Chapter I.-Of Heathen Repentance.
Repentance, men understand, so far as
nature is able, to be an emotion of the
mind arising from disgust at some
previously cherished worse sentiment:
that kind of men I mean which even we
ourselves were in days gone by-blind,
without the Lord's light. From the
reason of repentance, however, they are
just as far as they are from the Author
of reason Himself. Reason, in fact, is a
thing of God, inasmuch as there is
nothing which God the Maker of all has
not provided, disposed, ordained by
reason-nothing which He has not willed
should be handled and understood by
reason. All, therefore, who are ignorant
of God, must necessarily be ignorant
also of a thing which is His, because no
treasure-house at all is accessible to
strangers. And thus, voyaging all the
universal course of life without the
rudder of reason, they know not how to
shun the hurricane which is impending
over the world. Moreover, how
irrationally they behave in the practice
of repentance, it will be enough briefly
to show just by this one fact, that
they! exercise it even in the case of
their good deeds. They repent of good
faith, of love, of simple-heartedness,
of patience, of mercy, just in
proportion as any deed prompted by these
feelings has fallen on thankless soil.
They execrate their own selves for
having done good; and that species
chiefly of repentance which is applied
to the best works they fix in their
heart, making it their care to remember
never again to do a good turn. On
repentance for evil deeds, on the
contrary, they lay lighter stress. In
short, they make this same (virtue) a
means of sinning more readily than a
means of right-doing.
Chapter II.-True Repentance a Thing
Divine, Originated by God, and Subject
to His Laws.
But if they acted as men who had any
part in God, and thereby in reason also,
they would first weigh well the
importance of repentance, and would
never apply it in such a way as to make
it a ground for convicting themselves of
perverse self-amendment. In short, they
would regulate the limit of their
repentance, because they would reach (a
limit) in sinning too-by fearing God, I
mean. But where there is no fear, in
like manner there is no amendment; where
there is no amendment, repentance is of
necessity vain, for it lacks the fruit
for which God sowed it; that is, man's
salvation. For God-after so many and so
great sins of human temerity, begun by
the first of the race, Adam, after the
condemnation of man, together with the
dowry of the world after his ejection
from paradise and subjection to
death-when He had hasted back to His own
mercy, did from that time onward
inaugurate repentance in His own self,
by rescinding the sentence of His first
wrath, engaging to grant pardon to His
own work and image. And so He gathered
together a people for Himself, and
fostered them with many liberal
distributions of His bounty, and, after
so often finding them most ungrateful,
ever exhorted them to repentance and
sent out the voices of the universal
company of the prophets to prophesy. By
and by, promising freely the grace which
in the last times He was intending to
pour as a flood of light on the
universal world through His Spirit, He
bade the baptism of repentance lead the
way, with the view of first preparing,by
means of the sign and seal of
repentance, them whom He was calling,
through grace, to (inherit) the promise
surely made to Abraham. John holds not
his peace, saying, "Enter upon
repentance, for now shall salvation
approach the nations" -the Lord,
that is, bringing salvation according to
God's promise. To Him John, as His
harbinger, directed the repentance
(which he preached), whose province was
the purging of men's minds, that
whatever defilement inveterate error had
imparted, whatever contamination in the
heart of man ignorance had engendered,
that repentance should sweep and scrape
away, and cast out of doors, and thus
prepare the home of the heart, by making
it clean, for the Holy Spirit, who was
about to supervene, that He might with
pleasure introduce Himself there-into,
together with His celestial blessings.
Of these blessings the title is briefly
one the salvation of man-the abolition
of former sins being the preliminary
step. This10 is the (final) cause
of repentance, this her work, in taking
in hand the business of divine mercy.
