Receive the Holy Ghost
John 20:21-23, the breath and the keys, as the early church read it
On the evening of the resurrection, the risen Christ breathes on the disciples, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," and gives them a startling charge: "whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted… whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." The early church saw here both a new-creation breath (as God breathed life into Adam) and the entrusting of the ministry of forgiveness to the church. How that ministry is exercised is one of the places the later traditions divide. The Fathers below, with a plain restatement and an honest note on the division.
Each Father's words are verbatim and attributed (Catena Aurea, public domain, lightly corrected for scan errors). The box marked "In plain terms" is our own restatement, never the Father's words.
John 20:21-22 · KJV…as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
"Having then given them confidence by His own miracles… of His own authority gives them power: And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and says to them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost.'"
St. John Chrysostom"Some say that by breathing He did not give them the Spirit, but made them meet to receive the Spirit. For if Daniel's senses were so overpowered by the sight of the Angel, how would they have been overwhelmed in receiving that unutterable gift, if He had not first prepared them for it!"
St. John ChrysostomThe risen Lord commissions and empowers in one motion: "as the Father sent me… so send I you," and then He breathes, the same gesture by which God breathed life into Adam, now breathing the new life of the Spirit into His church. By His own authority He gives them the Spirit (some Fathers read this as a first installment, preparing them for the fuller outpouring at Pentecost). The mission is His, and so is the power to carry it.
John 20:23 · KJVWhose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
"The love of the Church, which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, remits the sins of those who partake of it; but retains the sins of those who do not. Where then He has said, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost,' He instantly makes mention of the remission and retaining of sins."
St. AugustineNotice how tightly Christ binds the gift of the Spirit to the ministry of forgiveness: in the same breath, "Receive the Holy Ghost… whose sins ye remit." Augustine roots the power not in a bare official title but in the Spirit Himself and "the love of the Church", forgiveness flows where the Spirit-filled communion of the church is received, and is withheld where it is refused. The church really is entrusted with announcing and ministering God's forgiveness.
Where the traditions diverge
All the traditions agree that here the risen Christ gives His church a genuine ministry of forgiveness; they differ on its form. The Catholic and Orthodox churches read this as the institution of sacramental confession and priestly absolution, the ordained minister, acting in Christ's name, truly absolves. Much of Protestantism reads it as the "office of the keys", the church's authority to proclaim and apply the gospel's forgiveness (the ministry of reconciliation of 2 Corinthians 5), with Lutherans and Anglicans retaining a form of absolution and others stressing the declared forgiveness of the preached Word. The early church clearly held a real, Spirit-given ministry of forgiveness in the church; the elaborated penitential and sacramental system developed later. Augustine's rooting of the power in the Spirit and "the love of the Church" shows the breadth before the later definitions. (See also The Rock and the Keys and the letter "Judge Not"? on binding and loosing.)
Patristic text from the Catena Aurea (public domain, transcription lightly corrected). Scripture in the King James Version; the plain-language lines are our own restatement, not the Fathers' words. This passage in the Study Bible; John 20 at BibleHub.