Letters 40–49

Brother to sister.

1. The Burning of the Synagogue at Callinicum

You have deigned to write to me that your holiness is still anxious, because I had written that I was anxious; whence I wonder that you have not received my letters, in which I had written that my security had been restored to me. For when it had been reported that the synagogue of the Jews had been burned by Christians, at the instigation of the bishop, and also a conventicle of the Valentinians; it had been commanded, while I was at Aquileia, that the synagogue be rebuilt by the bishop, and that vengeance be taken upon the monks who had burned the building of the Valentinians. Then I, when by frequently pleading I made little progress, gave a letter to the emperor, which I have sent at the same time; and when he had gone forth to the Church, I delivered this discourse:

2. The Prophet's Walnut Rod

It is written in the prophetic book: Take for yourself a walnut rod; and we ought to consider for what reason the Lord said this to the prophet; for it is not written idly, since also in the Pentateuch we read that the walnut rod of Aaron the priest, when it had long been laid up, flourished. For He seems by the rod to signify that prophecy, or priestly authority, ought to be direct; so that it may persuade to things not so much pleasant as useful.

3. The Bitter Husk and Fruitful Kernel

Therefore the prophet is bidden to take a walnut rod, because the fruit of that tree mentioned is bitter in the husk, hard in the shell, and fruitful within; so that after its likeness the prophet also may put forward things bitter and hard, and not shrink from announcing sad things. Likewise also the priest, because his precept, although it may seem bitter for a time to some, and like the rod of Aaron long laid up in the ears of those who disregard it; yet at some time, when it is thought to have dried up, it flowers.

4. Rod and Gentleness in Correction

Whence also the Apostle says: What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in charity and in a spirit of gentleness? For first he spoke of the rod, and struck those in error as with a walnut rod, that afterward he might console them with a spirit of gentleness. And so him whom the rod cast out from the heavenly sacraments, gentleness restores. To his disciple also he gave such precepts, saying: Reprove, entreat, rebuke. Two things harsh, one gentle: but the harsh things were meant even to soften; because just as for sick bodies overflowing with bile the bitterness of food or drink becomes sweet, and on the contrary the sweetness of feasts is bitterness to them: so where the mind is wounded, it grows sicker from the fomentation of pleasurable flattery, and again is tempered by the bitterness of correction.

5. The Gospel of the Sinful Woman

Let these things suffice, tasted from the prophetic reading: let us consider also what the reading of the Gospel contains: A certain Pharisee asked the Lord Jesus to eat with him; and He went into the house of the Pharisee, and sat down. And behold, a woman who was a sinner in the city, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment: and standing behind at His feet, began to wash His feet with tears And I recited the rest up to the place: Your faith has made you safe, go in peace. How simple, I added, in words, how profound in counsel is this reading of the Gospel! Therefore, since it is the word of the great counsellor, let us consider its depth.

6. Grace and Kindness Rather Than Fear

Our Lord Jesus Christ judged that men could be bound rather by kindnesses, and be provoked to do what is right, than by fear: and that love profits more toward correction than dread. Therefore He sent grace before, coming through the childbirth of the Virgin; that in baptism He might forgive sins, whereby He might make men more grateful to Him. Then, if we were to repay fitting duties to men so favored, He declared in this woman the reward that would come from that very grace to all. For if He had only forgiven us our first debts, He would seem more cautious than indulgent, and more provident of correction than magnificent in reward. It is the mark of a narrow mind to have craft only enough to entice: but it befits God that those whom He has invited through grace, He should advance by increases of that same grace. And so He gives to us beforehand through baptism, and afterward bestows richer gifts on those who serve Him well.

Thus, therefore, the benefits of Christ are both incentives to virtue and rewards.

7. The Parable of the Moneylender

But let no one shudder at the name of moneylender. We were formerly under a harsh moneylender, who could not be satisfied and filled except by the debtor's death. The Lord Jesus came, and saw us bound by a heavy debt. No one could pay off his own debt from the estate of his own innocence: I could not have of my own by which I might free myself; he brought me a new kind of release, that I should change my creditor, since I had no interest with which to pay. But it was not nature that made us debtors, but guilt; for by our sins we contracted heavy debts, so that we who were free became liable; for he is a debtor who has received something of the moneylender's money. But sin is from the devil: as though the wicked man holds these riches in his patrimony; for just as Christ's riches are the virtues, so the devil's riches are crimes.

He had reduced the human race into perpetual captivity of a liable inheritance by a heavy debt, which the indebted author had transmitted to his posterity by an inherited debt. The Lord Jesus came, offered his own death for the death of all, and poured out his own blood for the blood of all.

8. A New Creditor for the Debt of Sin

We have therefore changed creditor, we have not escaped; nay rather we have escaped, for the debt remains, but the interest has lapsed, the Lord Jesus saying to those who are in bonds: Go forth; and to those who are in prison: Come out; your sins therefore are forgiven. To all, then, he has forgiven, nor is there anyone to whom he has not remitted. For thus it is written, that he forgave all our trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us. Why do we hold to the bonds of others, and wish to exact what is another's, we who make use of the forgiveness of our own? He who forgave all, requires of all; that what each one remembers was forgiven him, he himself may forgive to another.

9. The Warning of the Unforgiving Servant

See that you do not begin, as moneylender, to have a graver case than the debtor: like that man in the Gospel, whose Lord forgave him his whole debt, but he afterward began to exact from his fellow servant what he himself had not paid; whence his lord, angered, exacted from him with the utmost injuries what he had before forgiven him. Let us beware, then, lest this happen to us, that by not remitting what is owed to us, we begin also to pay back what has been remitted to us; for thus it is written, the Lord Jesus saying: So also will my Father who is in heaven do to you, if you do not forgive each one his brother from your hearts. Let us therefore forgive the little that has been forgiven us much for; and let us understand that we shall be the more acceptable to God the more we ourselves forgive; since we are the more pleasing to God the more has been forgiven us.

10. The Pharisee's Right Judgment and Wrong Feeling

Finally, the Pharisee, when asked by the Lord: Which of them, he says, loves him more? He answered: I suppose that it is he to whom he forgave more. To whom the Lord said: You have judged rightly. The Pharisee's judgment is praised, but his feeling is reproved. He judges well of others: but what he thinks of others, he himself does not believe. You hear the Jew praising the discipline of the Church, and proclaiming her true grace, honoring the priests of the Church; you exhort him to believe, he refuses; thus what he praises in us, he himself does not follow. His praise is therefore not complete, though he heard from Christ: You have judged rightly; for Cain too offered rightly, but did not divide rightly: and therefore God said to him: If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you have sinned; be still.

So here too he offered rightly, in that he judges that Christ ought to be loved more by Christians, because he has forgiven us many sins: but he did not divide rightly, because he thought that he who forgave sins to men could himself be ignorant of men's sins.