What is profitable to man does service
to God. The rule of repentance, however,
which we learn when we know the Lord,
retains a definite form,-viz., that no
violent hands so to speak, be ever laid
on good deeds or thoughts. For God,
never giving His sanction to the
reprobation of good deeds, inasmuch as
they are His own (of which, being the
author, He must necessarily be the
defender too), is in like manner the
acceptor of them, and if the acceptor,
likewise the rewarder. Let, then, the
ingratitude of men see to it, if
it attaches repentance even to good
works; let their gratitude see to it
too, if the desire of earning it be the
incentive to well-doing: earthly and
mortal are they each. For how small is
your gain if you do good to a grateful
man! or your loss if to an ungrateful! A
good deed has God as its debtor, just as
an evil has too; for a judge is rewarder
of every cause. Well, since, God as
Judge presides over the exacting and
maintaining of justice, which to Him is
most dear; and since it is with an eye
to justice that He appoints all the sum
of His discipline, is there room for
doubting that, just as in all our acts
universally, so also in the case of
repentance, justice must be rendered to
God?-which duty can indeed only be
fulfilled on the condition that
repentance be brought to bear only on
sins. Further, no deed but an evil one
deserves to be called sin, nor does any
one err by well-doing. But if he does
not err, why does he invade (the
province of) repentance, the private
ground of such as do err? Why does he
impose on his goodness a duty proper to
wickedness? Thus it comes to pass that,
when a thing is called into play where
it ought not, there, where it ought, it
is neglected.
Chapter III.-Sins May Be Divided
into Corporeal and Spiritual. Both
Equally Subject, If Not to Human, Yet
to Divine Investigation and
Punishment1
What things, then, they be for which
repentance seems just and due-that is,
what things are to be set down under the
head of sin-the occasion indeed demands
that I should note down; but (to do so)
may seem to be unnecessary. For when the
Lord is known, our spirit, having
been" looked back upon" by its
own Author, emerges unbidden into the
knowledge of the truth; and being
admitted to (an acquaintance with) the
divine precepts, is by them forthwith
instructed that "that from which
God bids us abstain is to be accounted
sin: "inasmuch as, since it is
generally agreed that God is some great
essence of good, of course nothing but
evil would be displeasing to good; in
that, between things mutually contrary,
friendship there is none. Still it will
not be irksome briefly to touch upon the
fact16that, of sins, some are carnal,
that is, corporeal; some spiritual. For
since man is composed of this
combination of a two-fold substance, the
sources of his sins are no other than
the sources of his composition. But it
is not the fact that body and spirit are
two things that constitute the sins
mutually different-otherwise they are on
this account rather equal, because the
two make up one-lest any make the
distinction between their sins
proportionate to the difference between
their substances, so as to esteem the
one lighter, or else heavier, than the
other: if it be true, (as it is, ) that
both flesh and spirit are creatures of
God; one wrought by His hand, one
consummated by His afflatus. Since,
then, they equally pertain to the Lord,
whichever of them sins equally offends
the Lord. Is it for you to distinguish
the acts of the flesh and the spirit,
whose communion and conjunction in life,
in death, and in resurrection, are so
intimate, that "at that
time"they are equally raised up
either for life or else for judgment;
because, to wit, they have equally
either sinned or lived innocently? This
we would (once for all) premise, in
order that we may understand that no
less necessity for repentance is
incumbent on either part of man, if in
anything it have sinned, than on both.
The guilt of both is common; common,
too, is the Judge-God to wit; common,
therefore, is withal the healing
medicine of repentance. The source
whence sins are named
"spiritual" and
"corporeal" is the fact that
every sin is matter either of act or
else of thought: so that what is in deed
is "corporeal," because a
deed, like a body, is capable of being
seen and touched; what is in the mind is
"spiritual," because spirit is
neither seen nor handled: by which
consideration is shown that sins not of
deed only, but of will too, are to be
shunned, and by repentance purged. For
if human finitude judges only sins of
deed, because it is not equal to
(piercing) the lurking-places of the
will, let us not on that account make
light of crimes of the will in God's
sight. God is all-sufficient. Nothing
from whence any sin whatsoever proceeds
is remote from His sight; because He is
neither ignorant, nor does He omit to
decree it to judgment. He is no
dissembler of, nor double-dealer
with,His own clear-sightedness. What
(shall we say of the fact) that will is
the origin of deed? For if any sins are
imputed to chance, or to necessity, or
to ignorance, let them see to
themselves: if these be excepted, there
is no sinning save by will. Since, then,
will is the origin of deed, is it not so
much the rather amenable to penalty as
it is first in guilt? Nor, if some
difficulty interferes with its full
accomplishment, is it even in that ease
exonerated; for it is itself imputed to
itself: nor; having done the work which
lay in its own power, will it be
excusable by reason of that miscarriage
of its accomplishment. In fact, how does
the Lord demonstrate Himself as adding a
superstructure to the Law, except by
interdicting sins of the will as well
(as other sins); while He defines not
only the man who had actually invaded
another's wedlock to be an adulterer,
but likewise him who had contaminated (a
woman) by the concupiscence of his
gaze?Accordingly it is dangerous enough
for the mind to set before itself what
it is forbidden to perform, and rashly
through the will to perfect its
execution. And since the power of this
will is such that, even without fully
sating its self-gratification, it stands
for a deed; as a deed, therefore, it
shall be punished. It is utterly vain to
say, "I willed, but yet I did
not." Rather you ought to carry the
thing through, because you will; or else
not to will, because you do not carry it
through. But, by the confession of your
consciousness, you pronounce your own
condemnation. For if you eagerly desired
a good thing, you would have been
anxious to carry it through; in like
manner, as you do not carry an evil
thing through, you ought not to have
eagerly desired it. Wherever you take
your stand, you are fast bound by guilt;
because you have either willed evil, or
else have not fulfilled good.
