Zozomen, afford ample proof of confession made publicly, of the
retaining of certain deadly crimes until a long time had been spent in
rigid penitential exercises, and, lastly, of the absolution finally
granted by bishops and priests.

These authors, as well as many who come after them, are clear in
discriminating between the _public_ confession, which is a matter of
discipline, and confession the necessary condition for the pardon of
sin. "Since," says Zozomen, the Greek ecclesiastical historian of the
fifth century, "it is absolutely necessary to confess our sins in
order to receive the pardon of them, it was thought too onerous and
too painful to exact that this confession should be made in public, as
in a theatre."

5. We may now turn to the writings of the Fathers of the first five
centuries. It will be seen that throughout, when treating of the
forgiveness of sin, it is always assumed that the priests of Holy
Church were endowed with the power of absolution, and exercised it on
those who had sinned after baptism. The sacrament of pardon is
constantly referred to under different names: "penance," "confession,"
"absolution," "exomologesis," "reconciliation," "the second baptism,"
"the laborious baptism," "the second plank after the shipwreck." Of
these, "exomologesis" occurs very frequently. Its meaning varies: at
one time it signifies manifestation of sin, whether in private or in
public, and at another it expresses the public penance and confession
in vogue in the first ages of the Church.

_At the end of the first century_, St. Clement of Rome, the third Pope
after St. Peter, who died in the year one hundred, and whom St. Paul,
in his Epistle to the Philippians, numbers among "his fellow-laborers