11. The Church as the Body of Christ

And therefore he says to Simon: Do you see this woman? I entered into your house, you gave me no water for my feet: but she has watered my feet with her tears. We are all one body of Christ, whose head is God, and we are the members: some perhaps are the eyes, as the prophets: teeth, as the apostles, who have poured into our breasts the food of evangelical preaching; and rightly it is written: His eyes are cheerful from wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. There are also his hands, those who appear as the executors of good works. There is also his belly, those who bestow the strength of nourishment upon the poor. There are therefore also certain feet of his: and would that I might deserve to be his heel! He therefore pours water on the feet of Christ, who grants forgiveness of sins even to the very lowliest; and while he frees the common people, he yet washes the footstep of Christ.

12. Water and Tears of a Cleansed Conscience

He too pours water on the feet of Christ, who cleanses his own conscience from the filth of sins; for Christ walks in the breasts of each one. Beware, therefore, lest you have a polluted conscience, and begin to defile the feet of Christ. Beware lest a thorn of your own wickedness wound him, by which the heel of him who walks within you may be pierced. For this is why the Pharisee gave no water for Christ's feet, because he did not have a mind cleansed from the filth of unbelief. For whence would he cleanse his own conscience, who had not received the water of Christ? But the Church has both water and tears: the water of baptism, the tears of penance. For faith, which weeps over former sins, is accustomed to guard against new ones. Simon the Pharisee, therefore, who had no water, certainly had no tears either. For how would he have tears, who bore no penance; since indeed he did not believe in Christ, and had no tears?

For if he had had them, he would have washed his eyes; that he might see Christ, whom he did not yet see, even while reclining together with him. For if he had seen, he would certainly not have doubted his power.

13. The Allegory of Hair and Riches

The Pharisee had no hair, who could not know the Nazarene: the Church had it, who sought the Nazarene. Hair is reckoned among the superfluities of the body; yet the same, if anointed, gives forth a good odor, and is an ornament to the head: if not anointed with oil, it weighs down; so too riches are a burden, if you do not know how to use them, if you do not sprinkle upon them the odor of Christ. But if you nourish the poor, wash their wounds, and wipe away their filth, you have indeed wiped the feet of Christ.

14. The Kiss Withheld by the Pharisee

You gave me no kiss: but she, from the time she came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. A kiss is indeed the mark of love. Whence then a kiss for the Jew, who did not acknowledge peace, who did not receive peace from Christ, who said: My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you? The Synagogue has no kiss; the Church has it, who awaited, who loved, who said: Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for she wished to quench, drop by drop, with his kiss, the burning of a long desire, which the expectation of the Lord's coming had nourished, and to satisfy her thirst with this gift. And therefore the holy prophet says: You will open my mouth, and it will proclaim your praise. He, then, who praises the Lord Jesus, kisses him: he who praises, certainly believes. Finally David himself says: I believed, therefore I have spoken; and above: Let my mouth be filled with your praise, and let me sing your glory.

15. The Kiss of Confession and Communion

Concerning also the infusion of a special grace, the same Scripture teaches you, that he kisses Christ who receives the Spirit, the holy prophet saying: I opened my mouth, and drew in the Spirit. He kisses Christ, then, who confesses him: for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. But he kisses the feet of Christ, who, reading the Gospel, comes to know the deeds of the Lord Jesus and marvels at them with pious affection; and therefore, with a religious kiss, licks, as it were, certain footprints of the Lord walking about. We kiss Christ, then, with the kiss of communion: let him who reads, understand.

16. The Betraying Kiss of Judas

Whence then this kiss for the Jew? For he who did not believe in his coming, did not believe in his passion either. For how does he believe him to have suffered, whom he did not believe to have come? The Pharisee, then, had no kiss, unless perhaps that of Judas the betrayer. But Judas did not have it either, and therefore, when among the Jews he wished to show the promised kiss as a sign of betrayal, the Lord says to him: Judas, do you betray the Son of man with a kiss: that is, you offer a kiss, who do not have the love of the kiss: you offer a kiss, who know not the mystery of the kiss. It is not the kiss of the lips that is sought, but of the heart and mind.

17. Lips Without Faith or Love

But you say: He kissed the Lord. True, he kissed with his lips. This kiss the people of the Jews have, and therefore it is said: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. He, then, does not have a kiss, who does not have faith and love; for by a kiss the force of love is impressed. Where there is no love, there is no faith, no affection; what sweetness of kisses can there be?

18. The Bride Seeking Many Kisses

But the Church does not cease to kiss the feet of Christ; and therefore she asks in the Song of Songs not one, but many kisses, she who, like holy Mary, is intent upon all his words, receives all his sayings; when the Gospel is read, or the prophet, she keeps all his words in her heart. The Church alone, then, has kisses, as a bride; for a kiss is, as it were, a pledge of marriage, and the privilege of wedlock. Whence for the Jew are there kisses, who does not believe in the Bridegroom? Whence for the Jew are there kisses, who does not yet know that the Bridegroom has come?

19. The Missing Oil of the Good Samaritan

Nor does she lack only kisses, but she has no oil with which to anoint the feet of Christ; for if she had oil, she would surely first soften her own neck. Finally Moses says: This people is stiff-necked; and the Lord says that the Levite and the priest passed by, nor did any of them pour oil or wine upon the wounds of him who had been struck by robbers: for they had nothing to pour; for if they had had oil, they would have poured it also upon their own wounds. But Isaiah cries out: There is no poultice to apply, nor oil, nor bandage (Isa.:).

20. Oil for Martyrs and Confessors

But the Church has oil, with which she soothes the wounds of her people; lest the hardness of the wound creep deep: she has oil which she has received secretly. With this oil Asher washed his foot, as it is written: Blessed be the son of Asher; and let him be acceptable to his brothers, and let him dip his foot in oil. With this oil, then, the Church anoints the necks of her people, that they may take up the yoke of Christ: with this oil she anointed the martyrs, that she might wipe away from them the dust of the world: with this oil she anointed the confessors; lest they yield to toil, lest they succumb when wearied, lest they be overcome by the heat of this world: therefore she anointed them, that she might refresh them with spiritual oil.

21. The Dove and the Olive Branch

The Synagogue has not this oil, since she has no olive, and did not understand that dove which brought back the olive branch after the flood. For that dove afterward descended, when Christ was baptized, and remained upon him, as John testifies in the Gospel, saying: For I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained upon him. How then did she see the dove, who did not see him upon whom the Spirit descended like a dove?

22. Equal Grace for Rich and Poor

The Church, therefore, both washes the feet of Christ, and wipes them with her hair, and anoints them with oil, and pours perfume over them; because she not only heals the wounded, and cherishes the weary, but also sprinkles them with the sweet odor of grace: nor does she pour this same grace only upon the rich and more powerful, but also upon men of the common household, weighing all in an equal balance, receiving all in the same bosom; cherishing all in the same lap.

