For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be regretted: but the sorrow of the world works death.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Godly grief brings about the death of worldliness. When the sinner is found out he is grieved because he is bound to be punished, not having anyone from whom he may expect mercy. Perhaps for the moment there may be nobody who can exact retribution from him, but he knows he will not be able to escape the judgment of God. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Therefore, my brothers, as I have said before, a suitable place for dung helps to produce fruit, but an unsuitable place leads to uncleanness. Someone or other has said, I have come upon this sad person; I see the dung; I examine the place. Tell me, my friend, why are you sad? He says: I have lost my money. The place is unclean; there is no fruit. Let him hear the apostle: “The sorrow that is according to the world produces death.” I have looked at still another person groaning, weeping and praying; I recognize the dung and I examine the place. Moreover, I have directed my ear to this man’s prayer, and I have heard him say: “O Lord, be thou merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” He laments his sin; I recognize the field; I look for fruit. Thanks be to God! The dung is in a good place; it is not useless there; it produces fruit. This is truly the time of fruitful sorrow, so that we may lament the state of our mortality, the abundance of temptations, the stealthy a...
And, in another passage, he says: “The sorrow that is according to God produces repentance that tends to salvation of which one does not repent.” He who is sad according to God is sad in repentance for his sins; sorrow because of one’s own iniquity produces justice. First, let what you are displease you so that you may be able to be what you are not. “The sadness that is according to God produces repentance that tends to salvation of which one does not repent.” He says: “repentance that tends to salvation.” What sort of salvation? That of which one does not repent. What does that mean? One of which you do not repent at any time. For we have had a life of which we ought to have repented; we have had a life calculated to inspire repentance. But we cannot come to that life of which one does not repent except through repentance for an evil life. Will you, my brothers, as I had begun to say, ever find dung in a sifted mass of wheat? Nevertheless, the wheat arrives at that luster, at that fi...
For gladly sorrow worketh repentance. Observe1. that the Apostle here distinguishes two kinds of sorrow, one according to God, and one of the world. The sorrow of the world, or carnal sorrow, is that which springs from loss of excessively loved worldly goods—as when wealth or pleasures are lost, when friends or great men are offended. This sorrow often works death to the soul, by bidding us recover our goods and offend God. Not unseldom it even works diseases and death to the body, for many pine away and die through excessive grief. "Sorrow slays many," says Sirach 30:25 , "and there is no use in it." But godly or Divine sorrow is that which follows on the thought of having offended God, and is called contrition; it produces penance, or self-punishment; so leading to salvation, it is firm, sure, and not to be repented of. Hence Chrysostom and Erasmus refer not to be repented of to penance, not to salvation.
2. The Apostle distinguishes this sorrow from penance as the cause from the ef...
Paul to the Corinthians: "For the sorrow which is according to God worketh a stedfast repentance unto salvation, but the sorrow of the world worketh death."
For the sorrow Sorrow for the loss of temporal goods, such as friends, riches, honours is productive of no good effects; but on the contrary, it ruins the constitution, exciting in the soul emotions of anger, murmuring, revenge, and brooding melancholy. It moreover betrays an inordinate attachment to creatures. But sorrow for our own sins, and for those of others, sufferings which we endure for the glory of God, work penance unto salvation, which is lasting; or, as the Greek has it, worketh penance unto salvation, of which we shall never repent. For tears shed in prayer unto God are sweeter, says St. Augustine, (Psalm cxxvii.) than any pleasure that can be procured from the stage The tears of the saints are like sweet wine, which inebriate those who love God. (St. Augustine, Psalm lxxxiii.)
Contrition, or a hearty sorrow for sin, and not faith alone, as some pretend, is essential to salvation.
However, I marvel how God, who from the beginning gave humanity pain, which came from sin, abolishes his decision with one resolution and expels the judgment with the sentence. And hear how. Sin produced pain, and through pain sin is annihilated. Pay attention carefully. God threatens the woman. He brings upon her the punishment for her disobedience, and he tells her: “You shall bring forth children in pain.” And he showed pain as the harvest of sin. However, oh, how munificent he is! That which he gave for punishment he changed to salvation. Sin gave birth to pain; pain destroys sin. Just as a worm that is born by a tree consumes the very same tree, likewise pain, which is born by sin, kills sin when it is supplied by repentance. For this reason Paul says: “Godly pain produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret.” Pain is good for those who repent sincerely; the sorrow, matching the sin, suits those who sin… . Mourn for the sin so you may not lament for the punis...
Paul was regretful before he saw the fruit of repentance, but afterward he rejoiced. This is the nature of godly sorrow. Worldly sorrow, in contrast to this, is regret for the loss of money, reputation and friends. That kind of sorrow merely leads to greater harm, because the regret is often a prelude to a thirst for revenge. Only sorrow for sin is really profitable.
'Therefore,' he says, 'though I did regret before I saw the fruit and the gain, how great they were I do not regret now .' For such a thing is godly sorrow. And then he philosophizes about it, showing that sorrow is not in all cases a grievous thing, but when it is worldly. And what is worldly? If you be in sorrow for money, for reputation, for him that is departed, all these are worldly. Wherefore also they work death. For he that is in sorrow for reputation's sake feels envy and is driven oftentimes to perish: such sorrow was that which Cain sorrowed, such Esau. By this worldly sorrow then he means that which is to the harm of those that sorrow. For only in respect to sins is sorrow a profitable thing; as is evident in this way. He that sorrowes for loss of wealth repairs not that damage; he that sorrowes for one deceased raises not the dead to life again; he that sorrowes for a sickness, not only is not made well but even aggravates the disease: he that sorrowes for sins, he alone a...
