On Repentance
-St. Basil the Great
A twofold horror grips my mind because of you, brother: for on one side, a certain merciless stirring of the spirit drives me into the sin of hating mankind; on the other, my desire to grieve and soften over your transgressions throws me into confusion. Therefore, intending to compose this writing, though I strengthened my trembling hand with reasonings, I could not change the sorrowful expression of my face due to my compassion for you, brought to such shame by you that, turning my lips to weeping, I cannot move my mouth to speak.
Woe is me! What shall I say or think, standing at this crossroads? If I recall your former vain life, when wealth surrounded you and the glory crawling upon the earth, when a multitude of flatterers followed you, when you indulged in fleeting lust with evident ruin and unjust gains; when fears from authorities troubled your thoughts of salvation, when the cares of public affairs shook your household, and a multitude of evils distracted your mind from Him who could help you; when you gave little thought to the Savior, who orders all for your benefit, delivering and shielding you while you mocked Him in your false securities: yet, on the contrary, counting your much-troubled wealth as nothing, fleeing both the care of your household and the company of your wife, you strove only to acquire virtue. Recalling all this, I tremble, but you, still exalted, like a stranger and traveler passing through villages and cities, reached Jerusalem. There, I, dwelling with you, blessed you for your labors, when you, fasting through entire weeks, philosophized about God and, as if fleeing, withdrew from the company of men, choosing tranquility and solitude, avoiding the tumults of the crowd. Moreover, you clothed your body in coarse sackcloth, bound your loins with a harsh belt, and patiently afflicted your bones. By fasting, you joined your belly to your spine, using no soft girdle, compressing your innards like a gourd, forcing them to cling to your very kidneys, consuming all the fat of your flesh, diligently drying up the passages beneath, and exhausting your stomach with hunger, so that your ribs, like a covering, overshadowed the parts of your belly. In the affliction of your entire bodily frame, confessing to God in the night, you watered your beard with streams of tears. But why should I recount all this in detail? Remember how many holy bodies you kissed, how many sacred embraces you were deemed worthy of, how many people’s hands, as if pure, you kissed, how many of God’s servants, like worshippers, ran to your feet, embracing them.
But what is the end of all this? The sin of publicized fornication, swifter than a flying arrow, pierces our hearts with its sharpest sting, wounding our ears. What cunning deception of a seducer led you to such a ruinous fall? What intricate devilish nets, ensnaring you, rendered your virtues immobile? Tell me, where have the accounts of your deeds vanished? Or should we not believe this report, and yet how can we not deem as true what was once hidden but now revealed? For you bound souls seeking God with fearful oaths, when words beyond “yes” and “no” are rightly ascribed to the devil. Consequently, you became guilty of ruinous perjury and, despising the pattern of an ascetic life, brought reproach upon the Apostle and the Lord Himself. You shamed the glory of purity, defiled the promise of continence; thus, we have become a tale to those captive to sin, a spectacle to Jews and Greeks, who display our deeds. You have cut off the zeal of monks for their labors, brought the most diligent into fear and horror, left those marveling at the devil’s power in awe to this day, and led the negligent to extreme intemperance. You have diminished, as much as was in you, the praise of Christ, who said: “Take courage, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), and its ruler. You have filled the cup of shame for your homeland. Truly, you have proven this parable: like a deer pierced through the heart. What then now? The pillar of strength has not yet fallen, brother! The remedies for restoration have not yet decayed, the city of refuge is not yet closed. Do not remain in the depths of evil, do not surrender yourself to the murderer of men. The Lord knows how to raise the fallen. Flee not to some distant place, but hasten to us. Return to your former labors with renewed virtues, destroying the creeping, vile lust. Consider in your mind the final day, so near to our life, and learn how the children of Jews and Greeks are called to Christian piety. Do not wholly reject the Savior of the world, lest you face that fearful divine reply: “I know you not, who you are” (Matt. 25:12).