23. Perfume Poured on the Feet of the Least

Christ died once, was buried once: and nevertheless he wishes every day that perfume be poured upon his feet. Upon whose feet, then, do we pour perfume for Christ? Those are the feet of Christ, of whom he himself says: What you have done to one of the least of these, you have done to me. These feet that woman of the Gospel refreshes, these she waters with her tears; when sin is forgiven the lowliest, guilt is washed away, forgiveness is granted. These feet he kisses, who loves even the lowliest of the holy people. These feet he anoints with perfume, who imparts the grace of his gentleness even to the humbler folk. In these he shows that the martyrs, in these the apostles, in these the Lord Jesus himself, are honored.

24. God's Reproach Recounting His Benefits

You see how moral the Lord is, that by his own example he might provoke you to piety: he is moral also when he rebukes. Finally, accusing the Jews he says: My people, what have I done to thee, or in what have I grieved thee, or how have I been troublesome to thee? Answer me. For I led thee out of the land of Egypt, and freed thee from the house of bondage? And he added: And I sent before thy face Moses and Aaron and Miriam Bear in mind what Balac devised against thee, that is, that seeker of the aid of magic art; yet I did not permit him to harm thee. Thou wast indeed being oppressed, exiled in foreign lands, weighed down by heavy burdens: I sent before thy face Moses and Aaron and Miriam, and first he who had despoiled the exile was himself despoiled.

Thou, who hadst lost thine own, acquired what was another's, freed from the enemies surrounding thee, and safe amid the midst of the waters didst behold the slaughter of thine enemies, when the same wave which had carried thee, encircling thee, flowed back and drowned the enemy. Did I not, when thou wast coming through the desert and food was lacking, provide for thee nourishing rain, and supplies flowing round thee wherever thou didst go? Did I not, after all thine enemies were subdued, bring thee into the region of Botryon? Did I not deliver into thy hand Sehon king of the Amorrhites, that is, the proud leader of those who provoked me: did I not deliver to thee the king of Hai alive, whom thou didst fasten to a tree and lift up on the cross, condemning him under the old curse? What shall I say of the slaughter of the armies of five kings, who strove to deny thee the lands owed to thee?

And now for all these things what else is required of thee, O man, but that thou do judgment and justice, and love mercy, and be ready to walk with the Lord thy God?

25. Nathan's Rebuke to King David

To King David himself, that devout and gentle man, what a remonstrance through the prophet Nathan! I, he says, chose thee, the least of thy brethren: I filled thee with the spirit of gentleness: I anointed thee king through Samuel, in whom I myself and my name were present. I, after removing that former king whom an evil spirit drove to persecute the priests of the Lord, made thee, from an exile, a conqueror. I placed one of thy seed on thy throne, not first as heir but as consort. I even made foreigners subject to thee, that they who fought against thee should serve thee: and wilt thou lead into the power of my enemies those who serve me? And wilt thou take away what belonged to my little servant, whereby sin is branded also upon thee, and my adversaries will have something to boast of?

26. An Exhortation to the Emperor

Therefore, O emperor, that I may now turn my words not only concerning thee, but also to thee; since thou perceivest how gravely the Lord is wont to remonstrate, know that the more glorious thou hast become, the more deference thou owest to thy Author. For it is written: When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into a foreign land, and thou shalt eat foreign fruits, say not: My strength and my righteousness have given me this; but the Lord God bestowed it, but Christ conferred it by his mercy; and therefore, loving his body, that is, the Church, give water to her feet, kiss her feet; that thou mayest not only absolve those who have been caught in sins, but also grant them, by thy peace, the gift of concord, and release them into quiet.

Pour ointment upon her feet, that the whole house in which Christ reclines may be filled with thy ointment, that all who recline with him may rejoice in thy fragrances, that is, so honor the least, that the angels may rejoice at their absolution, as over one sinner doing penance; let the apostles be glad, let the prophets delight. For the eyes cannot say to the hand: We have no need of thy work; nor the head to the feet: Ye are not necessary to me. Therefore, since all are necessary, guard the whole body of the Lord Jesus; that he too may, by his heavenly favor, guard thy kingdom.

27. The Emperor Agrees to Amend the Rescript

When I had come down, he said to me: You have proposed something concerning us. I replied: This I have handled, which pertains to your benefit. Then he said: In truth I had decided rather harshly about the rebuilding of the synagogue by the bishop, but it has been amended. The monks commit many crimes. Then Timasius, master of horse and foot, began to be more vehement against the monks. I answered him: I deal with the emperor as is fitting, because I know he has the fear of the Lord; but with thee it must be dealt with otherwise, who speak such harsh things.

28. A Promise Secured Before the Altar

Then, when I had stood for a while, I said to the emperor: Make me secure to offer for you, absolve my mind. While he sat and nodded, yet did not openly promise, and I stood still, he said he would amend the rescript. Immediately I began to say that he should remove all judicial inquiry entirely; lest under the pretext of inquiry some count should oppress Christians with injury. He promised it would be so. I said to him: I act upon your good faith; and I repeated: I act upon your good faith. Act, he said, upon my good faith. And thus I approached the altar, not otherwise about to approach, unless he had fully promised me. And truly so great was the grace of the offering, that I myself felt that grace to have been more acceptable to our God, and that the divine presence had not been lacking. Thus everything was done according to my wish.

"SYRICIUS to the Church of Milan. 1. "I would always wish, dearest brothers, to announce joys to the sincerity of your love and peace, so that we might in turn be helped, by letters passing to and fro, by the assurance of your welfare. But indeed, because the ancient enemy does not allow us to rest quietly from his assault, the enemy from the beginning a liar, the adversary of truth, the rival of man, whom, that he might deceive him, he first deceived himself, the adversary of chastity, the master of luxury, is fed by cruelties, is punished by abstinence, hates fasts—his ministers preaching, while they say that these things are superfluous, having no hope of things to come, struck back by the sentence of the Apostle who says: Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die. 2. "O unhappy audacity! O cunning of a desperate mind!

Already an unknown speech of heretics was creeping within the Church like a cancer, so that, seizing upon the breast, it might cast the whole man headlong into death: and unless the Lord of Sabaoth had broken the snare which they had prepared, the stage-play of so great an evil, and the hypocrisy, once made public, would have drawn the hearts of many simple folk into ruin; because the human mind is easily led to the worse part, preferring to fly through open spaces rather than to pass with labor along the path of the narrow way. 3. "For this reason it was quite necessary, most beloved, to send for your knowledge the things that have been done here; lest through the ignorance of some priest the Church might be defiled by the contagion of the worst of men breaking in under a religious name, as it is written, the Lord saying: Many come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves: by their fruits you shall know them.