Chapter IV.-Repentance Applicable
to All the Kinds of Sin. To Be
Practised Not Only, Nor Chiefly, for
the Good It Brings, But Because God
Commands It.
To all sins, then, committed whether
by flesh or spirit, whether by deed or
will, the same God who has destined
penalty by means of judgment, has withal
engaged to grant pardon by means of
repentance, saying to the people,
"Repent thee, and I will save thee;
"and again, "I live, saith the
Lord, and I will (have) repentance
rather than death." Repentance,
then, is "life," since it is
preferred to "death." That
repentance, O sinner, like myself (nay,
rather, less than myself, for
pre-eminence in sins I acknowledge to be
mine), do you so hasten to, so embrace,
as a shipwrecked man the protection of
some plank. This will draw you forth
when sunk in the waves of sins, and will
bear you forward into the port of the
divine clemency. Seize the opportunity
of unexpected felicity: that you, who
sometime were in God's sight nothing but
"a drop of a bucket," and
"dust of the threshing-floor,"
and "a potter's vessel," may
thenceforward become that "tree
which is sown beside the waters, is
perennial in leaves, bears fruit at its
own time,"29 and shall not see
fire,"nor "axe."Having
found "the truth," repent of
errors; repent of having loved what God
loves not: even we ourselves do not
permit our slave-lads not to hate the
things which are offensive to us; for
the principle of voluntary obedience
consists in similarity of minds.
To reckon up the good, of repentance,
the subject-matter is copious, and
therefore should be committed to great
eloquence. Let us, however, in
proportion to our narrow abilities,
inculcate one point,-that what God
enjoins is good and best. I hold it
audacity to dispute about the
"good" of a divine precept;
for, indeed, it is not the fact that it
is good which binds us to obey, but the
fact that God has enjoined it. To exact
the rendering of obedience the majesty
of divine power has the prior right; the
authority of Him who commands is prior
to the utility of him who serves.
"Is it good to repent, or no?
"Why do you ponder? God enjoins;
nay, He not merely enjoins, but likewise
exhorts. He invites by (offering)
reward-salvation, to wit; even by an
oath, saying "I live,"He
desires that credence may be given Him.
Oh blessed we, for whose Sake God
swears! Oh most miserable, if we believe
not the Lord even when He swears! What,
therefore, God so highly commends, what
He even (after human fashion) attests on
oath, we are bound of course to
approach, and to guard with the utmost
seriousness; that, abiding permanently
in (the faith of) the solemn pledge36 of
divine grace, we may be able also to
persevere in like manner in its fruit37
and its benefit.
Chapter V.-Sin Never to Be Returned
to After Repentance.
For what I say is this, that the
repentance which, being shown us and
commanded us through God's grace,
recalls us to grace39 with the Lord,
when once learned and undertaken by us
ought never afterward to be cancelled by
repetition of sin. No pretext of
ignorance now remains to plead on your
behalf; in that, after acknowledging the
Lord, and accepting His precepts40
-in short, after engaging in repentance
of (past) sins-you again betake you self
to sins. Thus, in as far as you are
removed from ignorance, in so far are
you cementedto contumacy. For if the
ground on which you had repented of
having sinned was that you had begun to
fear the Lord, why have you preferred to
rescind what you did for fear's sake,
except because you have ceased to fear?
