James 5[:16]: “Confess your sins.”
James 5[:16]: “Confess your sins.”
(III) “James 5[:16]: ‘Confess your sins one to another’; that is, you people, confess to other people. You who are in need of absolution, confess to those who have the power to absolve.”
We respond. The apostle is speaking about the private petitions for pardon for offenses, which is a sign of true love. Therefore the argument begs the question and departs from the words of the text when this statement is applied to a specific enumeration of sins to the priest. What? Is “confessing” the enumerating of each sin? Is confessing “to each other” confessing to a priest? In the same verse there follows: “Pray for each other.” Are prayers to be made only for the priests?
In his Annotat. on this passage (p. 523) Erasmus writes: “James is thinking about the daily offenses of Christians among themselves, whom he wants to be reconciled as soon as possible. ‘Trespasses’ [παραπτώματα] means errors and slips rather than sins. If he had been thinking about the confession which we say is a part of the sacrament of penance, he would not have added ‘to each other’ but ‘to the priests.’ ” The Gloss. interlin. reads: “ ‘Confess to each other,’ that is, to your peers. ‘Sins,’ that is, smaller trespasses; but you must reveal the fault of a more serious leprosy to the priest.”