These, namely, are they who, under the vileness of their garments, boast themselves Christians; so that, walking under the veil of a pious name, having entered the house of prayer, they pour forth the discourse of serpentine disputation: that they may shoot in the dark at the upright of heart, and by turning them away from catholic truth, may draw them, after the manner of the devil, into the madness of their own teaching, and defraud the simplicity of the sheep. 4. "And indeed we have learned the malice of many heresies from the apostles until now, and have proved it by experience: but never have such dogs wearied the mystery of the Church with their barking, as these who now suddenly bursting in, with the teaching of perfidy sprouting forth, enemies of the faith, have betrayed by the fruits of their words whose disciples they are.

For while other heretics, by ill understanding, have set themselves each to tear apart and rend certain kinds of questions from the divine institutions: these, not having a wedding garment, wound catholics, perverting, as I have said, the content of the New and Old Testament, and interpreting it with a devilish spirit, have with alluring and feigned speech begun already to lay waste a number of Christians, and to join them to their own madness, not containing within themselves the poison of their wickedness: rather their chosen ones have betrayed their blasphemies by rash writing; and, roused by the fury of a desperate mind, have published them everywhere to the delight of the pagans. 5. "But their madness seems to have been suddenly brought, through a horrifying writing, to my humble self by faithful Christians, men of the best lineage, distinguished in religion; so that, being detected by priestly judgment, it might be blotted out by spiritual sentence as contrary to the divine law.

We indeed do not disdainfully receive the vows of marriages, at which we are present with the veil: but the virgins whom marriages produce, devoted to God, we honor with greater honor. 6. "Therefore, a council of priests having been held, it was established that their teaching was contrary to our doctrine, that is, to the Christian law. Whence, following the precept of the Apostle, because they were announcing something other than what we have received, we have excommunicated them. Know, therefore, that there was one sentence of us all, both of priests and deacons, as well as of the whole clergy, that Jovinian, Auxentius, Genialis, Germinator, Felix, Prontinus, Martianus, Januarius, and Ingeniosus, who were found to be the instigators of the new heresy and blasphemy, should remain forever outside the Church, condemned by divine sentence and by our judgment. 7. "Not doubting that your holiness will keep this, I have sent this writing by my brothers and priests Crescens, Leopardus, and Alexander, who may be able to fulfill this religious office fervent in the spirit of faith.

To the most beloved lord and brother Pope SYRICIUS, AMBROSE, SABINUS, BASSIANUS, and the rest.

1. The Watchful Shepherd Against the Wolves

We have recognized in the letters of Your Holiness the watchfulness of a good shepherd, who faithfully guards the door committed to you, and with pious care keeps Christ's fold, worthy that the sheep of the Lord should hear and follow you: and therefore, since you know Christ's little sheep, you will easily detect the wolves, and you will run to meet them like a provident shepherd, lest by the ways of their perfidy and by savage howling they scatter the Lord's fold.

2. Against Abolishing the Degrees of Merit

We praise this, lord and dearest brother to us, and we celebrate it with our whole affection. Nor do we wonder if the flock of the Lord shudders at the madness of wolves, in whom it has not recognized the voice of Christ. For it is a savage howling to preserve no grace of virginity, no order of chastity, to wish to confuse all things indiscriminately, to abolish the degrees of different merits, and to introduce a kind of poverty of heavenly rewards: as though there were but a single palm which Christ bestows, and not an abundance of many titles of rewards.

3. Marriage Honored Yet Virginity Preferred

These men pretend to give honor to marriage. But what praise can there be for marriage, if there is no glory of virginity? Nor indeed do we deny that marriage has been sanctified by Christ, the divine voice saying: They two shall be in one flesh, and in one spirit: but that which we were born is prior to that which we have become; and much more excellent is the mystery of the divine work than the remedy of human frailty. Rightly is a good wife praised, but better is the devout virgin preferred, the Apostle saying: He who gives his virgin in marriage does well: and he who does not give her, does better; for the one thinks on the things that are of God, the other on the things that are of the world. The one is bound by the bonds of marriage, the other is free of bonds: the one is under the law, the other under grace.

Marriage is good, through which is found the posterity of human succession: but virginity is better, through which the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom is acquired, and the succession of heavenly merits is found. Through woman, care succeeded; through the virgin, salvation came about. Finally, Christ chose for himself the special gift of virginity, and displayed the gift of integrity, and represented in himself what he chose in his mother.

4. Defending the Virgin Birth Against Denial

What great madness of deadly barkings, that these same men should say that Christ could not have been born of a Virgin, they who assert that women, after bearing the offspring of human children, remain virgins? Does Christ then grant to others what he could not, as they say, grant to himself? He indeed, though he assumed flesh, though he was made man, that he might redeem man and call him back from death; yet, as God, came to earth by an unaccustomed path, so that, just as he had said: Behold, I make all things new; he might also be born by the birth of an immaculate Virgin, and, as it is written, that God might be believed to be with us. But out of a way of perversity they are reported to say: The virgin conceived, but a virgin did not give birth. Could a virgin then conceive, but a virgin could not give birth; when conception always precedes, and birth follows?

5. Scripture and the Creed on Mary's Virgin Birth

But if the teachings of priests are not believed, let the oracles of Christ be believed, let the admonitions of the Angels be believed, saying: For no word shall be impossible with God. Let the Creed of the apostles be believed, which the Roman Church always keeps and preserves undefiled. Mary heard the voice of the angel, and she who had before said: How shall this be? Not asking about the faith of the generation, afterward answered: Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word. This is the Virgin who conceived in the womb: the virgin who bore a son. For thus it is written: Behold a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son; for he said not that a virgin would only conceive, but also that a virgin would bear.

6. The Shut Eastern Gate as a Figure of Mary

But what is that gate of the sanctuary, that outer gate toward the East, which remains shut; and no one, it says, shall pass through it, except the God of Israel alone? Is not this gate Mary, through whom the redeemer entered into this world? This is the gate of righteousness, as he himself said: Suffer us to fulfill all righteousness. This gate is blessed Mary, of whom it is written that the Lord shall pass through it, and it shall be shut after the birth; because a virgin conceived and bore.

7. Nature's Wonders as Parallels to the Virgin Birth

But what is incredible if, contrary to the custom of natural origin, Mary gave birth, and remains a virgin; when contrary to the custom of nature the sea saw and fled, and the streams of the Jordan turned back to their source? It does not therefore exceed belief that a virgin gave birth, when we read that the rock poured forth waters, and the wave of the sea was solidified into the likeness of a wall. It does not therefore exceed belief that a man came forth from a virgin, when the rock gushed forth a flowing spring, iron floated upon the waters, a man walked upon the waters. Therefore if the wave carried a man, could not a virgin bring forth a man? But what man? Of whom we read: And the Lord shall send them a man who shall save them, and the Lord shall be known to the Egyptians.

