Ambrose of Milan : Are you ashamed, sir, to do as David did—David, the king and the prophet, the ancestor of Christ according to the flesh? He was told of the rich man who had a great number of flocks and yet, when a guest arrived, took the poor man's one ewe lamb and killed it; and when he recognized that he was himself condemned by the story, he said, "I have sinned against the Lord." Therefore do not take it ill, sir, if what was said to King David is said to you, "You are the man." For if you listen with attention and say, "I have sinned against the Lord," if you say, in the words of the royal prophet, "O come, let us worship and fall down, and weep before the Lord our Maker," then it will be said to you also, "Because you repented, the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die." — LETTER 51.7 Augustine of Hippo : But just as Matthew, presenting Christ the king as if descending for the assumption of our sins, thus descends from David through Solomon, because Solomon was born of her with whom David had sinned, so Luke, presenting Christ the priest as if ascending after the destroying of sins, ascends through Nathan to David, because Nathan the prophet had been sent, and by his reproof the penitent David obtained the annulling of his sin. — ON EIGHTY-THREE VARIED QUESTIONS 61 Augustine of Hippo : Similarity of words, dissimilarity of hearts. We may hear the similarity of the words with our ears, but we can only know the dissimilarity of hearts by the angel's declaration. David sinned, and when he was rebuked by the prophet, he said, "I have sinned," and was immediately told, "Your sin has been forgiven you." Saul sinned, and when he was rebuked by the prophet, he said, "I have sinned," and his sin was not forgiven, but the wrath of God remained upon him. What can this mean but similarity of words, dissimilarity of hearts? Human beings can hear words, God inspects hearts. — SERMON 291.5 Augustine of Hippo : Baptized people, though, who are deserters and violators of such a great sacrament, if they repent from the bottom of their hearts, if they repent where God can see, as he saw David's heart, when on being rebuked by the prophet, and very sternly rebuked, he cried out after hearing God's fearsome threats and said, "I have sinned," and shortly afterward heard, "God has taken away your sin." Such is the effectiveness of three syllables. "I have sinned" is just three syllables; and yet in these three syllables the flames of the heart's sacrifice rose up to heaven. So those who have done genuine penance, and have been absolved from the constraints by which they were bound and cut off from the body of Christ, and have lived good lives after their penance, such as they ought to have lived before penance, and in due course have passed away after being reconciled, why, they too go to God, go to their rest, will not be deprived of the kingdom, will be set apart from the people of the devil. — SERMON 393.1 Cyril of Jerusalem : If you like, however, I will give you further examples relating to our condition. Come then to the blessed David, and take him for your example of repentance. Great as he was, he suffered a fall. It was in the afternoon, after his siesta, that he took a turn on the housetop and saw by chance what stirred his human passion. He fulfilled the sinful deed, but his nobility, when it came to confessing the lapse, had not perished with the doing of the deed. Nathan the prophet came, swift to convict, but now as a healer for his wound, saying, "The Lord was angry, and you have sinned." So spoke a simple subject to his reigning sovereign. But David, though king and robed in purple, did not take it amiss, for he had regard not to the rank of the speaker but to the majesty of him who sent him. He was not puffed up by the fact that guardsmen were drawn up all around him, for the angelic host of the Lord came to his mind and he was in terror "as seeing him who is invisible." So he answered and said to the man that came to him, or rather, in his person, to the God whose messenger he was, "I have sinned against the Lord." You see this royal humility and the making of confession. Surely no one had been convicting him, nor were there many who knew what he had done. Swiftly the deed was done and immediately the prophet appeared as accuser. Lo! The sinner confesses his wicked deed, and as it was full and frank confession, he had the swiftest healing. For the prophet Nathan first threatened him, but then said immediately, "And the Lord has put away your sin." And see how quickly lovingkindness changes the face of God! Except that he first declares, "you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme" as though he said "you have many that are your foes because of your righteousness, from whom nevertheless, you were kept safe by your upright living. But as you have thrown away this best of armors, you have now, standing ready to strike, these foes that are risen up against you."So then the prophet comforted David as we have seen, but that blessed man, though he received most gladly the assurance, "The Lord has put away your sin," did not, king as he was, draw back from penitence. Indeed he put on sackcloth in place of his purple robe, and the king sat in ashes on the bare earth instead of on his gilded throne. And in ashes he did not merely sit, but took them for eating, as he himself says, "I have eaten ashes as it were bread, and mingled my drink with weeping." His lustful eye he wasted away with tears; as he says, "every night I wash my bed and water my couch with my tears." And when his courtiers exhorted him to eat food, he would not, but prolonged his fast for seven whole days. — Catechetical Lecture 2:11-12 Pacian of Barcelona : Be we indeed ashamed to sin, but not ashamed to repent. Be we ashamed to hazard ourselves, but not ashamed to be delivered. Who will snatch the plank from the shipwrecked, that he escape not? Who will grudge the curing of a wound? Doth not David say, Every night I will wash my bed, I will water my couch with my tears; and again, I acknowledge my sin, and mine unrighteousness have I not hid; and yet more, I said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord, and so Thou forgavest the wickedness of my heart. Did not the Prophet answer him when, after the guilt of murder and adultery, penitent for Bathsheba, The Lord also hath put away from thee thy sin? — Letter 1: On the Catholic Name Paulinus of Milan : Indeed, to the penitent himself confession alone does not suffice, unless correction of the deed follows, with the result that the penitent does not continue to do deeds which demand repentance. He should even humble his soul just as holy David, who, when he heard from the prophet: "Your sin is pardoned," became more humble in the correction of his sin, so that "he did eat ashes like bread and mingled his drink with weeping." — THE LIFE OF ST. AMBROSE 9.39 Salvian the Presbyter : You see what instant judgment so great a man suffered for one sin. Immediate condemnation followed the fault, a condemnation immediately punishing and without reservation, stopping the guilty one then and there and not deferring the case to a later date. Thus he did not say, "because you have done this, know that the judgment of God will come and you will be tormented in the fire of hell." Rather, he said, "You shall suffer immediate punishment and shall have the sword of divine severity at your throat."And what followed? The guilty man acknowledged his sin, was humbled, filled with remorse, confessed and wept. He repented and asked for pardon, gave up his royal jewels, laid aside his robes of gold cloth, put aside the purple, resigned his crown. He was changed in body and appearance. He cast aside all his kingship with its ornaments. He put on the externals of a fugitive penitent, so that his squalor was his defense. He was wasted by fasting, dried up by thirst, worn from weeping and imprisoned in his own loneliness. Yet this king, bearing such a great name, greater in his holiness than in temporal power, surpassing all by the prerogative of his antecedent merits, did not escape punishment though he sought pardon so earnestly. The reward of this great penitence was such that he was not condemned to eternal punishment. Yet, he did not merit full pardon in this world. What did the prophet say to the penitent? "Because you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the son that is born to you shall die." Besides the pain of the bitter loss of his son, God wished that there be added to the very loving father an understanding of this greatest punishment, namely, that the father who mourned should himself bring death to his beloved son, when the son, born of his father's crime, was killed for the very crime that had begotten him. — THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 2.4