Second, on the basis of types and allegories of the Old Testament.
Second, on the basis of types and allegories of the Old Testament.
§ 113. (2) The second class of scriptural passages which Bellarmine produces contains various types and allegories of confession drawn from the Old Testament.
We respond. In its own place [On the Interpretation of Scripture (1610 Loci theologici, locus 2), §§ 133–46; cf. On Holy Scripture (1625 Exegesis, Commonplace I), § 535], we demonstrated that firm and conclusive arguments cannot be drawn from types and allegories unless Scripture itself shows the application. Articles of faith must be proven from proper and clear passages of Scripture; allegories can be used later on. Bellarmine himself says (De verb. Dei, bk. 3, ch. 3) that “firm arguments are drawn solely from the literal sense.” Yet let us see what allegories he weaves together.
(I) “God demanded a confession of sin from Adam and Eve and also from Cain (Gen. 3[:11]; 4[:10]). Here He is demanding a confession not only of the heart but also of the mouth, not only in general but also in particular, not only before God but also before His minister. For the request was made through an angel who appeared in human form, as is clear from the fact that he was walking in Paradise in the cool of the day [Gen. 3:8].”
We respond. These examples do not pertain to this question, since our first parents and Cain made their confession not to a man but to God alone. His fiction that the confession was made to an angel appearing in man’s form is foreign to the text. “They heard the voice of Jehovah God walking about in the garden” (Gen. 3:8). The Chaldean [Targum] uses the word meimerah, indicating the Son of God. “Did I not tell you: ‘You shall not eat of that tree’?” etc. (v. 11). You see that He who speaks is the one who had first given the command, that is, God Himself (v. 12), who had told Adam’s wife (v. 15): “I will put enmity between the woman’s Seed and the serpent.” All of this befits no one but God. Cain’s confession was connected with his despair. Therefore this is still more foreign from the question. We do not disapprove of the idea of disclosing more serious sins to those who have the care of souls in order to lift up the conscience with stronger comfort, but we deny that an enumeration of every sin without exception is necessary by divine Law.
(II) “Judgment concerning leprosy was entrusted to the priests (Lev. 13:15), something of which Christ approves (Matt. 8[:4]).”
We respond. The Epistle to the Hebrews carefully explains the type of the Levitical priest, but nowhere does it assign, on the basis of this, such judiciary power to ministers of the new testament. To the church’s ministers we concede the judgment of spiritual leprosy, that they may rebuke manifest sins and exclude stubborn transgressors. But from this it is not yet proved that all secret sins must be enumerated in confession. Furthermore, priests did not make lepers clean or unclean but only made this known, and this fact is opposed to Bellarmine’s position.
** (1) Just as priests were allowed to investigate only leprosy and not other ailments, so also ministers in the new testament are permitted to make an examination concerning sins alone and to see how they may be cured, and not to involve themselves in political matters. (2) Just as the priests used to say there was no leper except the person who was truly infested with leprosy nor any clean person in whom some traces or remnants remained, so it would be fitting that the Papists not imagine nor consider any sins in those who have none or who have nothing which deserved the name of sin, and that they not proclaim pure and holy those who are covered with ulcers and crimes. (3) Just as all the priests were allowed to investigate leprosy and to pass judgment on uncleanness or healing, so also every devout person in the new testament should be allowed to console a neighbor terrified by sin with the word of the Gospel and to announce to him the forgiveness of sins, since all are spiritual priests (Rev. 1:6; 1 Pet. 2:5). **
The entire Levitical priesthood was a type of Christ, who for spiritual leprosy—that is, for the sins of the whole human race—offered the most perfect sacrifice through the outpouring of His blood on the altar of the cross, the sprinkling of which blood takes place through the word of the Gospel preached by the church’s ministers. Christ sent the leper to the priest not to be cleansed by the priest but in order that the priest might make a sacrifice for him according to the prescript of the Law, once the leper’s cleanness had been acknowledged and approved, and so that the miracle might overcome the obstinacy of this priest.
(III) “In Num. 5[:5–8] and Lev. 5[:14–19] confession of sins receives a divine mandate to which the offering of a sacrifice as a satisfaction was adjoined.”
We respond. This confession was by no means required for the purpose of prefiguring that a specific enumeration of all sins was to be established in the new testament, but rather that it might be a mark of true repentance and that sacrifices might be offered in proportion to the sin—not as a satisfaction (which opinion is wholly Jewish) but as a type of the one propitiatory sacrifice which Christ was to offer on the altar of the cross and upon which the devout children of Israel would look in faith and by which they would receive the forgiveness of their sins. Today in the new testament, after the Son of God “by one offering perfected all who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14), the distinct sacrificial victims and different designations for different sins are no longer required. Rather, believers are granted the fruits of the one sacrifice through the Word of the Gospel. Lyra says (on Leviticus 16): “Let the priest raise both hands over his head and confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their trespasses and sins not by stating all of them in particular, which was impossible both due to the brevity of the time and since the priest knew not all the sins of the people, but knew them in general.”
** Luther (Jena German edition, vol. 1, in the book An pontifex possit praecipere confessionem) mentions that the papacy, in order to establish private confession, also cited Prov. 27:23: “Know the face of your flock, and consider your herds.”14 However: (1) Auricular confession had not yet been instituted in the Old Testament. (2) Solomon is speaking here about the care of a household matter. (3) Even if we desired to assign this passage to the church’s shepherds, auricular confession still could not be elicited from this since they are able to know their sheep in a way other than through auricular confession. **
(IV) Matt. 3[:6] and Mark 1[:5]: “Many came to the Baptism of John, confessing their sins.” Bellarmine claims that they did this specifically.
We respond. The evangelists say clearly that “Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went out.” If they all had gone out to have John baptize them, and if they had confessed each and every sin, John would have done nothing else in the span of his ministry except sit down under a tree and listen to their confessions one by one. Furthermore, the text is speaking about confession before Baptism, a confession in which they say that an enumeration of individual sins is unnecessary. What Bellarmine objects is worthless: “The Baptism of Christ is different from the Baptism of John since Christ remits all sins just by working the work [ex opere operato], as far as fault and punishment are concerned. But John did not do this.”
** Among the two hundred errors [200 errores] with which Catharinus reproached Cajetan there was also this, that he claimed that “those who came to John for baptism confessed their sins not with auricular confession but in general. That is, they did not confess their sins but that they were sinners.” Again, that “what is read (in Acts 19[:18]): ‘They were confessing what they had done,’ does not pertain to sacramental confession.” Chronologists conclude that at that very time, which in the old testament was dedicated to confession and affliction, John the Baptist was preaching the Baptism of repentance in the wilderness. Therefore surely countless people confessed before John no differently from the way they generally confessed at the same time in a solemn, general, and public confession, namely, in general. **
(5) “The apostles are commanded to release Lazarus from his bonds (John 11[:44]).”
We respond. The text does not express clearly whether “release him” was said to the apostles or to the Jews who were standing by, the friends of Lazarus. If others also released Lazarus’s bonds in addition to the apostles, it would follow that laypeople are able to absolve, something which Bellarmine denies. Maldonatus (commentary on this passage, p. 914) writes: “The evangelist does not explain to whom Christ commanded this. However, there is no doubt that He was commanding the Jews who were present, that they might in some way touch with their hands the miracle He had done. A little earlier we taught that this is the opinion of all good authors, excepting Augustine, Gregory, and Bede. But Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theophylact, Rupert, Euthymius, Leontius, Theodoret, Cyril, etc., assert that He commanded the Jews to know that this was truly Lazarus who had died by releasing him from his bonds with their own hands.”