For there is no other thing but
contumacy which subverts fear. Since
there is no exception which defends from
liability to penalty even such as are
ignorant of the Lord-because ignorance
of God, openly as He is set before men,
and comprehensible as He is even on the
score of His heavenly benefits, is not
possible -how perilous is it for Him to
be despised when known? Now, that man
does despise Him, who, after attaining
by His help to an understanding of
things good and evil, often an affront
to his own understanding-that is, to
God's gift-by resuming what he
understands ought to be shunned, and
what he has already shunned: he rejects
the Giver in abandoning the gift; he
denies the Benefactor in not honouring
the benefit. How can he be pleasing to
Him, whose gift is displeasing to
himself? Thus he is shown to be not only
contumacious toward the Lord, but
likewise ungrateful. Besides, that man
commits no light sin against the Lord,
who, after he had by repentance
renounced His rival the devil, and had
under this appellation subjected him to
the Lord, again upraises him by his own
return (to the enemy), and makes himself
a ground of exultation to him; so that
the Evil One, with his prey recovered,
rejoices anew against the Lord. Does he
not-what is perilous even to say, but
must be put forward with a view to
edification-place the devil before the
Lord? For he seems to have made the
comparison who has known each; and to
have judicially pronounced him to be the
better whose (servant) he has preferred
again to be. Thus he who, through
repentance for sins, had begun to make
satisfaction to the Lord, will, through
another repentance of his repentance,
make satisfaction to the devil, and will
be the more hateful to God in proportion
as he will be the more acceptable to His
rival. But some say that "God is
satisfied if He be looked up to with the
heart and the mind, even if this be not
done in outward act, and that thus they
sin without damage to their fear and
their faith: "that is, that they
violate wedlock without damage to their
chastity; they mingle poison for their
parent without damage to their filial
duty! Thus, then, they will themselves
withal be thrust down into hell without
damage to their pardon, while they sin
without damage to their fear! Here is a
primary example of perversity: they sin,
because they fear! I suppose, if they
feared not, they would not sin! Let him,
therefore, who would not have God
offended not revere Him at all, if fear
is the plea for offending But these
dispositions have been wont to sprout
from the seed of hypocrites, whose
friendship with the devil is
indivisible, whose repentance never
faithful.
Chapter VI.-Baptism Not to Be
Presumptously Received, It Requires
Preceding Repentance, Manifested by
Amendment of Life.
Whatever, then, our poor ability has
attempted to suggest with reference to
laying hold of repentance once for all,
and perpetually retaining it, does
indeed bear upon all who are given up to
the Lord, as being all competitors for
salvation in earning the favour of God;
but is chiefly urgent in the case of
those young novices who are only just
beginning to bedew their ears with
divine discourses, and who, as whelps in
yet early infancy, and with eyes not yet
perfect, creep about uncertainly, and
say indeed that they renounce their
former deed, and assume (the profession
of) repentance, but neglect to complete
it. For the very end of desiring
importunes them to desire somewhat of
their former deeds; just as fruits, when
they are already beginning to turn into
the sourness or bitterness of age, do
yet still in some part flatter their own
loveliness. Moreover, a presumptuous
confidence in baptism introduces all
kind of vicious delay and tergiversation
with regard to repentance; for, feeling
sure of undoubted pardon of their sins,
men meanwhile steal the intervening
time, and make it for themselves into a
holiday-time for sinning, rather than a
time for learning not to sin. Further,
how inconsistent is it to expect pardon
of sins (to be granted) to a repentance
which they have not fulfilled! This is
to hold out your hand for merchandise,
but not produce the price. For
repentance is the price at which the
Lord has determined to award pardon: He
proposes the redemption of release from
penalty at this compensating exchange of
repentance. If, then, sellers first
examine the coin with which they make
their bargains, to see whether it be
cut, or scraped, or adulterated, we
believe likewise that the Lord, when
about to make us the grant of so costly
merchandise, even of eternal life, first
institutes a probation of our
repentance. "But meanwhile let us
defer the reality of our repentance: it
will then, I suppose, be clear that we
are amended when we are absolved."
