Jerusalem, John vii. Whence, returning again to Galilee, when the days of his assumption were being accomplished he returned to Jerusalem, Luke ix, 51, Mark x, 32: on which journey he is prevented by the Samaritans from entering the city. The Pharisees dispute with him concerning putting away a wife, Matt. xix, Mark x. He blesses little children. He designates the lxx disciples, Luke x. At the Feast of Dedication he is all but stoned, John x, 22. Then follows the request of the sons of Zebedee, when he had before discoursed concerning the Passion, Matt. xx, Mark x, Luke xviii. A blind man is healed at Jericho. Thence he is received into the home and to the feast by Zacchaeus the publican, Luke xix. He turns aside to the hospitality of Mary and Martha. The remaining acts relating to the Lord's Passion are evident from the Gospels, and most especially from John, that is, down to the third, or the crucifying Passover. 1016 In this manner the evangelical narrative may be arranged, or another disposition and description of the individual events may be had. For we do not inquire into the order itself with absolute accuracy. Yet it appears that the works performed by Christ are most conveniently concluded by a triple Passover: the first occurred in the 74th Julian year, the 15th of Tiberius, the new moon of Nisan from the flawed Jewish cycle being March 30, feria iv, 11th moon cycle, 10th solar cycle, the first day of Unleavened Bread April 13; the second Passover in the 75th Julian year, 16th of Tiberius, new moon of Nisan March 19, feria ii, the first day of Unleavened Bread April 11; the third Passover in the 76th Julian year, Nisan March 9, feria vi, the first day of Unleavened Bread March 23, feria vi, in the 17th year of Tiberius drawing to a close according to the Romans, or according to the Jews in the 18th year, commencing from Nisan.
A DISSERTATION ON THE ANCIENT DISCIPLINE OF PENANCE IN THE CHURCH
(See col. 1017, note 6.)What was the heresy of the Novatians.
Penance, with its use and administration, is a primary part of ecclesiastical affairs and the function of the Church. The ancient councils bear witness to this above all, as do the decrees of the Holy Fathers, which struggle primarily to govern and establish this one matter, and which diligently prescribe the various orders and degrees of penitents, and the time, mode, and manner for each. This part of Christian discipline, along with the authority of the Church itself, our modern heretics, just as the Novatians of old, strive to attack with all their might and by every means. This reason seemed sufficiently suitable to me for wishing to discuss penance itself more fully and at greater length in relation to this heresy of the Novatians. Nor indeed shall I cover everything pertaining to it; but I shall touch upon those things which seem necessary for illustrating the heresy of the Cathars and the disputation of Epiphanius. And first, a few things must be gathered from the many regarding the author of that sect and schism, and regarding his dogma. A In this it is clear that many of the ancient Fathers, and most especially the Greeks, have erred: for they confuse the two architects of this sect into one, deceived by the similarity of their names: Novatus and Novatianus. The former was an African bishop; whose most base and shameful life, sordid greed, cruelty, and unspeakable parricides are described by Cyprian, ep. 49. But the same man, when, for the sake of the lapsed, whom C Cyprian had decreed should be constrained by a more prolonged and severe discipline, the presbyter Felicissimus had stirred up a schism, D attached himself to this faction and threw the African Church into confusion first of all. From there he sailed to Rome, and found Novatianus there as a presbyter; who, seeing him burning with hatred and envy because Cornelius had been preferred over him as pope, having shared counsels with him, founded another schism, far different from the former. For he did not take up the cause of the lapsed, nor did he desire them to be restored to peace and the Church as soon as possible, B but on the contrary, he condemned his excessive facility and leniency in reconciling them. Thus, therefore, the sect of the Novatians, having proceeded from both those authors, but especially from the latter, that is, from Novatianus, received great increase. But the Greek Fathers, as I have said, name only one founder of the sect, Novatus or Ναῦτον, a Roman presbyter: just as Eusebius, lib. vi Hist., c. 35; Theodoret, Epiphanius in this place; Gregory Nazianzen, and indeed Socrates, and Novatianus himself; and many others. Indeed, even among the Latins, Augustine, lib. De hær.; Philastrius, Ambrose in their books De pœnitentia. But Cyprian distinguishes them throughout his epistles, as do Pacianus and all the Latins who have discussed this heresy more subtly.
Jam Novatiani dogma... [See the following page]
A But what is harsher than to signalize penance, yet not to relax it; when, by denying pardon, they take away the incentive to penance? For no one can truly perform penance unless he has hoped for indulgence. This is from Ambrose. Who, a little later, says that the teachers of the Novatians, in a certain Stoic fashion, assessed all sins by equal measures—that is, as he teaches in the following chapter, having made no distinction of crimes, they denied pardon to all alike: and thus they held the views of Novatus. For wrongly, as we have warned, is Novatus wont to be used instead of Novatian: since that which he himself narrates conforms rather to Novatian, who had devoted himself to the sect and philosophy of the Stoics. But the Novatians tempered the overly bitter and austere decree of their master with such moderation that they denied pardon to the graver crimes only, and granted it to the lesser ones. For thus says Ambrose: "But they say that, with the exception of the graver crimes, they relax pardon for the lesser ones." This is truly not the author of your error, Novatus; who thought that penance should be granted to no one, for the consideration, indeed, that what he himself could not loose, he should not bind; lest by binding he should make people hope for absolution from him. In that, therefore, you condemn your "father" by your own judgment, you who make a distinction of sins, both those which you think should be loosed by you, and those which you judge to be without remedy. And that we may come closer to discussing the things for the sake of which we decided to proceed at greater length in this Dissertation, it must be known that Novatus and Novatian were held to be heretics and proscribed by the Catholic Church not because they denied that the lapsed should be admitted to communion and ecclesiastical peace: but because they perfidiously and cruelly asserted that there was no power in the Church to reconcile them and to forgive their offenses. This, I say, because they took away from the Church and its priests the power of the keys, as they are called; so that, to omit their other errors, the Novatians were condemned as heretics. Otherwise, to remove the lapsed—that is, those polluted by the contagion of idolatry—from the Church in perpetuity had not yet been recognized as a heretical decree. Nay, even in those early days of the flourishing Church, that certain kinds of sins were interdicted from communion, and indeed in perpetuity, many councils and the testimonies of the Holy Fathers declare. Since this is most necessary for knowing the ancient discipline of the Church, and is useful for various purposes, we shall explain it with greater care, especially for the benefit of theologians, having sought it out through long study and diligent reading.
B ...and the discipline sometimes held tight by laws and institutions. Wherefore, from the very beginning of the Christian religion, with a burning zeal for piety and an equal hatred of wickedness, much heavier and more lasting punishments were established for sins. This matter progressed to such a point that, for certain more atrocious crimes, pardon and indulgence were entirely denied, so that they could never be reconciled with the Church. Lest anyone should perhaps think this incredible, as it is abhorrent to modern customs and institutions, I will provide the authority of Tertullian, who clearly and expressly testifies to this in the book *De pudicitia*. He wrote this book when he had already become a follower of Montanus after having been a Catholic, against the decree of Pope Zephyrinus, by which the latter had edicted that adulterers should be admitted after penance: "The supreme Pontiff" (these are Tertullian's words), "the bishop of bishops, says: 'I forgive the sins of adultery and fornication to those who have performed penance.'" Opposing this edict of the supreme pontiff, Tertullian refutes it from the fact that, since there are three most grave crimes—idolatry, homicide, and adultery—with the other two excluded and rejected in perpetuity, he has excepted only the crime of adultery for pardon. "What are you doing," he says, "O most soft and most humane discipline? Either you ought to be this to them all: 'For blessed are the peacemakers'; or if not to all, then it should be ours." Do you condemn the idolater and the homicide once and for all, but exempt the adulterer—the successor to idolatry, the precursor to homicide, an associate of both? "It is respect of persons; you have left behind more miserable penances." Clearly, if you can show the patronage of precedents and celestial commandments for why you open the gate of penance for adultery alone, and in it for fornication as well. This is in chapter 5. But later in chapter 9: "Hence it is that neither for idolatry nor for blood is peace returned by the Churches."
On what kinds of sins, and to what extent, communion has been denied in the ancient Church.
That there is no kind of fault or wickedness which the power of the Church—which has the power to bind and to retain—cannot loose and remit, is not to be proven in this place, nor is it brought into controversy by any except those who have deserted the Gospel and the Church. But it is not in doubt that the use of this power, since it has been placed at the discretion of that same Church, has been variously tempered and administered, and is supported by C evidence against modern heretics; just as it can be not unworthily concluded from the authority and reasoning of the same that for at least those two, or three, initial sins, no peace was granted by the Church. And I do not know if the same Pacianus, bishop of Barcelona, taught this in his *Parænesis ad pœnitentiam*, which is in volume III of the *Bibliotheca Patrum*. In which he distinguishes two kinds of sins: some which he calls capital, and which John in his 1st Epistle, chapter v, said were unto death. And those are none other than those three which Tertullian mentions, [namely] idolatry, fornication, and homicide, which he thinks were specifically forbidden in that synodical Epistle of the apostles in Acts xv. "The Holy Spirit," he says, "speaking through many, has bound these upon us as a condition of capital danger." The remaining sins are better...
