Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

LXXI. Whoever is aware of the commission of any one of the aforementioned sins, and
is convicted without having confessed, shall be under punishment for the same space of
time as the actual perpetrator.
LXXII. He who has entrusted himself 2841 to soothsayers, or any such persons, shall be
under discipline for the same time as the homicide.
LXXIII. He who has denied Christ, and sinned against the mystery of salvation, ought
to weep all his life long, and is bound to remain in penitence, being deemed worthy of the
sacrament in the hour of death, through faith in the mercy of God.
LXXIV. If, however, each man who has committed the former sins is made good,
through penitence, 2842 he to whom is committed by the loving-kindness of God the power
of loosing and binding 2843 will not be deserving of condemnation, if he become less severe,
as he beholds the exceeding greatness of the penitence of the sinner, so as to lessen the
period of punishment, for the history in the Scriptures informs us that all who exercise
penitence 2844 with greater zeal quickly receive the loving-kindness of God. 2845
LXXV. The man who has been polluted with his own sister, either on the father’s or
the mother’s side, must not be allowed to enter the house of prayer, until he has given up
his iniquitous and unlawful conduct. And, after he has come to a sense of that fearful sin,
let him weep for three years standing at the door of the house of prayer, and entreating the
esse censit, ut ad eumdem canonem tertium observavimus, ita dubium esse non potest quin ad criminis magnitud-
inem probandi modum et tempus accommodaverit.
2841 The Ben. ed. suppose for the purpose of learning sorcery. cf. Can. lxxxiii., where a lighter punishment
is assigned to consulters of wizards.
2842 ἐξομολογούμενος. “The verb in St. Matt. xi. 25 expresses thanksgiving and praise, and in this sense was
used by many Christian writers (Suicer, s.v.). But more generally in the early Fathers it signifies the whole course
of penitential discipline, the outward act and performance of penance. From this it came to mean that public
acknowledgment of sin which formed so important a part of penitence. Irenæus (c. Hær. i. 13, § 5) speaks of
an adulterer who, having been converted, passed her whole life in a state of penitence (ἐξομολογουμένη, in ex-
omologesi); and (ib. iii. 4) of Cerdon often coming into the church and confessing his errors (ἐξομολογούμενος).”
D.C.A. i. 644.
2843 Here we see “binding and loosing” passing from the Scriptural sense of declaring what acts are forbidden
and committed (Matt. xvi. 19 and xxiii. 4. See note of Rev. A. Carr in Cambridge Bible for Schools) into the later
ecclesiastical sense of imposing and remitting penalties for sin. The first regards rather moral obligation, and,
as is implied in the force of the tenses alike in the passages of St. Matthew cited and in St. John xx. 23, the recog-
nition and announcement of the divine judgment already passed on sins and sinners; the later regards the im-
position of disciplinary penalties.
2844 τοὺς ἐξομολογμουμένους.
2845 e.g. according to the Ben. note, Manasseh and Hezekiah.
To Amphilochius, the Canons.
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