Confession — Proof from Tradition (I): Heretical Errors and the Argument from Prescription

Section 2: The Divine Institution and Necessity of Confession Proved from Tradition

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

1. Heretical Errors. Many of our opponents are willing to admit that confession is a useful institution corresponding to a real need of human nature; but they strenuously deny that it is of divine origin and iure divino necessary for salvation. That devout Catholics have confessed their sins to the clergy from time immemorial, they do not gainsay; but they regard the practice as purely human, though as to how and when it was first imposed on the faithful they are not agreed.

a) Wiclif, a forerunner of the Protestant revolt, taught that “if a man be duly contrite, all exterior confession is superfluous and useless.”¹

Luther’s attitude on the subject was anything but consistent. At first, in his Little Catechism, he inculcated the necessity of confession. Later, in 1528, he declared that the faithful are not obliged to confess their sins. At times he extols confession, then again he denounces it as “a bloody rack of conscience.”² He denies that the Bible proves the divine institution and necessity of confession and claims, in consequence, that the faithful are not bound to declare their sins with number and circumstances to the priests.

b) Calvin regarded confession as a free institution established by the Church. He taught that though a general acknowledgment of guilt was sufficient to obtain forgiveness, those troubled in conscience might be advised to confess their sins privately. But he objected to the practice of auricular confession, which, he claimed, was invented by Innocent III and imposed upon the faithful through the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215). It was a pestilential abuse, he said, which ought to be swept from the face of the earth.³

2. The Teaching of the Church. Against these heretical errors the Catholic Church consistently upheld the revealed teaching. The Council of Constance (1418) condemned the errors of Wiclif and the Council of Trent defined the truth in detail against the so-called Reformers.

a) “If anyone denieth,” says the latter synod, “either that sacramental confession was instituted, or is necessary for salvation, by divine right, or saith that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Church hath ever observed from the beginning, and doth observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention, let him be anathema.”⁴

Again: “If anyone saith that in the Sacrament of Penance it is not of divine right necessary for the remission of sins, to confess all and each of the mortal sins which after due and diligent previous meditation are remembered, even those [mortal sins] which are secret, and those which are opposed to the two last commandments of the Decalogue, as also the circumstances which change the species of a sin, but [saith] that such confession is only useful, … let him be anathema.”⁵

b) In another place the same Council defends confession against the charge that it is “impossible” and “a slaughterhouse of consciences”: “It is also impious to assert that confession … is impossible, or to call it a slaughterhouse of consciences; for it is certain that in the Church nothing else is required of penitents but that, … [each] confess those sins by which he remembers that he has mortally offended his Lord and God; whilst the other sins, which do not occur to him after diligent thought, are understood to be included as a whole in that same confession… .”⁶

The last-quoted phrase is of great dogmatic importance, inasmuch as it demands a merely formal (not a material) integrity of confession and declares that mortal sins omitted without fault are forgiven by what theologians call indirect remission. The holy Synod does not, however, deny that confession may be difficult, but says that the difficulty is counterbalanced “by many and great advantages and consolations.”⁷

Article 2: The Argument from Prescription

The most effective argument for the traditional Catholic teaching on confession is that from prescription. It may be briefly formulated as follows:

From the days of primitive Christianity the Church has insisted that the faithful are by divine right obliged to confess their sins in order to obtain forgiveness. Such belief and practice indicate that confession cannot be of purely ecclesiastical origin, but must be a divine institution.

The argument from prescription is all the more compelling in this case, as it deals not with a theoretical truth, as e.g. the Divine Trinity, or with a duty easy of performance, as the hearing of Mass or receiving Communion, but imposes a burden irksome to the pride and the passions of man. Had a pope or an ecumenical council ventured to impose such a distasteful duty on the faithful, the innovation would certainly have caused a tremendous upheaval and left deep traces in the history of the Church. But the records of the past tell us nothing of such an upheaval. On the contrary, they assure us that auricular confession was practiced at all times and from the very beginning. Consequently confession is not a human invention, nor a mere ecclesiastical precept, but a divine law.

