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Handout #40 |
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A painful trial |
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| In the passage which follows,
Tertullian admits the possibility of penance for serious sins, once in a
lifetime. A little later, he entered a sect and thought that some sins,
like adultery, could never be pardoned.
The narrower, then, the sphere of action of this second and only repentance, the more laborious is it to undertake. It does not just consist in inner attitudes, but has to be translated into action. This action ... is the avowal by which we confess our sin to God... This discipline is for man's prostration and humiliation, calling for a demeanor calculated in mercy. As to 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 make amends by severe treatment for the sins that he has committed ... The penitent will usually feed his prayers on fastings, groan, weep and make out cries to the Lord his God; he will bow before the feet of the presbyters and kneel to God's dear ones, bidding all his brothers join in his supplications. Tertullian, On Repentance, 9. |
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