Second Instruction for the Sunday After Theophany: On Repentance

“Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt. 4:17).

Repentance is the first commandment of the New Testament; repentance is the foundational New Testament virtue, which introduces into all other Christian virtues. Both the Forerunner of the Saviour and the Saviour Himself began Their preaching to fallen humanity with a call to repentance and with the promise of the Heavenly Kingdom for satisfactory repentance. “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt. 3:2, 4:17). Repentance offers its mighty hand to man, who is in the deep pit, in the hell of sin and transgression, draws him out of there, raises him above the earth; it does not leave him until it has brought him, saved, through the gates of eternity.

Calling upon divine grace to aid our feeble understanding, let us strive to investigate the meaning of repentance, so that we might receive this gift of God, offered to us by God Himself, and, having received it, work out our salvation through our repentance.

Two properties, two capacities have been planted by the merciful God in human nature, by means of which it, after its fall and alienation from God, is able to rise up from that fall and restore communion with God. These two properties are: the property of repentance and the property of faith. God appeals to these two properties for the salvation of men. He invites their free will to use these two properties for salvation. Man perished by free will, and it is through free will that he is granted the possibility of salvation. “Repent and believe” (Mk. 1:15).

In return for repentance, God grants forgiveness of sins and access to Himself, and to faith He reveals Himself, and grants that knowledge of God to which man alone is capable, which he by his own efforts cannot possibly acquire. Faith furnishes the mind with knowledge surpassing reason: the mind, through judgment and inquiry, receives only those cognitions that are subject to its comprehension; faith assimilates to the mind cognitions inaccessible to its comprehension. Such are all the revealed truths concerning God and the mysteries of Christianity. Repentance introduces into the heart gracious feelings, alien to fallen nature, teaches the mind and heart true worship of God, teaches how to bring to God the one sacrifice acceptable to Him from fallen human nature: the contrite and humble spirit (Ps. 50:19). The human spirit, having come to this state, enters into communion with the Spirit of God, in which consists the renewal and salvation of man.

The Venerable Symeon the New Theologian speaks of faith: “In order to obtain faith and to believe the words of God, there is no obstacle that bars the way. For this reason, if with our whole soul we desire to obtain faith, then we obtain it immediately, without any effort, because faith is a gift of the all-good God, granted to our nature; we have it at our disposal according to our will—we have it when we wish. Therefore we see that both Scythians and barbarians and all nations have faith naturally, they believe the words of one another, and demonstrate (in various other ways) faith among themselves.” This natural faith, by which we can believe in God, must be distinguished from active faith, which appears in the soul from the fulfilment of the Gospel commandments, and from living faith, poured into the heart by the Holy Spirit. All can come to believe in God and the Gospel (Mk. 1:14-15; Acts 20:21); Christian ascetics acquire active faith; living faith is a gift of God, the possession of the holy ones of God alone. Likewise, repentance is natural to us. It is the action of our conscience. It consists in awareness of our transgressions and sorrow for them. Just as by natural inclination and conviction, when we wish, we trust one another, so too, by natural inclination and conviction, when we wish, we repent before one another for our mutual transgressions. Repentance, being the satisfaction of a natural heart’s longing, brings to the heart rest and sweetness. It restores among men the broken peace and order, resolves misunderstandings, heals souls from enmity and rancor. But we repent before one another only when we wish to do so; without the will, the natural capacity for repentance remains inactive.

The incomprehensible God, after creating man and granting him all the means for preserving life, entrusted to his free will the choice of life or death: in the same way, after accomplishing redemption, the incomprehensible God, wise and merciful, has entrusted to our will the acceptance or rejection of redemption. He has beforehand placed within us the natural property of repentance: the means which we use to destroy enmity and restore peace among ourselves, He desired to employ as the means to destroy enmity and restore peace between God and mankind, between the rejected and lost creature and its almighty Creator. Repent! He calls to mankind, summoning humanity to Himself. Your salvation has been accomplished by God; your death has been trampled down and slain by God, without any participation, aid, or labour on your part: voluntarily reject the death which you voluntarily accepted! voluntarily accept the blessed eternal life, which you voluntarily rejected! use for this the property of repentance, which has been timely placed within you, a property wholly dependent on your will! Nothing grievous and new is laid upon you: the means of reconciliation among yourselves, use as the means of reconciliation with God!