In tracing the facts, we shall begin with the present time and gradually work our way through the Middle Ages back to the early days of Christianity.⁸

1. The Present Time. The opponents of confession cannot and do not deny that confession is now observed as a divine law in the Catholic Church and has been so observed since the close of the Middle Ages.

For four centuries, from 1500 to date, the faithful have uncomplainingly confessed their sins in the firm conviction that without this remedy they would be lost. No calumny and no attack (and God knows there have been many) has shaken their faith in confession. When the Calvinists inveighed against auricular confession, it was not the latter but the attack made upon it that was felt to be an intolerable innovation.⁹ This proves that confession must have existed in the Church long before the dawn of the so-called Reformation.

2. The Middle Ages. Calvin and Dallaeus testify that confession was practiced in the Catholic Church since 1215, for it was in that year, they claim, that Innocent III introduced the practice through the Fourth Council of the Lateran. The reference is, of course, to the famous canon “Omnis utriusque sexus,” by which all the faithful who have arrived at the age of discretion are commanded to confess their sins at least once a year to their parish priest under pain of exclusion from the Church.¹⁰ Would the faithful of the thirteenth century have acquiesced in such a radical and onerous measure if auricular confession had not previously existed in the Church as a practice and a duty?

Even from the purely historical standpoint the Tridentine Council must be admitted to be right when it characterizes Calvin’s contention as a “vain calumny,” and remarks: “The Church did not, through the Council of the Lateran, ordain that the faithful of Christ should confess — a thing which it knew to be necessary and instituted of divine right — but that the precept of confession should be complied with at least once a year… .”¹¹

It is not difficult to show that auricular confession dates back to the sixth century.¹²

a) The schismatic Greek Church, which cut loose from Rome under Photius (A.D. 869), did not abolish auricular confession but retained it as a divine institution.

The famous Confessio orthodoxa, directed against Cyril Lucar¹³ by Peter Mogilas (1642), which, being signed by all the schismatic patriarchs of that time, enjoys the value of an ecclesiastical symbol, contains the following passage: “This contrition of the heart must be followed by an oral confession of each and every sin, because the confessor cannot forgive anything if he does not know what there is to be forgiven and what sort of penance he is to impose.”¹⁴ A schismatic Council held at Jerusalem in 1672, in enumerating the seven Sacraments, mentions “Penance, in which there is included a secret confession.” That the Latins did not get this Sacrament from the Greeks, nor the Greeks from the Latins, is evident from the fact that in the course of the debates held at Lyons and Florence for the purpose of restoring the ancient union between the two churches, both parties accepted the doctrine of Penance as an article of faith. It follows that auricular confession must have had its origin in a common source antedating the Greek schism.¹⁵

b) A convincing argument for the existence of auricular confession before 1215 is furnished by the penitential canons and books which were in use both in the Eastern and the Western Church.

The so-called libri poenitentiales contain practical directions for hearing confession. We will mention only two of the most important. The first is of Oriental origin. It is ascribed to John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople (died in 595), but was probably compiled in the ninth or tenth century. Morinus has embodied it in the Appendix of his Historical Commentary on the Administration of Penance.¹⁶ In this penitential the confessor is instructed to call attention to his divine mission and to admonish the penitent not to conceal his secret sins but to declare them as though God Himself were hearing his confession.¹⁷ Then he is told to examine the penitent on the ten commandments and to inquire into the number and gravity of the grievous sins he has committed.¹⁸

The most ancient penitentials that have come down to us are of Western origin. Among them is the penitential of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was sent to England by Pope Vitalian and died in 690. This collection forms the principal source of the penitential canons that were used in the eighth and ninth centuries in the Frankish kingdom and throughout the western Church.¹⁹

c) An equally strong argument for the existence of confession may be deduced from the penitential decrees of many councils held at the beginning of the Middle Ages, e.g. the Council of Worms (868), the Council of Châlons (813), the Council of Tours (813), and the Council of Rheims (813).

The first plenary council of the German nation, held in 742, appointed military chaplains for the army and commissioned them to hear confessions.²⁰

We may also mention the instructions given by Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) to St. Augustine, when the latter went to England (596) to convert the Anglo-Saxons.