By no means; (but our amendment should
be manifested) while, pardon being in
abeyance, there is still a prospect of
penalty; while the penitent does not yet
merit-so far as merit we can-his
liberation; while God is threatening,
not while He is forgiving. For what
slave, after his position has been
changed by reception of freedom, charges
himself with his (past) thefts and
desertions? What soldier, after his
discharge, makes satisfaction for his
(former) brands? A sinner is bound to
bemoan himself before receiving pardon,
because the time of repentance is
coincident with that of peril and of
fear. Not that I deny that the divine
benefit-the putting away of sins, I
mean-is in every way sure to such as are
on the point of entering the (baptismal)
water; but what we have to labour for
is, that it may be granted us to attain
that blessing. For who will grant to
you, a man of so faithless repentance,
one single sprinkling of any water
whatever? To approach it by stealth,
indeed, and to get the minister
appointed over this business misled by
your asseverations, is easy; but God
takes foresight for His own treasure,
and suffers not the unworthy to steal a
march upon it. What, in fact, does He
say? "Nothing hid which shall not
be revealed."Draw whatever (veil
of) darkness you please over your deeds,
"God is light."53
<footnote/fn113.htm> But some
think as if God were under a necessity
of bestowing even on the unworthy, what
He has engaged (to give); and they turn
His liberality into slavery. But if it
is of necessity that God grants us the
symbol of death, then He does so
unwilling. But who permits a gift to be
permanently retained which he has
granted unwillingly? For do not many
afterward fall out of (grace)? is not
this gift taken away from many? These,
no doubt, are they who do steal a march
upon (the treasure), who, after
approaching to the faith of repentance,
set up on the sands a house doomed to
ruin. Let no one, then, flatter himself
on the ground of being assigned to the
"recruit-classes" of learners,
as if on that account he have a licence
even now to sin. As soon as you
"know the Lord, you should fear
Him; as soon as you have gazed on Him,
you should reverence Him. But what
difference does your "knowing"
Him make, while you rest in the same
practises as in days bygone, when you
knew Him not? What, moreover, is it
which distinguishes you from a
perfected56 <footnote/fn113.htm>
servant of God? Is there one Christ for
the baptized, another for the learners?
Have they some different hope or reward?
some different dread of judgment? some
different necessity for repentance? That
baptismal washing is a sealing of faith,
which faith is begun and is commended by
the faith of repentance. We are not
washed in order that we may cease
sinning, but because we have ceased,
since in heart we have been bathed
already. For the first baptism of a
learner is this, a perfect fear;
thenceforward, in so far as you have
understanding of the Lord faith is
sound, the conscience having once for
all embraced repentance. Otherwise, if
it is (only) after the baptismal waters
that we cease sinning, it is of
necessity, not of free-will, that we put
on innocence. Who, then, is pro-eminent
in goodness? he who is not allowed, or
he whom it displeases, to be evil? he
who is bidden, or he whose pleasure it
is, to be free from crime? Let us, then,
neither keep our hands from theft unless
the hardness of bars withstand us, nor
refrain our eyes from the concupiscence
of fornication unless we be withdrawn by
guardians of our persons, if no one who
has surrendered himself to the Lord is
to cease sinning unless he be bound
thereto by baptism. But if any entertain
this sentiment, I know not whether he,
after baptism, do not feel more sadness
to think that he has ceased from
sinning, than gladness that he hath
escaped from it. And so it is becoming
that learners desire baptism, but do not
hastily receive it: for he who desires
it, honours it; he who hastily receives
it, disdains it: in the one appears
modesty, in the other arrogance; the
former satisfies, the latter neglects
it; the former covets to merit it, but
the latter promises it to himself as a
due return; the former takes, the latter
usurps it. Whom would you judge
worthier, except one who is more
amended? whom more amended, except one
who is more timid, and on that account
has fulfilled the duty of true
repentance? for he has feared to
continue still in sin, lest he should
not merit the reception of baptism. But
the hasty receiver, inasmuch as he
promised it himself (as his due), being
forsooth secure (of obtaining it), could
not fear: thus he fulfilled not
repentance either, because he lacked the
instrumental agent of repentance, that
is, fear.Hasty reception is the portion
of irreverence; it inflates the seeker,
it despises the Giver. And thus it
sometimes deceives,for it promises to
itself the gift before it be due;
whereby He who is to furnish the gift is
ever offended.
