In this same century, St. Pacian, who died Bishop of Barcelona about 373, and who wrote on Baptism and Penance, asserts:  “’But you will say you forgive sin to the penitent, whereas in baptism alone it is allowed you to loose sin.’  Not to me at all, but to God only, who both in baptism forgives the guilt incurred, and rejects not the tears of the penitent.  But what I do, I do not by my own right, but by the Lord’s. * * * Wherefore, whether we baptize, whether we constrain to penitence, or grant pardon to the penitent, Christ is our authority.  It is for you to see to it, whether Christ hath this power, whether Christ have done this.  Baptism is the Sacrament of our Lord’s passion; the pardon of penitents is the merit of confession."[46]

In the latter half of this same century, St. Ambrose, born in Gaul about 340, who lived till 397, the last twenty-two years Bishop of Milan, writes:  “Sins are remitted by the word of God, of which the Levite is the interpreter and also the executor; they are also remitted by the office of the priest and the sacred ministry."[47]

“It seemed impossible,” says this writer elsewhere, “that water should wash away sin.  Then Naaman the Syrian believed not that his leprosy could be cured by water; but God, who has given so great a grace, made the impossible to be possible.  In the same manner, it seemed impossible for sins to be forgiven by penitence.  Christ granted this to His Apostles, which has been from the Apostles transmitted to the offices of the priests."[48]

And, in similar strain, does St. John Chysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, who was born about 344, and died in 407, comment on the words “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth,” etc., etc.:  " * * * this bond touches the very soul itself, and reaches even unto heaven; and what the priests shall do below, the same does God ratify above, and the Lord confirms the sentence of his servants."[49]

The great St. Jerome, born in 342, and after a life spent at Alexandria, at Rome as Secretary to Pope Damasus, in Syria, and finally in Bethlehem translating the Scripture, died in 420.  He writes:  “In the same way, therefore, that there (among the Jews) the priests make the leper clean or unclean, so also here (in the Church) does the bishop or priest bind and loose not those who are innocent or guilty, but, according to his office, after hearing the various kinds of sins, he knows who is to be bound and who loosed."[50]

And St. Augustine, born 354, who was converted by the preaching of St. Ambrose, mentioned above, who was later made Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa, and who died in 430, writes:  “For this end are sins signified by these curtains, that they may be expressed by confession, and may, by the grace which is given to the Church, be abolished."[51]