The preaching of one man, John, drew all to repentance; yet you, taught by the prophets, “Wash you, and you shall be clean” (Isa. 1:16), exhorted by the psalms, “Draw near to Him, and be enlightened” (Ps. 33:6), hearing the apostolic words, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the promise of the Spirit” (Acts 2:38), called by the Lord Himself saying, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28), still you linger, hesitate, and delay. You, taught the word from youth, have you not yet agreed with the truth? You, always learning, have you not yet come to knowledge? Through all your life, you test by experience, observing until old age, when will you be a Christian? When will we know you as our own? Through all the past year, you awaited this time; now do you expect the future? Beware, lest you be found making promises of a longer life. You know not what the coming day will bring: do not promise what is not yours. We call you to life, O man! Why do you flee the call? To partake in blessings, why do you lose the gift? The kingdom of heaven is open, and the One who calls is true; the way is easy, requiring neither time, expense, nor purchase. Why do you delay? Why do you turn back? Why do you fear the yoke, like some heifer untested by it? It does not chafe the neck but glorifies it. It is not forcibly bound around the neck but seeks a willing bearer (Hos. 4:16). Do you not see that Ephraim is condemned, like a goaded heifer, for wandering lawlessly, dishonoring the lawful yoke? Bow your untamed neck: be Christ’s yoke-bearer, lest, unsubmissive to the yoke and free in life, you be easily caught by beasts.
If I were distributing gold in the church, you would not say to me, “I will come tomorrow, and you shall give tomorrow,” but you would demand it now, seeking alms and growing indignant at delay. Yet, since it is not the brightness of material wealth but the purity of the soul that the Great Benefactor offers you, you devise ways to refuse and enumerate excuses. If you were a slave to man, and freedom were decreed for slaves, would you not strive toward the appointed day, hiring helpers and pleading with judges in every way to be set free? Would you not willingly endure even a blow, the final wounds of servitude, to gain freedom from such afflictions? But since the preacher calls you, a slave not to man but to sin, to freedom—to release you from captivity, to make you a fellow citizen with the angels in heaven, to show you as a son of God adopted by grace, and an heir of Christ’s blessings—you say it is not yet time to accept what is offered. O wicked hindrances! O shameful and endless pursuits! How long will pleasures endure? How long will lusts prevail? We have lived long for the world; let us now live for ourselves. What is more worthy than the soul? What can compare to the kingdom of heaven? Who is a more trustworthy counselor than God? Who is wiser than the all-wise, or more beneficial than the all-good? Who is closer than the Creator? Even Eve gained no benefit from heeding the serpent’s counsel over the Lord’s. O useless words! “I have no time to be whole; do not yet show me the light; do not yet join me to the King!” Are these not plainly the things you say, or even more senseless ones? If you were required to pay a public tax, and a remission of debts were announced for debtors, would you not be indignant and cry out if someone, attacking you, sought to deprive you of that right, as one worthy of the common gift? Yet when not only forgiveness of past sins but also the promise of future blessings is proclaimed, you wrong yourself with a harm no enemy could inflict, thinking you have taken good counsel and sought your own benefit by refusing forgiveness and dying in debt. When your sins are many, do not despair over their number. For “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20), if only you receive it. If your sins are few, light, and not unto death, why do you fear the future, having borne the past with courage? Now your soul stands as if on scales, pulled by angels on one side and demons on the other. To which will you incline your heart? What will prevail in you? Carnal pleasure or spiritual sanctification? Present enjoyment or desire for future blessings? Will the angels receive you, or will those now holding you prevail? In battle, commanders distribute banners to soldiers so that those of one mind can easily call to one another and, when mingled with foes in combat, quickly distinguish themselves. No one will know whether you are ours or belong to our enemies unless you show the mystical signs of our alliance, unless the light of the Lord’s countenance is marked upon you. How will an angel defend you? How will he snatch you from foes if he does not recognize the seal? How will you say, “I am God’s,” without bearing such signs? An unsealed treasure is easily stolen by thieves; an unmarked sheep is readily preyed upon. If a physician promised through some skill or artifice to make you young again from old age, would you not long for the day when you could see yourself restored to youth? Yet when the former beauty of your soul, which you made frail and old through iniquities and defiled with filth, is promised through repentance, you neglect the benefactor and do not approach the promise. Do you not desire