Chapter VII.-Of Repentance, in the
Case of Such as Have Lapsed After
Baptism.
So long, Lord Christ, may the
blessing of learning or hearing
concerning the discipline of repentance
be granted to Thy servants, as is
likewise behoves them, while learners,61
not to sin; in other words, may they
thereafter know nothing of repentance,
and require nothing of it. It is irksome
to append mention of a second-nay, in
that case, the last-hope;62
<footnote/fn113.htm> lest, by
treating of a remedial repenting yet in
reserve, we seem to be pointing to a yet
further space for sinning. Far be it
that any one so interpret our meaning,
as if, because there is an opening for
repenting, there were even now, on that
account, an opening for sinning; and as
if the redundance of celestial clemency
constituted a licence for human
temerity. Let no one be less good
because God is more so, by repeating his
sin as often as he is forgiven.
Otherwise be sure he will find an end of
escaping, when he shall not find one of
sinning. We have escaped once: thus far
and no farther let us commit ourselves
to perils, even if we seem likely to
escape a second time.63
<footnote/fn113.htm> Men in
general, after escaping shipwreck,
thenceforward declare divorce with ship
and sea; and by cherishing the memory of
the danger, honour the benefit conferred
by God,-their deliverance, namely. I
praise their fear, I love their
reverence; they are unwilling a second
time to be a burden to the divine mercy;
they fear to seem to trample on the
benefit which they have attained; they
shun, with a solicitude which at all
events is good, to make trial a second
time of that which they have once
learned to fear. Thus the limit of their
temerity is the evidence of their fear.
Moreover, man's fear is an honour to
God. But however, that most stubborn foe
(of ours) never gives his malice
leisure; indeed, he is then most savage
when he fully feels that a man is freed
from his clutches; he then flames
fiercest while he is fast becoming
extinguished. Grieve and groan he must
of necessity over the fact that, by the
grant of pardon, so many works of death
in man have been overthrown, so many
marks of the condemnation which formerly
was his own erased. He grieves that that
sinner, (now) Christ's servant, is
destined to judge him and his angels.
And so he observes, assaults, besieges
him, in the hope that he may be able in
some way either to strike his eyes with
carnal concupiscence, or else to
entangle his mind with worldly
enticements, or else to subvert his
faith by fear of earthly power, or else
to wrest him from the sure way by
perverse traditions: he is never
deficient in stumbling-blocks nor in
temptations. These poisons of his,
therefore, God foreseeing, although the
gate of forgiveness has been shut and
fastened up with the bar of baptism, has
permitted it still to stand somewhat
open. In the vestibule He has stationed
the second repentance for opening to
such as knock: but now once far all,
because now for the second time; but
never more because the last time it had
been in vain. For is not even this once
enough? You have what you now deserved
not, for you had lost what you had
received. If the Lord's indulgence
grants you the means of restoring what
you had lost, be thankful for the
benefit renewed, not to say amplified;
for restoring is a greater thing than
giving, inasmuch as having lost is more
miserable than never having received at
all. However, if any do incur the debt
of a second repentance, his spirit is
not to be forthwith cut down and
undermined by despair. Let it by all
means be irksome to sin again, but let
not to repent again be irksome: irksome
to imperil one's self again, but not to
be again set free. Let none be ashamed.
Repeated sickness must have repeated
medicine. You will show your gratitude
to the Lord by not refusing what the
Lord offers you. You have offended, but
can still be reconciled. You have One
whom you may satisfy, and Him willing.
Chapter VIII.-Examples from
Scripture to Prove the Lord's
Willingness to Pardon.
