On Repentance

St. Ambrose, addressing Christ, complains of the Novatians, and shows that they have no part with Christ, Who wishes all men to be saved.

30. So, then, Lord Jesus, come wholly to Your Church, since Novatian makes excuse. Novatian says, “I have bought a yoke of oxen,” and he puts not on the light yoke of Christ, but lays upon his shoulders a heavy burden which he is not able to bear. Novatian held back Your servants by whom he was invited, treated them contemptuously and slew them, polluting them with the stain of a reiterated baptism. Send forth, therefore, into the highways, and gather together good and bad, bring the weak, the blind, and the lame into Your Church. Command that Your house be filled, bring in all unto Your supper, for You will make him whom You shall call worthy, if he follow You. He indeed is rejected who has not the wedding garment, that is, the vestment of charity, the veil of grace. Send forth I pray You to all.

31. Your Church does not excuse herself from Your supper, Novatian makes excuse. Your family says not, “I am whole, I need not the physician,” but it says: “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved.” The likeness of Your Church is that woman who went behind and touched the hem of Your garment, saying within herself: “If I do but touch His garment I shall be whole.” So the Church confesses her wounds, but desires to be healed.

32. And You indeed, O Lord, desirest that all should be healed, but all do not wish to be healed. Novatian wishes not, who thinks that he is whole. You, O Lord, sayest that You are sick, and feelest our infirmity in the least of us, saying: “I was sick and you visited Me.” Novatian does not visit that least one in whom You desire to be visited. You said to Peter when he excused himself from having his feet washed by You: “If I wash not your feet, you will have no part with Me.” What fellowship, then, can they have with You, who receive not the keys of the kingdom of heaven, saying that they ought not to remit sins?

33. And this confession is indeed rightly made by them, for they have not the succession of Peter, who hold not the chair of Peter, which they rend by wicked schism; and this, too, they do, wickedly denying that sins can be forgiven even in the Church, whereas it was said to Peter: “I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.” And the vessel of divine election himself said: “If you have forgiven anything to any one, I forgive also, for what I have forgiven I have done it for your sakes in the person of Christ.” Why, then, do they read Paul's writings, if they think that he has erred so wickedly as to claim for himself the right of his Lord? But he claimed what he had received, he did not usurp that which was not due to him.