On the Antiquity of Confession

A reader put forward the novel idea that there was no sacrament of confession in the Early Church, which was (so he said) much like the Protestant churches in this and in all other regards.

The argument, if I may be harsh, is without merit. I can (and have) quoted half a dozen or more early Church Fathers who refer to Confession not as something done not to God alone, but to God with the aid and ministry of a priest acting in the person and capacity of Christ.

But a stronger argument can be made. If the Sacrament of Confession was an invention of priestcraft or an absurd innovation, when was it innovated?

Where is the record of the debates and anathemas and excoriations and schisms held over this issue? For we have records of the debates and anathemas which accompanied Arianism and Donatism and hairsplitting niceties over whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only or from the Father and Son, and hairsplitting niceties over how many natures and how many will, human and divine, where present in the Incarnate Christ. If it is asserted that the Imperial Court commanded such powers as to abolish all written record of the dispute, both for an against, one must in rebuke ask gently why it did not use these powers on behalf of Arianism to abolish all record of Orthodoxy, or why the Imperium of such power failed by force to retain the loyalty of the Nestorians and Monophysites?

Is it to be believed that confession to a priest was adopted into a Church that never knew the practice without any record surviving of the objections, or that no objection was raised, but records about nuances of the controversies surrounding “theotokos” and “filioque” did survive?

Time does not permit me to give the reader a detailed answer, so allow me to make shift by simply quoting counterarguments as clear and forceful as any I might have myself invented. I quote here at length from FAITH OF OUR FATHERS by by James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore.

I have edited the argument slightly for reasons of space and flow, but the original can be read here http://www.cathcorn.org/foof/26.html:

That Sacramental Confession …could not have been introduced into the Church since the days of the Apostles, and consequently … it is Apostolic in its origin.

That Confession was not invented since the days of the Apostles is manifest as soon as we attempt to fix the period of its first establishment. Let us go back, step, by step, from the nineteenth to the first century.

It had not its origin in the present century, as everybody will admit.

Nor did it arise in the sixteenth century, since the General Council of Trent, held in that age, speaks of it as an established and venerable institution and Luther says that “auricular Confession, as now in vogue, is useful, nay, necessary; nor would I,” he adds, “have it abolished, since it is the remedy of afflicted consciences.”[Lib. de Capt. Babyl. cap de Poenit.]

Even Henry VIII, before he founded a new sect, wrote a treatise in defence of the Sacraments, including Penance and Confession.

It was not introduced in the thirteenth century, for the Fourth Council of Lateran passed a decree in 1215 obliging the faithful to confess their sins at least once a year. This decree, of course, supposes Confession to be already an established fact.

Some Protestant writers fall into a common error in interpretting the decree of the Lateran Council by saying “Sacramental Confession was never required in the Church of Rome until the thirteenth century.” The Council simply proscribed a limit beyond which the faithful should not defer their confession.

These writers seem incapable of distinguishing between a law obliging us to a certain duty and a statute fixing the time for fulfilling it. They might as well suppose that the revenue officer creates the law regarding the payment of taxes when he issues a notice requiring the revenue to be paid within a given time.

Going back to the ninth century we find that Confession could not have had its rise then. It was at that period that the Greek schism took its rise, under the leadership of Photius. The Greek schismatic church has remained since then a communion separate from the Catholic Church, having no spiritual relations with us. Now, the Greek church is as tenaciously attached to private Confession as we are.

For the same reasons Confession could not date its origin from the fifth or fourth century. The Arians revolted from the Church in the fourth century, and the Nestorians and Eutychians in the fifth. The two last-named sects still exist in large number in Persia, Abyssinia and along the coast of Malabar, and retain Confession as one of their most sacred and cherished practices.

In fine, no human agency could succeed in instituting Confession between the first and fourth century, for the teachings of our Divine Redeemer and of His disciples had made too vivid an impression on the Christian community to be easily effaced; and the worst enemies of the Church admit that no spot or wrinkle had yet deformed her fair visage in this, the golden age of her existence.

But the doctrine of priestly absolution and the private confession of sins is not confined to the Roman Catholic and Oriental schismatic churches. The same doctrine is also taught by a large and influential portion of the Protestant Episcopal Church of England. It is inculcated in those old and genuine editions of the Book of Common Prayer, which have not been enervated by being subjected to the pruning-knife in this country and the same practice is encouraged by an influential portion of the Protestant Episcopal church in England, and I will add, also, in the United States.

These remarks suffice to convince us that Sacramental Confession was not instituted since the time of the Apostles. I shall now endeavor to prove to your satisfaction that its introduction into the Church, since the Apostolic age, was absolutely impossible.

There are two ways in which we may suppose that error might insinuate itself into the Church, viz.: suddenly, or by slow process. Now, the introduction of Confession in either of those ways was simply impossible.

First, nothing can be more absurd that to suppose that Confession was immediately forced upon the Christian world. For experience demonstrates with what slowness and difficulty men are divested of their religious impressions, whether true or false. If such is the case with individuals, how ridiculous would it seem for whole nations to adopt in a single day some article of belief which they had never admitted before. Hence, we cannot imagine, without doing violence to our good sense, that all the good people of Christendom went to rest one night ignorant of the Sacrament of Penance, and rose next morning firm believers in the Catholic doctrine of auricular Confession. As well might we suppose that the citizens of the United States would retire to rest believing they were living under a Republic, and awake impressed with the conviction that they were under the rule of Queen Victoria.

Nor is it less absurd to suppose that the practice of Confession was introduced by degrees. How can we imagine that the Fathers of the Church–the Clements, the Leos, the Gregories, the Chrysostoms, the Jeromes, the Basils and Augustines, those intrepid High Priests of the Lord, who, in every age, at the risk of persecution, exile and death have stood like faithful sentinels on the watch-towers of Israel, defending with sleepless eyes the outskirts of the city of God from the slightest attack–how can we imagine, I say, that they would suffer the enemy of truth to invade the very sanctuary of God’s temple? If they were so vigilant in cutting off the least withered branch of error, how would they tamely submit to see so monstrous an exotic engrafted on the fruitful tree of the Church?

What gives additional weight to these remarks is the reflection that Confession is not a speculative doctrine, but a doctrine of the most practical kind, influencing our daily actions, words and thoughts–a Sacrament to which thousands of Christians have constant recourse in every part of the world. It is a doctrine, moreover, hard to flesh and blood, and which no human power, even if it had the will, could impose on the human race.

Again, some object to priestly absolution on the assumption that the exercise of such a function would be a usurpation of an incommunicable prerogative of God, who alone can forgive sins. This was precisely the language addressed by the Scribes to our Savior. They exclaimed: “he blasphemeth! who can forgive sins but God only?”[Mark ii. 7.] My answer, therefore, will be equally applicable to old and modern objectors. It is not blasphemy for a Priest to claim the power of forgiving sins, since he acts as the delegate of the Most High. It would, indeed, be blasphemous if a Priest pretended to absolve in his own name and by virtue of his own authority. But when the Priest absolves the penitent sinner he acts in the name, and by the express authority, of Jesus Christ; for he says: “I absolve thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Let it be understood once for all that the Priest arrogates to himself no Divine powers. He is but a feeble voice. It is the Holy Spirit that operates sanctity in the soul of the penitent.