In the Old Testament, therefore, a virgin of the Hebrews led the army through the sea; in the New Testament a virgin was chosen as the hall of the heavenly King, for salvation.

8. The Widow Anna in the Gospel

What then? Let us also weave in praises of widowhood, since in the Gospel, after the most celebrated childbearing of the Virgin, the widow Anna is brought forward, who had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity, and this widow of eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, serving day and night in fastings and prayers.

9. Opponents of Fasting Condemned by Their Own Luxury

And rightly is widowhood despised by those who are accustomed to observe fastings, by whom these men grieve that they were once wasted, and they avenge their own injury, desiring also to drive away by daily banquets and by the practice of luxury the labor of abstinence. They do nothing more fitting than to condemn themselves by their own mouth.

10. Paul Vindicated Against the Charge of Luxury

But they also fear that this may be reckoned among those fastings. Let them choose what they will: if they have ever fasted, let them then do penance for their good deed; if never, let them then confess their own intemperance and luxury. And so they say that Paul was a master of luxury. But who will be a master of sobriety, if he was a master of luxury, who chastised his body and brought it into subjection, and recorded that he had rendered by many fastings the observance owed to Christ; not that he might praise himself and his own deeds, but that he might teach us what to follow? He then taught luxury, who said: Why, as if yet living in the world, do you decree, Touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using? Who also said: We must live not in indulgence of the body, not in any honor unto satiety and diligence of the flesh, not in the desires of error: but in the Spirit, by which we are renewed.

11. Fasting Defended by Prophet Adam and Nineveh

If it is too little that the Apostle said, let them hear the Prophet saying: And I covered my soul with fasting. Therefore he who does not fast is uncovered and naked, and lies open to wounding. Indeed, if Adam had covered himself with fasting, he would not have been made naked. Nineveh freed itself from death by fasting. And the Lord himself says: This kind of demons is not cast out except by prayer and fasting.

12. The Manichaean Denial of Christ's True Flesh

But why more before the master and teacher? Since they have now brought upon themselves the fitting reward of their own perfidy, who came so far as to leave no place in which they were not condemned; who have truly proved themselves Manichaeans, not believing that he had indeed come from a Virgin.

What is this madness akin to that of the new Jews? If it is not believed that he came, neither is it believed that he took on flesh: therefore he was seen in a phantasm, was crucified in a phantasm. But to us he was crucified in truth, in truth he is our redeemer.

13. The Emperor's Condemnation and Expulsion of the Manichaeans

It is a Manichaean who denies the truth, who denies the flesh of Christ; and therefore there is no remission of sins for them: but it is the impiety of the Manichaeans, which the most clement emperor has execrated, and all who have seen them have fled as from some contagion; as our brothers and fellow-presbyters Crescens, Leopardus, and Alexander are witnesses, men fervent in the Holy Spirit, who, condemning them by the execration of all, drove them out of the city of Milan as fugitives.

14. Condemned Names and Episcopal Subscriptions

And so, know that Jovinianus, Auxentius, Germinator, Felix, Plotinus, Genialis, Martianus, Januarius, and Ingeniosus, whom your holiness has condemned, are also condemned among us according to your judgment. May our almighty God keep you safe and most flourishing, most beloved lord and brother. Likewise the subscription.

Bishop Eventius greets your Holiness in the Lord, and I have subscribed to this letter.

Bishop Maximus.

Bishop Felix.

Bishop Bassianus.

Bishop Theodorus.

Bishop Constantius.

By order of the lord bishop Geminianus, he himself being present. I, Aper the presbyter, have subscribed.

Bishop Eustasius, and all the orders, have subscribed.

Ambrose to Horontianus.

1. The Question of Man's Late Creation in the Hexaemeron

You have indicated to me that you were moved, upon reading the Hexaemeron which I myself wrote, because, comparing so carefully with the series of divine Scripture, or with the style of my discourse, you observed that man, than whom none of the living creatures on this earth is greater, was brought forth by earth or water—all the flying things, or the land things, or those which are in the waters—before man, for whose sake those things were created, was generated; and you ask of me the reason for this matter, which Moses passed over in silence, and which I have not dared to touch upon.

2. Moses' Silence and Human Reasoning on Divine Will

And perhaps that interpreter of the divine oracle fell silent by design, lest he should seem to make himself an arbiter and counselor of the heavenly disposition; for it is one thing to speak what was poured in by the Spirit of God, another to interpret the will of God: but we, not as interpreters of God, but as gathering, as it were, from human usage the seeds of reason, judge that we can, from what the Lord himself has instilled into human usage in other matters, form an opinion as to why it was fitting for man to be created last.

3. The Banquet Parable of the Honored Guest

For indeed, one who prepares a banquet, like that rich man of the Gospel (for it is fitting that we compare divine things with divine, that we may the better gather the sense), certainly prepares everything first, kills the bulls and the fattened beasts, and then invites his friends to the supper. Thus the lighter things are prepared first, and then the more honored guest is invited. Whence also the Lord prepared feasts for man before the other animals, and then called man himself, as a friend, to his own banquet; and truly a friend, as a partaker of divine charity, and heir of glory. Indeed he says to him: Friend, how did you come in hither to the wedding? The preceding things, then, are services; the friend is he who is invited last.

4. The Contest Analogy of Crowns Prepared Beforehand

Take another example. What is the world, but a certain contest full of struggles? Whence also in the Apocalypse the Lord says: To him that overcomes I will give the crown of life; and Paul says: I have fought the good fight; and elsewhere: No one is crowned except he who has striven lawfully. The founder of this contest is certainly Almighty God. He then who establishes a contest in this world—does he not prepare all things that are necessary for the contest, and then call the athletes, the prizes and crowns already prepared, to strive for the crown; lest the victor should suffer delay, but depart having been given the reward? The rewards of man, then, are the fruits of the earth, and the lights of heaven: the former for the use of the present life, the latter for the hope of eternal life.

5. Man as Athlete Wrestling an Unseen Foe

Like an athlete, then, man enters the contest last: he lifts his eyes to heaven, sees that even the heavenly creature is subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but for the sake of him who subjected it in hope. He sees that all creation groans together, awaiting redemption. He sees that all labor remains. He lifts his eyes, sees the crowns of lights, considers the globes of moon and stars: For the just, who shall have overcome, shall be as the stars in heaven; and he chastises his body, lest it be against him in the contest: he anoints himself with the oil of mercy, exercises himself in the daily wrestling-ground of virtue, smears himself with dust, runs the course of the stadium not as if uncertain, aims his blows, shakes his arms, but not in vain: he strikes an adversary whom he does not see; because he attends only to him to whom all yield, even those who are not seen, in whose name the powers of the air were turned aside.

