rivate confession
of sins is plain from his epistle to Letoius, (p. 954,) in which he
writes thus: "Whoever secretly steals another man's goods, if he
afterwards discovers his sins by declaration to the priest, his heart
being changed, he will cure his wound, giving what he has to the poor."
This for occult theft, for which no canonical penance was prescribed. He
inculcates the authority of priests of binding and loosing before God,
(Serm. do Castig. 746, 747,) and calls St. Peter "prince of the
apostolic choir," (Serm. 2, de Sancto Stephano edito a Zacagnio, p.
339,) and (ib. p. 343,) "the head of the apostles;" and adds, "In
glorifying him all the members of the church are glorified, and that it
is founded on him." He writes very expressly and at length on the
invocation of saints, and says they enjoy the beatific vision
immediately after death, in his sermons on St. Theodorus, on the Forty
Martyrs, St. Ephrem, St. Meletius, &c.

ST. PACIAN, BISHOP OF BARCELONA, C.

WAS a great ornament of the church in the fourth century. He was
illuustrious by birth, and had been engaged in marriage in the world.
His son Dexter was raised to the first dignities in the empire, being
high chamberlain to the emperor Theodosius, and praefectus-praetorio under
Honorius. St. Pacian having renounced the world, was made bishop in 373.
St. Jerom, who dedicated to him his Catalogue of illustrious men, extols
his eloquence and learning, and more particularly the chastity and
sanctity of his life. We have his Exhortation to Penance, and three
letters to Sympronianus, a Novatian nobleman, on Penance, and on the
name of Catholic; also a sermon on Baptism. See St. Jerom, Catal. Vir.
Illust. c. 106, p. 195 t 4: Ceillier, t. 6; Tillem. t. 8.

APPENDIX

ON

THE WRITINGS OF ST. PACIAN OF BARCELONA.

WHEN he was made bishop of Barcelona, in 373, there lived in the
neighborhood of that city one Sympronian, a man of distinction, whom the
bishop calls brother and lord, who was a Donatist, and also engaged in
the heresy of the Novatians, who, following the severity of the
Montanists, denied penance and pardon for certain sins. He sent St.
Pacian a letter by a servant, in which he censured the church for
allowing repentance to all crimes, and for taking the title of Catholic.
St. Pacian answers him in three learned letters.

In the first he sums up the principal heresies from Simon Magus to the
Novatians and asks Sympronian, which he will choose to