[aruanan]

Who said “metanoiete” first? St. John the Baptist. What example did he give? Ascetism: hair shirt, fasting, solitude, the classic forms of penance. Again, the meaning is that we should do something, not just think something.

You're getting the cart before the horse. When he told the Pharisees and Sadducees to produce fruit in keeping with repentance he was not telling them to suit up in camel's hair clothing and to pick up a super-repentance sized container of honey-covered locusts. The specific act mentioned was baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

[annalex]

First, that is not the only example of penance I gave, and I could give more.

Second, the baptism of St. John, as well as the Christian baptism, is linked to metanoia. In nearly all examples of baptism in the Bible they occur together.

If you wish to argue that what St. John did had no relationship to what he preached, — maybe he liked camel hair! — well, go ahead and argue that. As Catholic, I’ll stick to what the Bible is telling me, and I don’t think the acts of penance done by St. John are there by accident.