The greatness or the number of a man’s sins ought not to make him lose hope of propitiating the divinity by his penitence, if he turns his eyes to the divine mercy. This is what the canon asserts, and affirms that everyone, no matter how wicked and nefarious his life may have been, may embrace monastic discipline, which inscribes, as on a tablet, to us a life of penitence. For as a tablet describes to us what is inscribed upon it, so the monastic profession writes and inscribes upon us penitence, so that it remains for ever.