"Whoever," said Novatian, its leader, "has offered sacrifice to idols,
or stained his soul with the guilt of sin, can no longer remain within
the Church; and if he be of those who have denied the faith, he can
not again enter her communion: for her members consist only of pure
and faithful souls."

These contentions had one great advantage: they brought into
prominence the teaching of the Church concerning "the forgiveness of
sin," and occasioned a more scientific and dogmatic statement of the
doctrine concerning the Sacrament of Penance. In the controversy,
figure the names of St. Cornelius, Pope, of St. Cyprian, of St.
Athanasius, of St. Pacian, of St. Gregory Nazianzen, of Tertullian.
Until the schismatics were driven to extremities, it is plain both
sides take it for granted that the Ministry of Reconciliation was
given to the Church by Jesus Christ, and that the exercise of the
ministry consisted in pronouncing judicial sentence of pardon on those
who had shown repentance and had confessed their grievous sins.
Religious strife in this case produces the interesting evidence that,
as early as the second and third centuries, Confession and Absolution
were held and practised as necessary for the pardoning of sin under
the Christian dispensation.

4. The Penitential Canons of the first ages of the Church are another
evidence to the doctrine of Absolution and Confession. The Apostolic
Constitutions,[35] and Tertullian,[36] give us a picture of the severe
penitential discipline to which sinners were subjected. Many painful
circumstances obliged the Church modify and almost abrogate these
public penances.

The accounts of the suppression given by the historians, Socrates and