Tertullian — On Repentance 5
V. [1] For this I say: repentance, which by God’s grace has been shown and enjoined to us and recalls us into the Lord’s grace, once known and taken ought never afterward to be unsealed by a repetition of delict. [2] Already no pretext of ignorance sponsors you, because when the Lord is recognized and his precepts admitted, and when you have finally performed repentance of delicts, you restore yourself again into delicts. [3] So far as you are parted from ignorance, so far you are glued to contumacy; for if you had repented of having offended because you had begun to fear the Lord, why did you prefer to cancel what you did for fear’s sake unless because you ceased to fear? [4] For nothing else but contumacy overturns fear. But when not even those ignorant of the Lord are screened from punishment by any exception — because God, set in the open and graspable even from the heavenly goods themselves, may not be unknown — how much more dangerous is it to despise him when known? [5] Moreover he despises who, having received from him the understanding of goods and evils, resumes what he understands must be fled and what he has already fled, and so insults his own understanding, that is God’s gift: he spurns the giver when he deserts the gift; he denies the benefit when he does not honor the benefactor. [6] How can he please him whose gift displeases him? So he appears toward the Lord not only contumacious but also ungrateful. [7] Besides, he does not sin lightly against the Lord who, when by his repentance he had renounced the Lord’s rival the devil and under that name had subjected him to the Lord, by his return raises the same again and makes himself the devil’s exultation, so that the evil one recovers him anew.
Latin
V. [1] Hoc enim dico, paenitentiam, quae per dei gratiam ostensa et indicta nobis in gratiam nos domino revocat, semel cognitam atque susceptam numquam posthac iteratione delicti resignari oportere. [2] Iam quidem nullum ignorantiae praetextum patrocinatur tibi, quod domino adgnito praeceptisque eius admissis, denique paenitentia delictorum functus, rursus te in delicta restituis. [3] Ita in quantum ab ignorantia segregaris, in tantum contumaciae adglutinaris; nam si idcirco te deliquisse paenituerat quia dominum coeperas timere, cur quod metus gratia gessisti rescindere maluisti nisi quia metuere desisti? [4] Neque enim timorem alia res quam contumacia subvertit. Cum autem etiam ignorantes dominum nulla exceptio tueatur a poena, quia deum in aperto constitutum et vel ex ipsis caelestibus bonis conprehensibilem ignorari non licet, quanto cognitum despici periculosum est? [5] Despicit porro qui, bonorum ac malorum intellectum ab illo consecutus, quod intellegit fugiendum quodque iam fugit resumens intellectui suo id est dei dono contumeliam facit: respuit datorem, cum datum deserit; negat beneficium, cum beneficum non honorat! [6] Quemadmodum ei potest placere cuius munus sibi displicet? Ita in dominum non modo contumax sed etiam ingratus apparet. [7] Ceterum non leviter in dominum peccat qui, cum aemulo eius diabolo paenitentia sua renuntiasset et hoc nomine illum domino subiecisset, rursus eundum regressu suo erigit et exultationem eius semetipsum facit, ut denuo malus recuperata praeda sua adversus dominum gaudeat. [8] Nonne - quod dicere quoque periculosum est, sed ad aedificationem proferendum [est] - diabolum domino praepones? Conparationem enim videtur egisse, qui utrumque cognoverit, et iudicato pronuntiasse eum meliorem, cuius se rursus esse maluerit! [9] Ita qui per delictorum paenitentiam instituerat domino satisfacere, diabolo per aliam paenitentiae paenitentiam satisfaciet eritque tanto magis perosus deo quanto aemulo eius acceptus. [10] Sed aiunt quidam satis dominum habere, si corde et animo suscipiatur, licet actu minus fiat; itaque se salvo metu et fide peccare, hoc est salva oastitate matrimonia violare, salva pietate parenti venenum temperare. [11] Sic ergo et ipsi salva venia in gehennam detrudentur, dum salvo metu peccant. [12] Pro mirum exemplum perversitatis: quia timent delinquunt; opinor non delinquerent, si non timerent! [13] Igitur qui deum nolet offensum, nec revereatur omnino, si timor offendendi patrocinium est! Sed ista ingenia de semine hypocritarum pullulare consuerunt, quorum individua cum diabolo amicitia est, quorum paenitentia numquam fidelis.