PENANCE
627
PENANCE
tice, but take it for granted and regulate its adminis-
tration. Thereby they put into practical effect what
had been handed down by tradition.
_i)t. Gregory the Great (d. 604) teaches: "the afflic-
tion of penance is efficacious in blotting out sins when
it is enjoined bj- the sentence of the priest, when the
burden of it is decided by him in proportion to the
offence after weigliing the deeds of those who confess"
(In I Reg., Ill, V, n. 13 in P. L., LXXIX, 207); Popj
Leo theGreat (440-Gl), who is often credited witlTThe
'institulibn of confession, refers to it as an "Apostolic'
~'nile". Writing to the bishops of Campania he lor-
bids as an abuse "contrary to the Apostolic rule"
{contra apostolicam regulam) the reading out in public
of a written statement of their sins drawn up by the
faithful, because, he declares, "it suffices that the
guilt of conscience be manifested to priests alone in
secret confession " (Ep. clxviiiinP. L., LIV, 1210). In
another letter (Ep. cviii in P. L., LIV, 1011), after
declaring that by Divine ordinance the mercy of God
can be obtained only through the su]5plications of the
priests, he adds: "the mediator between God and
men, Christ Jesus, gave the rulers of the Church this
power that they should impose penance on those who
confess and admit them when purified by salutary
satisfaction to the communion of the sacraments
through the gateway of reconciliation." The earher
Fathers frerjuently speak of sin as a disease which
needs treatment, sometimes drastic, at the hands of
the spiritual physician or .surgeon. St. Augustine (d.
4:30) tells the sinner: "an abscess liaTl formed in yoiir
conscieni'i-; it tormented j'ou and gave you no rest.
. . . ciiiilV-^-;, nnil in ciinfes.sion let the pus come out
an(lfl..u-Lw;iy" (,Iu ps. ixvi.n. 6). St. Jerome (d. 420)
comparing the priests of the Xew Law with those of
theOld who decided between leprosy and leprosy , says :
"likewise in the New Testament the bishops and the
priest bind or loose ... in virtue of their office,
having heard various sorts of sinners, they know who
is to be bound and who is to be loosed" . . . (In
Matt., x\d, 19); in his "Sermon on Penance" he says:
"let no one find it irksome to show his wound (vxdnus
confileri) because without confession it cannot be
healed." St. Ambro.se (d. 397): "this right (of
loosing and binding) has been conferred on priests
only" (De poen., I, ii, n. 7); St. Basil (d. 397): "As
men do not make knon-n their bodily ailments to any-
body and everybody, but only to those who are skilled
in healing, so confession of sin ought to be made to
thflse who can cure it" (Reg. brevior., 229).
I l^or those who sought to escape the obligation of
confession it was natural enough to assert that re-
pentance was the affair of the soul alone with its
Maker, and that no intermediary was needed. It is
this pretext that St. Augustine sweeps aside in one of
his sermons: "Let no one say, I do penance secretly;
I perform it in the sight of God, and He who is to
pardon me knows that in my heart I repent ". Where-
upon St. Augustine asks: "Was it then said to no
purpose, 'What you shall loose upon earth shall be
loosed in heaven'? Was it for nothing that the keys
I were given to the Church?" (Sermo cccxcii, n. 3, in
~F.L., XXXIX, 1711). TheFathers, of course, do not
deny that sin must be confessed to God; at times,
indeed, in exhorting the faithful to confess, they make
no mention of the priest ; but such passages must be
taken in connexion with the general teaching of the
Fathers and with the traditional belief of the Church.
Their real meaning is expressed, e. g., by Anastasius
Sinaita (seventh century): "Confess your sins to
Christ through the priest" (De sacra synaxi), and by
Egbert, Archbishop of York (d. 766) : "Let the sinner
confess his evil deeds to God, that the priest may
know what penance to impose" (Mansi, Coll. Cone,
XII, 232). For the passages in St. John Chrysostom,
see Hurter, "Theol. dogmat.". Ill, 454; Pesch, " Prae-
lectiones", VII, 165.
The Fathers, knowing well that one great difficulty
which the sinner has to overcome is shame, encour-
age him in spite of it to confess. "I appeal to you,
my brethren", says St. Pacian (d. 391), ". . . you
who are not ashamed to sin and yet are ashamed to
confess ... I beseech you, cease to hide your
wounded conscience. Sick people who are prudent do
not fear the physician, though he cut and burn even
the secret parts of the body" (Parsenesis ad poenit.,
n. 6, S). St. John Chrysostom (d. 347) pleads elo-
quently with the sinner: "Be not ashamed to ap-
proach [the priest] because you have sinned, nay
rather, for this very reason approach. No one says:
Because I have an ulcer, I will not go near a physician
or take medicine; on the contrary, it is just this that
makes it needful to call in physicians and apply rem-
edies. We [priests] know well how to pardon, because
we ourselves are liable to sin. This is why God did
not give us angels to be our doctors, nor send down
Gabriel to rule the flock, but from the fold itself he
chooses the shepherds, from among the sheep He ap-
points the leader, in order that he may be inclined to
pardon his followers and, keeping in mind his own
frailty, may not set himself in hardness against the
members of the flock" (Horn. "On Frequent Assem-
bly" in P. G., LXIII, 463).
Tertulfian had already used the same argument with those who, for fear of exposing their sins, put off their confession from day to day — "mindful more of their shame than of their salvation, like those who liide from the j^hysician the malady they suffer in the secret parts of the body, and thusperish through bashful- ness. . . . Because we withhold anything from the knowledge of men, do we thereby conceal it from God? ... Is it better to hide and be damned than to be openly absolved?" ("De poenit.", x). St. Cyprian (d. 258) pleads for greater mildness in the treatment of sinners, "since we find that no one ought to be for- bidden to do penance and that to those who implore the mercy of God peace can be granted through His priests. . . . And because in hell there is no confes- sion, nor can exomologesis be made there, they who repent with their whole heart and ask for it, should be received into the Church and therein saved unto the Lord" (Ep. Iv, "Ad Antonian.", n. 29). Elsewhere he Bays that many who do not do penance or confess their guilt are filled with unclean spirits; and by con- trast he praises the greater faith and more wholesome fear of those who, though not guilty of p.ny idolatrous action, "nevertheless, because thej- thought of [such action], confess [their thought] in sorrow and simplic- ity to the priests of God, make the exomologesis of their conscience, lay bare the burden of their soul, and seek a salutary remedy even for wounds that are slight" ("De lapsis", x.wi sqq.). Origen (d. 254) com- pares the sinner to those whose stomachs are over- loaded with undigested food or with excess of lumiours and phlegm; if they vomit, they are relieved, "so, too, those who have sinned, if they conceal and keep the sin within, they are distressed and almost choked by its humour or phlegm. But if they accuse them- selves and confess, they at the same time vomit the sin and cast off every cause of disease" (Homil. on Ps. x.x.xvii, n. 6, in P. G., XII, 1386). St. Iren^us (130-202) relates the case of certain women whom the Gnastic Marcus had led into sin. "Some of them", he says, "perform their exomologesis openly also [etiam in manifesto], while others, afraid to do this, draw back in silence, despairing to regain the life of God" ("Adv. ha;r.", I, xiii, 7, in P. G., VII, 591). This etiam in manifesto suggests at least that they had confessed privately, but could not bring themselves to make a public confession. The advantage of con- fession as against the concealment of sin is shown in the words of St. Clement of Rome in his letter to the Corinthians : "It is better for a man to confess his sins than to harden his heart" (Ep. I, "Ad Cor.", li, 1).