to see the great wonder of this promise? How a man is born again without a womb? How one grown old and decaying in deceitful lusts is renewed (Eph. 4:22), becomes young, and returns to the true bloom of youth? To such and so great blessings, O wretched man, do you prefer lust? I understand your delay, though you do not show it with words, though you remain silent in voice; yet the matter itself cries out: “Leave me, I will use my flesh for shameful pleasure; I will wallow in the mire of lusts; I will stain my hands with blood; I will take what is another’s; I will fill my deeds with deceit, commit perjury, lie, and only then will I repent when I cease from evil.” But if sin is a good thing, preserve it to the end; if it harms the doer, why remain in ruin? Does God not see what is done? Does He not discern your thoughts? Or does He aid your iniquities? “Thou hast thought wickedly,” says He, “that I should be like unto thee” (Ps. 49:21). Seeking the friendship of a mortal man, you win him over with kindness, saying and doing all that you deem pleasing to him without doubt; yet, intending to draw near to God and hoping to be received as His son, you do what is contrary to Him, dishonoring Him by transgressing His law. Do you expect to draw near through what causes the greatest offense? Beware, lest in hoping for deliverance, you gather a multitude of evils and add to your sin rather than receive forgiveness. “God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7). Do not trifle with grace, nor say the law is good but sin is sweeter. Sweetness is the devil’s bait, drawing to destruction. Sweetness is the mother of sin; and “sin is the sting of death” (1 Cor. 15:56). Sweetness feeds the eternal worm, which for a time delights the one indulging in it but afterward brings forth bitterness worse than gall. What are you doing, O man? While you are strong in deeds, you squander your youth in sins. You offer God weakened tools when they can no longer be used.
But must they remain so because of strength withered by temporal decay? Chastity in old age is not chastity but the impotence of desire. A dead man is not crowned, nor is anyone righteous because of inability to do evil. While strength remains in you, conquer sin with reason. For this is virtue: to turn from evil and do good. Ceasing from evil is neither praiseworthy in itself nor deserving of punishment. If you cease from sin because of age, thanks be to weakness, for we praise those who are good by choice, not those restrained from evil by necessity. Who has fixed the limit of your life? Who has assured you of old age? Who is so trustworthy a guarantor of your future? Do you not see infants snatched away and those in their prime dying? Life has no fixed duration. What are you waiting for? Will a fever be the cause of your repentance? When you can neither speak words of saving confession, nor perhaps clearly hear, with sickness settled in your head, nor raise your hands to heaven, nor stand on your feet, nor bend your knees, nor meditate with profit, nor confess diligently, nor believe in God, nor renounce the enemy, nor perhaps even consciously follow the mysteries, since it is doubtful to those present whether you felt the grace or remained insensible to what was done? Even if you receive grace knowingly, you have the talent but bring no fruit from it.
Cunning is the evil one in his wickedness, brothers; he knows that we men live in the present, and every deed is done in the present (Jer. 2:22). Stealing today from us with his wiles, he leaves hope for tomorrow, not hindering us from sinning today but advising us to defer righteousness until tomorrow. Thus, when tomorrow comes, our evil worker returns, claiming the present for himself and leaving what is to come for the Lord, always taking the present with pleasure and offering the future in hope, secretly stealing us from life. I once saw a similar deceit in a cunning bird. Since her fledglings could easily be caught due to their youth, she offered herself as ready prey, perching almost within the hunters’ reach, showing no despair of capture but with manifold hopes delaying them in their pursuit, granting her fledglings an easy escape, and finally flying away herself. Beware lest you suffer the same, hoping for the unknown and rejecting the known. Take heed, lest by delaying repentance from year to year, month to month, and day to day, you reach a day you do not expect, when it will be impossible to live longer, when distress will surround you and inconsolable sorrow will overwhelm you, with physicians despairing and kin losing hope; when, constricted by frequent and dry breaths, with a fierce fever kindling and burning your innards, you groan from the depths of your heart, but in your sorrow find no comforter, and utter something with a weak and faltering voice, but there will be no one to hear. All your words will be disregarded as delirium. Who then will remind you of repentance when you are already oppressed by illness? Kin grieve, strangers despise your affliction, a friend neglects your last wishes as causing confusion, and perhaps even the physician flatters you, and you do not despair due to your natural love of life. Death stands at hand; those seeking to snatch you hasten. Who will deliver you? God, whom you abandoned? But He will hear you then if you hear Him now. He will grant time if you have used the good given to you. Let no one deceive you with vain words (Eph. 5:6). For “destruction shall come upon thee suddenly” (1 Thess. 