• i.e., in the judgment-day. Compare the phrase " that day and that hour" in Scripture. = Mediocritas.
3 Przvaricatorem: comp. aJ L'x. b. ii. c. ii. adinit.
4 Matt. V. 27, 28; comp. de Idol. ii.
out 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 con- demnation. 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 ei'il 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 no\. fulfilled goodi.
CHAP. 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 G^^^ 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;" 5 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 acknowl- edge to be mine^), do you so hasten to, so embrace, as a shipwrecked man the protec- tion'^ 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 be- come that " tree which is sown beside'- the waters, is perennial in leaves, bears fruit at its own time," '^ and shall not see fire," '♦ nor "axe."'s Having found "the truth," "^ re- pent of errors; repent of having loved what God loves not: even we ourselves do not per- mit our slave-lads not to hate the things which * The substance of this is found in Ezek..xxxiii. 11.
8 Comp. c. xii. sub fin. [Ut naufragus alicuius tabulae fidem; this expression soon passed into Theological technology, and as " the plank after shipwreck " is universally known.]
'-Penes.
'3 Ps. i. 3; Jer. xvii. 8. Compare Luke zziii. 31, ON REPENTANCE.
[cHAr. V.
are offensive to us; for the principle of volun- tary 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 dis- pute 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 com- mands is prior to the utility of him who serA^es. "Is it good to repent, or no? " Why do you ponder? God enjoins; nay, He not merely en- joins, but likewise exhorts. He invites by (offering) reward — salvation, to wit; even by an oath, saying"! live,"^ He desires that credence may be given Him. Oh blessed we, for whose sake God swears! Oh most miser- able, if we believe not the Lord even when He swears! What, therefore, God so highly com- mends, what He even (after human fashion) attests on oath, we are bound of course to ap- proach, and to guard with the utmost serious- ness; that, abiding permanently in (the faith of) the solemn pledge* of divine grace, we may be able also to persevere in like manner in its fruits and its benefit.
CHAP. v. SIN NEVER TO BE RETURNED TO AF- TER REPENTANCE.* For what I say is this, that the repentance which, being shown us and commanded us through God's grace, recalls us to grace ^ 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 precepts * — in short, after engaging in re- }>entance of (past) sins — you again betake your- self to sins. Thus, in as far as you are re- moved from ignorance, in so far are you ce- mented' to contumacy. For if the ground on which you had repented of having sinned was ' Obsequii.
= Or, " paramount."
3 See ref. i on the preceding page. The phrase is " As I live " in the English version.
4 " Asseveratione:" apparently a play on the word, as com- pared with " perseverare, ' which follows.
5 Or, " enjoyment."
•"[The formidable doctrine of I. John iii. g, v. iS, etc. nius', ex- cuse our author for his severe adherence to this principle of puri- fying the heart from habitual sin. I'ul, the church refused to press it against St. Matt, xviii. 22. In our own self-indulgent day, we are more prone, I fear, to presumption than to over strictness. The Roman casuists make attrition suffice, and so turn absolution into a mere sponge, and an encouragement to perpetual sinning and formal confession.]
1 i.e., favour.
"Which is.solomnly done in baptism. 9 Adglulinaris.
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 excep- tion 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, offers an affront to his own understanding — that is, to God's gift — by resuming what he under- stands ought to be shunned, and what he has already shunned: he rejects the Giver in aban- doning 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 peril- ous 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 re- pentance, 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, be- cause they fear! " I suppose, if they feared '"Acts xiv. 15-17: "licet" here may = "lawful," " penniss- ibli'," "excusable."
" " Timent," not " metuunt." " Metus" is the word Tertullian has been using above for religious, reverential fear.
CIlAl'.
Vl.J ON REi'EMANCE.
jiot, 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! iUit these dispositions have been wont to sprout from the seed of hypocrites, whose friendship with the devil is indivisible, whose repentance never faithful.
t'HAP. VI. — BAPTISM NOT TO BE PRESUMPTOUSLY KECEIVED. IT REQUIRES PRECEDING REPEN- TANCE, MANIFESTED BY AMENDMENT OF LIFE.
Whatever, then, our poor ability has at- tempted to suggest with reference to laying hold of repentance once for all, and perpetu- ally retaining it, does indeed bear upon all who are given up to the Lord, as being all «. ompetitors for salvation in earning the favour of God; but is chiefly urgent in the case of those young novices who are only just begin- ning to bedew- their ears with divine dis- courses, and who, as whelps in yet early in- fancy,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.^ \ox the very end of desiring importunes them to desire somewhat of their former deeds; just ris fruits, when they are already beginning to turn into the sourness or bitterness of age, do yet still in some part flatter-* their own loveli- ness. Moreover, a presum.ptuous confidence in baptism introduces all kind of vicious delay and tergiversation with regard to repentance; for, feeling sure of undoubted pardon of their sins, 7nen meanwhile steal the intervening time, and make it for themselves into a holiday- time 5 for sinning, rather than a time for learning not to sin. Further, how inconsis- tent 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 merchan- dise, but not produce the price. For repent- \ /ance is the price at which the Lord has deter- mined to award pardon: He proposes the redemption* of release from penalty at this coinpensating 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 3 i.e., by baptism.
4 Adulantur.
"i.e.^ repurchase.