A compensated for by the performance of works. But these three crimes are to be feared like the hiss of some basilisk, like a cup of poison, like a lethal dart. And after some intervals: "Whoever after the faith has done these will not see the face of God." They have despaired of those guilty of such great crimes. What have I done to you? Was it not in your power that it might not happen? Did no one warn you? Did no one predict it? Was the Church silent? Did the Gospels say nothing? Did the apostles not threaten? Did the priest ask nothing? Why do you seek late solace? It was fitting then, when it was allowed. This is a harsh voice, but those who call you happy are leading you into error, etc. These things, therefore, can persuade one that, in Spain at least, that ancient severity of discipline flourished in the time of Pacian. Although I would not affirm this entirely, those things which he immediately subjoined forbid it: "Accept the remedy, if you have begun to despair; if you recognize yourselves as miserable, if you fear." Unless, perhaps, this remedy pertains only to that penance which, in that kind of sin, was never to be relaxed.
From the same sources, if I am not mistaken, those decrees of the Council of Elvira proceeded, whose severity appeared to some a little too bitter, driving them to the point that they attributed blame and error to that council. Others argue against them from the decree of Innocent, who in Epist. 3, chap. 2, defends and excuses its authority without naming it. I consider both the former and the latter to be in error. But the canons of the council must be noted first. In them, many things are decreed against those former and most atrocious crimes, and usually, communion is not granted even at the end of life. For in the first canon, the Fathers thus determine: "It has pleased that whoever after the faith of the salutary baptism has approached the temple of an idol in adult age to commit idolatry, and has done so, which is a capital crime (another reading: which is a principal crime, because it is the highest wickedness), to not receive communion even at the end." Again, can. 2: "Flamens who after the faith of the bath and regeneration have sacrificed, because they have doubled the crimes, with homicide superadded, or have tripled the act, with adultery supervening, it has pleased that they should not receive communion even at the end." But can. 3: "If they have not offered sacrifice, but have only given a bribe, it has pleased that they be granted communion at the end, provided legitimate penance has been performed. Likewise they, if after penance they have committed adultery, it has pleased that communion not be given to them further, lest they seem to mock the communion of the Lord." Again, can. 7: "If by chance any believer after a lapse into adultery, after times established for performing penance, has fornicated again, it has pleased that he not have communion even at the end." Consult the others, most of which are involved in the same severity. In these cases, there are those who understand the name of "communion" to mean only the Eucharist, as if they had indeed been absolved from sins but had not been made participants of the Body of the Lord. This is in no way conceded by the learned. For neither does it seem that both were separated according to the rite of the ancient Church: nor that anyone would have obtained peace and reconciliation with the Church, which we call absolution, B nor does it seem that they had attained the right of participating in the mysteries. For after the *systasis*, which was the fourth order of penance, in which they were admitted only to the communion of prayer, they were accustomed to arrive immediately without any intervening grade at that which is *to teleion*, which was the final and most perfect [state]. Regarding which some things will be discussed toward the end of this dissertation.
Let us see now what judgment Innocent held regarding them, or rather if he spoke of them at all, which most people all assume. For he writes thus in Epistle 3, to Exuperius, chap. 2: "And this has been asked, what should be observed concerning those who, after baptism, have given themselves over to incontinence and pleasures for their whole life, and at the final end of their life seek penance and reconciliation of communion at the same time. Regarding these, the former observance is harsher, the latter, with mercy intervening, is more lenient: for the former custom held that penance should be granted to them, but communion should be denied. For when in those times there were frequent persecutions, lest the granted facility of communion should not call men back from a fall, C making them secure regarding reconciliation, communion was deservedly denied, though penance was granted, lest all of it be entirely denied; and the condition of the time made the remission harsher. But after our Lord restored peace to His Churches, terror having now been dispelled, it was decided that communion should be given to those departing, and because of the mercy of the Lord, as a viaticum for those about to set out, lest we seem to follow the harshness and severity of the Novatian heretics who deny pardon. Therefore, final communion will be granted with penance, etc." I have transcribed this passage of Innocent in its entirety because it is most brilliant on this subject. When learned men think that he was looking specifically at the decrees of the Council of Elvira when he wrote this, they do not convince me; for the Council of Elvira speaks *katholou* (in general) about those who have committed more grave and capital crimes; which Tertullian and Pacian trace back to three types; which indeed, at whatever time they might ask to be admitted, it decrees must be rejected. But Exuperius's inquiry pertained only to those who, after atrocious crimes, had delayed penance until the final time of life. Otherwise, since infinite canons had been established concerning the penance and reconciliation of the lapsed and of everyone's sins, long before the Nicene Council; and since the Nicene Council itself had so clearly decreed concerning the receiving of the lapsed; that question of Exuperius would indeed have been inane if he had inquired universally and infinitely. But surely there was a different cause for those—separated from the lapsed and the remaining sinners—who had delayed penance until the danger of imminent death: to whom even when dying, communion was once closed.
Which Cyprian clearly indicates in Epistle 51 to Antonianus; for when he had written thus against the Novatians: "However, I wonder that some are so obstinate that they do not think penance should be given to the lapsed, or think pardon should be denied to the penitent": afterwards he subjoins these things: "And for that reason, dearest brother, those not doing penance, nor [showing] the grief for their own faults...
A by the testimony of their heart and the manifest profession of their lamentation, we have decided are to be prohibited entirely from the hope of communion and peace, if in sickness and in danger they begin to pray for it; because it was not penitence for their fault, but the warning of pressing death that compelled them to ask; nor is he worthy to receive comfort, who did not think that he was to die." Exuperius had also asked about these, and Innocent replies, to whom it should not seem wonderful that communion was denied, since even towards catechumens, who, because they were not yet subject to the authority of the Church, should have been treated more humanely, that same severity of the canons extended: for those who had put off their baptism until the point of death, while that which they sought was not indeed denied them, yet the same persons, as if branded with the marks of infamy, were entirely excluded from the priesthood; whom they also called "Clinici": which the Holy Fathers testify in the case of Novatian, and canon 12 of the Council of Neocaesarea decreed. Therefore, the rescript of Innocent is to be understood as concerning the "Clinic" penitents, so to speak. Or rather, since he deals especially with them, and since the whole narrative is referred to that, he nonetheless, by repeating the matter from a higher point, brings to mind what the custom of the Church held concerning every kind of sin: which we suspect was later restricted to those "Clinici." For in the first place, being asked about the lustful and the incontinent, he brings forward, by name, decrees concerning the lapsed, that is, idolaters. Then, when he asserts that penitence was granted without communion, this pertains as much to the "Clinici" as it does to any sinners whatsoever. And yet Exuperius was asking only about those at the point of death, and to doubt otherwise was the mark of a man B little learned in the rites of the Church.
Wherefore it is likely that Innocent recalled the hypothesis to the thesis, that is, to a general discussion and controversy; and brought forward the reason why the hope of communion was sometimes cut off for those who were slow in their penitence, whereas formerly it was cut off for those guilty of any of the weightier crimes: namely, that by the fear of punishments they might be kept in their duty as Christians, having been prohibited from communion, as I have said, for capital crimes, and never restored to the Church whether they were healthy or dying; but later, peace not yet being fully established, penitence and communion were indeed granted to those who had come in good time to seek it, while the rest were rejected forever; and finally, when the affairs of the Church were peaceful, even those slower ones, with death already imminent, obtained communion. These three times of the Church must necessarily be distinguished, so that the authorities of the most serious Fathers, which differ from one another, may be reconciled. And indeed, that first most severe discipline obtained under apostolic times and down to the age of Tertullian, which, as far as adultery is concerned, was slightly relaxed by Pontiff Zephyrinus, and in the times of Cyprian had made greater progress toward leniency. For there was that second period especially, in which no kind of sin was excepted from the fruit of communion; but this only if they applied themselves to penitence in good time: for then C they were thought to have been included, and I believe they were finally admitted. Yet it did not please [the Church] that communion be denied to them either, when the liberty of the Church was restored, since much of the severity and harshness of the ancient rites had faded away. By these increments, as I think, discipline proceeded little by little. Yet this does not seem to have been adopted at once in all places of the world and in all Churches as custom; and since some had adopted it sooner than others, the remnants of the ancient institution and severity resided for a very long time among some. For not yet had the matter been established by any general sanction by which all Churches were bound; or at least the custom and usage of some region admitted it later. Pertinent to this matter is that saying of Cyprian in his Epistle to Antonianus: "Indeed, among our predecessors, some of the bishops in this province of ours did not think that peace should be given to adulterers, and they closed the path of penitence entirely against adulteries; yet they did not withdraw from the college of their fellow bishops." D These things he writes, lashing out at Novatian; because he had joined a schism against the untimely cruelty toward the lapsed, which was not at all necessary, when he could otherwise have thought what he wished concerning the lapsed privately, and not have torn himself from the society of the Church. Which was to be applied in the same way to Tertullian, if both he and Novatian had proceeded only so far as to say that the lapsed ought not to be reconciled, but had not entirely denied to the Church the right to grant pardon: for which reason they were rightly condemned as heretics. Now, indeed, among the number of those whom we have said were broken into that leniency more heavily and slowly, the churches and bishops of Spain ought to be considered; whom the Pontiff defends and excuses no more than he does all the others, and thus the Church from the beginning. For I would have the prudent reader notice the words of Innocent, [that he says] that the earlier observation or custom held: which he would by no means say of the canon and decree of a provincial synod; but indeed of that rite which is received by the custom of the whole Church, or at least of the greater part. Wherefore, this testimony of Innocent confirms that which was posited above: that communion was once denied to the greatest crimes; what was later permitted, only those seem to be excepted, who had persevered in their fault until the very extreme peril of life. Whence in the Council of Arles I, can. 23: Concerning those who apostatize, and never present themselves to the Church, nor indeed seek to do penance, and afterwards, having been struck by sickness, seek communion, it has pleased that communion should not be given to them unless they have recovered, and have performed worthy fruits of penance. There is, moreover, another thing in that passage of Innocent which must by no means be skipped, when he says that communion was denied, but penitence was granted, lest all things be denied entirely. From which it can be inferred thus: Unless Innocent understands by the name of penitence an absolution which is distinct by right from the partaking of the Lord's body, of which we shall speak later: for by certain sinners, penitence...