This if you doubt, unravel the
meaning of "what the Spirit saith
to the churches." He imputes to the
Ephesians "forsaken love; "
reproaches the Thyatirenes with
"fornication," and
"eating of things sacrificed to
idols; " accuses the Sardians of
"works not full; " censures
the Pergamenes for teaching perverse
things;upbraids the Laodiceans for
trusting to their riches; and yet gives
them all general monitions to
repentance-under comminations, it is
true; but He would not utter
comminations to one unrepentant if He
did not forgive the repentant. The
matter were doubtful if He had not
withal elsewhere demonstrated this
profusion of His clemency. Saith He not,
"He who hath fallen shall rise
again, and he who hath been averted
shall be converted? "He it is,
indeed, who "would have mercy
rather than sacrifices."The
heavens, and the angels who are there,
are glad at a man's repentance. Ho! you
sinner, be of good cheer! you see where
it is that there is joy at your return.
What meaning for us have those themes of
the Lord's parables? Is not the fact
that a woman has lost a drachma, and
seeks it and finds it, and invites her
female friends to share her joy, an
example of a restored sinner? There
strays, withal, one little ewe of the
shepherd's; but the flock was not more
dear than the one: that one is earnestly
sought; the one is longed for instead of
all; and at length she is found, and is
borne back on the shoulders of the
shepherd himself; for much had she
toiled in straying. That most gentle
father, likewise, I will not pass over
in silence, who calls his prodigal son
home, and willingly receives him
repentant after his indigence, slays his
best fatted calf, and graces his joy
with a banquet.Why not? He had found the
son whom he had lost; he had felt him to
be all the dearer of whom he had made a
gain. Who is that father to be
understood by us to be? God, surely: no
one is so truly a Father; no one so rich
in paternal love. He, then, will receive
you, His own son, back, even if you have
squandered what you had received from
Him, even if you return naked-just
because you have returned; and will joy
more over your return than over the
sobriety of the other;but only if you
heartily repent-if you compare your own
hunger with the plenty of your Father's
"hired servants"-if you leave
behind you the swine, that unclean
herd-if you again seek your Father,
offended though He be, saying, "I
have sinned, nor am worthy any longer to
be called Thine." Confession of
sins lightens, as much as dissimulation
aggravates them; for confession is
counselled by (a desire to make)
satisfaction, dissimulation by
contumacy.
Chapter IX.-Concerning the Outward
Manifestations by Which This Second
Repentance is to Be Accompanied.
The narrower, then, the sphere of
action of this second and only
(remaining) repentance, the more
laborious is its probation; in order
that it may not be exhibited in the
conscience alone, but may likewise be
carried out in some (external) act. This
act, which is more usually expressed and
commonly spoken of under a Greek name,
is e0comolo/ghsij,whereby we confess our
sins to the Lord, not indeed as if He
were ignorant of them, but inasmuch as
by confession satisfaction is settled,87
of confession repentance is born; by
repentance God is appeased. And thus
exomologesis is a discipline for man's
prostration and humiliation, enjoining a
demeanor calculated to move mercy. With
regard also to the very dress and food,
it commands (the penitent) to lie in
sackcloth and ashes, to cover his body
in mourning, to lay his spirit low in
sorrows, to exchange for severe
treatment the sins which he has
committed; moreover, to know no food and
drink but such as is plain,-not for the
stomach's sake, to wit, but the soul's;
for the most part, however, to feed
prayers on fastings, to groan, to weep
and make outcriesunto the Lord your God;
to bow before the feet of the
presbyters, and kneel to God's dear
ones; to enjoin on all the brethren to
be ambassadors to bear his deprecatory
supplication (before God). All this
exomologesis (does), that it may enhance
repentance; may honour God by its fear
of the (incurred) danger; may, by itself
pronouncing against the sinner, stand in
the stead of God's indignation, and by
temporal mortification (I will not say
frustrate, but) expunge eternal
punishments. Therefore, while it abases
the man, it raises him; while it covers
him with squalor, it renders him more
clean; while it accuses, it excuses;
while it condemns, it absolves. The less
quarter you give yourself, the more
(believe me) will God give you.
Chapter X.-Of Men's Shrinking from
This Second Repentance and
Exomologesis, and of the
Unreasonableness of Such Shrinking.
