Note 207 — LETTER X.

The practice of auricular confession was about three hundred years old before the Reformation, having remained undetermined till the year 1150 after Christ. The early fathers were, beyond all question, decidedly opposed to it. Chrysostom reasons very differently from the text. “But thou art ashamed to say that thou hast sinned? Confess thy faults, then, daily in thy prayer; for do I say, ‘Confess them to thy fellow-servant who may reproach thee therewith?’ No; confess them to God who healeth them.” (In Ps. l. hom. 2.) And to whom did Augustine make his Confessions? Was it not to the same Being to whom David in the Psalms and the publican in the Gospel, made theirs? “What have I to do with men,” says this father, “that they should hear my confessions, as if they were to heal all my diseases!” (Confes., lib. x., p. 3.)