A was permitted in such a way that it was never relaxed. For thus the matter stood. Not rashly was anyone admitted to penitence, so that, although he was never to return to grace with the Church, nevertheless with some discernment he might be received into public satisfaction and penitence. For even in the public function of penitence, even without the hope of absolution, there was a certain advantage: that they were more highly recommended in the primary prayers of the faithful. And if, moreover, that perpetual penitence allowed those condemned to be raised gradually, as were others, to the fourth and final order, which they called [Greek: σύστασιν], there existed a not-to-be-neglected reward for their labor; if not for peace and participation in the Eucharist, yet to be transferred to the inner communion of prayer and other things. Although it is hard for me to believe that the final degree was open to those perpetual penitents: rather, I suspect they were limited to the three earlier ones. Thus in Basil, can. 73 to Amphilochius, he who has denied Christ is relegated B forever among the [Greek: προσκλαίοντας]: "He who has denied Christ, and has transgressed the mystery of salvation, ought to weep throughout all the time of his life, and is bound to confess, at the time he departs from life, being deemed worthy of the holy things, by faith in the philanthropy of God." The Ancyran canon 25, subjects those who have committed voluntary homicide to [Greek: ὑποπτώσεις] for the whole of their life. "Concerning voluntary murders, let them fall, but at the end of their life let them be deemed worthy of the perfect [communion]." Yet Balsamon, commenting on the canon of Basil, does not think they were condemned forever to the grade of [Greek: προσκλαίοντες], but that they had passed through all the rest according to the prescription of the Synod of Ancyra: which I do not know if it be true; since the Ancyran canon seems to be recalled to that sense quite conveniently.
This indeed, which is gathered from the epistle of Innocent, is also proven by the authority of Cyprian; who in his Epistle to Antonianus distinguishes those two [positions] thus: "I wonder," he says, "that some are so obstinate as not to think that penitence should be given to the lapsed, or to think that pardon should be denied to the penitent." It is one thing, therefore, to grant penitence; another to admit penitents to the hope of reconciliation. Which Ambrose likewise corrects in the Novatians, lib. 1 *De poenit.*, cap. 1: "What, however, is harsher," he says, "than to suggest penitence which they do not relax?" But in the age of Ambrose another C custom had already become prevalent, so that no class of sinners was any longer excluded. Unless perhaps in Spain in certain places some trace of the ancient custom still survived, and in that sense Pacianus is to be understood, when he declares that those three capital crimes obtain no peace or pardon. When, however, he urges those conscious of them to seek a remedy nonetheless, it is possible that he is urging them to embrace penitence without any hope of reconciliation. Certainly, one cannot deny that Pacianus argues obscurely and perplexedly about this matter, D so that it might appear that the Council of Elvira had expressed that harsher discipline.
From all these things it is clear that the Fathers of Elvira were far from the error and perfidy of the Novatians; and that they had not restored anything at all except either the ancient discipline of the Church, which had by then fallen into disuse, or had bound to new laws those still adhering to it in Spain, when those guilty of capital crimes, especially the three—idolatry, homicide, and adultery—as Innocent teaches, formerly obtained no pardon or absolution by common custom: not that they could not be absolved by the Church, as Tertullian asserted, but that the power of the Church, however ample it had received from Christ, had circumscribed its use within certain limits.
I understand that no one would attack this most certain and explored doctrine more sharply than those who, less skilled in ecclesiastical antiquity, measure the form of the ancient Church by modern rites and institutions: to whom it seems harsh and inhumane that peace and absolution should be denied to a man who shows grief for the crime committed and displays penitence. That this very thing, however, was once observed in a certain class of men and crimes, the many testimonies brought forth thus far demonstrate. To which let one or two be added as a cumulatively, so that the matter might earn assent even from the unwilling. And first, the same Cyprian indicates not obscurely in epistle 13. For when some of the lapsed had obtained letters from the martyrs, trusting in which they impatiently sought to be received into the communion of the Church, Cyprian, consulted on that matter, decided thus: That those who received letters from the martyrs, and could be aided by their prerogatives before God, if they were occupied by some hardship or danger of infirmity, not waiting for our presence, might make confession of their sin before any priest present, or, if a priest was not found, and the end began to press, they might do so before a deacon as well, so that with hands imposed upon them in penitence, they might come to the Lord with peace. This much, at least, Cyprian granted to those who had received letters from the martyrs; the rest, who lacked those letters, he ordered to wait until peace had been restored to the Church. Wherefore, not even in the present danger of death did he grant peace to the latter. Otherwise, there would be no distinction between them and the former, who nevertheless ought to have enjoyed some better condition. But indeed, confession before Cyprian does not signify "sacramental" confession, as they call it, nor was that peace and absolution a part of the sacrament in that sense, since he orders hands to be imposed by a deacon, if a priest is not available. I shall speak of confession later at greater length. As for what pertains to peace and reconciliation, it must be known that there existed a double part and, as it were, fruit in it; for they were both absolved from sins—that is, from the guilt itself, which they had washed away by prolonged penitence—and, being restored to wholeness, they were admitted to perfect communion with the Church and the faithful, and to participation in the divine mysteries.
