(1) Confession to God. — The repentance demanded from all candidates for Christian baptism (Ac 2^^) must have included confession of sins as a necessary element, in private if not in public. The teaching of 1 Jn 1^ expressly makes it a condition of forgive- ness. St. Paul's teaching on repentance leaves no doubt that he also regarded it as a primary duty. For him conscience was supreme arbiter. No troubled conscience can find relief save in full acknowledgment of fault.
(2) Confession before men. — This brings us to a more difficult problem. In 1 Jn 1" confession of sins is connected with the Divine blessing, and the word implies open acknowledgment in the face of men. But nothing is said as to the mode, though it is implied that it will be definite and specific, not in mere general terms. St. Paul is represented as receiving many confessions publicly at Ephesus (Ac 19^"*), when many ' came, confessing, and de- claring their deeds,' and there was a bonfire of books of magic. The case of discipline at Corinth, when St. Paul was constrained to condemn a brother so sternly for incest, led to public con- fession not only by him but also by those who had been implicated in shielding him (2 Co 7"). St. James records, it would seem, the practice of the Church in Jerusalem in relation to visits of the elders of the Church to sick persons whom they anointed with prayer : ' Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed ' (Ja 5'^). The word d/iaprias refers to sins against God, though it may include sins against neighbours. Much has been made of Cardinal Cajetan's opinion that this does not relate to sacramental confession {Epp. S. Pauli, Paris, 1532, f. ccxii). But however limited be the mean- ing put on the words, e.g. by Mayor (Epistle of James^, 1910, p. 175), who supposes reference ' merely to such mutual confidences as would give a right direction to the prayers offered,' the practice in the sickroom corresponds to the common practice of the Church in the next generation.
Both Clement and Hermas witness to the custom of public confession. Clement writes to the Corin- thians (57) : ' Ye therefore that laid the founda- tion of the sedition, submit yourselves unto tlie presbyters and receive chastisement unto repent- ance, bending the knees of your heart.' We must interpret these words in the light of others, e.g. ch. 51 : ' For it is good for a man to make confession of his trespasses rather than to haixlen his heart ' (ef. ch. 54). Hermas, the prophet, tells us bluntly in the Shepherd of the confessions of untruthfulness and disiionesty which he was constrained to make publicly {Mand. iii. 3). He was constrained also to confess neglect of his home, double-mindedness, and doubts. It is no ideal picture which he draws of his own conduct or of the life of his fellow- Christians. But, as von Dobschiitz says, these confessions reveal ' the magnificent moral earnest- ness of the man, and not of him only, but of the Christianity of his time' [Christian Life in the Primitive Church, p. 315). The Epistle of Barnabas is evidence for the preciseness with which the Church in Alexandria at the end of tiie 1st cent, interpreted the Moral Law. The writer teaciies definitely: 'Thou shalt confess thy sins' (ch. 19), and also speaks of the spiritual counsel which one is to give to another : ' Be good lawgivers one to another ; continue faithful counsellors to your- selves ; takeaway from you all hypocrisy' (ch. 21).
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Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the Philadelphians (ch. 8), regards the bishop with his council as in charge of the discipline of the Church : ' Now the Lord forgiveth all men when they repent, if repent- ino' they return to the unity of God and to the council of the bishop.'
These hints about the public penitential system of the primitive Church do not carry us very far, but they certainly prepare us for the famous de- scription given by Tertullian, which applies no doubt to the practice at the beginning, as at the end, of the 2nd century.
' This confession is a disciplinary act of great humiliation and prostration of the man ; it regulates the dress, the food ; it enjoins sackcloth and ashes ; it defiles the body with dust, and subdues the spirit with anguish ; it bids a man alter his life, and sorrow for past sin ; it restricts meat and drink to the greatest simplicity possible ; it nourishes prayer by fasting; it inculcates groans and tears and invocations of the Lord God day and night, and teaches the penitent to cast himself at the feet of the presbyters, and to fall on his knees before the beloved of God, and to beg of all the brethren to intercede on his behalf ' (de Pcen. ch. 9).
LiTERATDRE. — E. von DobschUtz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church. Eng. tr., 19U4 ; N. Marshall, The Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church, new ed., 1844.
A. E. Burn. CONFIDENCE.— The term 'confidence' ('confi- dent,' 'confidently') is in the RV of the NT al- most wholly confined to the Pauline Epistles, the only exception being He S'''. In AV it renders wappriaia of 1 Jn 2^^ and 5'*, but is replaced in RV by 'boldness' (q.v.). The verb Bapptiv of 2 Co 5^*^- in AV is rendered by ' to be confident ' ; in RV ' to be of good courage ' is substituted. In RV of 1 Ti P and Tit 3^ Sia^e^aiomOai is now rendered ' confidentlj' affirm.' In both AV and RV ' con- fidence' is three times employed to render the diffi- cult and many-sided word vir6(TTa<7is (2 Co 9^ 11'^ He 31*).