These facts are sufficient to disprove Lea’s assertion that confession was originally nothing more than a declaration made to God, and was imposed upon the faithful in its present form by Peter Lombard (d. 1164) and Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141).²¹

But we can trace the practice of auricular confession even farther back than the sixth century; we can show that it existed in the primitive Church.

3. Confession in the First Five Centuries of the Christian Era. Impressed by the facts cited above, most Protestant scholars now admit that confession originated in the fifth century, or possibly in the third. Some say it is an invention of Pope Leo the Great (d. 461), while others claim it began to be practiced during the persecution of Decius (250). Both assertions can be easily refuted.

a) The claim that confession was introduced by Pope Leo the Great (440–461) is based upon a misunderstanding.

Leo the Great, in a severe letter to the bishops of Campania, says that he has been informed that penitents in that province were required to read their sins publicly to the assembled congregation. This, he declares, is “opposed to the Apostolic rule”; it is a serious abuse which must be abolished at once, since auricular confession to the priest alone suffices. The text runs as follows: “That practice also, contrary to the Apostolic rule, which I have recently learned is committed by some through unlawful usurpation, I decree by all means to be removed: namely, with regard to penance, which is required of the faithful, that a written declaration of individual sins should not be publicly recited, since it suffices that the guilt of consciences be made known to priests alone through secret confession.”²² The Pope in this passage plainly acknowledges secret, i.e., auricular confession to be an Apostolic institution and condemns insistence on the public confession of secret sins as a violation of “the Apostolic rule” and “an illicit usurpation.” Hence the document cited, far from proving the assertion of our opponents, flatly disproves it, and Leo the Great stands before the bar of history as a classic witness to the practice of auricular confession.

b) In vain do our opponents seek shelter in the dark recesses of the third century. To prove that confession was made compulsory in the Decian persecution (250–251), under the influence of the Novatian schism, they cite a scandalous occurrence which happened at Constantinople under Nectarius, the immediate predecessor of St. Chrysostom.

The Greek Church historian Socrates tells the story as follows:²³ “At about this time [390 A.D.] the priests penitentiary were done away with for the following reason. After the Novatians had separated from the Church because of their refusal to have any intercourse with those who had apostatized during the persecution of Decius, the bishops had appointed a priest penitentiary… . [In 390, under the Patriarch Nectarius] a noble lady approached the priest penitentiary and confessed in detail all the sins she had committed since her baptism. The priest imposed upon her fasting and continuous prayers, that she might prove her penitence by deeds. After some time the lady confessed another grievous sin, namely that a deacon of the Church had had carnal intercourse with her. As soon as she had said this, the deacon was expelled from the church, but the people began to get violently excited. They were indignant, not only because of the crime which had been committed, but also for the reason that the Church seemed to have suffered a terrible shame and disgrace… . When, in consequence, the clergy were subjected to mockery, the Alexandrine presbyter Eudaimon advised Nectarius to abolish the office of priest penitentiary and to admit every one to participation in the Sacraments according to his own judgment and conscience; for only in this way [he said] can the Church be cleansed of disgrace.” The incident is reported in similar language by Sozomen²⁴ and Nicephorus Callistus.²⁵ Pointing to the story told by these early Church historians, Calvin triumphantly exclaims: “Now let these asses prick their ears; if auricular confession was a divine command, how could Nectarius have dared to abolish it?” Calvin’s argument is that the Church introduced auricular confession during the Decian persecution (251), and abolished it under Nectarius (390), and that consequently the practice was and is of purely ecclesiastical institution.