A If, then, they received peace from the bishop or priest, they deserved both. But if there were no power in the priests, then they obtained peace from the deacons—a peace only to be reconciled to the Church, the fullness of which they would subsequently obtain from a priest. Wherefore Cyprian, regarding those endowed with the certificates of the martyrs, wished them to obtain at least one of the two benefits, even if not both, whereby they might at least become partakers of the Eucharist. For it is not to be thought, as is done today, that they were first absolved from their sins before they had satisfied the Church by penitence—that is, by bodily punishments and mournful humiliations. Akin to this, but milder, are those other sanctions of the canons and decrees of the Fathers, which prescribe perpetual penitence for certain sinners, in such a way that they would never receive communion and reconciliation except at the end of life. Of this kind are Basil’s canon 73 to Amphilochius and the Ancyran canon 23, already cited by us. Added to this is the Council of Arles I, canon 14: "Concerning those who falsely accuse their brothers, it has been decided that they should communicate only at their end." The Council of Toledo I, canon 19, also ordained that if the daughter of a bishop or deacon, having been a consecrated virgin, has sinned and taken a husband, etc., if she has separated while her husband is alive and has done penance, she should in no way receive communion unless she is failing in life. But also the Council of Valence, canon 3, concerning those who, after the one and holy washing, have defiled themselves either with the profane sacrifices of demons or through incest, decreed that for them, according to the Nicene synod, the path of satisfaction should not be denied, lest the gate of comfort be closed by despair to unhappy tears, yet that they were to perform penance until the day of death, though not without hope of remission, etc. In which it is strange, when the Nicene canon 11 orders those guilty of the same crimes to do penance for only twelve years and thus be reconciled, that those Fathers of Valence, who profess to follow the Nicene synod, should have been so much more rigid and severe. Furthermore, in the synod which was held at Side in Pamphylia against the Massalians, read in Photius, p. 18, it is decreed that whoever, after this heresy has been condemned, should show himself to be infected by its contagion, whether in word or deed, shall never be admitted hereafter, even if he promises a thousand times that he will fulfill all the grades of penitents: Μηκέτι λοιπὸν χώραν ἔχειν, μηδ' ἂν μυριάκις ἐπαγγέλληται, τὴν τάξιν ἀναπληροῦν τῶν μετανοούντων. Thus, in the history of Serapion which we mentioned above, written by Dionysius of Alexandria in Eusebius, B book VI, chapter 42 (or 36), the aged Serapion, an excellent man, because he had lapsed in the persecution, though he had often requested communion, was never admitted: Οὗτος πολλάκις ἐδεῖτο, καὶ οὐδεὶς προσεῖχεν αὐτῷ, καὶ γὰρ ἐτεθύνει, as Dionysius of Alexandria writes to Fabius, who flourished in the age of Novatian and therefore of Cyprian. Nevertheless, Dionysius adds that Serapion, now near death, was received by him into communion. These things and others gathered above from the authority of the ancients make it plain that sometimes absolution was denied to those requesting it, according to the custom of the ancient Church; nay, in truth, it was not granted to many even in the very danger of death. Here, for just reasons, it is questioned whether it was denied by a more austere D spirit. From that age of Tertullian, in which we taught that all hope of reconciliation to grace was cut off for certain sins, so that communion was not even offered at the exit of life—and this was commonly and widely observed—there are those who think this custom flourished in the Church: with respect to which, to speak frankly, the testimonies of Tertullian and others who mention this discipline are more inclined. But also Cyprian, as often as he commands that communion be imparted to the lapsed when death is imminent, silently signifies that this is a recent decree, and one established by the Church χθὲς καὶ πρώην, by which an old and contrary sanction was abrogated. For, in the first place, what point was there for the lapsed, who relied on the protection of martyrs’ certificates, to be granted communion only in the crisis of death, yet denied to others, if peace were not to be denied to anyone near death? Then, when the Roman clergy writes to Cyprian about the same matter (Epistle 31), from the very manner of speaking, it shows the same thing not obscurely: "Whose moderation of temper," it says, "we here seeking to hold, for a long time, and indeed many of us, and together with certain bishops neighboring us, and those approaching, and those whom the heat of this persecution had cast from other provinces far away, we think that nothing should be innovated before the appointment of a bishop (concerning the receiving of the lapsed), but we believe the care of the lapsed should be moderately tempered; so that meanwhile, until a bishop is provided for us by God, the cause of those who can sustain the delays of postponement should be held in suspense; but as for those whose urgent final exit from life cannot bear delay, if deeds of penance and the frequent profession of the detestation of their acts, if tears, if groans, if the weeping of a grieving and truly penitent spirit have shown signs of such, when no hope of living according to the flesh has remained, only then should they be cautiously and solicitously helped." You see how anxiously, and how solicitously, and after long and exact consultation, they finally inclined to grant communion to those in danger, or rather to those who were desperate. Concerning this, surely, there would have been no need to deliberate if it had been legitimate and customary at that time for no one to be prohibited from communion at the exit of life. The same can be collected by conjecture from the words of Dionysius of Alexandria, who, in Eusebius, book VI, chap. 42 (or 36), in that history of Serapion of which we made mention above, writes that that excellent old man with death now approaching sent a boy to the priest: Ἐντολῆς δὲ ὑπ' ἐμοῦ δεδομένης, τοὺς ἀπαλλαττομένους τοῦ βίου, εἰ δέοιντο, καὶ μάλιστα εἰ καὶ πρότερον ἱκετεύσαντες τύχοιεν, ἀφίεσθαι, ἵνα εὐέλπιδες ἀπαλλάττωνται. "A mandate having been issued by me," he says, "that those who were departing from this life (namely, penitents and the lapsed), if they requested it, and had even supplicated beforehand, should be absolved, so that they might depart with better hope." Finally, since in the canon of the Ancyran synod cited above it is commanded that murderers be reconciled only at death, it is an argument that in ancient times peace was not granted to them even in death. But to this assertion it seems that something stands in opposition,
seeing as in the great Council of Nicaea, Canon 13, it is read: *Regarding those who are departing this life, the ancient and canonical law shall be observed even now, so that if anyone is departing, he shall not be deprived of the final and most necessary provisions.* It calls it the "ancient and canonical law," which prescribes that peace should be given to the dying; whether this should be restricted to the age of Cyprian is a matter for further consideration. However, it pertains to the belief in that severity, and the refusal of communion, which we have demonstrated until now; for we must discuss more fully hereafter that our ancestors barred the way to penance and peace for all time against those who, once they had performed public penance, fell back into the same crimes, or granted it only with great difficulty and rarely.
Whether the ancient Church granted penance and peace once, or more often.
C This question pertains not only to the most ancient and more severe times, but also to later ones, and embraces the same easier practices. Nor is the inquiry about the entire nature of penance, but only concerning that which was publicly undertaken for more atrocious offenses, to which peace and reconciliation are properly said to correspond. That this was permitted once in the whole of a life, learned men have long since taught. For this very thing is most eloquently testified to by Tertullian among the most ancient Fathers, and by Augustine and Ambrose among the later ones. The words of Tertullian from his book *De paenitentia* are: *He has placed in the vestibule the second penance, which may be opened to those who knock, but only once, since it is a second one; but never again, since the next time would be in vain.* Tertullian wrote this book before he lapsed into the dogma of Montanus, so that no place for cavil might exist therein; and this he declares clearly enough by himself, although Erasmus and Rhenanus doubt whether it is by Tertullian. Nor must it be denied that it was written in a style different from the others, and somewhat more diffuse than that author is accustomed to. But whether it be Tertullian's, as I suspect with Pamelius is more likely, or another's, it is clearly the work of a very ancient and learned writer. Augustine reports this much more openly in Epistle 54, from whom a certain man of high standing, Macedonius, had inquired whether he thought it an act of piety for bishops to accede to the prayers of criminals, and so he had hesitated: *For if sins are so strictly forbidden by the Lord that the opportunity for penance is not even granted after the first penance, how can we contend, based on religion, that whatever that crime may be, it might be forgiven us?* Augustine answers thus: *However, the iniquity of men sometimes progresses to such a degree that even after penance has been performed, after reconciliation at the altar, they commit similar or even graver sins, etc. And although a place for the most humble penance is not granted them in the Church, yet God does not forget His patience toward them.* From their number, if someone says to us: *Either give me the same place of penance again, or permit me to be desperate, D that I may do whatever I like, as far as I am helped by my wealth and not prohibited by human laws, in brothels and every luxury, damnable indeed before the Lord, but even laudable among most men. Or if you call me back from this wickedness, tell me whether it is of any profit to me for the future life, if I have despised the allurements of most seductive pleasure in this life, if I have curbed the incitements of lust, if I have denied myself many things even lawful and permitted for the sake of chastising my body, if I have tormented myself by repenting more vehemently than before; if I have groaned more miserably, if I have wept more copiously, if I have lived better, if I have sustained the poor more generously, if I have burned more ardently with that charity, which covers a multitude of sins: who of us is so foolish that he would say to this man: Nothing of these things will profit you in the future; go, at least enjoy the sweetness of this life? God forbid so monstrous and sacrilegious a madness!* Although, therefore, it was prudently and wholesomely provided that, at the very least, a place for that most humble penance be granted once in the Church, so that the medicine—which is the more wholesome the less contemptible it is—would not be cheap to the sick, yet who would dare to say: *Why do you spare again this man, who after the first penance binds himself again in the snares of iniquity?* etc. Ambrose supports Augustine, lib. 11 *De paenitentia*, cap. 10: *Those who think that penance should be done often are deservedly reproved, because they behave wantonly in Christ. For if they were truly doing penance, they would not think it should be repeated, because just as there is one baptism, so there is one penance; which, however, is performed publicly: for we ought to repent of sin daily; but this refers to lighter faults, the other to graver ones.* Finally, Origen, hom. 15 in xxv cap. Levit.: *For in graver crimes, a place for penance is granted only once, or rarely; but those common ones, into which we frequently fall, always receive penance, and are redeemed without interruption.* While others contend that it is never repeated, Origen indicates that sometimes, but rarely, it is used more than once. Wherefore this passage is notable. But it is probable that at Alexandria, and in other provinces, if perhaps it happened, the custom was different from that in the others. For I do not think the discipline of the later age was more rigid, so that when previously the power of repeating penance and reconciliation existed, it began thereafter to be denied after the first. So it seems one must pronounce, unless the Greek of Origen were different, or this passage of his had been interpolated: for the judgments of the doctors are in agreement that public penance was not granted more than once.
From which there arises a very difficult question: what finally became of those men who, after their former penance, would fall again into the same crimes; whether it is true that they were entirely cast out by the Church, and did not even have the benefit of some private reception, by which they might have been restored to their integrity and returned to the communion of divine mysteries. Whoever wishes to judge the form and custom of the ancient Church by present-day institutions and habits will easily lean to the milder side; nor will he be able to persuade himself that those men were repudiated from all fellowship with the Church and her sacraments. To which opinion, copiously
A supported by the testimonies of the ancient Fathers, and by the standard of that primitive Church—as I now apply my mind to the common sense of the matter—most things seem explained in a way that is far from fitting. For if those conscious of graver sins could emerge and return to the peace of communion by the benefit of another, private form of penance, without that public penance which they had previously undertaken; was not their condition better than that of the others for whom no return to the Church was open without public penance? Yet no one will be so foolish as to think that those who had fallen into the same sins more often, and indeed had committed horrible flagrant crimes, were dealt with more leniently than those who had committed them but once: which is the consequence of that opinion.
