cry, removed the Penitentiary from his office.” He allows, however, after the positive declaration of the historians, that from this time, in the East,“ No one was compelled publicly to confess his crimes, nor to undergo public penance; but was permitted to confess his sins, before communion, to a Priest, as his own judgment might direct him."[1] Annot. in c. xix. L. v. Socrat. and in c. xvi. L. vii. Sozomen.
St. John CHRYSOSTOM, G. C.-The event of which I have spoken, was recent, when this great man succeeded to Nectarius in the See of Constantinople: but in looking over the sermons which he preached, or what he wrote, either in letters or otherwise, during the nine years he held the Seethe three last of which were passed in exile-I find little on the subject of penance, or on that of private Confession.[2] The reader, therefore, will look back to the signal passage, (p. 297,) on the power of the keys, or the power of binding and loosing, so fully stated by him, in a work written during his residence at Antioch, or in its neighbourhood. Here in retirement, and afterwards in the active service of the Church of Antioch, were composed most of the voluminous works ascribed to him. He thus speaks also in a passage prior to that to which I have referred the reader.—“Wherefore it is very necessary, that Christians who are oppressed by crimes, should persuade themselves of the necessity of submitting to the medical cure of the Priesthood. - I could, indeed, men-
- ↑ The Greeks, at this time, distinguished the ordinary Priests, who received secret confessions, from the Penitentiary; by calling the first the ministers of exomologesis, (itouo oyngeus) and the second, the minister of penance, (nipeo Butepos Étte petavolas); the first being of divine, (éĘ åpxns) the second of 'ecclesiastical institution. &ravok, says the historian Sozomenus, ToV ÉTL METAVOLac tpeoputepov., he suspended or abrogated the penitentiary.
- ↑ This observation seems not quite accurate : for his Homilies on Genesis, from which I shall quote passages, are thought by Sir H. Savil and Du Pin, to have been preached at Constantinople; and therefore after the suppression of the Penitentiary.
