In the Jewish tradition, repentance is called teshuvah, a Hebrew word translated as “returning.”
An important feature of repentance in connection with God...
The Greek is more spiritually descriptive - metanoia means change-nous... The problem today in the West is that we do not have a co-equivalent term - Orthodox writers have had to simply transliterate the term "nous" to designate the meaning of this term... Mind is too broadly inclusive, and intellect really does not capture it either... Awareness is too broadly vague, and consciousness too artsy fartsy... The meaning of nous is the most fundamental feature of the mind, beneath concepts, beneath images, beneath words, beneath sensations... It is a two headed feature of the human spirit, for by it we can apprehend God, and by it we direct our attention to the world... It is called the Eye of the Heart, and is the source of both single mindedness and double mindedness...
The Fall of Adam scattered the nous of man from God to creation, because Adam ate of the created Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, deceived by the Serpent and thinking that he could become as God by partaking of the forbidden fruit of creation... In this Adam turned from God and re-directed his nous away from God to all creation, for he ATE of the Fruit... And now in Christ we EAT and DRINK Christ... So that the RETURN in the Jewish word means returning to God and obedience to God, and their repentance was marked by prayer, fasting, sack-cloth and ashes... And this because in following their own ways, they had forsaken the ways of God, and when warned, as by Jonah, they turned back toward God by the forsaking of their own way...
And this is what Christ called all men to do when He said: "If anyone is willing, after me to be following, let him first DENY HIMSELF..."
REPENTANCE is the DENIAL of SELF... And the Circumcision knew the God from Whom they had turned away, and knew repentance, enforced by captivity... For them, repentance meant severe self denial and self-imposed discomforts... It still does, even for Christians... It is quite refreshing to see you all so eagerly embracing this Jewish doctrine of repentance, understood as "returning"...
But donning sackcloth and eating ashes and starving yourself are all actions taken against the self, and are not actions done for God... With the scattered nous, one needs to re-gather the nous from all its worldly pre-occupations, in order that having re-collected the nous, one can then OFFER it to God, and that offering is not repentance unto God, but surrender to God... The giving back of what had been taken from God... Man has scattered his mind into creation and forgotten God, and lost his mind in the process... This is death to the soul, for it has cut itself off from the Source of Life, and cannot live long in this manner of borrowed life...
The demons all know already that they live on borrowed Life, and are eager to feed off whatever life they can find... They are parasitic that way - Their power is had only through us who consent to their worldly misdirecting of us... They are always on the hunt for power by deception over man... And they conceal themselves in this enterprise...
So yes, "returning" is accurate enough, but the Greek more descriptive of what is actually happening in repentance FROM sin, self and the world...
This is the meaning of "turning inward", Andrew...
"Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right Spirit within me..." Psalm 50
Arsenios