And of what sort is this: that public penance is granted sparingly and with difficulty, as if it were a matter of grace and benefit? For if they could have fulfilled it by secret and private penance, and been in the same standing as the others, who would not have preferred to use such a great saving of time and burdens, and most eagerly, having scorned that public penance, transferred himself to the more convenient and shorter one? For I wish them to answer me this: he who was conscious of a more atrocious sin, upon first approaching penance, could he have been restored through private penance without public, or was the latter necessarily to be used? If they say the former—if, I say, they deny that public penance was necessary for them—they shall be refuted by the testimony of all antiquity, forasmuch as all the ancient councils and all the framers of the canons so prescribe public penance for the lapsed, and define its time and manner; B and furthermore, Tertullian, Cyprian, Pacian, and all the ancients to a man, by exhorting, threatening, and rebuking, urge and impel even the unwilling, so as to signify that in no way was this left to their own discretion. It remains, therefore, that they must concede that they could not be received into the communion of the Church by any other aid, not even that of private penance. And when they have granted this, I shall then ask what they think of those who, having fallen a second time into graver sins, could not use public penance; do they judge that they could have been reconciled through private penance? For if they assert this, they must necessarily also admit that the condition of those who had fallen more often was far happier than that of those who had sinned but once in their lives.
What, then, could they possibly persuade anyone of?
Since this is the state of the question and the controversy, I will briefly explain how such a great matter can, in my judgment, be resolved and clarified. In the beginning, I find that there were two genera of sins among the ancients: some were called mortal or capital, not as we commonly understand them—as whatever despoils us of God's grace and the spiritual ornaments of charity—but only those of a certain genus, which, being graver than the others, were also C mentioned by name in the canons and the decrees of councils. These, I repeat, they called capital, for which specific penalties were proposed by the canons. And I am not speaking of those most ancient times, when only those things were called capital which would debar one from every hope of communion, of which we spoke above in regard to Pacian and others. But others were called lighter and daily—whether those which we now term venial, or otherwise mortal, but of which no mention was made by name in the decrees of the councils. Such, for example, might be a harsher curse against someone, or an insult, perjury, and six hundred other things which, although they may be lethal, yet no penalties were established for them by the canons. Origen explains this in the passage previously cited with these words: "If," he says, "some mortal fault finds you, which is not in a mortal crime, not in blasphemy of the faith which is hedged about by the wall of ecclesiastical and apostolic dogma, but consists either in speech or in a vice of morals, that is, to have sold a house which is in the country or in a village where there is no wall. This sale, therefore, can always be repaired by a fault of this kind, nor are you ever forbidden to perform penance for commissions of this sort. For in graver crimes, a place for penance is granted only once, or rarely." Whoever, therefore, had committed D a crime of the former kind, approaching the bishop and the priest, received the mandate of public penance from him, with the manner and time established by the canons; when at length this was completed, absolved from sins, he was restored to communion, nor could he be reconciled in any other way than through penance performed publicly; which both the other Fathers and Cyprian, in infinite places, declare most evidently. The cause of others was clearer, whose otherwise lethal fault was comprehended by no definition. And therefore they were satisfied by private penance, which was moderated by the prudence of the priest. And those former ones were strictly called "penitents." The Council of Toledo I (can. 2) prohibits penitents from being co-opted into the clergy. Then it adds this: "But we call him a penitent who, after baptism, either for homicide or for divers crimes and most grievous sins, performing public penance under haircloth, has been reconciled to the divine altar." But after that public penance, if they had ensnared themselves in the same crimes, being completely excluded from the entrance of the church and from the communion of the mysteries, they could no longer be reconciled; which Augustine especially affirms. Although it may happen that in
A some Churches it is permitted to repeat repentance, since Origen writes that this is rarely done, and therefore sometimes. Nor is it fair that this should seem either incredible or so wondrous, if one recalls how great the austerity and constancy of the canons was regarding most sinners, that whoever had committed graver crimes even once incurred an unexpiable stain; or that one dwelling assiduously among penitents might attain peace only at the final moment of death. Such as for homicides in canon 21 of Ancyra, for deniers of Christ in the Basilian canons, canon 74, and others of that kind, or even those more severe, which can be transferred here from the prior discussion. Furthermore, they were granted communion at the end of their life, especially after the Nicene canon was issued, which forbade denying the viaticum to the dying; which thenceforth prevailed everywhere.
Since the desire to understand the Novatian heresy, and a certain sweetness of the argument, has led us to speak at such length about repentance, the discourse must be extended a little, and the most celebrated action of Nectarius, by which he is alleged by heretics to have abrogated confession and repentance, must finally be discussed. The treatment of this history will contribute greatly to illustrating what we have explained above, lest these things perhaps seem to anyone too alien and remote. B
On the memorable history of Nectarius, the prelate of Constantinople; and whether he abolished confession.
Nothing is wont to be urged by heretics more sharply to disparage the authority of confession than that action of Nectarius which is committed to memory by Socrates and Sozomen, by which he is said to have abrogated the use of confession and repentance on account of a reported crime of a deacon. While many, when meeting this and desiring to champion the truth, have been swept away by a certain fervor of disputation into absurd and inextricable fables. To some, a corrupted passage of Cassiodorus and the *Historia Tripartita* has given occasion for error, while they repeat that narrative from Latin translators rather than from Greek sources. But we have decided to consider both, though especially our own in this chapter. For as regards the heretics, I trust that, God helping, I will ensure that all, just and unjust, conclude that they have fixed rather a monument to their own ignorance in proposing this history to us than that they have brought any momentum to their own cause.
But that we may draw our discussion from the very head, I will propose above all what Socrates and Sozomen committed to writing regarding this history: for from them the memory of that fact was derived into the commentaries of other writers. Socrates, therefore, writes first in book V, chap. 19, that from the time when the Novatians first emerged, the bishops added a penitentiary priest, so that those who had sinned after baptism might confess their sins to him. And that this same office was thereafter abrogated at Constantinople for these reasons. A certain woman first C came to him for the purpose of confessing. When she had set forth to him, one by one, all the sins she had committed after baptism, she was ordered to undergo repentance, and to persist in fastings and constant prayers. Having advanced further in this (that is, as Sozomen declares, by persevering longer in the church), she revealed another sin of hers, namely, the fornication which she had committed with a deacon. *Toūto λεχθέν*, this being said, the deacon was removed from his order. But as the people clamored and were in an uproar, and the clergy burned with indignation, Nectarius, by the counsel of a certain presbyter named Eudaemon, of Alexandrian race, removed the penitentiary priest, and permitted each one to follow his own conscience so that, by his own decision, he might determine regarding the partaking of the mysteries. These are the words of Socrates, and the same of Sozomen, book VII, chap. 16.
From which all heretics, after Calvin, infer that the rite of confession at Constantinople was abolished, and that the sacrament of penance was removed. Our own [authors], in part, oppose this as a fable fabricated by Novatian historians, and defend that they lied in this, as in many other things; in part, they think that not the sacramental, as they call it, and tacit confession, but public confession, was abolished. For so they think, that those who used to undertake public penance were accustomed to confess certain of their crimes, which the priest had designated, openly and in the frequent assembly of the Church: and that Nectarius had abolished that very public confession; which looked not so much to obtaining pardon for the fault as to punishment and satisfaction. D For they say that that matron, defiled by a deacon, when she had come to confession according to custom for public [penance], having exceeded the limits prescribed to her by the penitentiary priest, imprudently divulged the incest along with him. Others prefer to say that with the priest aware and as the author, she divulged it, and that for this reason he was removed from office.
