We have also the admirable life of St. Paulina, written by St. Jerome. And though in it he gives us every imaginable detail of her life when young, married and widow, though he tells us even how her bed was composed of the simplest and rudest materials, he has not a word about her ever having gone to confess. Jerome speaks of the acquaintances of St. Paulina and gives their names; he enters into the minutest details of her long voyages, her charities, her foundations of monasteries for men and women, her temptations, human frailties, heroic virtues, her macerations and her holy death: but he has not a word to say about the frequent or rare auricular confessions of St. Paulina; not a word about her wisdom in the choice of a prudent and holy (?) confessor.
He tells us that after her death, her body was carried to her grave on the shoulders of bishops and priests, as a token of their profound respect for the saint. But he never says that any of those priests sat there in a dark corner with her, and forced her to reveal to their ears the secret history of all the thoughts, desires, and human frailties of her long and eventful life. Jerome is an unimpeachable witness that his saintly and noble friend St. Paulina lived and died without having ever thought of going to confess.
Possidius has left us the interesting life of St. Augustine, of the fifth century; and again it is in vain that we look for the place or the time when that celebrated bishop of Hippo went to confess, or heard the secret confessions of his people.
More than that, St. Augustine has written a most admirable book, called: "Confessions," in which he gives us the history of his life. With that marvellous book in hand, we follow him, step by step, wherever he goes; we are the witnesses of what he does and thinks; we attend with him those celebrated schools, where his faith and morality were so sadly wrecked; he takes us with him into the garden where, wavering between heaven and hell, bathed in tears, he goes under the fig-tree and cries, "Oh Lord! how long will I remain in my iniquities!" Our soul thrills with emotions, with his soul, when we hear, with him, the sweet and mysterious voice: "Tolle! lege!" take and read. We run with him to the places where he had left his gospel book; with a trembling hand, we open it, and we read: "Let us walk honestly as in the day ... put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ..." (Rom. xiii, 13, 14.)
That incomparable book of Augustine makes us weep and shout with joy with him; it initiates us into all, his most secret actions, to all his sorrows, anxieties and joys, it reveals and unvails his whole life. It tells us where he goes, with whom he sins, and with whom he praises God; it makes us pray, sing and bless the Lord with him. Is it possible that Augustine could have been to confess without telling us when, where and to whom he made confession? Could he have received the absolution and pardon of his sins from his confessor, without making us partakers of his joys, and requesting us to bless that confessor with him.
But, it is in vain that you look in that book for a single word about auricular confession. That book is an unimpeachable witness that neither Augustine nor his saintly mother Monica, whom it mentions so often, lived and died without ever having been to confess. That book may be called the most crushing evidence to prove that, "the dogma of auricular confession" is a modern imposture.
From the beginning to the end of that book, we see that Augustine believed and said that God alone could forgive the sins of men, and that it was to Him alone that men had to confess in order to be pardoned. If he writes his confession, it is only that the world might know how God had been merciful to him, and that they might help him to praise and bless the merciful Heavenly Father. In the tenth book of his Confessions, chapter iii, Augustine protests against the idea that men could do anything to cure the spiritual leper, or forgive the sins of their fellow-men; here is his eloquent protest: "Quid mihi ergo est cum hominibus ut audiant confessiones meas, quasi ipsi sanaturi sint languores meas? Curiosum genus ad cognoscendam vitam alienam; desidiosum ad corrigendam."
"What have I to do with men that I might be obliged to confess my sins to them, as if they were able to heal my infirmities? Oh Lord! that human race is very fond of knowing the sins of their neighbors; but they are very neglectful in correcting their own lies."
Before Augustine had built up that sublime and imperishable monument against auricular confession, St. John Chrysostom had raised his eloquent voice against it, in his homily on the 50th Psalm, where, speaking in the name of the Church, he said: "We do not request you to go to confess your sins to any of your fellow-men, but only to God!"
Nestorius, of the 4th century, the predecessor of John Chrysostom, had, by a public defense, which the best Roman Catholic historians have had to acknowledge, solemnly forbidden the practice of auricular confession. For, just as there has always been thieves, drunkards and malefactors in the world, so there has always been men and women who, under the pretext of opening their minds to each other for mutual comfort and edification, were giving themselves to every kind of iniquity and lust. The celebrated Chrysostom was only giving the sanction of his authority to what his predecessor had done when, thundering against the newly born monster, he said to the Christians of his time, "We do not ask you to go and confess your iniquities to a sinful man for pardon—but only to God." (Homily on 50th Psalm.)