When we fall into this, let us blame no one but ourselves. For Adam gained no benefit, when he transgressed the commandment, by shifting the blame to Eve. Nor did she benefit, in turn, by shifting it to the serpent who began evil.
For God created us with self-mastery and gave us sovereign authority over the passions, that is, the inward ruling principle of the soul. Therefore no one rules over us or can compel us by force.
This, then, is saving sorrow according to God: to blame ourselves, and no one else, for what we ourselves have done sinfully. We must grieve over it and, through confession of our sins and deep contrition for them, propitiate God.
The ancient Lamech began this self-reproach and contrition. He openly confessed his sin, judged himself, and condemned himself more than Cain. For he says: "If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold" (Gen 4:24).
Thus, by mourning himself as guilty, and through painful contrition, he escaped the judgment of God. As the Prophet later said: "Declare your iniquities first, that you may be justified" (Is 43:26). The Apostle also says this: "If we judged ourselves, we would not be judged" (1 Cor 11:31).
Thus it is recorded that Lamech was the first who, by repentance and sorrow over sins, escaped punishment from above. After him came the Ninevites, whole cities and an innumerable multitude.
They had not only sinned, but had also received from God the sentence of their condemnation. Yet they dared to annul it by repentance and the bitter contrition joined to it. For they heard Jonah and believed him as he proclaimed the divine sentence: "Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" (Jon 3:4).
When they heard and believed, they did not cast themselves into the evil abyss of despair. Nor did they set a stone of insensibility upon their heart. Rather, they said to themselves and to one another: "Who knows whether God will repent and turn from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?" (Jon 3:9).
Each turned from his evil way and from the unrighteousness of his hands. They proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the least to the greatest of them. The king himself sat with them in sackcloth upon ashes, repenting.
The infants were not fed, for their mothers, it seems, forgot their nursing children because of their intense weeping. So also the Psalmist says: "Because of the voice of my groaning, I forgot to eat my bread" (Ps 101:5-6).
The livestock did not graze, for the drivers and shepherds, it seems, left them shut in the folds and stalls, themselves bound by great sorrow. Thus, joined in a saving rivalry in saving sorrow for God's sake, they changed God's sentence concerning them. They halted the wrath from above and transformed it into God's good pleasure toward them.
According to the Septuagint, the Prophet Jonah announced that Nineveh would perish after three days. The Greek holy Fathers follow this text. According to the Masoretic text, the Vulgate, and the Syriac translation, which Ephrem the Syrian also follows, the Ninevites were told that they would perish after forty days.
THEOSIS