But enough of public confession for now. That meanwhile must be considered, whence they ever received the mandate for the woman to proclaim her sins to all before the congregation. There are two words in the Greek narrative, from which it can be inferred in some way; for in Socrates: *Ἡ δὲ προβαίνουσα, καὶ ἄλλο πταῖσμα ἑαυτῆς κατηγόρει*. The interpreter translated thus: "The woman having advanced further in confessing, accuses herself of another fault." Not correctly, if I see anything in these. For *προβαίνουσα* does not pertain to confession; much less to public [confession], which certain good men are wont to add of their own. But surely, as is gathered from Sozomen, when she was proceeding further in undergoing penance, in prayer, in fasting, in frequenting the church, she committed another evil in the interim, and subsequently declared it; *κατηγόρει* or *ἐξείπεν*, as Sozomen has it; not surely openly, nor in a public assembly, but privately, and before the penitentiary priest, before whom she would repeatedly lay down her sins; or even speaking with him or another without the sacrament. Whatever is de-
- nounced, rather than to the public confession to which we have said that woman, or any mortal whatsoever, was brought. Therefore, that deacon was deposed from his office by the priest, by the bishop, and finally by a few who had discovered the flagrant act; from which point, the rumor gradually spreading, the people got wind of the matter. Hence those tears. I would be lying, unless Sozomen himself—he upon whose authority they lean—clearly refutes their false conjecture. For, discussing the causes for the institution of the penitentiary priest, he says: A “It seemed best to the priests from the beginning, as in a theater, to declare their sins before the multitude of the church gathered under a witness. They appointed as this person a presbyter of excellent conduct, silent and wise, to whom those who had sinned might approach and confess their lives. He then, having determined the penalty to be performed or paid for each sin, would absolve them after they had extracted the punishment from themselves.” He says, “The priests initially judged it harsh and intolerable to proclaim sins in the presence of the church congregation, as if in a theater. Therefore, they appointed a certain presbyter, a keeper of secrets and a man of prudence, to that office, to whom sinners might approach to expose the faults of their lives. But he, inflicting due penalties for each person’s sin, would dismiss them once they had exacted them from themselves.” These words of Sozomen clearly indicate that such a type of public confession was alien to the institution of the ancients and to the office of that penitentiary. But it is wonderful how absurdly Latin authors, who have rendered this history from Sozomen, have interpreted these things. For in the *Historia tripartita*, lib. IX, cap. 35, it is written thus: “Since it is recognized that not to sin at all is divine and beyond human nature, but that God has commanded pardon for those who sin and perform penance; and that those who refuse to confess acquire a greater burden of sins: therefore it seemed good to the ancient pontiffs that, as in a theater, sins should be exposed under the testimony of the ecclesiastical people, etc.” These things are utterly devoid of true sense, and not only do they abhor the Greek words of Sozomen, but they also conflict with themselves. Wherefore, it is no idle suspicion that, by the fault of copyists, some word has fallen out, and that it should be restored thus: “Therefore it seemed burdensome to the ancient pontiffs, etc.” For otherwise what need was there to choose a “silent” priest, if the penitent were to be exposed as if in a theater, and his sins were to be made public by himself or by the priest? B Since these things are most absurd, C and those which are brought forward by some others are not much better, we have thought that two things should be examined in that controversy: one, for what purpose that priest was instituted, and two, to what extent his function was abrogated. And concerning the trustworthiness of Socrates, although we have no doubt in this place regarding the main point of the narrative, we nevertheless believe that very many things were added to the history by him, so that he might support the sect of the Novatians, to which he was addicted, with inventions and lies: which, as he was accustomed to do, he submitted to under a certain style. He writes in book V, ch. 18, that in Caesarea of Cappadocia, those who sinned after baptism were rejected from communion, just as the Novatians institute. This is most mendacious, as is clear from Basil and his penitential canons. Socrates speaks in truth of the ancient rites of the Churches; lest anyone should conjecture that things obtained differently after the death of Basil. Therefore, it is this, and I vehemently suspect it to be certain: that he said the penitential presbyter was instituted only under the rise of the Novatians: whom, when he says were “added to the canon” by the bishops, he slyly and cunningly instills the poison of Novatian cruelty, as if only then had this whole business of penance been devised and sanctioned by a new canon. For people do not correctly understand “added to the canon” in the common way with the interpreter, as if it means to add to the canon; for he wishes the presbyter to have been added by the decree of the canon. Wherefore it follows immediately: that this canon was received by all others, only repudiated by the Novatians. But so that we do not fight about the time of the institution, which matters little to the main point, we can, I think, explain these things thus: Since there were two kinds of sins among the ancients, as we have taught before; some more grave and capital, which were nominally embraced by the canons, for which public penance was required; others lighter, that is, passed over by the canons; in the first times of the Church, those who had entangled themselves in sins of the former kind went for the most part to the bishops and fulfilled the penance prescribed by them. And if anyone explores the most ancient monuments more diligently, he will find that almost everything which pertained to penitents was administered by the bishops themselves, when there were still fewer Christians, and the sins that required public penance were rarer. But after the number of the faithful both increased and the harvest of that greater penance grew [namely, the more grave and capital crimes], since the bishop could not be equal to all, he substituted a presbyter as a vicar for himself, with whom he might share the labor, and who was especially free to hear those who were held by public penance by the sanction of the canons; for it is credible that those who only desired private penance were absolved by lesser presbyters. And indeed, formerly, while the bishop was absent, penitents were never accustomed to be reconciled by presbyters, but that right was extraordinary, and often mandated by the bishop, not ordinary and attributed to certain men in perpetuity. Wherefore, just as among the Romans the hearing of capital cases was first committed by the senate, whenever there was need, to one or both of the consuls, or to other magistrates; afterwards, a public inquiry having been established, for individual crimes, which were indeed more atrocious, its own judge and praetor was assigned: so in the Church, the bishop formerly mandated the causes of penitents, to whom he pleased, to be discussed; afterwards, certain...
of those who had offended in their own faults, and [who were] under the scrutiny of those appointed for this purpose, A confessed them. For, as I believe, the sins were lesser before, both on account of the shame of those who confessed them, as well as on account of the diligence and solicitude of those who oversaw that business. But even if it is not necessary to guarantee the words of the Novatians, they can nonetheless be accepted in such a way that they show the crimes to have been lighter, because it was necessary to confess them to one particular priest, as for instance the penitentiary, and to receive the penalties inflicted by him. But with public penitence removed, even though they confessed nonetheless, they gave no public indication of their sin; which was the one thing that was most annoying and bitter to penitents. Therefore, that shame and bashfulness should not be referred so much to a declaration, as [to the fact that it] would necessarily follow the confession of crimes. For if there were no [public confession], or if they were affected thereafter by a lighter shame, they knew that they would be free from public ignominy and such long-lasting torture. To this mind and opinion can be directed those things which, by Chrysostom, both in other places and in Homily 5 B *On the Incomprehensible Nature of God*, appear stated with little appropriateness, where he denies that he binds sinners by such a law, that they should confess their sins to men, but only to God alone. "For this reason, I exhort, and I beseech, and I entreat you to confess to God continually. For I do not lead you into a theater of your peers, nor do I compel you to uncover your sins to men; unfold your conscience before God, and show to Him the wounds, and ask from Him the medicines." He says: I do not bid you to come forth onto the stage and into the assembly of your fellow servants, nor to reveal your sins to men; but rather open your conscience before God, etc. For indeed, because at that time the custom of public penitence had lapsed, sins had ceased to be publicized before men, that is C to be revealed by external squalor and filth, by sackcloth, by prostration, and by every other indication of sorrow and mourning. Although there are many things scattered by the most holy Fathers, and especially by Chrysostom in his homilies, which if you were to accommodate them to the rule of exact truth, will seem void of good sense: indeed, they are usually uttered rather loosely in that declamatory manner to the generally unskilled multitude, for the sake of exaggeration, and with a certain sudden impulse and heat of speaking. Whence they must be tempered by a comparison of other passages, or rather of councils and Fathers, and must be recalled into the circle of truth. D Yet there are numberless testimonies of antiquity, which most clearly support the confession of sins, and that, indeed, a secret and silent one: which can be balanced against this one or another slightly more obscure opinion of Chrysostom. For—to finish in a few words, for that is not the only point at issue—as many writings of the ancient Fathers there are, or decrees of councils by which a manner of penitence is mandated, just as many secret supports and monuments of confession do we retain. The most ancient decrees of the Fathers and of the Church command that the lapsed be punished according to the gravity of their sins, and by the prelates or
priests, to whom the laws and conditions of penance are committed, they be restrained by lighter or heavier penalties, once their cause has been known and prudently weighed. Who but a madman could think that this can be administered in any other way than by the man himself who has committed the sins exposing them? Therefore, there is a need for some confession and declaration. And this is indeed private and silent, as it is today, just as it has been perpetually, nor was any public one ever received by the usage and customs of the Church: this is what we have undertaken to demonstrate as the final point.
Was there once a public confession of sins received by the customs of the Church?
This opinion has taken root among very many writers of our age, that a public confession of sins was a part of penance, and that it was received into common usage and custom just like the other offices thereof. But as to what kind of thing it was, and by what defined categories of sins it was determined, not all speak in the same way. Indeed, some interpret this error of theirs as tolerable, others as altogether absurd.
There were those who excluded no class of sins from the law of public confession, not even hidden ones: these the more prudent deem rightly to be rejected. Others subject only public crimes, commonly known, to that public profession. Others, finally, contend that only certain ones out of all are chosen by the masters of penance. Still others assert that the penitents themselves were brought into the assembly and confessed their sins openly; others, thinking to spare their shame, believed that those duties should be assigned to priests, who, either from memory or from a written document, would report the crimes of the penitents to the people.
From all of these I vehemently dissent. For I cannot be brought to believe that there was ever such a law in the Church as to decree that sins be set forth publicly. For there may have been someone here and there who, out of an abundance of sorrow and piety, exposed their own transgressions before everyone; nevertheless, that cannot by any right be transferred into an example and a custom. But so that we may more fully storm the citadel of that question, the weight and importance of both parties must be diligently evaluated; of the party that denies, I say, and the other that affirms.