: A till iter; see de Idol. c. i.
the reality of our repentance: it will then, f suppose, be clear that we are amended when we are absolved." " By no means; (but our amend- ment should be manifested) while, pardon be- ing in abeyance, there is still a prospect of pen- alty; 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 sol- dier, 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 faith- less 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 re- vealed." ^ Draw whatever (veil of) darkness you please over your deeds, " God is light." '" 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 lib- erality into slavery. But if it is of necessity that God grants us the symbol of death," then He does so imwillitigly. But who permits a gift to be permanently retained which he has granted unwillingly? For do not many after- ward 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 li- cence 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 nofi What, moreover, is it 8 i.e., in baptism 9 Luke viii. 17.
" Symbolum mortis indulget. Comp. Rom. vi. 3, 4, 8.; Co!, ii. '2jer. xxxi. (LXX. xxxviii.) 34; Heb. viii. 11.
ON REPENTANCE.
which distinguishes you from a perfected ' 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 be- gun and is commended by the faith of re- pentance. We are not washed m order that \ we may cease sinning, but because we have -I ceased, since in heart we have becti bathed ^ ) already. For \h^ 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 w^Xtrs that we cease sinning, it is of tiecessity, not oi free-tcill, that we put on innocence. Who, then, is pre- eminent in goodness? he who is not alloiued, 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 senti- ment, I know not whether he, after baptism, do not feel more sadness to think that he has ceased ixova sinning, than gladness that he hath escaped from it. And so it is becoming that . learners desire baptism, but do not hastily re- '^ceive 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 re- pentance? 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 in- flates the seeker, it despises the Giver. And thus it sometimes deceives, s for it promises ' i.e., in baptism.
2 See John;iiii. lo and Matt, xxiii. 26.
3 MetuE integer.
4 Metus.
to itself the gift before it be due; whereby He who is to furnish the gift is ever offended.
CHAP. Vll. 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 leartters,^ not to sin; in other words, may they there- after know nothing of repentance, atid require nothing of it. It is irksome to append men- tion of 2i secotid — nay, in that case, the last — hope;^ lest, by treating of a remedial repent- ing 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, be- cause there is an opening for repenting, there were even now, on that account, an opening for sinning; and as if the redundance of celes- tial 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 07ice: thus far and no farther let us commit ourselves to perils, even if we seem likely to escape a second time.^ Men in general, after es- caping shipwreck, thenceforward declare di- vorce with ship and sea; and hy 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 for- 5 Or, " disappoints," i.e., the hasty recipient himself.
7 [Elucidation I. See i)i/>a, this chapter, sub fine. ^ i^ [When our author wrote to the Martyrs, (see cap. i.) he was less disposed to such remorseless discipline: and perhaps we have here an element of his subsequent system, one which led him to accept the discipline of Montanism, On this general subject, we shall find enough when we come to Cyprian and Novatian.]
9 Timor.
»o" Mortis opera," or " deadly works:" cf. de Idol. c. tv. (mid.), " perdition of l)lood," and the mite there.
CHAP. VIII.]
ON REPENTANCE.
66 nierly 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 tliat he may be able in some way either to strike his eyes with carnal concupiscence, or else to entangle his mind with worldly entice- ments, 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 tempta- tions. 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 // still to stand some- what open.'' In the vestibule He has stationed the second repentance for opening to such as knock: but now once for all, because now for I 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 7-estoring 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 siti again, but let not to repefU 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.'* CHAP. 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 sacri- ficed 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 2 Or, " has permitted somewhat still to stand open."
4 To accept the satisfaction.
9Rev. iii. 2.
yet gives them all general monitions to re- pentance— under comminations, it is true; but He would not utter comminations to one un- repentant 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 diverted shall be r^^wverted? " He it is, in- deed, who "would have mercy rather than sacrifices." '5 The heavens, and the angels who are there, are glad at a man's repent- ance."* 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 re- stored sinner? 's There strays, withal, one little ewe of the shepherd's; but the flock was not more dear than the one: that one is earn- estly 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 him- self; 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 viade 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 squan- dered what you had received from Him, even if you return naked — just because you hare 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 aggra- vates them; for confession is counselled by »= Jer. viii. 4 (in LXX.) appears to be the passage meaat. The Eng. Ver. is very different.
'3H0S. vi. 6; Matt. ix. 13. The words in Hosea to the LXX. are, £i6ti eAeo; 6eKu> 17 Ovaiav (al. ko.\ ov BvoLav).
'6 Or, "suffered."
"sCf. Matt, xxiii. 9; and Eph. iii. 14, 15, in the Greek.
^ Publicly enrolled as such in baptism; for TertuUian here is speaking solely of the " second repentance.''
ON REPENTANCE.
[chap. X.
(a desire to make) satisfaction, dissimulation by contumacy.
CHAP. IX. CONCERNING THE OUTWARD MANI- FESTATIONS BY WHICH THIS SECOND REPENT- ANCE 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 usu- ally expressed and commonly spoken of under a Greek name, is k^onoXdyTiai^,^ 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,- of con- fession repentance is born; by repentance God is appeased. And thus exomologesis is a dis- cipline 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 fast- ings, to groan, to weep and make outcries'* unto 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 suppli- cation (before God). All this exomologesis (does), that it may enhance repentance; may lionour God by its fear of the (incurred) dan- ger; may, by itself pronouncing against the sinner, stand in the stead of God's indigna- tion, and by temporal mortification (I will not say frustrate, but) expunge eternal punish- ments. Therefore, while it abases the man, it raises him; while it covers him with squalor, it renders him more clean; while it </^cuses, it /-a-cuses; while it condemns, it absolves. The less quarter you give yourself, the more (be- lieve me) will God give you.