What Did Early Christians Believe About Confession?

Early Christians clearly practiced confession, repentance and ecclesial reconciliation, although the discipline and form of penance developed over time.

That distinction matters.

The historical question is not whether a twenty-first-century Saturday-afternoon confessional looked exactly the same in AD 150.

It did not.

The better question is:

Did ancient Christians understand serious post-Baptismal sin and reconciliation as something involving the visible Church, or only as a private transaction between the individual and God?

The evidence deserves examination.

Begin With Scripture

Important passages include:

• Matthew 16:18-19
• Matthew 18:15-18
• John 20:21-23
• Acts 19:18
• 2 Corinthians 5:18-20
• James 5:14-16
• 1 John 1:8-9

Catholic interpretation gives particular importance to John 20:21-23, where the risen Christ sends the Apostles and speaks of forgiving and retaining sins.

Christians disagree over whether this establishes a continuing sacramental ministry of absolution.

So move from the biblical text into Christian history.

The Didache: Confession Connected With Christian Worship

The Didache, an exceptionally early Christian document usually dated to the late first or early second century, instructs Christians gathering on the Lord's Day to break bread and give thanks after confessing their transgressions.

That does not by itself prove every feature of later private sacramental confession.

It does establish something important:

confession of sins was embedded very early within the communal and worshiping life of Christians.

Source

Didache, chapter 14.

Complete text:
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm

Clement of Rome: Acknowledge Transgressions

First Clement, generally dated near the end of the first century, addresses a serious conflict in Corinth and urges those involved to acknowledge their transgressions rather than harden their hearts.

Again, this is not a description of the later confessional form.

It is evidence that repentance and acknowledged sin belonged to the Church's concrete response to grave disorder.

Source

1 Clement 51.

Complete text:
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm

Cyprian: Confession, Penance, Bishop and Clergy

By the third century the evidence becomes considerably more explicit.

During controversies over Christians who had lapsed under persecution, Cyprian of Carthage discusses penance, confession, reconciliation, the bishop and clergy, and restoration to Eucharistic communion.

In one letter he describes sinners undergoing penance, making public confession, and receiving the laying on of hands of the bishop and clergy before being restored to communion.

Elsewhere he urges Christians to confess sin while confession and priestly reconciliation remain available during earthly life.

Sources

Cyprian, Epistle 9.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050609.htm

Cyprian, Treatise 3: On the Lapsed, 29.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050703.htm

What Changed Over Time?

The discipline of penance changed considerably.

At various times grave post-Baptismal sins could involve:

• public acknowledgement;
• lengthy periods of penance;
• exclusion from Eucharistic communion;
• reconciliation by the bishop;
• eventually more repeatable and private forms of sacramental confession.

Development in disciplinary form does not necessarily mean invention of the underlying belief.

That is precisely the historical question to investigate.

What Does the Catholic Church Teach Today?

The Catholic Church teaches that God alone forgives sin and that Christ entrusted a ministry of reconciliation to His Apostles that continues through bishops and priests.

The Catechism describes sacramental reconciliation as involving conversion, confession, satisfaction and God's forgiveness through the ministry of the Church.

See:

• CCC 1422-1498
• especially CCC 1440-1449
• CCC 1455-1460
• CCC 1461-1467

Official Catechism:

https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_two/article_4.html

A Common Protestant Objection

Many Protestants emphasize texts such as 1 John 1:9 and affirm that Christians confess sins directly to God through Christ, our one mediator.

Catholics agree that Christians should confess sin directly to God.

The disagreement is whether direct prayer to God excludes the ecclesial ministry Catholics believe Christ instituted.

James 5:16 itself tells Christians to confess sins to one another, while John 20 raises the question of a particular authority entrusted to the Apostles.

So the debate should not be reduced to:

God or priest?

Catholic theology says forgiveness comes from God; the priest is the minister of Christ's reconciliation.

What Does the Historical Evidence Establish?

It strongly establishes that:

• confession and acknowledgement of sins occur extremely early;
• repentance was not treated merely as an invisible internal feeling;
• the Church exercised concrete penitential discipline;
• by the third century bishops and clergy had identifiable roles in reconciliation and restoration to communion.

The evidence does not show that every external form of modern Catholic confession existed unchanged in the first century.

That distinction makes the historical case stronger, not weaker.

Ask Yourself

If reconciliation after serious sin involved the visible Church very early in Christian history, when and why would Christianity have become exclusively private on this question?

Continue the Journey

Did Early Christians Believe in Scripture and Tradition? →

Who Has Authority to Interpret the Bible? →

Return to What the Early Christians Believed →