That [confession] was not indeed a sacred [confession] of the kind which, among us Christians, flourishes for the expiation of sins (for it was not yet instituted, nor did Joshua discharge the priestly office); yet it indicates not a few [things] which avail toward that [confession]. These, since I have already before (q. 3, and following) set forth the confession itself, it will be worth the labor to note briefly. And first indeed, [we note] that, for a sinner to compose himself to confession, there is need of the divine aid, to rouse [him]. For so the lot moved Achan, and Joshua’s exhortation, which struck not only his ears, but the inmost [part] of [his] heart. Secondly: Achan confessed first generally, then in detail. The same [thing] we do, when at the beginning we say “I confess,” [and] then recount our faults. Thirdly: Achan grieved — and indeed from the heart — that he had offended God, touched with true penitence and contrition. For although Calvin doubts this in this place, yet his [Achan’s] words, and the manner of the words, indicate it; [and] so does the force of Joshua’s exhortation, and the very outcome at last, of which afterward. So must we too be — for God’s contempt through our sins — grieving and sorrowful, and so set up [our] confession. Fourthly: “Truly,” he says, “I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel.” Behold, he does not acknowledge his sin by silence alone, [nor] by the pallor or blush of countenance, by the fixing of [his] eyes on the ground, [nor] by a stupor of soul: but present in mind, obeying Joshua, revering God with a great sense of grief — and, as I think, with a great force of hot tears — he begins the confession; and he does not merely say “I have sinned,” but, wholly moved quite piously and holily, “Truly,” he says, “I have sinned” — as if to say: I give glory to God. My sin, which I most secretly hid — yet all things lie open to his most perceiving eyes. There are lots [which are] indeed
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of themselves fallacious and uncertain: but this [lot], which the Lord commands, [and] which his servant and our leader Joshua carried out, is most true and most certain. I had persuaded myself [that there was] either a slight sin, or none, if in so great a multitude of such rich spoils I should filch [something] slight which was at hand. But this judgment of mine was false. Truly I have sinned.” And he interposes a certain grave comparison of himself with God, which has the greatest force for exciting and displaying a notable and pious grief of soul. “I,” he says, “have sinned against the Lord God of Israel”: I, a vile creature, against my Creator; a most vile little servant, against the Lord of heaven and earth; I, a most abject little worm, against God; I, the dregs and refuse of the Israelite people, have sinned against the God of Israel. O the unworthiness of my sin! O the blindness of my mind! O most senseless senselessness! Truly have I sinned against the Lord God of Israel. Fifthly: “And thus and thus have I done.” Some sometimes extenuate their sins in confessions: they cover and obscure [them] with wrappings and circumlocutions of words; they lay [the blame] on the demon, on the fragility of the flesh, on bad companions; they accuse others, and excuse themselves in every way. But Achan accuses only himself, and indeed plainly, distinctly, roundly: “And thus and thus have I done.” “It is an emphatic expression,” says Calvin (otherwise a most importunate assailant of sacred confession): “‘this and that I did’: by which he signifies that the individual parts of the deed were set forth distinctly and in order.” Nor indeed did he state only the thing which he did, but the manner and the circumstances. For these are what those [words] “thus and thus” signify. Sixthly: He goes on and recounts in order what he did, what he stole, how many things in number, of what quality, of what price. “A cloak,” he says, “of scarlet, very good: two hundred silver shekels: a golden bar of 50 shekels.” It is not enough in confession to say, “I was drunk, I fornicated, I stole,” but the number, the quantity, and other grave circumstances are to be added. And therefore he also adds — although it had not been necessary — that he did [it] out of his mere concupiscence; and that he took the design of hiding the deed, and in fact accomplished [it]. This surely [is] the form of confession, and a certain idea [pattern] of it, to be gazed on by us not rarely. For truly, as Horace rightly [says]:
“The evil shame of fools hides unhealed sores.” [Horace, Epistles 1.16.24]
