Let us see. A celibate man wearing a hairshirt, living in the desert in perpetual fast, -- is he doing something or is he having himself a mind change?
To do penance to atone for sins committed after baptism is the invention of the Roman Catholic religion, and is a perversion of the Gospel of Christ
3 Take heed to yourselves. If thy brother sin against thee, reprove him: and if he do penance, forgive him. 4 And if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day be converted unto thee, saying, I repent; forgive him.(Luke 17)
Augustine and the 2nd Council of Orange thoroughly condemned the semi-pelagian false gospel Rome came to embrace in the middle ages.
Let us see. A celibate man wearing a hairshirt, living in the desert in perpetual fast, -- is he doing something or is he having himself a mind change?
John the Baptist was a sinner just like all born of Adam, including Mary.
The repentance John the Baptist came preaching was repentance of the false religion of the Pharisees and 1st century Judaism which, like Roman Catholicism was of works righteousness, empty rituals, legalism and "sacraments", and to come to true faith in Christ, the Messiah, a message that Rome needs to hear as well.