This therefore seems to have arisen mostly from that Nectarian history. When our people saw it being fiercely cast against them by heretics, and could find no other way out of the difficulty, they ingeniously and skillfully devised this explanation. For they saw that it was completely abolished by Nectarius, from which so great a flame of envy had been kindled against him. But what else could this be than that from which the report of the seduction of a matron and the scandal of a deacon was noised abroad to the people? That this was the confession is beyond doubt: for this is rendered in Latin in Socrates: *The woman progressed further in confessing.* But it is wicked to think that private confession was extorted by Nectarius, and, which is the main point, by his successor Chrysostom, in no way revoked A. For these reasons, no one has doubted that besides that private and legitimate, and truly necessary one, another public one would have to be sought and established. To stabilize and assert which, they later sought out various protections from the authorities of certain Fathers: then, indeed, they dragged that *exomologesis* into it, of which all Christian antiquity very often makes mention. This was their reasoning, but ours is of this kind: when one deals with the ancient rites of the Church, nothing is to be brought forward rashly, nor without the express testimony of ancient writers. For it is not enough to look at that one thing, how you might plausibly free yourself from the snares of some question, which is what happens in scholastic controversies; but whatever you attribute to the customs of the older Church, you must guarantee the truth of it from history. Now, however, this custom of public confession, concerning which we are speaking, not only has nothing solid or express from all the memory of antiquity whereby it can be defended, but it is overturned by many most valid reasons. But above all others, the most weighty authority of S. Leo, the most holy pontiff, opposes this, who disapproves of this custom of publicly proclaiming crimes as being contrary to the apostolic rule, in Epistle 80, chapter 2. Whose words must be quoted here entirely: B *That presumption, he says, also contrary to the apostolic rule, which I have lately learned is being committed by some through illicit usurpation, I decree in every way to be removed (that is, concerning penance, which is thus demanded by the faithful), lest a written profession of sins be recited publicly according to the kind of individual sins, since the guilt of consciences is sufficient to be indicated to the priests alone by secret confession. For although the fullness of faith seems to be commendable, which out of fear of God does not fear to blush before men, yet because not everyone’s sins are of such a kind that those who seek penance do not fear to make them public, let so improvable a custom be removed, lest many be barred from the remedies of penance, while they either blush or fear to have their deeds disclosed to enemies, by whom they could be attacked under the constitution of the laws. For that confession is sufficient which is first offered to God, and then also to the priest, who draws near as a suppliant for the transgressions of the penitents.*
By these thunderbolts of words and sentiments is that fiction of public confession struck down. For if he did not allow these things to be announced publicly, even when the guilty parties were willing and asking for it, and defines it as a presumption contrary to apostolic tradition: is it to be thought that a custom rejected and condemned by the judgment of such a great pontiff was once legitimate, and preserved by the common law of the whole Church? But many answer thus: that Leo is speaking only of hidden crimes, which no one should have confessed publicly, but not of public ones, which existed as the unique harvest of public confession. Those men act more conveniently, who from this C... D
A public decree of disgrace except at least secret things, which even others do not remit. Some of whose recklessness the Council of Trent notes by voice and decree. For sess. 14, cap. 5, when it had taught that public confession had not been mandated by any divine precept, immediately adds: "Nor was it sufficiently advisable that it be prescribed by any human law, that sins, especially secret ones, should be opened by public confession." A pronouncement truly divine and worthy of such a great assembly, from which it can be gathered not only concerning the public profession of secret crimes, but even of the public ones, that no human—that is, ecclesiastical—law, which the Tridentine Fathers oppose to the divine precept, had ever been imposed upon penitents, nor could it even have been prudently imposed. Since that expression in particular has this force, that the others also are considered to have been announced with little prudence, and thus that the law which had been enacted concerning publicly confessing them was ill-advised and by no means prudent, even if the other one, which decided the same concerning secret things, had less prudence. It appears, therefore, from the sense of the Tridentine Fathers that no such law ever existed which would bind penitents to a public confession of any sins whatsoever. Wherefore the decree of Leo also pertains to all types of sins. And even from that, because these men are forced to admit that only public crimes were to be confessed, and not secret ones, it will be most strongly proven that no public confession at all was constituted by law. For when public penance was prescribed only on account of graver and capital crimes, since he who had committed these publicly and with everyone aware, would later feel penance publicly, why was it necessary to confess them, or what, finally, was the shame and bashfulness in publicly professing those things, for which Nectarius had wished to provide by abrogating confession?
Sozomen complains that, after this very thing which Nectarius abolished was taken away, as if a brake had been removed, men had greater license for every crime, since before [the abolition], the fear of exomologesis and bashfulness restrained them. Our [opponents] transfer this to public confession. If, as they wish, it was only of public [sins], I do not see what that great bashfulness would be, or what the chief fruit from it, or what momentum to deter men from shameful acts, when the things that were professed were known to no one. But with confession excluded, that public grief of the penitents, the casting down of oneself, the squalor, the lamentation, the supplication, and other things of that type, brought sufficiently great shame beyond the sense of pain, by which they could be restrained from vices and kept in their duty: which I also admit was a certain public profession of sin. To which was added, indeed, sometimes a second [profession], expressed with words, and public, yet one which no ecclesiastical law would prescribe, and perhaps would not even permit, but rather [which] vehement pain and a sense of piety would extract. Finally, what is gathered to have been done some time by a few, and that very obscurely, is that this did not grow into a custom, and much less into a law.
B It must be referred to this. Which is most prudently declared by that same Tridentine Council C in these words: "Although Christ did not forbid that anyone, for the retribution of his crimes, and for his own humiliation, both for the sake of the example of others and for his own humiliation, and for the edification of the Church that had been offended, might be able to confess his faults publicly: yet this is not mandated by a divine precept, nor would it be sufficiently advisable that it be prescribed by any human law, etc." I will add also another [point], finally, so that all may understand how little that opinion holds together for them. Those who make confession an equally public part of public penance, the same men for the most part deny that secret crimes should have been declared openly. Yet very often, it was on account of secret [sins] alone, and those voluntarily produced by him who had committed them, that public penance was indicted. That public penance was, therefore, lacking in some part of itself, and indeed a necessary one. That penance publicly inflicted even upon secret crimes is made certain by the most ancient canons, first of all Basil, who in can. 61 to Amphilochius concerning a thief prescribes thus: "If anyone of his own accord confesses what was committed, [let him] do penance for only one year; but if he has been convicted and caught, for two years." In the 3rd Council of Carthage, can. 32, it was decreed that a presbyter should not reconcile a penitent without consultation with the bishop, unless the bishop is absent, and necessity compels. However, concerning whichever penitent whose crime is public and most notorious, which the universal Church knows, let hands be imposed upon him before the apse.
This very sanction of the council signifies most clearly that there were other sins besides the public ones, which were restrained by penance, since it explicitly distinguishes the public ones from the others. Then, neither is it obscurely gathered [from this] that any such public confession of sins, as these men pretend, existed, but that the use of it occurred very rarely. For if they had already produced them publicly and in a crowded assembly of the Church, why are hands imposed upon them before the apse only in the most manifest and certain crimes? Indeed, the sins of all penitents without any distinction were already manifest by their own confession. Nor, indeed, can it be said that this public confession relies on any illustrious authority of the ancients and Fathers. For besides the Nectarian history, as we have said, there is nothing at all to which that conjecture can cling. But we have copiously demonstrated how empty this support is. For it has been understood that it was not by a public and ecclesiastical confession of a woman, but from elsewhere that that fornication was discovered: the whole tragedy of public confession, finally, is derived from the error of an interpreter—who, to what Socrates had written, that the woman had progressed further, added the word "confessing" with a slight addition, but with a great fraud upon the truth. The rest, finally, have been so composed and explained that that feigned confession can borrow no deception or color for itself from there. One or two places of Origen remain, which could cast some suspicion of public confession. But if it be considered more diligently, it fights greatly against those very ones who...
A defend themselves with his authority. And so, Origen, in Homily 37 on the Psalms, explaining those words of David: "My friends and my neighbors drew near against me, and stood" (Ps. XXXVII, 12), refers these things to the penitent, who, wishing to find a remedy for his sin, neglects the contempt and derision of his friends. "If, therefore," he says, "a man of this sort, mindful of his transgression, confesses what he committed, and considers of little value, in his human confusion, those who reproach him as he confesses and who mark or deride him—but he himself, understanding that through these things forgiveness is granted to him, etc. If, therefore, there be someone so faithful that, if he is conscious to himself of anything, he comes forth into the midst and becomes his own accuser: but those who do not fear the future judgment of God, hearing these things, are not made weak with the weak, nor are they burned with those who are scandalized, nor do they lie with those who have fallen, but say: 'Stand far from me, and do not approach me, for I am clean'; and they begin to detest him whom they had previously admired, and they withdraw from the friendship of him who did not wish to hide his sin: regarding these, therefore, he says as a clear consequence, he who makes exhomologesis, that is, confession, etc." But afterwards he declares the same thing quite clearly, when, exhorting [the sinner] to the accusation and confession of himself, he speaks thus: "Only look around more diligently as to whom you ought to confess your sin. Prove first the physician, B to whom you ought to lay open the cause of your sickness, etc., so that finally, if he shall say anything—who has shown himself first to be both learned and merciful—if he shall have given any counsel, you may do it and follow it; if he shall have understood and foreseen that your sickness is of such a sort that it ought to be set forth and cured in the assembly of the whole Church, from which perhaps others also might be edified and you yourself easily healed, this must be procured with much deliberation and with the sufficiently expert counsel of that physician." Thus far Origen.
