In the first half of the third century, flourished St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage.  Born in North Africa, he became a Christian about 240, and was beheaded in 238 “as an enemy of the gods, and a seducer of the people.”  He repeatedly refers to the practice of confession and absolution.  The following passage from his work “De Lapsis” will suffice to show his mind:  “God perceives the things that are hidden, and considers those that are hidden and concealed.  None can escape the eye of God:  He sees the heart and breast of every person, and He will judge not only our actions, but also our words and thoughts.  He regards the minds of all, and the wishes conceived in the hidden recesses of the breast.  In fine, how much loftier in faith and in fear (of God) superior are they who, though implicated in no crime of sacrifice, or of accepting a certificate, yet because they have only had thought thereof, this very thing sorrowingly and honestly confessing before the priests of God, make a confession (exomologesis) of their conscience, expose the burthen of the soul, seek out a salutary cure even for light and little wounds, knowing that it is written ‘God will not be mocked.’”

In the early part of the fourth century, Lactantius, who is said to have been converted about the year 290, and to have been put to death about 326, writes:  “As every sect of heretics thinks its followers are above all other Christians, and its own the Catholic Church, it is to be known that is the true Catholic Church wherein is confession and penitence which wholesomely heals the wounds and sins to which the weakness of the flesh is subject."[43]

In the first half of the fourth century, Eusebius, the well-known ecclesiastical historian and Bishop of Caesarea, in Palestine, who was born about 270, flourished during the reigns of Constantine and Constantius, and died in 340, leaves on record that the Emperor Philip, who wished to join in the prayers of the Church, was not permitted to do so “until he made his exomologesis (confession), and classed himself with those who were separated on account of their sins."[44]

In the same century, St. Hiliary, Bishop of Poietiers, in Gaul, who died in 368, writes:  “There is the most powerful and most useful medicine for the diseases of deadly vices in their confession. * * * Confession of sin is this, that what has been done by thee thou confess to be a sin, through thy conviction that it is sin."[45]

In the fourth century, St. Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, born about the year 296, who lived till 373, and whose name is identified with the General Council of Nice, is equally explicit.  “As man,” says he, “is illuminated with the grace of the Holy Spirit by the priest that baptizes, so also he who confesses in penitence receives through the priest, by the grace of Christ, the remission of sin.”