5:3), and change shall come like a storm. A mournful angel will come, forcibly leading and dragging your soul, bound by sins, often turning back to this world and weeping without voice, the instrument of lamentation already sealed. O, how you will torment yourself! How you will groan, repenting in vain over your counsels, when you see the joy of the righteous, rejoicing in the radiant distribution of gifts, and the lamentation of sinners cast into the deepest darkness! What will you say then in the sickness of your heart? Woe is me, who did not cast off this heavy burden of sins when it was easy to do so, but bore a multitude of evils! Woe is me, who did not wash away my filth but was adorned with sins! Now I could have been with the apostles, now I could have enjoyed heavenly blessings. O wicked counsels! For fleeting sinful pleasure, I am tormented eternally; for carnal lust, I am given to the fire. Righteous is God’s judgment: I was called, but did not listen; I was taught, but did not heed; they testified to me, and I mocked. This and the like you will say, weeping for yourself, when you are snatched away before repentance. O man! Either fear hell or seek the kingdom. I am compelled to weep when I recall that you prefer shameful deeds to God’s glory, and for the sake of shameless pleasures, unable to tear yourself from sin, you exclude yourself from the promised blessings, so as not to see the good things of the heavenly Jerusalem.
He desires to have mercy on you and make you a partaker of His compassion, the Judge who said: “The Lord loveth mercy and judgment” (Ps. 32:5), if only He finds you, after committing sin, humble, contrite, bitterly weeping over your evil deeds, openly confessing what was done in secret without shame, and asking your brethren to aid in your healing; in short, when He sees you worthy of mercy, He will pour out His mercy upon you abundantly. But when He sees in you an unrepentant heart, a proud mind, unbelief in the age to come, and fearlessness of judgment, then He loves to execute judgment upon you. Thus, a careful and compassionate physician first tries to soften the body’s arrogance with gentle applications and soothing remedies; but when he sees it unmoved by these, he abandons oil and gentler medicines and employs metal to aid. Having restored many from frequent falls through His loving guidance, God threatens not to forgive the sin of those who, having fallen again into weakness, saying: “I will not bear your sins any longer” (Isa. 1:14), showing that He has often forgiven us in similar sins. For it is impossible for anyone to undertake a virtuous life without God’s consent. He desires that a man, having lived in certain sins, then promising to return to a sound life, should make an end of past sins and, after sins, take up the beginning of good deeds, as if brought back to life. But one who frequently promises and frequently falls away, such a one, as utterly hopeless, is excluded from His lovingkindness. For it is not he who says, “I have sinned,” and continues in sin who truly confesses, but he who, with David, acknowledges his iniquity and hates it. What benefit does the physician’s care bring to the sick if the sick desire their own ruin? So too, to one who doubles his sins, forgiveness brings no benefit, nor does remission avail one who continually returns to shameful deeds.
Cease, O man, to ponder the affairs of others, give no time to thoughts that probe another’s affliction, but turn your soul’s eyes to examine yourself. For many, as the Lord says, “see the mote that is in their brother’s eye, but the beam that is in their own eye” (Matt. 7:3), they do not perceive. Look not on outward things, lest you find cause to judge your neighbor, like the Pharisee who deemed himself righteous and counted the publican as nothing. Rather, never cease to examine yourself, lest your mind sin, lest your tongue speak before your thought, lest your hands’ deeds be wrought in folly. As it is impossible to restore health without healing the disease or to warm oneself without fully dispelling the cold—for these cannot coexist—so too, one who chooses a virtuous life must shun all communion with evil. Repentance is judged not by the length of time but by the disposition of the soul. Those who turn from a vain life and direct themselves toward a godly existence should not do so alone or in isolation; they must have witnesses in such a life to avoid evil suspicion. If anyone has been previously deceived, gathered the dust of wealth through unrighteousness, wholly fixed their mind on its care, stained their nature with the indelible filth of lust, or burdened themselves with other transgressions, let them, while there is still time, before they come to utter ruin, cast off these excessive burdens. Before the ship sinks, let them throw overboard the weights unjustly gathered. For even money, when cast out rightly, does not perish in the reckoning of those who discard it; rather, like cargo transferred to sturdier vessels, it is placed safely in the bosoms of the poor, preserved for those who cast it, serving their benefit, not their ruin.