As initial faith consists in believing the words of God, so initial repentance consists in awareness of one’s transgressions and sinfulness, in sorrow for them, in bringing these awareness and sorrow before the face of God through sincere confession and earnest prayer, with a firm resolve and promise to abandon sinful life and take the Gospel commandments as the rule of one’s conduct. Upon such repentance shall follow forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and union with God, according to the clear testimony of the Holy Scripture, which says: “I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. I said: I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you did forgive the guilt of my sin” (Ps. 31:5). Such repentance was required of those who accepted Christianity before their baptism (Acts 2:38); by such repentance the souls of Christians are healed from the wounds with which sin wounds and defiles them after the reception of baptism (1 Jn. 1:9).

The Gospel is received through faith (Mk. 1:15); life according to the Gospel teaching strengthens faith—transforming faith from hearing, theoretical, little by little into active, practical faith. Similar transformation occurs with repentance from living according to the Gospel commandments. The natural light of fallen nature, being corrupted by sin, illuminates human activity weakly; by this light we perceive few of our transgressions, we see only the grossest and most tangible ones. But when our activity is illuminated by the light of Christ’s commandments, then our self-perception changes; we begin to perceive in ourselves a multitude of defects which we had not noticed at all before. In striking diversity there then appears before the eyes of the mind our corruption by sin! There is revealed to us both that sinfulness which constitutes the common sorrowful inheritance we share with other men, and that particular sinfulness which becomes the property of each person from his inattentive, heedless life that preceded the life devoted to piety. With the multiplication of reasons for repentance, repentance itself is strengthened and deepened. It purifies the eye of the soul. The purified eye sees more blemishes on the garment of the soul than it saw when it was clogged and lacerated by sin: naturally, from such vision repentance is strengthened and deepened. It works in advanced ascetics incomparably more than in those beginning the struggle. Moral Christian progress is progress in repentance: because progress in repentance springs from especially careful fulfilment of the Gospel commandments. All the Saints abounded in the feeling of repentance; they concentrated their activity in repentance and performed the commandments as payment of that terrible debt (Lk. 17:10) which, even in constant payment, remains unpaid, which by the perfection of the Creditor and the weakness of the debtors becomes unpayable, though it be paid constantly. In mature Christians, repentance acquires a special, comprehensive significance. When the holy Isaac the Syrian was asked: “What is repentance?” he answered: “A contrite and humble heart.” This same great teacher of perfect Christians said: “If we are all sinners, and not one of us has risen above temptations, then there is no virtue higher than repentance. Its practice can never attain perfection. It befits always and all who wish to obtain salvation, both sinners and the righteous. There is no limit at which one could recognize it as completed, and therefore repentance cannot be bounded by time or by the works of the ascetic, even until death.”

