in the Zeitschr. f. Kath. Theol., 1918, pp. 25–54. ↩

29. Hom. in Levit., 2, 4. Cfr. B. Poschmann, De Poenitentia bei Origenes, Braunsberg 1912. ↩

30. De Poenit., c. 4–6. ↩

31. Ibid., c. 7–12. ↩

32. Ibid., c. 12: “duas quasi pharos salutis.” ↩

33. Ibid., c. 7: “secunda, imo ultima spes.” — Ibid., c. 9: “poenitentia secunda et una.” ↩

34. Ibid., c. 2: “peccata remissa et irremissibilia.” ↩

35. De Pudicit., c. 3: “Si enim, inquiunt, aliqua poenitentia caret venia, iam nec in totum agenda tibi est: nihil enim agendum est frustra. Porro frustra agitur poenitentia, si caret venia. Omnis autem poenitentia agenda est; ergo omnis veniam consequetur, ne frustra agatur.” ↩

36. For a detailed explanation of Tertullian’s teaching see G. Esser, Die Busschriften Tertullians De Poenitentia und De Pudicitia, Bonn 1905; B. V. Miller, “The Penitential Teaching of Tertullian,” in the Irish Eccles. Record, 1914, No. 564, pp. 580–598. ↩

37. Adv. Haer., I, 13, 7. ↩

38. Ep. ad Philipp., c. 6. ↩