www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology St. John Chrysostom on confession

I'm hoping someone can help me here.
I am reading a chapter in the new Dictionary of Sacramental Worship (Liturgical Press,Collegeville, MN)by James Dallen, titled, "Sacrament of Reconciliation".

In it, he describes that St. John Chrysostom in teh early 5th century taught that confession could be made directly to God. He offers no source for this, and no context. It almost seems to imply that absolution was not needed (though I realize that the restoration of sinners in the 5th century was done differently than today with the order of penitents).

Is anyone familiar with this, and can give more background or a source?

I get frustrated when claims like this are made, but yet there is no source for me to verify for myself.

Thanks!

IIRC, it was in reference to what Romans would call venial sins: minor sins, which only mildly damage our relationship with God.

Such sins are overwhelmed by the sacrament of Communion, as a coal burns the small flecks of sawdust that might land upon it.

That is a beautiful metaphor!

do you know the specific reference offhand?

thanks

No. But Rev. Fr. Mike Hornig preached about St. Basil's sermon on the minor sins more than once. So did Rev. Fr. Steven Greskowiak. And Very Rev. Fr. Leo Walsh.

Anyways, here's what i was able to find, but as you said, they seem to be in the context of more minor sins and are in a context of the practices of penance of the time.

"We do not request you to go to confess your sins to any of your fellow-men, but only to God!" (Crhysostom, Homily on 50th Psalm)

"We do not ask you to go and confess your iniquities to a sinful man for pardon - but only to God." (Ibid.)

"You need no witness of your confession. Secretly acknowledge your sins and let God alone hear you." (Chrysostom, De Paenitentia, Volume IV, Col. 901)

"Therefore, I beseech you, always confess your sins to God! I, in no way, ask you to confess them to me. To God alone should you expose the wounds of your soul, and from him alone expect the cure. Go to Him, then, and you shall not be cast off, but healed. For, before you utter a single word, God knows your prayer." (Chrysostom, De Incomprehensibili, Volume I, Homily V)

Could you say where you found those quotes? I ask because I can, so far, only find them in those forms in a notorious and apparently inaccurate anti-Catholic source. This isn't to say that they don't exist in those forms, but it is to say, "Be cautious." They don't appear to exist in those forms at all.

To see the reason for caution (and hopefully to help you out a bit), here are just two examples out of the four that you mentioned that I think will make the case:

1. As far as I can tell, the last quote you give does not occur [i]anywhere[/i] in Homily V of Chrysostom's "De Incomprehensibili." I have searched through the translation that I have available and cannot find it. The best I can find is the following:

"Therefore, I exhort, I entreat, and I beg you never to stop confessing your faults to God. I am not leading you onto a stage before your fellow servants nor do I force you to reveal your sin to men. Open your conscience before God, show him your wounds, and beg him for medication to heal them. Do not point them out to someone who will reproach you but to one who will cure you. Even if you remain silent, God knows all things. Tell your sins to him so that you may be the one who profits. Tell them to him so that, once you have left the burden of all your sins with him, you may go forth cleansed of your faults and free from the intolerable need to make them public."

Now, at first glance, that might sound [i]very[/i] close in spirit to the quote you presented, even if it is very different in wording. But a more careful reading shows that this isn't so. In this quote, yes, Chrysostom says to confess sins to God. He opposes this, however, [i]not[/i] to auricular confession to a priest, but to forced confession before men or confession as on a stage before one's "fellow servants." True, he also says that there is no need to make one's sins "public," but private confession does not seem to do this, at least in the way that Chrysostom apparently has in mind [i]in context[/i]. The only line in this quote that really might be taken to deny the necessity of auricular confession is the one that says, "Even if you remain silent, God knows all things." But taking this sentence in that way is [i]quite[/i] debatable, and (in its context, and also in light of material that I mention later) seems to me the wrong way of taking it. What Chrysostom appears to be saying is that God will know your sins even if you do not confess them, so, [i]that's not a good reason not to confess them[/i]! That is, [b]even if you do refuse to confess, and so remain silent, God will still know your sins... So confess anyway![/b] That fits best with the rest of what Chrysostom says here, where he insists on "telling," "confessing," and "begging," and presents himself as eagerly exhorting us to do so. It also fits with the material that I'll mention next, in relation to one of the other quotes you gave.

So, that quote, when considered according to its actual wording, does not immediately deny auricular confession.

2. You also present the following quote, which, again, I can find only in the aforementioned anti-Catholic source: "You need no witness of your confession. Secretly acknowledge your sins and let God alone hear you" (Chrysostom, De Paenitentia, Volume IV, Col. 901). I don't have access to any "De Paenitentia" by Chrysostom, so I can't try checking that source myself, but I can tell you that, based on my research, this quote also does not exist (look here for support of this: http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a135.htm#Chrysostom).

The closest quote to this one, as the source just cited suggests, appears to be this one, from Chrysostom's "Homilies on Lazarus:" "Unless you tell the magnitude of your debt, you do not experience the abundance of grace. 'I do not oblige you,' He says, 'to come into the middle of a theater and to be surrounded by many witnesses. Tell your sin to Me alone in private, so that I may heal your wound and release you from your pain.'"

Again, though, the contrast in this quote is between private telling of sins and telling one's sins in "the middle of a theater . . . surrounded by many witnesses." This doesn't oppose private, auricular confession. True, Chrysostom does present Christ as saying, "Tell your sin to Me alone," but this has to be taken in the wider context of what Chrysostom says, as well as in the context of the theology of the priesthood. The priest stands "in persona Christi," to use the Latin phrase. Confessing in private with a priest [i]is[/i] confessing to Christ, both in the context of wider theology, and, more importantly for present purposes, in the context of Chrysostom's other sayings. In his Homilies on the Gospel of John, for example, Chrysostom mentions the passage where the apostles are given the power to forgive sins, and says, "The things that are placed in the hands of the priest, it belongs to God alone to give." So, the things given by the priest (from the priest's hands) are given by "God alone." That is, [i]the priests actions and God's actions are apparently not opposed[/i], in Chrysostom's thought; one does not exclude the other. The priest, by virtue of his office, apparently is the one by whom or through whom God acts.

So, again, nothing obviously inconsistent with auricular confession here, on a closer look. I hope that helps. Be well.

Thanks Iason for the great research. You demonstrate how anyone's words can be twisted to reinfore one's point of view.

I'm not sure of the time line, but in the early Church sinning was a cause for being expelled from the Christian community; therefore many people waited until they were on their deathbed before being baptized.

For those who admitted their sins, they were required to stand before the Christian community to which they belonged and publicly confess their sins. Perhaps this is the "middle of a theater" and "fellow servants" which are spoken of by St John C.and he was trying to change the norm from public to private confession.

My speculation,
Fr Deacon Paul