There is no place in all antiquity from which they might think it can be more strongly affirmed that which they believe concerning public confession: for in the latter sentiment especially he insinuates that a choice of sins must be made by the priest, which the penitent should publicly confess for the benefit of all. But Origen helps these men not at all: indeed, he hinders them quite significantly, since he speaks of secret and hidden sins, not public ones. Of those sins, I say, Origen pronounced these things, by which those [he speaks of], whom they were formerly loving and admiring, might afterwards withdraw as if from an impure and contaminated person, as he relates in the earlier passage. Likewise, they are sins of such a kind which he commands to be confessed, such that they should not be rashly exposed in a public assembly, but with accurate deliberation and the counsel of the priest, as the posterior passage admonishes. Wherefore those are hidden, not public and manifest; concerning which, if the rule of public penance and the law of the Church necessarily demanded it, there would not have to be any deliberation at all about confessing them publicly. Since, therefore, the patrons of public confession maintain that there was no legitimate public confession of secret crimes, but only of public ones—and that both the authority of Leo the Great A and the Council of Trent evince (for we do not delay over certain others of the same opinion, who think that some matters from the very interior crimes are also designated for public profession, the error of whom is less to be tolerated)—it is far from being the case that these testimonies of Origen make any profit for the patronage of their invention. Which things being so, those words of Origen are to be understood in another way, when he speaks of sins needing to be publicly accused, confessed, or exposed, or of an exhomologesis to be instituted: which frequently occurs among the other Fathers, and in the first place, Cyprian. For neither is a legitimate declaration of sins and an exposition of specific ones always understood by formulas of words of this kind; but it is, for the most part, that profession which is made by the very deeds and the offices of the penitents, or if perhaps by mouth and words, it was not a confession of individual crimes in a set place and time, such that they were pronounced either from a writing or from memory, but a general acknowledgment of sins and a profession and detestation of one's own wickedness: of which kind appears to be that general formula of confession which we place before the diligent and private explanation of sins or the celebration of the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass. Nevertheless, I do not deny that exhomologesis sometimes signifies a true and properly sacramental, and thus private, exposition of sins; but one must walk cautiously and prudently in the interpretation of this word, so that we may be able to judge from the very context of the narration in what sense it was used by the Fathers. On which matter the passage of Tertullian is excellent, book *On Penance*, chapter 9: "Of this second and only penance, therefore," he says, "how much the business is straitened, by so much is the proof more laborious; that it is not held only in the conscience, but is also administered by some act. This act, which is signified and frequented more by the Greek word, is *exhomologesis*, by which we confess our delinquency to our Lord, not indeed as to one who is ignorant, but inasmuch as satisfaction is set in order by confession, by confession penance is born, by penance God is mitigated. Therefore, exhomologesis is the discipline of prostrating and humbling a man, enjoining a manner of life that invites mercy."
But regarding the various notions of *exhomologesis*, many things have already been observed by learned men. We observe in Cyprian that exhomologesis is taken for a certain function of public penance, which would especially pertain to one of the four grades of penitents: namely, the *hupotrosis*, which is numbered in the third place: for he who was reckoned in that grade, D inside the door of the temple, was ordered to remain with the catechumens, and on certain days, prostrating himself before the bishop, he was accustomed to be dismissed, having been granted the imposition of hands and a solemn prayer. Whence it is called *hupotrosis*, because he *hupopipten*, that is, prostrated himself before the president, who, prostrating himself also with all the people, first, then rising, laid hands upon the penitents, as I said. Which is declared clearly and foremost by Sozomen.
book VII, chapter 16, where he sets forth the formula of penance, which was abrogated A at Constantinople but remained forever at Rome. In this description by Sozomen there are many things which pertain to all the grades of penance, and not a few refer to the *hypoptosis* [falling down]. Why, however, I assign the confession (*exhomologesis*) especially to this third grade of penance is moved by the authority of Cyprian, who usually places the confession after other functions of penance, and shows it to be nearer to reconciliation and communion. Thus in epistle 10 to the Clergy: "For when in lesser sins," he says, "sinners do penance for a just time, and according to the order of discipline come to confession, and receive the right of communion through the laying on of hands of the bishop and clergy, now in this harsh time while persecution still persists, and the peace of the Church itself is not yet restored, they are admitted to communion, their names are offered, and yet no penance has been done, no confession made, no B hands as yet laid upon them by the bishop and clergy, and the Eucharist is given to them." Thus epistle 40, after penance is performed, he subjoins the confession. And epistle 12: "For when in lesser sins, which are not committed against the Lord, penance is done for a just time, and confession is made after his life who is doing penance has been examined, nor can anyone come to communion unless first hands have been laid upon him by the bishop and clergy." The same is mentioned by him in his oration *On the Lapsed*, and often elsewhere in the same order. Indeed, even Tertullian, in his book *On Penance*, having enumerated all the inconveniences and vexations of penitents, adds this: "It is a miserable thing to arrive at confession in this way. For one arrives effectively at misery; but where one must do penance, it ceases to be miserable, because it has become saving." From which it is made clear that before confession many other actions of the penitents had preceded, but that *hypoptosis* was something peculiar, because the *systasis* [standing together] can no longer be called misery, since this state of penance has existed as the most comfortable of all. But *hypoptosis* carried with it many C and most bitter molestations, and was joined with greater shame, when one standing in the middle of the assembly of the people would profess himself a sinner, and, forming a general confession, would press on more ardently with tears and wailing. Therefore the Council of Ancyra, as we saw above, in canon 19, orders those guilty of voluntary parricide to *hypoptein* [fall down] for the whole time of their life.
And I suspect this is the same reason why those who remained in the three first grades were often included by the councils and Fathers under the name of penitents. For in the liturgies and sacrifices, after the reading of the Scriptures and the preaching of the divine word, before they progressed to the secret and more august mysteries, the deacon commanded the catechumens, the energumens, and the penitents to depart. Dionysius, in his book *On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, chapter 3: "And after these [sacred readings] those who are catechumens go out from the sacred area, and among them D those who are energumens, and those who are in penance." Thus in the Apostolic Constitutions, book VIII, chapter 9: "And let the deacon say: 'Depart, those who are in penance.' The word *apolyein* signifies 'to dismiss,' just as we shall see in the Exposition of the Catholic faith at the end of this work. Therefore, the departure of the penitents took place, at least of those who were reckoned in the three first grades, as the ancient canons teach us, especially the eleventh of Gregory Thaumaturgus, and this is observed by the interpreters Zonaras and Balsamon in more detail. For those who were reckoned in the fourth grade, that is in the *systasis*, remained with the faithful: 'the *systasis*,' says Thaumaturgus, 'is that he may stand with the faithful, and not go out with those who are being driven away.' Hincmar in his Epistle to Hincmar, Bishop of Laon, which Justellus cites: 'Some are ordered to remain in the church until the mass of the catechumens, but some only to be joined inside the church to the celebration of the sacred mysteries by the prayer of the faithful, but to be separated from the feasting at the Lord's table.' Wherefore those who were in the *systasis* were separated from the order of penitents according to that manner of speaking of the canons and the Fathers.
In what grade of penance sacramental absolution was granted.
From which there arises a question, clearly not a light one: at what time, or in what grade, did the penitents obtain that final absolution from sins? For it has been demonstrated by many things before that they were not accustomed to be absolved immediately after publishing their confession of sins, and that they did not obtain this until the time of penance had been completed. Now it is rightly questioned whether in the fourth grade also, that is, the *systasis*, they had to complete this before they could obtain what they call sacramental absolution, or if after *hypoptosis* they were indeed absolved from sins, but were not yet admitted to the communion of the Lord's body. And it can truly appear that after *hypoptosis* forgiveness of sins was granted to them, that is, that sacramental relaxation. For when they had emerged from that third grade to the *systasis*, they ceased to be penitents in a certain way, as we declared a little before: which can be an argument that their crimes, for which they had fallen into the necessity of undergoing penance, were now relaxed and forgiven. Add that all things were common to them with the other faithful, with the sole exception of the Lord's body: in the first place, both the place and time of prayer; for they did not go out with the penitents, nor were they anywhere else than where the other faithful were. Then the sacrifices themselves and the liturgies, of which they were participants, short of communion. Furthermore, however, there is no doubt that, through the laying on of hands, to omit other things, forgiveness of sins was granted to them at those times. Countless testimonies of Cyprian teach this, most of which we have produced so far, in which through the laying on of hands peace and reconciliation and communion are granted. Then in the Council of Carthage IV, canon 76, concerning him who asks for penance in sickness: "And if he is believed to be about to die immediately," it says, "let him be reconciled through the laying on of hands, and let the Eucharist be poured into his mouth."