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Anselm, Thomas, Lyra, and Cajetane, all upon this place. Second, by the name of straw or stubble, some do understand mortal sins, as Chrysostom and Theophylact. Others, heresies, as Ambrose upon this place, and Jerome in Isaiah 5. Others, bad hearers, as Theodoret and Oecumenius. Others, carnal affections, as Augustine in his book
De Fide et Operibus, chapter 16. Third, by that day, they do understand the day of the last judgment, no middle day; and so do
Theodoret, Theophylact, and Anselm understand it. Fourth, by the fire some understand the tribulations of this present life, so does
Augustine (De Fide et Operibus, cap. 16), and so does Gregory in his Dialogues, book 4, chapter 39. Others take it for the eternal fire, as Chrysostom and Theophylact; others for the fire that shall consume the world; and others for the fire of God's judgment, which they affirm shall not purge and afflict, but prove and try, as the Jesuits hold.
11. But the foundation of the popish purgatory (namely, that the guilt being abolished, some penal satisfaction is to be undergone) was never received by the learned teachers of the church for at least 1,100 years after Christ. Lombard indeed teaches that there is pain of purgatory to be endured after this life, but not after the full and plenary remission of the fault. For he will have such a fault as is remitted in part to be reserved for the temporal pain to abolish (lib.
4, dist. 20). Wherefore a purgatory, supposed to be between death and the last judgment, serving only for the purgation of venial sins by temporal pains, was unknown to the fathers of the first 600 years.
Sacramental Confession 1. Auricular confession, that is, the special recitation of all mortal sins, necessary for the remission thereof, made in secret unto a
priest, began to be urged and commanded in the church about 800 years after Christ. Alcuine (De Divinis Officiis, cap. 13, in cap. ieiun) taught it in these words: "Being willing to forgive all that have offended against him, let him confess all his sins which he can remember." "We find this thing needful of reformation," says the Second Council of Chalons (cap. 32), "that many confessing their sins unto the priests do it not fully nor perfectly. Wherefore, because that a man is made of two substances, soul and body, and sins sometimes by the motion of the mind and other times by the frailty of the flesh, both these kinds of sin ought to be very narrowly searched after, that a plenary confession may be made thereof accordingly. Namely, that both the sins that have been committed by the body be confessed, as also by the sole cogitation. Wherefore he that is to confess his sins is to be instructed to make his confession of the eight principal sins, without which we can hardly live in this world." "The priests must call those parties to confession that are in danger of death," says the Council of Mentz in Gregory IV's time (cap. 26). Now we have indeed some examples of this private confession before these times, but no precept at all. Andoenus, in the life of Saint Eligius (lib. 1, cap. 7), says that he, desiring to make himself a sanctified vessel unto God and fearing lest some of his sins might darken his soul, confessed all his acts from his very youth.
Before the priest. But indeed, this use had its first invention in monasteries. "Before all things," says Climacus, in Scala paradisi grad. 4, circa anno 580, "let us confess our faults unto our worthy
Judge alone, and if He command us, let us be ready to confess them unto all men." And Studites, in his funeral oration upon the death of Saint Plato, c. 8, says, and (which was more laudable) he did often confess his secretest thoughts and deeds unto one that was his superior, which was a great sign of his religion. And truly, the most strict manner wherewith he did it, made him that heard his
confession to be amazed with admiring of him. But to speak truly, this universal law enjoining to confession, as to a necessary act of salvation, was not promulgated until the Council of Lateran under Innocent III, Pope.
2. That this kind of confession had the institution from God, divers learned men have either denied, or doubtfully affirmed. Chrysostom refuses it flatly, Hom. 4, de Lazaro. "Take heed," says he, "how you tell your defects unto a man, lest he cast you in the teeth withal. You are not to confess unto your fellow servant, that he may divulge it, but unto Him that is your Lord, to Him that cares for your soul, to Him that is most courteous, to Him that is your physician do you show your wounds." And indeed, this father tosses this doctrine of confession in many places, viz., hom. 2, in Psal. 50; hom. 31, in Epist. ad Heb.; hom. 5, de incomprehensib. nat. Dei; hom. 8, de paen. hom. de paenit. & confessione. And so does Cassian, in his Collations, 20, cap. 8. And Augustine also, Confession., lib. 10, c. 3. And indeed, private confession of great crimes was abrogated about the year 396, by reason of the discovery of a whoredom committed between a deacon and a noble woman, as history testifies (Hist. tripart., lib. 9, c. 36). But if the fathers had thought it to have been a divine ordinance, doubtless it should never have been disannulled by them.