When divine grace overshadows faith, then the Christian is lifted to a supernatural mode of life. In the same way, repentance, being overshadowed by divine grace, raises its practitioner to a supernatural mode of life. Seized by the feeling and thirst for repentance, the holy Fathers enclosed themselves in unbroken seclusion for its sake, devoted themselves to weeping and lamentation from contemplation of their own sinfulness and that of all humanity; they forgot food because of their sighs, and roared like lions wounded by hunters because of the abundance of their sorrow. Having come to know the worth of repentance practised in stillness, they said: “Outside of stillness there is no perfect repentance.” Others of the Fathers, on account of their contemplation of their sinfulness, patiently bore slanders, humiliations, exile, and even death itself, weeping and condemning themselves as if guilty of the things of which slander accused them. The holy martyrs, receiving terrible torments and capital punishment, saw in them the longed-for cleansing of their sinfulness. At the very time when grace proved their election and holiness by manifest signs, they were concerned with repentance. Thus the martyr Timothy, who said openly to his torturer, “The Spirit of Jesus Christ dwells in me,” who also said that the Angels of God were present at his torment and strengthened him, invited his young bride, Maura, to share in the martyr’s struggle with the following words: “Leaving what is fleeting, come, O Maura! with me to this noble struggle, for which we shall be deemed worthy to receive from our Saviour, God, crowns, and He will forgive us all our sins, when we freely offer ourselves to death for Him.” Maura, filled with the Holy Spirit, stood boldly before the torturer and confessed Christ. By the command of the torturer-magistrate, the martyr’s hair was torn out. She said to the magistrate: “Now I know, magistrate, that my Christ has claimed me for Himself, not remembering my sin, committed in ignorance and consisting in the fact that I, heeding your wicked advice, adorned my hair to seduce my blessed husband. You have done well in tearing out my hair: with their removal, a great sin has been taken from me.” When, by the command of the torturer, the holy martyr’s fingers were cut off, she said to him: “By this too you have done me a kindness: in removing from me the fingers with which I placed vain ornaments upon myself, you have brought about my liberation from my second sin.” When the martyr was cast into a cauldron with boiling water, she said to the magistrate: “Again I thank you for commanding me to be washed from the sins I committed in the world, that with a pure heart I might draw near to my God and receive the crown of life.” The blessed Maura accomplished the laborious struggle of martyrdom, confessing her sinfulness and recognizing martyrdom as the cleansing of sinfulness. Thus she thought and spoke, despite the fact that the boiling cauldron caused her no harm, and the cutting off of her fingers she endured without any pain. The holy martyrs Timothy and Maura ended their lives being crucified on crosses, one opposite the other. Before her death, the martyr said to the people standing by: “Brethren and sisters! remember that we conducted ourselves in a human way, living among men; also, we then accomplished the work of God, being servants of God, and now we receive crowns from our Lord Jesus Christ. And you, living in accordance with human nature, strive also to accomplish what is pleasing to God, that you may obtain forgiveness of sins and receive crowns from the same our Master.” True and just are the above-cited words of the holy Isaac: “Repentance is the contriteness of the heart.” Because of their profound humility, the greatest friends of God, as it were, did not see the gracious gifts with which they abounded—they saw only their own sinfulness, which had already been washed away by divine grace, which testified by its manifest presence in the chosen vessels that sinfulness had been removed. Among the properties which distinguish the holy men, there is this: that they always keep their sin before their eyes, though it has been forgiven by God, and they lament it as if it had just been committed and had not yet been forgiven. Thus holy David, weeping, says: “I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me” (Ps. 50:5). It is recounted of the holy Apostle Peter that throughout his life he remembered his denial of the Lord, and every night, when the cock crowed, Peter gave himself over to bitter weeping, just as he wept bitterly on the very night of his denial (Mt. 26:75). The Venerable Sisoes the Great, an Egyptian desert-dweller, was filled abundantly with the gifts of the Holy Spirit; but, as his death drew near, he expressed the desire to remain some time longer in earthly life, in order to perfect himself in repentance. Such was the understanding of repentance held by the greatest friends of God: it was formed in them by constant and careful cleansing through repentance, whereby there became manifest to man the ineffable greatness of God, the nothingness of man, and the gravity of his fall.