We Catholics, on the contrary, see in this incident a new proof for the Apostolic origin of confession. It is plain from Socrates’ story that to confess one’s sins in detail — whether in public or in private — was the recognized practice as early as 251 A.D., nay even earlier, since before the appointment of penitentiary priests confessions were personally heard by the bishops. Sozomen emphasizes the necessity of confession as strongly as he approves the abolition of public confession. He says: “For since it is necessary to confess one’s sins in order to obtain forgiveness, it naturally seemed from the beginning an inconvenient thing and a burden that men should reveal their crimes to the priests as in a theatre, with all the members of the congregation standing around. Therefore there was chosen from among the presbyters one distinguished by his uprightness, reserve, and discretion, to whom the duty of hearing the confession of sinners was assigned.”²⁶

No matter how we interpret the story of the noble lady of Constantinople, whether we assume that she confessed her sin twice, first in public and then in private, or only once; whether we understand Nectarius to have abolished the public confession of secret sins or merely the four penitential stations²⁷ — it is certain that the Patriarch did not abolish confession as such, for the practice continued in vogue after his death. One of the charges made against his successor, St. Chrysostom, at the notorious Council of the Oaks (A.D. 403), was that he was too lenient in the confessional.²⁸ This “fault,” we may incidentally note, St. Chrysostom shared with St. Ambrose (d. 397), whose biographer says: “Whenever anyone confessed his sins to him in order to receive penance, he would weep in such a way as to compel the other to weep too; for he seemed to himself to be lying prostrate with the fallen one. But the particulars of the crimes which were confessed to him he disclosed to no one save the Lord alone, with whom he interceded.”²⁹ We have quoted this passage in the original because it seems to us to contain decisive proof not only for the practice of confession in general, but likewise for auricular confession, and for the seal of the confessional.

We have thus brought the argument for the existence of sacramental confession down to the year 250. Montanism furnishes convincing evidence that the practice is still older. The Montanists drew a sharp distinction between forgivable and unforgivable sins. This distinction would have been futile in the case of secret sins, had not the priest been enabled by confession to determine whether he could absolve the penitent or not. As this Montanistic error was taught as early as A.D. 150, confession must have existed in the Church before that time; in other words, it must have existed in the Apostolic age, and if it existed in the Apostolic age, it is undoubtedly of divine institution.³⁰

Footnotes

1. “Si homo fuerit debite contritus, omnis confessio exterior est sibi superflua et inutilis.” (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 587). ↩

2. “Carnificina conscientiae.” ↩

3. “Nihil mirum, si auricularem istam confessionem, rem adeo pestilentem totque nominibus Ecclesiae noxiam, damnamus ac sublatam e medio cupimus.” (Inst., III, c. 4, § 19). On the teaching of the Protestant Reformers concerning confession see Cardinal Bellarmine, De Poenit., III, c. 1. ↩

4. Sess. XIV, can. 6: “Si quis negaverit, confessionem sacramentalem vel institutam vel ad salutem necessariam esse iure divino, aut dixerit modum secrete confitendi soli sacerdoti, quem Ecclesia catholica ab initio semper observavit et observat, alienum esse ab institutione et mandato Christi et inventum esse humanum, anathema sit.” ↩

5. Sess. XIV, can. 7: “Si quis dixerit, in sacramento poenitentiae ad remissionem peccatorum necessarium non esse iure divino confiteri omnia et singula peccata mortalia … etiam occulta et quae sunt contra duo ultima decalogi praecepta, et circumstantias quae peccati speciem mutant, sed eam confessionem tantum esse utilem, … anathema sit.” ↩

6. Sess. XIV, cap. 5: “Impium confessionem … esse intelligunt … impossibilem dicere aut carnificinam illam conscientiae appellare; constat enim nihil aliud in Ecclesia a poenitentibus exigi, quam ut … ea peccata [quisque] confiteatur, quibus se Dominum et Deum suum mortaliter offendisse meminerit; reliqua autem peccata, quae diligenter cogitanti non occurrunt, in universum eadem confessione inclusa esse intelliguntur.” (Cfr. Sess. XIV, can. 8.) ↩

7. “Tot tantisque commodis et consolationibus.” On the fitness and utility of auricular confession as practiced in the Catholic Church, see Oswald, Die dogmatische Lehre von den hl. Sakramenten der kath. Kirche, Vol. II, 5th ed., pp. 153 sqq. ↩

8. Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, The Sacraments, Vol. II, pp. 80 sqq. ↩

