You do this same thing in your
thoughts, and I will provide the work of the Apostle to you as evidence. I will
show you that your words slander the Apostle, and I urge you to repentance.
What does he say to the Galatians who had deviated from the faith? My little
children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
Since they had been born through the birth pangs of Paul, that is, though
trials and tribulations, on this account he said that, I travail in birth
again, except that they had already been baptized in Christ. If he did not
cast away the entire Church of a city, composed of believers who had apostatized,
but whom he also prohibited from being baptized a second time, or repeatedly,
he surely was not telling the unbaptized, Ye did run well; who did hinder
you that ye should not obey the truth? He surely was speaking to the
unbaptized, saying, Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in
vain. He surely did not say to the unbaptized, he, therefore, that ministereth
to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of
the law, or by the hearing of faith? If the Apostle did not cut off
repentance for the clergy, then do you say that after baptism there is no
repentance? (Saint Ephrem the Syrian: On Repentance [trans. Matthew
Keil; Patristic Nectar, 2026], 95-96)
