Program / Course 11: Church, Sacraments, and Authority / Lesson 7.2
What you will learn
- Describe the stages of the church’s practice of penance from public penance to private confession.
- Explain the controversies over the lapsed and the Novatianists in the third century.
- Summarize the medieval development, including the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.
- Describe how the Reformation and the Council of Trent responded.
The big idea
The church’s way of dealing with sin after baptism has changed over time. In the early centuries, serious sins were handled by public penance, often once in a lifetime, and a person was excluded and then restored by the bishop. From about the sixth century, Irish and other monks spread a private, repeatable confession to a priest. In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council required annual confession. The Reformers rejected compulsory enumeration of sins and turned to absolution, preaching and discipline. The Council of Trent defined penance as a sacrament. The Eastern church kept a different pattern, centered on spiritual direction.
Key terms
- Penance
- In Christian use, the practice of sorrow for sin, confession, and acts of amends, and in Catholic teaching also the sacrament in which sins are forgiven.
- Exomologesis
- A Greek word for confession or acknowledgment. Used by Tertullian for the public act of penance in the early church.
- Lapsed (lapsi)
- Christians who denied the faith or offered sacrifice under pressure during persecution.
- Novatianists
- Followers of Novatian, a Roman presbyter of the third century, who held that the church could not readmit those who had lapsed.
- Tariff penance
- A system of fixed penances for specific sins, set out in penitential books from the sixth century onward.
- Contrition, confession, satisfaction
- The three parts of the penitent’s act in scholastic teaching: sorrow, telling the sins and making amends.
- Seal of confession
- The absolute duty of a priest never to reveal what is said in confession.
Background
The New Testament gives no detailed rite for dealing with sin after baptism, as the previous lesson showed. The church had to decide how to treat serious sin by those who had been baptized. Early answers were severe. The Shepherd of Hermas, a Roman text of the second century, speaks of one repentance after baptism and no more. Over time the church’s practice softened, and forms of confession and penance developed in different regions.
The practice also varied between East and West. The history shows that the church adapted its practice to pastoral problems, such as persecution, the baptism of whole peoples and the care of the sick. The history does not decide which tradition’s teaching is correct. It does show how much was settled only after the apostolic age.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Public penance in the early centuries
In the second and third centuries, grave sins such as apostasy, murder and adultery were handled by public penance. The sinner confessed to the bishop, was assigned to a class of penitents, was kept from the Eucharist for a period that could last years, performed acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and was finally reconciled by the bishop with the laying on of hands. Tertullian describes this public exomologesis in his work On Penitence, and it was normally allowed only once.
Lesser sins were dealt with through prayer, almsgiving and the ordinary life of the church, without public penance. Scholars debate how often private confession existed alongside the public form. In the East, Origen and others speak of confession to a spiritual person, and of the minister as a physician of the soul. The picture is of varied practice, not of one system.
Step 2: The lapsed and the Novatianists
During the persecution under the emperor Decius in AD 250, many Christians offered sacrifice or obtained certificates saying they had. After the persecution, the church asked whether they could be restored. Cyprian of Carthage held that the lapsed could be restored after penance, and that the bishops should decide. Some confessors who had suffered for the faith gave letters of peace to the lapsed, which raised the question of who had authority.
In Rome, Novatian opposed the readmission of the lapsed and was chosen as a rival bishop. His followers, the Novatianists, formed a church of their own and lasted for several centuries. The Council of Nicaea in 325 (canons 8, 11 and 12) set rules for readmitting both Novatianist clergy and the lapsed. The church’s decision was that serious sinners may be restored if they repent, which shaped all later practice.
Step 3: Private confession and tariff penance
In the sixth and seventh centuries, Irish and Anglo-Saxon monks developed a system of private confession to a priest or monk, with penances graded by the sin, set out in penitential books. This form could be repeated as often as needed, and it did not involve public exclusion. Missionaries carried it to the continent, and over the next centuries it replaced public penance in the West.
Penances were sometimes commuted, which led to abuses, including payments in place of fasting. The practice of granting indulgences, which remit the temporal penalty of sin, developed alongside, and became a point of conflict in the Reformation. Catholic teaching holds that indulgences do not forgive sins but remit penalties, and that abuses in granting them were condemned by the Council of Trent.
Step 4: The medieval settlement
The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (canon 21) required every Christian who has reached the age of discretion to confess faithfully all sins at least once a year to his own priest, and to receive communion at Easter. Scholastic theologians, such as Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, taught that penance has three parts on the part of the penitent: contrition, confession and satisfaction, with absolution by the priest. They debated whether contrition alone could forgive sins and whether the priest’s words were a request or a judicial act.
Over the later Middle Ages, confessional manuals proliferated. Many priests and laypeople regarded confession as a means of spiritual growth, and others as an anxious burden. Luther, who had been a monk, wrote of the torment of trying to recall every sin.
Step 5: The Reformation and Trent
Luther at first retained penance as a sacrament in some writings, then reduced it to a form of return to baptism. He held that private confession is useful and should be kept, but that no one should be required to list all sins, and that absolution is a word of the gospel. Calvin rejected the requirement of auricular confession, though he allowed private confession to a pastor for counsel. Anglicans kept a rite of confession as optional.
The Council of Trent in 1551 taught that penance is a sacrament instituted by Christ, that those who fall after baptism may be restored by it, that mortal sins should be confessed to a priest in number and kind, and that the priest’s absolution is a judicial act. It anathematized the views that denied this. The Catholic Church revised its rite after Vatican II, with the Rite of Penance of 1973, which offered a communal service as well as individual confession and renamed the sacrament reconciliation.
