The ancient Greeks called repentance metanoia, a change of mind.
I picture a bunch of shade-tree mechanics, using an old swing set as a derrick to hoist a dead engine out of a pickup truck and drop a new one in. It’s that kind of change — not the kind of change that water makes in eroding granite.
One of the standard examples of the usage comes from Lyco, a teacher who was head of the Peripatetic School in Athens for decades. He said students who wished they’d studied and learned something but didn’t were their own accusers. Their laments confused repentance with laziness.
The usage doesn't suggest something that is solely in mind, solely in thought. Metanoia involves action.
After the old pickup gets a new engine, it runs.
• Source: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972, Vol. 1, p. 518; Book 5, Section 66.
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