CONFESSION, among divines, the verbal acknowledgment which a Christian makes of his sins.
Among the Jews it was the custom, on the annual feast of expiation, for the high priest to make confession of sins to God in the name of the whole people. And besides this general confession, the Jews were enjoined, if their sins were a breach of the first table of the law, to make confession of them to God; but violations of the second table were also to be acknowledged to their brethren. The practice of auricular confession, now elevated to the dignity of a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church, seems to have originated in the ninth century, but did not become obligatory till the thirteenth. Confession once a-year to a priest was first enjoined by Innocent III.; and the priest is bound not to reveal it, under pain of the highest punishment.