Passions hardened by long duration first require much time for correction, then steadfast perseverance. If one truly desires to uproot what has taken root in the soul through long persistence, such was the repentance of the Ninevites— so prudent and fervent was their sorrow that they did not even spare the irrational creatures from discipline, but compelled them to cry out unwillingly. They separated the calf from the cow, drove lambs from their mothers’ teats, and no infant rested at the nurse’s breast; all raised piteous cries and wept before one another. Hungry infants sought milk; mothers, torn by natural anguish, responded with equally mournful cries. Youths, racked by fierce lamentation, nearly perished. Mothers’ wombs were pierced by natural grief for their children. The aged wept, tearing and rending their gray hair. The young man wailed bitterly, the poor sighed, the rich forgot luxury, learning chastity through sorrow. Their king himself exchanged his splendor and dignity for simplicity, laying aside his crown, sprinkling his head with ashes, casting off his purple robe, and clothing himself in sackcloth. Descending from his lofty and magnificent throne, he sat upon the ground, forsaking royal pleasures and weeping with the people, becoming one with them when he saw the Lord of all angered. Such was the prudent humility of the servants, such the repentance of the sinners, that every age, both rational and irrational— the one willingly, the other by compulsion—was seized with sorrow. Therefore, God, seeing their great humility, that they condemned themselves to punishments of every kind, had mercy on their sorrow, freed them from chastisement, and granted joy to those who wept wisely. For God’s lovingkindness is such that He does not bring punishment silently but forewarns with threats, calling sinners to repentance, as He did through Jonah. Nor did He silently bring destruction upon Israel, but stirred His servant to pour out prayers for the people, forewarning thus: “Let Me alone, and I will destroy them” (Exod. 32:10), meaning that people. Again, we hear something similar in the Gospel parable of the fig tree, when the Master said to the vinedresser: “Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down therefore; why cumbereth it the ground?” (Luke 13:7–9). Seeing this, how long shall we delay repentance? Shall we not sober up? Shall we not call ourselves from our habitual life to the perfection of the Gospel? Shall we not set before our eyes that fearful and glorious day of the Lord, when those who draw near to His right hand with good deeds shall receive the kingdom of heaven, but those cast to the left, rejected for lack of good deeds, shall be covered by the fiery hell and eternal darkness? And there shall be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 25:30). Yet we sin gravely and often, and with great sloth take up repentance. We claim to desire the kingdom of heaven but care not for what makes it attainable. Taking no labor for the Lord’s commandment, we vainly imagine ourselves worthy of equal honor with those who resisted sin even unto death. Let us now take heed, brothers, let us care for our souls! Let us grieve over the vanity of our past life and stir ourselves for what lies ahead. Let us no longer remain in sloth and weakness, never caring for the present, delaying the start of good deeds to tomorrow and the day after, lest, found by Him who seeks our souls without being prepared by good works, we be cast out from the chamber of joy, weeping too late and fruitlessly, mourning the evil time of our past life when repentance brings no benefit. This age is for repentance, the next for reward; this for labor, that for recompense; this for patience, that for comfort. Now God is a helper to those turning from the evil path; then He will be the fearful and unyielding judge of human deeds, words, and even thoughts. Now we enjoy His long-suffering; then we shall know His justice, when we rise again, some to eternal torment, others to eternal life, and each shall receive according to their deeds. To you who now grieve over shamelessness, we charge: when you see them repenting of their unseemly deeds, have compassion on them as on your own afflicted members; but when you see them insolent and heedless of your sorrow for them, then “come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing” (2 Cor. 6:17), so that, being ashamed, they may come to recognize their evil, and you may receive the reward of Phinehas’ zeal from our Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages, amen.