Repentance

See, this parable he set forth for us concerning those who turn back from sins and fall down in repentance.

From all these, then, and from many other examples beyond number, we learn the power of tears and of repentance;

some, having opened a door to the passions and clung hard to them, no longer had the strength to run back to repentance;

Repentance, then, is also a right achievement of faith.

for repentance is a slow knowing, but the first knowledge is sinlessness.

Caution, then, is shown to be rational, being an avoidance of what harms, from which springs the repentance of former sins.

Both our Saviour and the Baptist made repentance the substance of their doctrine;

But for sins of that kind, to obtain the act of mercy and indulgence, the offender must inflict punishment upon himself, not in a slight or trivial manner, but with a heartfelt sorrow, and resolution to sin no more.

But those, who make the objection, must know, that in cases of that kind, venerable and upright judges use the greatest precautions, and suffer no one to be hurried away to execution, without a reasonable time allowed for reflection and deep abhorrence of his crime:

The Father stands and awaits your return from your wandering.

The Word, calling us to repentance, cries out and calls aloud:

the mysteries concerning death and resurrection, the words concerning the dreadful judgement and eternal chastisement, the doctrines concerning repentance and the forgiveness of sins, those countless examples of conversion — the drachma, the sheep, the son who devoured his living with the harlots, the lost and found, the dead and come to life again.

But if it were granted, as to those who have strayed on a journey, so to those who have followed a wandering course of life, to correct their error by repentance, the amending of rashness would be easier.

Wrath nourishes the punishment upon sin, but love does good upon repentance.

For God bestows life, but a wicked custom, after the departure from this world, brings empty repentance together with punishment.

this is unfeigned repentance.

and true repentance is no longer to be liable to the same things, but utterly to root out of the soul the sins for which a man has condemned himself to death;

while it is possible for the man who has lived worse and slovenly before, if afterward he repents, to overcome a long-continued evil polity by the time after repentance—but there is need of much exactness, just as bodies worn by a long sickness need a regimen and greater attention.

Shall I not repent of it?

Repentance is a kind of self-reproach for having let slip something useful;

We, moreover, with however little faith we are endowed, can with just so little understanding judge that it was indeed a divine baptism, yet by commandment, not also by power — since we read that John too was sent by the Lord to this office — but otherwise human in its condition.

He has placed in the porch a second repentance, which may open to those who knock;

How inept, moreover — not to fulfil repentance, yet to look to obtain the pardon of transgressions!

The guilt of both is common, common too the judge — namely God — common therefore the remedy of repentance too.