9. See above, Article 1. ↩

10. On the history of this precept see A. Villien, A History of the Commandments of the Church (English tr.), St. Louis 1915, pp. 151–188. ↩

11. Sess. XIV, cap. 5: “Neque enim per Lateranense Concilium Ecclesia statuit, ut fideles confiterentur, quod iure divino necessarium esse intellexerat, sed ut praeceptum confessionis saltem semel in anno oris impleretur.” ↩

12. For a refutation of Calvin’s historical blunder see Bellarmine, De Poenit., III, c. 13. ↩

13. On Cyril Lucar see Pohle-Preuss, The Sacraments, Vol. I, pp. 39 sq., St. Louis 1915. ↩

14. Confessio orthodoxa, Interrog. var., apud Schelstrate, p. 521: “Hanc contritionem cordis debet sequi confessio omnium et singulorum peccatorum, quia non potest spiritalis [confessarius] absolvere quidquam, si nesciat, quaenam debeant absolvi et quam reprehensionem det pro his.” ↩

15. Cfr. Perpétuité de la Foi, Vol. V, l. 3, c. 3 sqq. Similar conclusions can be drawn from the practice of other Oriental sects; regarding which see Denzinger, Ritus Orientalium, Vol. I, pp. 105 sqq., Würzburg 1865. ↩

16. Morinus, Comment. Hist. de Administr. Sacram. Poenitentiae, Appendix, Paris 1651. ↩

17. “Nihil me cela eorum, quae a te clam facta sunt, velut si Deo occulta cordium tegeris.” (Ibid.) ↩

18. Thus he asks with regard to the Sixth Commandment: “Quomodo primum virginitas tua corrupta est? Per fornicationem vel per legitimum matrimonium vel per mollitiem?” etc. (Ibid.) ↩

19. Cfr. Vering in Herder’s Kirchenlexikon, Vol. II, s.v. “Beichtbücher.” The following monographs may also be studied with profit: Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche, Halle 1851; H.J. Schmitz, Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisziplin der Kirche, Mayence 1883; idem, Die Bussbücher und das kanonische Bussverfahren, Düsseldorf 1897; A.M. Königer, Burchard I. von Worms und die deutsche Kirche seiner Zeit (1000–1025), pp. 132 sqq., Munich 1905. ↩

20. “Unusquisque praefectus militum unum presbyterum secum habeat, qui hominibus peccata confitentibus iudicare et poenitentiam indicare possit.” ↩

21. H.C. Lea, A History of Auricular Confession, Vol. I, ch. 8, Philadelphia 1896. ↩

22. Ep. ad Episc. Campan., 168, c. 2 (Migne, P.L., LIV, 1210). ↩

23. Hist. Eccl., V, 19. ↩

24. Hist. Eccl., VII, 16. ↩

25. Hist. Eccl., XII, 28. ↩

26. Cfr. Chr. Pesch, Praelect. Dogmat., Vol. VII, 3rd ed., pp. 188 sqq., Freiburg 1909. ↩

27. On the abolition of the office of priest penitentiary in Constantinople under Nectarius, see B. Jungmann, Dissert. Select. in Hist. Ecclesiast., Vol. II, pp. 137 sqq., Ratisbon 1881; G. Rauschen, Jahrbücher der christl. Kirche unter dem Kaiser Theodosius d. Gr., pp. 537 sqq., Freiburg 1897. ↩

28. Quoted by Photius, Cod., 59 (Migne, P.G., CIII, 111): “Si iterum peccasti, iterum poenitentiam age, et quoties peccaveris, veni ad me, ego te sanabo.” ↩

29. Vita S. Ambrosii, n. 39: “Quotiescumque illi aliquis ob percipiendam poenitentiam lapsus suos confessus esset, ita flebat, ut et illum flere compelleret; videbatur enim sibi cum iacente iacere. Causas autem criminum quae illi confitebantur, nulli nisi Domino soli, apud quem intercedebat, loquebatur.” ↩

30. Cfr. supra, on the Teaching of the Fathers and on Montanism and Novatianism vs. the Teaching of the Church. ↩