For a good friend…forgiveness of post-baptismal sin/s in the early Church.

A frequent poster here at Articuli Fidei (Rory) and myself were recently having a conversation concerning the development of doctrine and the boundaries that each of us would be willing to accept for discerning between legitimate and illegitimate development. For instance, I said I would be very uncomfortable embracing infant baptism as a legitimate development if the apostles did not baptize infants. I was then asked if I knew of any significant changes in Church doctrine and/or practice which might pose a similar ‘problem’ and mentioned the forgiveness of post-baptismal sin in the early Church. Rory seemed a bit skeptical as I rattled off from memory my take on this particular development, so I have decided to create a brief post outlining some of the specifics.

For the sake of brevity (and a certain laziness on my part), I am going to limit all of the following quotes from one source: Kenan B. Osborne’s (O.F.M.) Reconciliation & Justification – The Sacrament and Its Theology (Paulist Press – 1990).

In this chapter [“In The Patristic Period”] we will consider the emergence of a ritual of reconciliation as we find it documented in the pages of church history. Remarkably, it is not until the middle of the second century that there is a clear indication in the available data of such a ritual. Nonetheless, even from the middle of the second century onward there are, at first, only scattered historical data which indicate the way in which the early patristic church through a ritual isolated, repelled and negated sin. At the height of the patristic period, i.e. in the fifth and sixth centuries, one finds a clearer picture of both the theology and of the liturgy of reconciliation in this period of church history.

One must keep in mind that in the history of this sacrament there has not been an organic development. One generation’s practice did not, at times, lead smoothly into the next generation’s practice. From the patristic period to the twentieth century, there have been several “official” positions of the church as regards the ritual of this sacrament. (Pages 52, 53.)

The post-apostolic age up to Hermas (c. 140) provides no identifiable references to any ritualized practice of reconciliation…E. Bourque, among many others, notes that in this sub-apostolic period there was a general tendency toward rigorism (enkratism), so that, once baptized, the Christian was seen as someone who ought never to sin again. Post-baptismal sin was not something which Christians of that era took for granted. (Page 53.)

It was Hermas (c. 140), a lay person apparently connected with the church at Rome, who first clearly mentions the possibility of a penitential rite for serious sins committed after baptism. Whether he had initiated something hitherto unknown in the church, or whether he is propagating something that was already present, is controverted. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that in Hermas’ writings we see the following: a.) After baptism there is one and only one possibility for reconciliation with the church b.) This reconciliation is ecclesial and has a public quality about it…Hermas’ writings affect the discipline of the church for centuries. In the west, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Pacian, Leo, and Gregory the Great, to name only a few, clearly attest to the unrepeatability of penance. In the east, the Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, echo this discipline of unrepeatability…It is only through the influence of the Celtic approach to penance, in the early middle ages, that there is a change in this discipline.

One should also note that in both east and west, during the entire patristic period, there was (a) no “confession of devotion” as we find it in later ages, (b) no private confession, such as that of a later age, and (c) no confession of venial sin. (Pages 53, 54.)

In spite of some unclarity in the writings of Hermas, we can say that a public form of reconciliation, which could be received only once in a lifetime, became the “canon law” of the entire church, both east and west, for the next nine centuries. (Page 55.)


The rest of the chapter (pages 55- 83) is devoted to citations (and commentary) from the writings of various Church Fathers in support of the above claims. There is also a brief discussion concerning the tria capitalia, the sins of apostasy, adultery, and murder, which some Fathers excluded from the list of sins that the one time (only) rite of reconciliation could forgive, and as such, treated these three as “unforgivable” (post-baptismal) sins.


Let the comments begin…


Grace and peace,

David