Bring forth therefore fruits befitting for repentance:
Read Chapter 3
John Chrysostom
AD 407
However, he stops not at the rebuke, but introduces advice also. For, Bring forth, says he, fruits meet for repentance.
For to flee from wickedness is not enough, but you must show forth also great virtue. For let me not have that contradictory yet ordinary case, that refraining yourselves for a little while, you return unto the same wickedness. For we are not come for the same objects as the prophets before. Nay, the things that are now are changed, and are more exalted, forasmuch as the Judge henceforth is coming, His very self, the very Lord of the kingdom, leading unto greater self-restraint, calling us to heaven, and drawing us upward to those abodes. For this cause do I unfold the doctrine also touching hell, because both the good things and the painful are for ever. Do not therefore abide as you are, neither bring forward the accustomed pleas, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the noble race of your ancestors.
And these things he said, not as forbidding them to say that they were sprun...
. Do you see what he is saying? One must not only flee from wickedness, but also bring forth fruits of virtue. For it is written, "Turn away from evil and do good" (Ps. 33:14).
