For after fault he provides penance, prefers penance to death, rejoices over penance, and therefore threatens lest he rage and so that he may open for himself some entrance for forgiving; and he punishes only when men make no end of sinning.
For all offenses, says Tertullian1, whether committed by flesh or spirit, by deed or will, he who appointed punishment through judgment likewise promised pardon through penance, saying to the people2: “Repent”3, “and I will save thee.” And again: “I live, says the Lord, and I prefer penance to death.” Therefore penance is life, since it is preferred to death. You, therefore, a sinner like me—rather, less than I, for I acknowledge my preeminence4 in offenses—seize it and embrace it just as a shipwrecked man trusts some plank5. It will raise you up when submerged in the waves of sins and draw you onward into the harbor of divine clemency6. Seize the occasion of unexpected felicity, so that you who were formerly nothing before God7 except a drop from a bucket, dust of the threshing floor, and a potter’s vessel—
—may thence become that tree which is planted beside waters, remains evergreen in its leaves, and brings forth fruit in its season; which will see neither fire nor axe… Is it good to repent, or not? Why do you turn it over in your mind? God commands it. Yet he does not command only, but also exhorts. He invites with a reward, even swearing salvation8, saying, “I live”9; he desires to be believed. O blessed are we, for whose sake God swears! O most wretched, if we do not believe the Lord even when he swears!
Moreover, to the words by which we ask10 that our debts be forgiven, he adds:
The Lord knew that he alone was without offense; he therefore teaches us to ask that our debts be forgiven. The petition for pardon is exomologesis, confession, because he who seeks pardon confesses his offense. Thus also penance is shown to be acceptable to God, because he wills it more11 than the death of the sinner.
But while he speaks almost unwillingly of a second penance, lest12 an occasion for sinning be taken from this remaining remedy, he says at the beginning:
Yet the spirit is not immediately to be cut down and overthrown13 by despair if anyone has become a debtor to a second penance. Let it indeed be irksome to sin again, but not irksome to repent again; let it be irksome to be imperiled again, but not to be freed again. Let no one be ashamed: for renewed health the medicine must be renewed. You will show yourself grateful toward the Lord if you do not refuse what the Lord offers you. You have offended, but you can still be reconciled. You have one to whom you may make satisfaction, and one who indeed wills it.
Then he proceeds14:
If you doubt this, unfold what the Spirit says15 to the churches. He imputes abandoned love to the Ephesians; fornication and the eating of things offered to idols to the Thyatirans—
—and yet he moves all to penance, and indeed under threats. But he would not threaten the impenitent if he did not forgive the penitent. This would be doubtful if he had not also elsewhere demonstrated this profusion of his clemency. Does he not say16, “He who has fallen shall rise, and he who has turned away shall be turned back”? He is assuredly the one, he is the one who prefers mercy to sacrifice. The heavens and the angels who are there rejoice over the penance of man. Ho, sinner, be of good spirit: you see where they rejoice over your return. What do those arguments from the Lord’s similitudes mean for us17? A woman lost a drachma, sought it, found it, and invited her friends to rejoice: is this not an example of a restored sinner? One little sheep of the shepherd also strays; but the single flock was not dearer: that one is sought, that one is desired in place of all, and finally it is found and carried upon the shoulders of the shepherd himself, for it had wearied itself greatly by wandering. Nor will I be silent concerning that most gentle father who calls back the prodigal son and, when he repents after his poverty, willingly receives him, sacrifices the most fattened calf, and adorns his joy with a banquet. Why not? For he had found the son whom he had lost; he perceived the one whom he had gained to be dearer. Who is that father to be understood by us? God, assuredly. No one is so much a father; no one so kind.
Footnotes
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On Penance, chap. IV, pp. 141–142. ↩
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Tertullian appears to have regard to the things which are read in Ezekiel XVIII. ↩
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Although the form poenitere, “repent,” may appear unusual, it must not therefore be judged corrupt, since the form poenitemini, “repent ye,” occurs in Mark and in Acts. ↩
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Whence in the last chapter of this little book he calls himself a sinner of every mark. ↩
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This image is customary among ecclesiastical writers, as may be seen in Ambrose, To a Fallen Virgin, chap. VIII; Jerome, in the letters to Sabinianus and Salvina; and Peter of Blois, in the little book On the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem. ↩
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Protelabit is the same as “will draw out and conduct onward.” This acceptation of the word in that signification is frequent, as Cassian, On the Incarnation, book II, chap. II; book III, chap. IV; book V, chap. V; Peter Chrysologus, discourse V; Jerome, Against Jovinian, the fifth Council of Toledo, canon I; Aldhelm, On Virginity, chap. XXVIII; and Fulbert of Chartres, epistle XXXVI, bear witness. ↩
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Isa. XL; Dan. II; Ps. I; Jer. IX; Matt. III. ↩
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Ciaconius judged from conjecture that it should read “he invites with the reward of salvation”; but the reading reported by us, just as it is more difficult and ἐμφατικωτέρα, more emphatic, is also proved by the suffrage of the codices. ↩
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Ezek. XXXIII.11. ↩
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On Prayer, chap. VII, p. 152. ↩
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Since ellipsis is frequent in Tertullian, after the causal particle because the comparative adverb more must be inserted. ↩
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On Penance, chap. VIII, p. 145. ↩
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To these must be joined the entirely excellent things which Cyril of Jerusalem disputes to the same effect, Catechesis II, §§ V ff. ↩
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On Penance, chap. VIII, p. 146. ↩
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Apocalypse, chaps. I–II. ↩
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Jer. VIII; Hosea VI; and Matt. IX. ↩
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The progression of the discourse is remarkable. For he who first exhibited the heavens and the angels rejoicing over the penance of a sinner represents, at the end, God himself rejoicing and exulting. ↩