- What sins were handled by public penance, and who decided?
- How did the persecution of Decius change the church’s practice?
- What was the source of private confession, and why did it spread?
- What did Lateran IV require, and why?
- How did the Reformers and Trent each respond to the medieval practice?
- What aspects of the practice are shared across all periods?
Examples
Cyprian and the lapsed
After the Decian persecution, Cyprian wrote that the lapsed could be readmitted through penance, and that no confessor or presbyter could pardon them without the bishop. He steered a course between rigorists like Novatian and those who would forgive without penance. The example shows how the church had to decide a case on which Scripture gave no detailed instructions.
A penitential book
Irish penitential books from the sixth to the eighth centuries list sins and fix penances in fasting on bread and water for a number of days or years. A priest used them to decide how to treat a penitent. Historians use them to learn about daily life, as well as church practice. (A summary of the genre, not of a single text.)
Luther’s anxiety
Luther recalled trying to confess every sin and being unable to be sure that he had remembered them all. He later taught that the believer should look not to the completeness of the list but to the promise of absolution. The example is often cited in Protestant accounts, while Catholics point out that the church never taught that forgotten sins prevent absolution.
Different perspectives
Catholic
The church has always had a power to forgive sins after baptism, and its forms have developed under the guidance of the Spirit. Public penance gave way to private confession, and Trent defined the sacrament. The Catholic Church holds that confession to a priest is of divine institution in substance, while its form is subject to change.
Orthodox
The Orthodox kept confession as a mystery, with the priest as witness. The practice developed from monastic spiritual direction, and many Orthodox Christians have a spiritual father. The Orthodox do not require annual confession in the Western form, and they emphasize the healing of the person more than the judicial model of the West.
Protestant
The Reformers held that the medieval requirement of enumerating sins and the system of satisfactions and indulgences lacked scriptural support. They kept absolution, preaching and discipline in different ways. Lutherans retained private confession as optional. Reformed churches emphasized public confession in worship and church discipline.
Scholarly view
Historians agree on the broad outline from public to private penance and the importance of Lateran IV. They differ on how early private confession existed, on the role of Irish monks and on the extent to which medieval practice was a pastoral success or a burden. They also note that the earliest rigorism was not universal.
Why it matters
Debates about confession often assume that one form has always existed. The history shows several forms, adapted over time. Knowing this helps a student to see what each tradition is preserving and what it is willing to change, and why the Reformation dispute arose when it did.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Private confession to a priest is as old as the apostles in its present form.
Correction: The present form developed from the sixth century onward. Catholic teaching holds that the power to forgive goes back to Christ and that the form has changed. Historians trace the development.
Misunderstanding: The early church never forgave serious sins after baptism.
Correction: Some early groups held that, and the church rejected the rigorist position. By the fourth century the church admitted that serious sinners could be restored after penance.
Misunderstanding: The Reformers abolished all confession.
Correction: They rejected compulsory enumeration and the sacrament as defined by Trent, while keeping confession of sin in worship, optional private confession and absolution. Lutherans and Anglicans especially retained it.
Misunderstanding: The Orthodox have the same practice of confession as Catholics.
Correction: Orthodox confession has similarities, but it grew from a different tradition and emphasizes spiritual guidance. Practices vary among churches and countries.
Knowledge check
How did the early church treat grave sins after baptism?
Through public penance. The sinner confessed to the bishop, was excluded from the Eucharist for a period, did acts of penance and was reconciled by the bishop with the laying on of hands. It was often allowed only once. The church rejected the view that grave sinners could never be restored.
What was the dispute between Cyprian and Novatian about?
It concerned whether Christians who had lapsed during persecution could be readmitted. Cyprian held that they could after penance, with the bishop deciding. Novatian opposed readmission, and his followers formed a separate church. The church’s settled view followed Cyprian’s approach.
What did the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 require?
It required every Christian who had reached the age of discretion to confess all sins at least once a year to his own priest and to receive communion at Easter. It made private confession a universal duty in the Western church.
How did Luther and Trent differ on confession?
Luther held that confession is useful but not to be compelled, that enumeration of all sins is impossible, and that absolution is the gospel’s word. Trent taught that penance is a sacrament instituted by Christ and that mortal sins must be confessed in number and kind.
Think it through
- Why might a rigorous practice have seemed necessary in the early church, and why did it change?
- What are the benefits and burdens of requiring confession of every serious sin?
- How does the history of penance affect the claim that practices are unchanging?
- What would be lost if confession were left entirely to the individual?
Independent assignment
A timeline of penance
In your notebook, make a timeline of at least ten events from the Shepherd of Hermas to the Rite of Penance of 1973, including the Decian persecution, Nicaea, the Irish penitentials, Lateran IV, Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses and Trent. For each, write one sentence. Then write 250 to 350 words on what changed and what stayed constant across the periods. Keep the work in your notebook.
Further study
- Council of Trent (1545-1563), Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Read the doctrine and canons on penance from the fourteenth session.
- John Cassian, The Conferences See how monastic fathers speak of laying thoughts before a spiritual elder.
- John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood Book 3 speaks of the priest’s power to bind and loose.
- Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., The Seven Ecumenical Councils (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 14) Read the canons of Nicaea on the lapsed.
- Martin Luther, The Small Catechism Read the brief order of confession.
- Psalm 51:17 A broken and contrite heart.
- Luke 15:18 The prodigal son’s confession.
- 2 Corinthians 2:7 Forgive and comfort the one who has repented.