According to the limitation of strength, or more truly, by the great mercy of God, the field of repentance is here depicted by the painted word. According to this portrayal, let each one examine himself and determine his place in the field of repentance. Blessed are those who, heeding God’s call, have become aware of their sinfulness, repent of the sins they have committed and of sinful life, have resolved to confess them, cast out from themselves the culpable love of sin through sincere condemnation of sin, and enter upon a mode of life opposite to sinfulness, a mode of life according to God’s will, according to the teaching of the Gospel. More blessed are those who, having laboured in the field of repentance, have seen through the eye of the soul, through the action of divine grace, the fall of humanity in general and their own in particular, have seen that we are all poisoned by sin, that even our nature itself is poisoned by it, have seen the action upon themselves and upon humanity of the fallen angels and the grievous captivity in which we are held by these enemies of God and of ourselves. Those who are witnesses of this spiritual vision can wholly immerse themselves in the boundless sea of repentance. A hundredfold blessed are those who, being cleansed by repentance, through their purity have been able to appropriate to themselves the incomprehensible humility of Christ, to be crucified with Christ, and from the cross—either unwilling or seemingly involuntary, but granted by Christ—to cry out to Christ: “We are receiving a due recompense for our sins: Remember us”, O Lord, “when You comest into Your kingdom” (Lk. 23:42), in the hour of our separation from the body, on the threshold of eternity.

The life-giving gift of God—repentance—requires that we receive it with the greatest reverence and care. Careless, contemptuous conduct with regard to the gifts of God brings upon us terrible misfortunes, which naturally arise from such conduct. How should not the greatest, spiritual, essential, and eternal misfortune arise, when, while receiving God’s gift, we reject the proper study of the gift itself and of the use which we ought to make of it? Unfortunately, many conduct themselves with extreme carelessness and ignorance with regard to the great gift of repentance! They do not wish to know that repentance cannot be combined with a voluntary sinful life. Remaining in sinful life out of sympathy with it and attachment to it, at certain times they resort to repentance, so that, being washed for a moment, they might again plunge themselves into sinful filth. O terrible self-deception! O terrible mockery of God’s gift! O terrible blasphemy against God! “The last state has become worse than the first” (2 Pet. 2:20, 21). Such hypocritical repentance, such playing with a great mystery and mockery of it, stamps and confirms sinful life, makes it an inalienable possession of man. To those who willingly love sin belong the following words of the holy Apostle John the Theologian: “Every one who sins has not seen him” (the Lord Jesus Christ), “nor known him. Little children, let no one deceive you… He who commits sin is of the devil… Every one born of God does not commit sin; for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest” (1 Jn. 3:6-10). The children of God and the children of the devil are manifest, the sign of distinction between them is clear; deception is impossible. Those who live a willingly sinful life, wallowing in carnal pleasures, even though they should be called Christians, are children of the devil; on the contrary, the distinguishing mark of God’s children is that they live according to the testament of the Gospel and the holy Church, and the sins into which they fall through weakness they quickly heal with repentance. No one, not even the most righteous, can be entirely without sin: for him too the healing remedy of repentance is necessary, as the same holy Apostle John testified: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn. 1:8-10). The Christians of the primitive Church, abandoning the faith of the pagans, also abandoned their mode of life (1 Pet. 4:3, 4). This mode of life the holy Apostle Peter calls “the outpouring of licentiousness.” Not to speak of public amusements, all the institutions of the pagans presented a diverse service to lust, which, like a flood, engulfed all of society. Sinful, corrupt life was the life of the pagans, the soul of their society! it cannot possibly be combined with Christianity.

Let us love repentance—and we shall receive salvation. Let us accept from the hand of the Lord the lifelong gift of repentance—and in due time we shall receive the eternal gift of salvation. The all-good “God gave repentance to life” (Acts 11:18): He shall give to those who truly repent, who are reconciled with Him, who are united with Him through repentance, bliss in eternity, “for salvation belongeth to the Lord” (Ps. 3:9). To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Discourse on Faith. Philokalia, part 1.

Kallistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos, chapter 16. Philokalia, part 2.

Homily 48.

Homily 71.

Homily 41.

The Menaion Reader, May 3.

The Alphabetical Patericon.

Priest-Martyr Peter of Damascus on the eight spiritual visions, Book I, Philokalia, part 3.