He, then, poises the blow, and Christ strikes; he lifts the heel, and Christ directs it into the wound. Indeed, even though Paul did not see whom he struck, yet he did not strike as beating the air; because in the preaching of Christ he wounded all the spiritual wickednesses that were opposed to him. Not without reason, then, did man enter the stadium last, for whom a crown was being prepared; that heaven might go before him, as it were the reward for himself.

6. Wrestling Against Flesh Wine and Worldly Perils

But not only against the spiritual wickedness which is in the heavenly places, but also against flesh and blood is our wrestling. A wrestling against satiety, a wrestling with the very fruits of the earth, a wrestling with wine, by which even a righteous man was made drunk, by which even the whole army of the Jews was tripped up: a wrestling with wild beasts, a wrestling with the birds of heaven, by which the fattened flesh is not brought into subjection: a wrestling with the perils of journeys, the perils of rivers, as Paul says: a wrestling with the rods of trees, by which the apostles were beaten. You see how great are the contests. The earth, then, is man's exercise-ground, heaven his crown. Either, then, services ought to have preceded, as for a friend; or rewards, as for an athlete.

7. The Principle That Beginnings and Ends Excel

Consider another example. In all things, the beginnings and the ends are more excellent. If you consider a house, the foundations and the roof-ridge are the most important of all; if a field, the sowing and the harvest, the planting and the vintage. How pleasant are the graftings of trees, how pleasant the hoped-for fruits! So then heaven was created first, and man last, as a certain heavenly creature upon earth. For even if in body he is compared with the beasts, yet in soul he is numbered among the heavenly things; for as we have borne the image of the earthly, so we also bear the image of the heavenly. How is he not heavenly, who was made to the image and likeness of God?

8. Man as the Last Heaven and God's Dwelling

Rightly, then, in the constitution of the world, heaven is first, and man is the last heaven, in whom that which is beyond heaven is the God of heaven. Indeed, it is rather of him that it is understood: Heaven is my throne; for God does not sit above the element, but in the heart of man. Whence also the Lord says: We will come to him, and make our abode with him. The beginning, then, of the work of the world is heaven, the end is man.

9. Comparing Heaven and Man in Corruption and Incorruption

Heaven is of the world, man is above the world: for the former is a portion of the world, the latter is an inhabitant of paradise, a possession of Christ. Heaven is thought incorruptible, and yet passes away; man is held to be corruptible, and puts on incorruption: the figure of the former perishes, the latter rises again as it were immortal; yet both the hand of the Lord has made, according to the authority of Scripture. For as we read of the heavens: And the heavens are the works of your hands; so also man says: Your hands have made me, and formed me; and likewise: The heavens declare the glory of God; and as heaven shines with the splendor of the stars, so also men gleam with the lights of their merits, whose works shine before their Father who is in heaven.

That firmament of heaven above is one thing, and this firmament likewise is not unlike it, of which it is said: Upon this rock I will build my Church: that is the firmament of the elements, this of the virtues. Indeed that other is more excellent: they sucked oil out of the firm rock; for the rock is the flesh of Christ, which redeemed heaven and the whole world.

10. Man Made Partaker of the Divine Nature

Why should I weave in yet more, and press you as it were through the whole course, that God made man a partaker of the divine nature, as we read in the epistle of Peter? Whence not without reason someone said: Of whose race also we are; for he gave us a share in his own kindred, that is, of rational nature, that we might seek that divine thing which is not far from each one of us, in whom we live, and are, and move.

11. Man's Dominion Over the Wealth of Creation

When therefore he had conferred upon man that which is the greatest of graces, he granted to him, as to a most dear and household living being, all those things which are in this world; so that he should lack nothing that might be necessary either for life, or for the good life. Of which things some were to be supplied by the abundance of earthly resources for the enjoyment of pleasure; others by the knowledge of heavenly secrets, which might kindle the mind of man with the love and desire of those disciplines through which we may be able to reach that sublime inner sanctuary of things divine.

Both, then, were most excellent, that he should have subject to him all the wealth of the world, all the fowl, the creatures of the earth, even the fishes, and the use of the sea, as king of the elements, and, without labor, without want, in imitation and likeness of his venerable Author, should abound in all things, and should live in the highest abundance, and open for himself pathways, and set before himself steps by which he might ascend to the palace of heaven.

12. The Portrait of the Untroubled Virtuous Soul

You will easily find as the traveler of this difficult journey that man who is so formed in the disposition and will of his mind that there is but the least familiarity between himself and his body, who enters into no fellowship with vices, is polished by no words of flatterers; who, when set upon the wheel of prosperous times, does not disdain the humble, does not flee the sorrowful, does not shake off or belittle the praises of the saints, nor, through ardor for glory or presumed wealth, burns up all the desire of hope. Whose mind sadness does not bend, injury does not break, no suspicion disturbs, lust does not excite, the passions of the body do not overcome, the craving for vanities and the favor of pleasures do not disquiet.

Now if you add the virtues—chastity, sobriety, and temperance—he is easily able to rein in the immoderate impulses of light passions, and set a measure to his delights and desires, distinguish doubtful matters with equity, settle uncertain matters with tranquillity of mind, and, as though all the quarrels of body and mind were settled, like a good arbiter, maintain the unoffended concord of the outward and the inward man, pacifying them within himself; and if the case demands it, no evil counselor calls him back through fear from the crown of suffering; such a one plainly shall be received by the Father not merely as a friend, but even as a son, so that he may attain the riches of his glory and inheritance.

13. Man as the End of Nature Unto Righteousness

Rightly, therefore, was he formed last, as the end of nature unto righteousness, among the other living beings a righteous arbiter. And if it be permitted to bring forward an example, just as among men Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness for every believer, so we too are, in comparison, as beasts of burden before the Lord; for so the Prophet says: κτηνώδης ἐγενέθην παρά σοι, that is, I was reckoned as a beast of burden before thee. Yet what comparison is there, when he redeemed the perishing, but we sacrifice them? He called slaves to liberty, but we impose captivity upon the free? But who is like unto God?

14. The Mind as Ruler of Soul and Body

Nevertheless man came forth last of all creatures, pleasing in appearance, sublime in mind; that he might be the wonder of every creature. In whom, after the likeness of the eternal God, the nous, mind was invisible, clothed in human form. This is the nous, mind, the vigor of the soul, claiming for itself, as a ruler, the sovereignty of soul and body. Whom even if the other animals do not see, yet they dread; just as we fear God, whom we do not see, and we fear him the more because we do not see him.

