Annotation CCII

”Everyone that committeth sin is the servant of sin.” — John 8:34

Whether priests have the power of remitting sins.

Theophylact, in the commentaries, interpreting this, says: “But the servitude of sin is heavier, from which God alone can free [one]. For to remit sins belongs to God alone. Therefore he says, ‘Everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin’: you therefore also are servants, because [you are] sinners.” Moreover, because it was likely that they would say, “Although we are liable to such servitude, yet we have priests who will purge us from [our] sins,” he says that they too are servants:¹ “For all have sinned, and need the glory of God. And your priests, since they too are servants, have not the power of remitting sins to others.” Which Paul too says more manifestly:² “The priest has need to offer for himself, as [well as] for the people, because he too is liable to infirmity.” This passage is cited everywhere by the Lutherans; and in the Collectanea of Bodius it is reckoned among those [passages] which are objected by the same heretics against the authority which priests have of remitting sins. And yet Theophylact’s words plainly show that he speaks not of the evangelical priests, but of the Mosaic — of whom Paul too said³ that they could not remit sins. But our priests, having obtained a nobler dignity, have the right of loosing and binding, and truly remit sins — not as the principal authors of such remission (for God alone, who alone is Creator, in this manner pardons offenses by justifying grace), but as ministers and dispensers of the divine indulgence. See above, Annotation 62 of book 5, and 71 of this book.