Confession to a Priest Made Up in 1215 AD? History says "No"

No examination of the claims of the Catholic Church would be complete without a look at what Catholics call the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Or Penance. Or Confession. To a priest.

When I dug into it, one of the claims that seems to cycle over and over throughout Protestant literature is a claim made by one of THE standard texts on Roman Catholicism: Lorraine Boettner's Roman Catholicism. Almost everything I've run into on the internet or in print that attempts to rebut Catholic claims stems from or at least draws from Boettner's book.

In regards to confession to a priest, Boettner writes:

"It is equally impossible to find any authorization or general practice of it during the first one thousand years of the Christian era. Not a word is found in the writings of the early church fathers about confessing sins to a priest or to anyone except God alone. Auricular confession is not mentioned in the writings of Augustine, Origen, Nestorius, Tertullian, Jerome, Chrysostom, or Athanasius -- all of these and many others apparently lived and died without ever thinking of going to confession. Those writers give many rules concerning the practice and duties of Christian living; but they never say a word about going to confession." (p. 199)

Boettner's claims are another good example of something I've seen over and over in this search: poor research (at best) or intentional misdirection (at worst). The claims Boettner makes have been picked up and spread throughout the Protestant world and they're accepted as gospel truth. Unfortunately, they're completely false. Utterly and completely false. There's just no other way to say it.

For example, Boettner makes a bold claim: "In the first 1000 years of the Christian era . . . [n]ot a WORD is found in the writings of the early church fathers about confessing sins to a priest OR TO ANYONE except God alone."

It's important to note that Boettner said there's no reference to confession to priests or to ANYONE except God alone. He's extremely specific in his claims and, at least for me, his authoritative manner was convincing. I figured no one would go so far, would be so specific unless he was right. Well, I dug into it anyway, just for my own sake. And I quickly realized Boettner might not be a terribly devoted researcher of history.

See, almost immediately in trying to back up his claims, I found this in the writings of St. Ireneaus (180 - 199AD):

[The gnostic disciples of Marcus] have deluded many women in our own district of the Rhone, by saying and doing such things. Their consciences branded as with a hot iron, some of these women make a public confession; but others are ashamed to do this, and in silence, as if withdrawing from themselves the hope of the life of God, they either apostatize entirely or hesitate between the two courses.

This writing is from the years 180 - 199AD. It's written by St. Ireneaus who was trained by St. Polycarp who himself was a hearer of the Apostle John. With these credentials, Ireneaus makes clear mention to certain women making a PUBLIC CONFESSION.

But he's not the only one. Tertullian, (one of the men Boettner lists as writing nothing whatsoever about confession to anyone other than God) writes in 203 AD:

How very grand is the reward of modesty, which the concealing of our sin promises! If in fact we conceal something from the notice of men, shall we at the same time hide it from God? Are, then, the good opinion of men and the knowledge of God to be equated? Is it better to be damned in secret than to be absolved in public? 'But it is a miserable thing thus to come to confession!' Yes, evil leads to misery. But where there is repentence misery ceases, because it is thereby turned to salvation. (Tertullian, Repentance, Ch.10)

Tertullian starts with sarcasm, asking how great the reward of modesty is when we conceal our sins. He then goes on to attack that claim and asks if it's better to be damned in secret than absolved in public? This certainly suggests that Tertullian was familiar with something other than Boettner's "confession to God alone" in the privacy of our own heart.

However, if there were any doubts, Tertullian makes a rhetorical argument: "But it's no fun going to confession!" Rather than console the objector with promises of secret, private confession to God, Tertullian instead basically says "Yeah, I know. But evil leads to misery. But where there's repentance (implication is obviously public confession) misery comes to an end."

Moving on, Origen (another writer cited by Boettner as saying not a word about Confession) writes in 240 AD:

If however, a man in such a circumstance becomes his own accuser, as soon as he accuses himself and confesses, he vomits out his fault and puts in order what was the whole cause of his illness.

Now, we could argue that Origen is talking about private confession to God alone. Except, the very next sentence immediately following the preceding, reads as such:

Only be careful and circumspect in regard to whom you would confess your sins. Test first the physician to whom you would expose the cause of your illness.... When he has shown himself to be a physician both learned and merciful, do whatever he might tell you, and follow whatever counsel he may give (Origen, Homilies on the Psalms, Homily 2).

Well, that is certainly starting to sound a lot like the Catholic concept of Confession--and it's from another writer that Boettner claimed said NOTHING about confessing to ANYBODY other than God.

Already, we've seen that Boettner's research is questionable as are his motives. Either he wasn't aware of these writings (and therefore shouldn't be writing so confidently), or, he was aware and just chose to leave them unmentioned because he knew it was relatively unlikely that his readers would dig into the original documents and discover the truth.

However, we're not done. We've seen that public confession--just from these few quotes--was practiced in the early church. Now, let's find out if there's any mention of confession to a PRIEST before Boettner's cutoff date of 1000 AD.

Here's another quote from Origen from the year 244 AD:

In addition to these there is also a seventh, albeit hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner washes his pillow in tears, when his tears are day and night his nourishment, and when he does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord and from seeking medicine (Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, Homily 2).

It's interesting to note Origen's use of the concept of "medicine" coming from the priest. This "medical" motif makes the earlier quote from Origen--that about confessing to a Physician--most likely supportive of the concept of confessing to a Priest as well.

More references to Priestly Confession abound. This one from St. Cyprian of Carthage from the year 251 AD:

Finally, of how much greater faith and more salutary fear are they who, though bound by no crime of sacrifice or certificate, but since they did take thought of doing such a thing, confess even this to the priests of God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience (St. Cyprian, On the Lapsed, Ch.28).

I could go on and on. I've quoted nothing later than 251 AD. If we looked to later documents, we'd find even more clear references both to Public Confession and then, more commonly, Private Confession to a Priest.

Now, I admit, this doesn't PROVE that the Catholic Church is right in their understanding of Confession to a Priest--that's a topic for another day. My intent today was to show again that the information out there is sketchy and that the reader should be careful about what he or she reads.

Boettner claimed boldly in his anti-Catholic book that "Auricular Confession of sins to a priest instead of to God [was] instituted by pope Innocent III, in ... 1215 AD (Boettner, Roman Catholicism, pp. 7-9). He later claims as we mentioned above, that there was no mention of Confession to anyone but God. Yet, just a few minutes of internet-based research proves his claims are false.