Origen, on that [passage of] Lev. 5, “if he shall have sinned in one of these, let him declare the sin which he has sinned,” [says]: “There is something wonderful, a secret, in this. For all things are to be declared, in every kind, and all [the things] we have done are to be brought forth into the public — whether we do anything in secret, whether we have committed anything in speech alone, or even within the secrets of thoughts — all must needs be published, all brought forth; brought forth, moreover, by him who is both the accuser of sin and the instigator: for he now instigates us that we may sin, and he also accuses [us] when we have sinned. If, then, in [our] life we anticipate him, and are ourselves our own accusers, we escape the wickedness of the devil, our enemy and accuser: for so too elsewhere the Prophet says: ‘Tell thou thy iniquities first, that thou mayest be justified.’” And (homily 2 on Psalm 37): “See,” he says, “what the divine scripture teaches us, that one ought not to conceal sin inwardly. For perhaps, just as those who have food shut up undigested within, or [matters] of humor or phlegm gravely and troublesomely pressing on the stomach, are relieved if they have vomited: so those who have sinned, if indeed they hide and retain the sin within themselves, are inwardly pressed, and all but suffocated by the phlegm or humor of sin. But if [a man] himself becomes his own accuser, while he accuses himself and confesses, he at once vomits out the offense too, and digests away the whole cause of the disease.” St. Ambrose (Epistle 3) treats not a few [things] which make for this. And first indeed, [he treats] how we all are wont to sin: “To sin,” he says, “belongs to no one [but the frail]; to amend [is the mark] of the wise, and to correct the error, and to do penance for the sin.” Then, [he treats] that penance and confession are indeed troublesome to us, yet very useful and necessary: “Yet that (namely, to do penance) is,” he says, “difficult in this life,” etc. “Rare [is] confession of sin, rare [is] penance, rare among men the assertion of his own word,” etc. “But if anyone,” he says, “sick, pretends himself sound, he will be the more sick,” etc. Finally, [he treats] that a confession is of no profit in which one does not act sincerely: “This fault,” he says, “the priests do not take away.” And (fol. 512): “It will not please the Lord, if the priest eat the sacrifice in which there is a fraud of the oblation, [and] not the diligent sincerity of confession.” And it befits [us] to bring forth our sins before the priest so much the more willingly and sincerely and plainly, the farther we are removed from Achan’s peril. He knew that by this confession of his he was to be condemned by Joshua, and consigned to the most grave punishment of the fire; and yet so openly, entirely, and candidly did he confess his deed. But we, by our confession, incur no peril of the body at all; [rather] we obtain the highest liberty, tranquillity, [and] happiness of soul. In no way can the priests [do] what the Lutheran Preachers [do], who — as they report in the sermon on the punishment of Nicolaus Crell, the Saxon Chancellor — said openly to the very people that [Crell] indeed was unwilling that the confession be revealed, yet [that] he had confessed to [the preacher] so many and so great [things] that he was most worthy of punishment. So too a senior Hamburg Preacher betrays, in a sermon, his fellow-penitent who had confessed a theft to him. A Hildesheim Preacher [betrayed] a Hildesheim citizen, and another [man] who had confessed a grave other crime, likewise upon the table [publicly], one of ours being present — and the Superintendent marveling at the folly of the Lutheran Confessors, and [their] inept garrulity. There was also a certain kind of confession carried over from the Israelites, by a certain rite, to some Gentiles. So [it was] that, in Samothrace, those who wished to be initiated into the rites had to declare their crimes before the sacrificer — as Plutarch relates in the Apophthegms of the Lacedaemonians. When Antalcidas refused to do this, and said, “if anything had been perpetrated by me, that indeed is known to the gods,” he went away excluded from the initiation of those rites. But those rites were vain, and vain too his reasoning against confession. For it was not obscure to the God of Israel [that] Achan’s sacrilege [had been committed]; but he willed him to humble himself, and to confess it openly. Lest, then, we be excluded from the most sacred of all sacred things — from the body and blood of the Lord, and from the sanctuaries of eternal life — why should we not shake out all the hiding-places of our vices? [Why not] gladly declare all our offenses — into the ears of one priest at least, who does not bind these [sins] but absolves [them], does not command [us] to be led to the flame but snatches [us] from the perpetual flame, does not afflict [us] with death but presents [us] with immortal and most blessed life, through the merit of Christ the Lord and the power received from him? I therefore, a foul sinner, will set myself before the venerable eyes of my true Joshua; and when to me — by himself, and his own
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vicar, my spiritual father, whom our Germany beautifully calls Beichtvater [father-confessor], I will not hesitate to say: “My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and confess, and show me what thou hast done. Hide nothing.”