Yet most men either shun this work,
as being a public exposure of
themselves, or else defer it from day to
day. I presume (as being) more mindful
of modesty than of salvation; just like
men who, having contracted some malady
in the more private parts of the body,
avoid the privity of physicians, and so
perish with their own bashfulness. It is
intolerable, forsooth, to modesty to
make satisfaction to the offended Lord!
to be restored to its forfeited
salvation! Truly you are honourable in
your modesty; bearing an open forehead
for sinning, but an abashed one for
deprecating! I give no place to
bashfulness when I am a gainer by its
loss; when itself in some son exhorts
the man, saying, "Respect not me;
it is better that I perish through you,
i.e. than you through me." At all
events, the time when (if ever) its
danger is serious, is when it is a butt
for jeering speech in the presence of
insulters, where one man raises himself
on his neighbour's ruin, where there is
upward clambering over the prostrate.
But among. brethren and fellow-servants,
where there is common hope, fear, joy,
grief, suffering, because there is a
common Spirit from a common Lord and
Father, why do you think these brothers
to be anything other than yourself? Why
flee from the partners of your own
mischances, as from such as will
derisively cheer them? The body cannot
feel gladness at the trouble of any one
member, it must necessarily join with
one consent in the grief, and in
labouring for the remedy. In a company
of two is the church;but the church is
Christ. When, then, you cast yourself at
the brethren's knees, you are handling
Christ, you are entreating Christ. In
like manner, when they shed tears over
you, it is Christ who suffers, Christ
who prays the Father for mercy. What a
son asks is ever easily obtained. Grand
indeed is the reward of modesty, which
the concealment of our fault promises
us! to wit, if we do hide somewhat from
the knowledge of man, shall we equally
conceal it from God? Are the judgment of
men and the knowledge of God so put upon
a par? Is it better to be damned in
secret than absolved in public? But you
say, "It is a miserable thing thus
to come to exomologesis: "yes, for
evil does bring to misery; but where
repentance is to be made, the misery
ceases, because it is turned into
something salutary. Miserable it is to
be cut, and cauterized, and racked with
the pungency of some (medicinal) powder:
still, the things which heal by
unpleasant means do, by the benefit of
the cure, excuse their own
offensiveness, and make present injury
bearable for the sake of the advantage
to supervene.
Chapter XI.-Further Strictures on
the Same Subject.
What if, besides the shame which they
make the most account of, men dread
likewise the bodily inconveniences; in
that, unwashen, sordidly attired,
estranged from gladness, they must spend
their time in the roughness of
sackcloth, and the horridness of ashes,
and the sunkenness of face caused by
fasting? Is it then becoming for us to
supplicate for our sins in scarlet and
purple? Hasten hither with the pin for
panning the hair, and the powder for
polishing the teeth, and some forked
implement of steel or brass for cleaning
the nails. Whatever of false brilliance,
whatever of feigned redness, is to be
had, let him diligently apply it to his
lips or cheeks. Let him furthermore seek
out baths of more genial temperature in
some gardened or seaside retreat; let
him enlarge his expenses; let him
carefully seek the rarest delicacy of
fatted fowls; let him refine his old
wine: and when any shall ask him,
"On whom are you lavishing all
this? "let him say, "I have
sinned against God, and am in peril of
eternally perishing: and so now I am
drooping, and wasting and torturing
myself, that I may reconcile God to
myself, whom by sinning I have
offended." Why, they who go about
canvassing for the obtaining of civil
office, feel it neither degrading nor
irksome to struggle, in behalf of such
their desires, with annoyances to soul
and body; and not annoyances merely, but
likewise contumelies of all kinds. What
meannesses of dress do they not affect?
what houses do they not beset with early
and late visits?-bowing whenever they
meet any high personage, frequenting no
banquets, associating in no
entertainments, but voluntarily exiled
from the felicity of freedom and
festivity: and all that for the sake of
the fleeting joy of a single year! Do we
hesitate, when eternity is at stake, to
endure what the competitor for
consulship or prµtorship puts up with?
and shall we be tardy in offering to the
offended Lord a self-chastisement in
food and raiment, which Gentiles lay
upon themselves when they have offended
no one at all? Such are they of whom
Scripture makes mention: "Woe to
them who bind their own sins as it were
with a long rope."
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