15. The Mind's Ascent to Contemplate Heaven

For, that we may venture to speak according to his image and likeness, as it is written, since he founds himself in the fullness of his majesty, and sees all things, heaven, air, earth, sea, embracing the universe and penetrating through each part; so that nothing escapes him, and there is nothing that does not consist in him, and depend from him, and is full of him, as he himself says: I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord; so the nous, mind of man sees all things and is not seen, having its substance invisible; by disciplines and counsels and senses it comprehends hidden things, penetrates the secret places of the sea and all the diffused hiding-places of the lands, a searcher of both natures, after the likeness of the most high God whom it imitates and follows, whose image is figured in each, according to small portions; raising itself also into the air and passing beyond its clouds, it directs itself to the heights of heaven with zeal of knowledge and ardor of wisdom; where, for a little while stupefied with wonder at the heavenly stars, and delighted by the brightness of the lights, looking down from above upon these worldly things, comparing itself also to Hesperus and Arcturus, and the rest of those ἀπλανεῖς πλανήτας, and seeing that that wandering is unoffending, by which without error they seem all the more to traverse and wander about all things in their courses; with greater desire it lifts itself up to the very bosom of the Father, in which is the only-begotten Son of God, declaring the secrets of God, and afterward to be revealed face to face.

Yet now, to whom he deigns, he shows in part, and as in a riddle, and at the same time pours forth from the Spirit and his own countenance the splendor of light, after the manner of a torrent; so that, enlightened by it, one may say: There was a burning fire in my bones, and I am dissolved on every side, and I cannot bear it. And David says: Let my judgment come forth from thy countenance.

16. The Human Voice's Power to Tame Wild Beasts

By this vigor of mind, then, to return whence I digressed, by which it subdues external things, and sees things separated and distant, and subjects animals stronger in strength, it has instilled such reverence of itself into the rest that they obey it eagerly as a king, and yield to its voice. And though they are irrational, they acknowledge reason and take on that discipline which nature did not give them. In fine, wild beasts, seeing his gentleness, grow gentle at his command. Often they have suspended their bites, called back by the sound of the human voice. We see hares caught by the harmless tooth of dogs without wound; lions too, if the voice of man resound, let go their prey; leopards and bears are roused and called back by voices; horses neigh at the applause of men, and soften their pace at silence; and often they pass by, unbeaten, those who have been beaten, so much more vehemently does the lash of the tongue urge them on.

17. The Tribute and Service of Animals to Man

What indeed shall I say of gifts? The ram nurtures its fleece, that it may please man; and it is plunged into the river, to increase its brightness. Sheep too choose the better pastures, that with sweeter juice of milk they may fill their udders once with young; they undergo the pains of birth, that they may bring their gifts to man. Bulls groan all day long beneath the plough pressed into the furrows. Camels, besides the service of bearing burdens, offer themselves to be shorn, as do rams; so that, as to a king, the various animals bring their tribute, and pay their yearly due. The horse, exulting in so great a rider, gathers its proud steps, and, arching its back for its master's mounting, spreads its back beneath the master's seat. But lest perhaps it still trouble one that man was made last, let this same horse teach us that this is not to be reckoned to his contempt, but to his honor.

It carries its rider on its back, and does not despise him, but dreads him, and carries him about through diverse places by its own labor. In one moment man traverses distant places, wanders through what is far off, now on single horses, now in triumphal chariots.

18. The Last Adam as Pilot of the Ship

And since I have mentioned triumphal chariots, I must add to them the chariot of Elijah, by which he was borne through the air; and that of elephants, upon which man, though he stands last as the victor, rules those before him. So also the pilot of a ship sits at the stern, and steers the whole ship. Whence I think it is not without meaning in the Gospel, that the Lord Jesus was sleeping at the stern; then, being roused, he commanded the wind and the sea, and calmed the tempest, showing that he came last for this reason, because the pilot had to come. Whence the Apostle says: The first man Adam was made into a living soul, the last Adam into a life-giving spirit. But that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is animal, then that which is spiritual; and he added: The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second man is of heaven, heavenly.

19. Man's Dominion Over Every Element

Rightly, then, is he last, as the sum of the whole work, as the cause of the world, on whose account all things were made; as the dweller in all the elements, he lives among wild beasts, swims with the fishes, flies above the birds, converses with angels, dwells upon the earth, and serves in heaven's warfare, ploughs the sea, is fed by the air, tiller of the soil, traveler of the deep, fisherman amid the waves, fowler in the air, heir in heaven, joint-heir with Christ. These things according to diligence.

20. Beyond Nature: Moses, Habakkuk, and Elijah

Take also this beyond man's ordinary condition. Moses walked in the depths of the sea, the apostles on its surface. Habakkuk flew without wings. Elijah conquered on earth, and triumphed in heaven. Farewell, my son, and love us; for we love you.

Ambrose to Horontianus.

1. The Prophetic Division of Maker and Creation

You have excellently noted the prophetic division, or rather the divine one; for Moses wrote not his own words, but things poured into him and revealed to him, especially those things which concern the constitution of the world: which division distinguished the maker from the works For since one thing was impassible, another capable of receiving passion, that which was impassible he referred to God the maker; but that which was passible, without soul, without motion of its own, receiving motion and soul and shape from its Creator, he assigned to this world. Which, once made, ought not to be left without a governor, and, as it were, without a defending father. And therefore he most plainly describes the invisible God as the ruler of this visible world and, as it were, its guardian. For that which is invisible is eternal; but that which is seen is temporal.

2. The Six Days as a Pattern for Order

He expresses, then, that the world was made in six days, not because God needed time for its constitution, for whom it suffices to do within a moment whatever he wills (for he spoke, and they were made); but because things that come to be require order: and order and time and number, for the most part, are demanded. This too especially, because, being about to give us a pattern for working, he kept the number of the days and the times: for we need time, in order that we may do something more maturely; lest we hasten our counsels and works, lest we overlook order. For when we read that God, as Scripture shows, made all things with wisdom and with a certain counsel and arrangement and order, it is consonant with reason that he first made the heaven, which is most beautiful; that we ought first to raise our eyes to it, that we should judge that we must strive toward it, that we should think that seat to be preferred above all earthly things.

3. The Sevenfold Grace of the Sabbath and the Planets

In six days, then, he created the world, and on the seventh day he rested from his works. The seventh number is good, which we treat not after the manner of Pythagoras and the other philosophers, but according to the pattern and the divisions of spiritual grace; for the prophet Isaiah has comprised the seven chief virtues of the Holy Spirit. This hebdomad, like the venerable Trinity itself of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is without time, without order, the author of number, not bound under the law of number. And so, just as heaven, earth, seas were formed unto the grace of the eternal Trinity, as were the sun, moon, and stars: so also, corresponding to that sevenfold circuit of spiritual virtues and the circle of divine operation excelling in vigor, we observe that a certain sevenfold ministry of planets was created, by which this world is illumined. To whose company is said to gather that host which they call the unwandering stars, and, as the Greeks say, ἀπλανεῖς.