And the gloss, de Paenit., dist. 5, cap. 1, in Paenitentia, says that it is better to say that it was instituted by a tradition of the universal church, rather than by the authority of the Old or New Testament.
And Gratian himself staggers in this question, De Paenit, d. 1, q. 3, c.
89, Quamvis, "Upon what authority, or upon what grounds of reason both these opinions of satisfaction or confession do rely, we have briefly laid down. But which of them to stick unto, I leave unto the reader's choice, for there are both wise and religious men on both opinions." Here he allows every man his judgment free, therefore he thought it not to be of divine institution. And, dist. eadem c.
Convertimini. "Here may we understand that we may obtain pardon though our mouths be silent, and…our Lord shows that a sinner is not cleansed by the judgment of the priests, but by the bounty of the divine grace." And yet farther, cap. Quis aliquando. "Hence it is most evidently apparent, that our sins may be taken away without the confession of the mouth." Panormitane, De paenit. & remiss., ca.
Omnes utriusq, sexus, likes that opinion very well, that says that confession arose from a certain general tradition of the church, and that the Greeks do not sin in not using of it, because this custom sprung not up among them. And Scotus, in sent. 4, dist. 17, quest. 1, is very doubtful to say it is of divine institution. Either we must hold the first member, that is, that it is of divine institution published by the gospel, or if that be not sufficient, we must say that it is of the divine positive law published by Christ, unto the apostles, and unto the church, by the apostles, without all Scripture, as the church holds many other things from the apostles' mouths without any Scripture.
"Among the writers of the pope's law," says Rhenanus, in argumentum in Tertull. de paenitent., "there are some (and those famous men), which do Draw this confession, which at this day we use unto the priest, and every little circumstance thereof, from the institution of the church.
For first, public confession, that is, the act of penance done before the whole church, as taken out of the Old Testament, of public seems to have been made private, for which it was necessary…to make certain laws for penances…for satisfaction, and observation of which laws, it was fit (for the laity especially) to make a priest partaker of their secrets and counsel." And again, "This secret confession (as far as we can conjecture) sprung out of that public one, through men's voluntary piety, for we read no precept of old for it." And like unto this has he another place, in admonitione de Tertullian Dogmatis, where he says, "Concerning secret confession, you shall scarcely find
any of the fathers speak of it as of a thing commanded." Thus said he.
Cajetane, upon the 20th of John, affirms: 1. That Christ instituted but a voluntary confession, and therefore not as necessary to salvation; and 2. That Christ instituted no auricular confession.
By confession in the fathers is generally meant confession before God (only) or a public acknowledgement of some public crimes incurring the censure of excommunication, and that in an ecclesiastical convention. Of the necessity of this they speak very often. Yea,
Origen, in Psal. 37, hom. 2, and Cyprian, De lapsis, serm. 5, do exhort the people to make a public recitation of all their small and secret sins, and of all their evil intentions. Leo also, ep. 80, mentions this custom of writing down the secrets of their consciences that made confession into a little book, and in rehearsing of it publicly in the audience of the people; and holds this fullness of faith to be laudable, which for the fear of God, sticks not to blush before men.
But yet he disallows the custom and abolishes it in these words: "Let the guilt of the consciences be shown only unto the priests in secret confession." And by and by after: "Let that confession suffice which is first offered unto God, and then unto the priest, who becomes an intercessor unto God for the sin of the penitents." But there is no proof to show that this secret confession was universal, of all the sins, but it rather seems to concern such offences only as did trouble the conscience. "Let us open the uncleanness of our souls' leprosy unto the priest, as the law commands us," says Bede, in Jacob 5.
And wheresoever the fathers do urge this same special confession, they do not teach it to be necessary unto salvation, nor as a mean universally necessary unto the remission of sins, but propose it freely, and exact it as a good and commodious course for the obtaining of consolation for the soul. Yea, they make mention of confession unto laymen, for such were the fathers of the Egyptian