confession (konfeshon)

[ Nor do we find him forward to be sounded; But, with a crafty madne , keeps aloof, When we would bring him on to some confe ion Of his true state. Shak ., Hamlet, iii. 1. Giving one the torture, and then asking his confe ion, which is hard usuage. Sir W. Temple . (b) The act of making an avowal; profe ion. I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quicken eth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witne ed a good confe ion . 1 Tim. vi. 13. (c) Eccles., a disclosing of sins or faults to a priest; the disburdening of the conscience privately to a confe or: often called auricular confe ion. In both the Eastern and the Western Church confe ion is one of the four parts of the sacrament of penance, viz., contrition, confe ion, absolution, and satisfaction. See sacramental confe ion. Of hys fader say, Which to Rome to the holy fader came Hys confe ion to declare alway. Rom . of Partenay (E. E. T. S.), 1. 5120. Auricular confe ion , as commonly called, or the private and special confe ion of sins to a priest for the purpose of obtaining his absolution, an imperative duty in the Church of Rome, was left to each man's discre tion. Hallam . (d) In common law, an admi ion or acknowledgment of guilt. A judicial confe ion is a confe ion made in court, or before an examining magistrate. An extra - judiciat confe ion is one made not in the course of legal prosecution for the offense, but out of court, whether made to an official or a non-official person. (e) In Rom. law, the ad mi ion by the defendant of the plaintiff's claim. It was either in jure (that is, before the pretor, and before the case had been referred to a judge to be tried) or in judicio (that is, made after the case had been so referred). 2. In liturgics: (a) In many Oriental and early liturgies, a form of prayer acknowledging sinfulne and unworthine , said by the priest before the celebration of the eucharist: also called the apologia. (b) In the Roman and other Latin ma es, the Confiteor, or form of general acknowledgment of sins, said first by the celebrant and then by the a istants, and followed by the Misereatur and Indulgent i am before the priest ascends to the altar and proceeds to the Introit. (c) In the Anglican communion office, the form of general acknowledgment of sins made by the celebrant and the communicants. (d) In the liturgy of St. Chrysostom, and in the Alexandrine and other Oriental liturgies, the profe ion of faith, made before communicating, that the consecrated elements are really and truly the body and blood of Christ. -3. A formulary which comprises articles of religious faith; a creed to be a ented to or signed as a preliminary to admi ion to the membership of a church, or to certain offices of authority in the church: usually called a confe ion of faith. The great confe ions of faith of the Protestant Christian church are: the Augsburg Confe ion (1530), a part of the symbol of the Luther an Church; the first and second Helvetic confe ions (1536 and 1566), symbols of the Reformed churches of Switzerland, the latter being approved by nearly all the Reformed churches of the Continent and of England and Scotland; the Gallican Confe ion (1559), also called the Confe ion of Rochelle, prepared by Calvin and his pupil De Chandieu, the symbol of the French Protestant church; the Belgic Confe ion (1561, revised 1619), the symbol of the Reformed churches in Belgium and the Netherlands, and of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in the United States; the first Scotch Confe ion (1560) and the second Scotch Confe ion or the National Covenant (1581), the symbols of the Scotch church before the adoption of the Westminster Confe ion; the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (1563 and 1571); the American revision of the same (1801), the symbol of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States; the Irish Article (1615) and the Lambeth Articles (1595), the symbols of the Church of Ireland; the Canons of the Synod of Dort (1619), at present recognized by the Dutch Church, and by the Reformed (Dutch) Church in the United States; the Westminster Confe ion (1647), the symbol of the Presbyterian Church in England, and of Scotland (taking the place in Scotland of the so-called Scotch confe ions), and, with some alterations, of the Presbyterian Church of America; the Savoy Confe ion (1658), adopted by the Independents at the Savoy palace, London; the declaration of the Congregational Union of England and Wales (1833), of the Boston (United States) National Council (1865), and of the Oberlin National Council (1871), symbols of Congregational churches; the Articles of Religion (1784) of the Methodist Church; the Confe ion of 1688, and the New Hampshire Confe ion (1833), symbols of the Baptist Church. See cate chism, creed. 4. [ML. confe io (n-).] The tomb of a martyr or confe or. If an altar was erected over the grave, the name was extended also to the altar and to the subterranean chamber in which it stood. In later times a ba silica was sometimes erected over the chamber; the high altar placed over the altar on the tomb below, fore no wonder if men fly from it. South . was called a confe ion. Also called confe ional, and in the confe ionalist Greek Church catabasis or cat a basion. - Auricular confe ion. See sacramental confe ion, below. - Confe ion and avoidance, in law, the substance of a pleading by which the party admits the allegation of his adversary's pleading to be true, but states some new matter by way of avoiding its legal effect. Confe ion of faith. See 3, above. Confe ion of judgment, the acknowledgment of a debt by a debtor before a court or a justice of the peace, etc., on which judgment may be entered and execution i ued. - General confe ion. (a) A confe ion made to a priest of sins committed by the penitent since baptism or since infancy, so far as those sins can be remembered; a confe ion made in preparation for baptism by one baptized after coming to years of discretion, also before admi ion to a monastic order. (b) [ cap.] In the Book of Common Prayer: (1) The form of acknowledgment of sins to be said by the minister and the whole congregation at the beginning of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. (2) The form of confe ion in the Communion office. - Judgment by confe ion, a judgment obtained on a confe ion made to a court or a magistrate, or by the withdrawal of the defense, or against a plaintiff by nolle prosequi. - Sacramental or auricular confe ion, the act or practice of confe ing sins to a priest, for the purpose of receiving absolution. At a very early period, for gro apostasy or other public sins, public confe ion was required as a condition precedent to partaking of the communion. Public confe ion was gradually abolished in order to prevent scandal and social and legal complications. Auricular confe ion was first made universally obligatory in the West as a condition of admi ion to communion by the fourth Later an Council in A. D. 1215. It is now required in the Roman Catholic Church from all who are conscious of mortal sins, and is regarded as e ential to absolution and divine pardon, and a nece ary prerequisite to partaking of the communion. Priests are bound in the strongest manner never to disclose a secret thus confided to them. Confe ion is obligatory in the Orthodox Greek and in the Armenian Church. The Anglican Church differs from the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Church in not making it obligatory, but leaving it to the conscience of the individual. - Seal of confe ion, in the Rom. Cath. and in the Gr. Ch., absolute secrecy incumbent on a priest with regard to all private confe ions of sins made to him. A similar secrecy is enjoined by the 113th canon of the Church of England. Also called the seal, and the sacramental seal. confe ional (kon-fesh'on-al), a. and n. [Ι. a.: = F. confe ionnel = It. confe ion ale, The old confe ional barriers of the Scottish faith. IMG:content-1031.jpg:[merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][merged small] both sides, through which the penitent speaks. Confe ionals are often constructed in three divisions, the central one having a seat for the priest, and some are elaborately carved. Also called confe ion - chair, confe ionary, and shriving-pew. 2. Same as confe ion, 4. confe ionalism (kon-fesh'on-al-izm), n. [ The seventeenth century is the period of scholastic orthodoxy, polemic confe ionalism , and comparative stagnation. Schaff , Hist. Christ. Church, I. § 4.