ABSTRACT
The Jews, unlike the classical Greeks, attached importance to repentance, to change of heart or metanoia. Repentance could make up for evil-doing and cure vice. More recently it has been held that people who would have asked for baptism if they had known about it can be counted as baptized by a 'baptism of desire'. Baptism enables salvation to work through the social part of our nature. The Jews teach their laws and customs to their children, but they do not have a tradition of sending missions to gentiles. The Church is for Christianity what the Jewish nation is to Judaism. The life of the Church is not itself the life of Christ, but it aspires to a greater unity than a society united only by laws. Christians say that the Spirit illuminates the intellect and strengthens the will, or that grace is poured into the soul.
