Repentance must not be undone by returning to sin

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Tertullian is addressing Christians who have already come to know God and received repentance, warning them that returning to sin after repentance is defiance and ingratitude toward God.

What I am saying is this: repentance, which God's grace has shown us and commanded us, and which calls us back into God's favor, must never be undone by repeating the sin once it has been recognized and accepted.

You no longer have any excuse of ignorance to defend you. After you have come to know the Lord, accepted his commands, and then carried out repentance for your sins, you have put yourself back into those sins again. To the degree that you are separated from ignorance, you are glued to defiance. For if you repented of your sin because you had begun to fear God, why did you choose to undo what you did out of fear, unless because you stopped fearing? Nothing but defiance overturns fear.

Even those who do not know the Lord have no exemption to protect them from punishment, because God stands in the open and can be understood from the very blessings of heaven, so it is not permitted to be ignorant of him. How much more dangerous is it to despise him once he is known? And the one who has received from him the understanding of good and evil despises him when he takes up again what he understands he should flee and what he has already fled. He insults his own understanding, which is God's gift. He rejects the giver when he abandons the gift; he denies the benefactor when he does not honor the benefit. How can he please the one whose gift displeases him? So you appear before the Lord not only defiant but also ungrateful.

Moreover, it is no light sin against the Lord when someone who had renounced the devil, God's rival, through repentance and in that name had subjected him to the Lord, raises that same devil up again by his return and makes himself the devil's exultation, so that the evil one rejoices against the Lord once more, having recovered his prey. Does he not put the devil before the Lord? It is dangerous even to say this, but it must be said for building up. The one who has known both seems to have made a comparison and, after judging, declared that the one he chose to belong to again is better. So the one who had begun to make amends to God through repentance for his sins will make amends to the devil through a repentance of repentance, and he will be that much more hated by God as he is accepted by God's rival.

But some people object: God is satisfied if he is honored in heart and soul, even if less is done in action. So they sin with fear and faith intact—that is, they violate marriages with chastity intact, they mix poison for a parent with piety intact. In the same way, they will be thrust into hell with forgiveness intact, while they sin with fear intact. This is the first example of their perversity: they sin because they fear. I think they would not sin if they did not fear. So the one who does not want God to be offended should not revere him at all, if fear of offending is a defense for sin. But these ideas usually sprout from the seed of hypocrites, whose friendship with the devil is inseparable, and whose repentance is never faithful.

Latin

Hoc enim dico, paenitentiam, quae per dei gratiam ostensa et indicta nobis in gratiam nos domino revocat, semel cognitam atque susceptam nunquam posthac iteratione delicti resignari oportere. Iam quidem nullum ignorantiae praetextum tibi patrocinatur, quod domino agnito praeceptisque eius admissis denique paenitentia delictorum functus rursus te in delicta restituis. Ita in quantum 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? Neque enim timorem alia res quam contumacia subvertit. Cum etiam ignorantes dominum nulla exceptio tueatur ad poenam, quia deum in aperto constitutum et vel ex ipsis caelestibus bonis comprehensibilem ignorari non licet, quanto cognitum despici periculosum est? 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 beneficum, cum beneficium non honorat. Quemadmodum ei potest placere cuius munus sibi displicet? Ita in dominum non modo contumax, sed etiam ingratus appare. Ceterum non leviter in dominum peccat qui, cum aemulo eius diabolo paenitentia renuntiasset et hoc nomine illum domino subiecisset rursus eundem regressu suo erigit et exultationem eius seipsum facit, ut denuo malus recuperata praeda sua adversus dominum gaudeat. Nonne, quod dicere quoque periculosum est, sed ad aedificationem proferendum est, diabolum domino praeponit? Comparationem enim videtur egisse qui utrumque cognoverit, et iudicato pronuntiasse eum meliorem cuius se rursus esse maluerit. Ita qui per delictorum paenitentiam instituerat domino satisfacere, diabolo per aliam paenitentiae paenitentiam satisfaciet, eritque tanto magis perosus deo, quanto aemulo eius acceptus. Sed aiunt quidam satis deum habere, si corde et animo suspiciatur, licet actu minus fiat; itaque se salvo metu et fide peccare, hoc est salva castitate matrimonia violare, salva pietate parenti venenum temperare. Sic ergo et ipsi salva venia in gehennam detrudentur, dum salvo metu peccant. Primum exemplum perversitatis: quia timent, delinquunt. Opinor, non delinquerent, si non timerent. Igitur qui deum nolit 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 nunquam fidelis.

About this text

Tertullian teaches what true repentance is, and warns Christians not to put it off or treat it lightly.

Tertullian (c. 155–c. 220) wrote this treatise for Christians, especially newcomers beginning to hear divine teaching. He wrote to correct pagan misunderstandings of repentance and to warn believers against presumption that delays or cheapens it. His purpose was to instruct the church on the true nature and discipline of repentance as ordained by God.

The occasion is pastoral instruction within the church. Tertullian argues that repentance must be directed only toward sins, never toward good deeds, and that those who repent must not return to sin, since doing so insults God and exalts the devil. He warns newcomers not to presume on coming forgiveness by delaying repentance. For those who sin after baptism, God grants one further repentance, which must be carried out through public confession, a discipline of confession and humiliation that restores the sinner to God.

A reader will meet John the Baptist, who preached repentance before the Lord's coming, and Adam, the first human, whose sin brought condemnation and who was restored by public confession. Tertullian also cites Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king restored after seven years of penitential humiliation, and Pharaoh, the Egyptian ruler who rejected repentance and perished in the sea. God's words are quoted directly, as are John the Baptist's, and Tertullian argues against imagined objectors who raise rhetorical questions. Tertullian uses the Old Latin version of Scripture, which follows the Septuagint for book names and Psalm numbering, so LXX Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 in modern numbering.

New English from the Latin base text; no published English used as wording.

Printed text used

Translated from Quinti Septimii Florentis Tertulliani Quae Supersunt Omnia Tertullian Franz Oehler T. O. Weigel Leipzig 1853 (Latin)

This work has passed this project's source check. This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.