The North (Septentrio) too received its Latin name from this, because the brightness of seven stars shines in it, toward which especially navigators are borne, as toward a guide.

4. The Sevenfold Number in the Human Body and Birth

This prerogative has descended from heaven to earth: for, to pass over the sevenfold grace of our head, in the two eyes, the two ears and nostrils, and the mouth also, through which we perceive great sweetness—how great a marvel is this, that in the seventh month, in most cases, the lawful origin is formed, and he who is brought forth in that month obtains the courses of a vital birth? But in the eighth month we observe that the times of bearing are forbidden by natural law, and if perchance a deadly necessity has loosened the barriers of birth too soon, the peril hastens equally for the one bearing and for the child.

3. The Eighth Day and the Grace of Regeneration

But yet that seventh-month child, even if it be born well, is born unto toils; whereas he who obtains the mysteries of regeneration on the eighth day is consecrated by grace, and is called to the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom. Great is the grace of the hebdomad in the virtues of the Holy Spirit, yet the same hebdomad sounds forth, while it consecrates the ogdoad. In the one there is sound, in the other fruit; and therefore on the eighth day the grace of the Spirit, being unloosed, restored to paradise those whom their own fault had made exiles.

4. The Old Testament's Ogdoad Fulfilled in Christ's Resurrection

The old Testament knows this ogdoad, which in Latin we call the eighth; for Ecclesiastes says: Give a portion to those seven, and also to those eight. The hebdomad of the old Testament is the ogdoad of the new, when Christ rose again, and the day of new salvation shone forth for all. That day, of which the prophet says: This is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it; on which day the brightness of the full and perfect circumcision poured itself out for sinful men. Therefore the old Testament also gave a share of the eighth in the solemnity of circumcision. But that still lay hidden in shadow: the Sun of righteousness came, and at the consummation of his own passion revealed the rays of his light: which he unveiled to all, and opened the brightness of eternal life.

5. Hosea's Price for the Harlot: Seven and Eight

These, then, are the seven and the eight, concerning which Hosea also says that he hired for himself by that number, and acquired a fullness of faith; for thus you have it: And I went and hired her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a half-homer of barley, and a nebel of wine. Now the Lord had commanded him above that he should hire the harlot; and so it is plain that he hired her whose price he even set forth in amount. Fifteen pieces of silver, moreover, consist of seven and eight; they signify therefore the week and the eighth. By the price, then, of the two Testaments, that is, of the full faith, Prophecy received the consummation of faith, the Church its fullness; for by the first Testament Israel was acquired as a people, by the second the nations and the Gentiles.

Therefore the harlot is hired with full faith, whether seeking union with herself from the Gentiles, or from the adulterous people of the Jews, who had forsaken their Lord and the author of virginal faith, spreading her assemblies over the whole extent of the world.

6. Fullness and Partial Measure: Gospel and Law

Now as to what he said: In a homer and in a half-homer of barley; in the homer is the fullness of measure, in the half-homer a half-full measure. Fullness is in the Gospel, half-perfection in the Law; as we read, the Lord saying: I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And elsewhere we have it, the Lord saying through the prophet Micah, that then there shall be peace in the land of Israel, when the Assyrian shall come into his land, and seven shepherds shall rise up against him, and eight bites of men. For then is there full peace to the faithful people, freed from all temptations and vanities, when peace and grace have shut out the vanity of this world from our hearts: peace of the old, grace of the new Testament.

7. The Seven Shepherds and the Eight Bites of Men

The seven shepherds are the precepts of the law, by which the flock, still as it were irrational, was led and governed through the desert under the rod of Moses. The eight bites of men are the commandments of the Gospel and the utterances of the Lord's mouth: For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Good bites, by which we have tasted the gift of eternal life, devouring the remission of sins in the body of Christ. In the old Testament the bite of death is bitter, wherefore it is said: Death prevailing hath devoured. In the new Testament the bite of life is sweet, which has swallowed up death, wherefore the apostle says: Death is swallowed up in its victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?

8. The Rest of the Sabbath Fulfilled in Christ

And that we may use apostolic testimonies: when God had made man, he rested from all his works on the seventh day. But because the people of the Jews through stubbornness despised the commandments of their God, the Lord says: If they shall enter into my rest. And therefore God appointed beforehand another day, of which he says: Today, if you will hear my voice. For Scripture comprises two general days, yesterday and today; concerning which it says: Imitate the faith of Jesus Christ. Yesterday and today he is the same, and forever. In the former day is the promise, in the following the fulfillment. But because on the day of yesterday neither Moses nor Joshua the son of Nun led the people into rest, on the day of today Christ has led them in, to whom the Father said: Today have I begotten thee; for by his own resurrection Jesus procured rest for the people. Our rest is the Lord Jesus, who says: Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.

For rest is in heaven, not on earth.

9. The Morning Star and the Harvest of Martyrs

What need, then, is there for me to search into the risings and settings of the signs, at whose rising the fallow fields are cleft with hard ploughshares, or at whose setting the joyous harvest reclines? One star suffices me in place of all, a star bright and morning: at whose rising was sown not a crop of fruits, but of martyrs, when Rachel wept for her children, that, washed with her tears, she might offer her little ones for Christ. At whose setting there was raised from the tombs, not of insensible sheaves, but of the breathing dead, triumphal bundles.

10. The Seven Ages of Man According to Hippocrates

Let the week, then, be celebrated, because through the course of seven ages the life of man runs its course even to old age, as Hippocrates, the master of medicine, has set forth in his writings. The first age is infancy, the second boyhood, the third adolescence, the fourth youth, the fifth manhood, the sixth maturity of age, the seventh old age. There is, then, the infant, the boy, the adolescent, the young man, the man, the veteran, the old man.

11. Solon's Ten Ages of Seven Years Each

But Solon made ten orders of ages, of seven years each; so that the first age of infancy lasts until the shedding of the teeth, by which one may chew food and articulate speech, so as to seem capable of utterance: boyhood also proceeds up to the years of puberty and the trials of the generative faculty: adolescence up to the down of the beard: youth up to the advance of complete strength: the fifth age is manhood, fit for conjugal union, through a whole week of years: the sixth week likewise is reckoned to the age of manhood, apt both for the advance of prudence and for vigorous action: the seventh week also, and the eighth, present a maturity of age, vigorous in sense, and endowed with the grace of speech not unpleasing in its address: the ninth week still has some remnants of strength, though tongue and wisdom grow softer:

the tenth week, however, fills up the full measure, to which he who is able to attain will knock at the late gates of death without an untimely course of years.

12. The Eighth Age: Perfection in the Knowledge of God

Hippocrates, therefore, and Solon recognize either seven ages, or weeks of ages. In these the week takes precedence: but the eighth brings in one perpetual age, in which we grow up into a perfect man, in the knowledge of God, in fullness of faith, in which the measure of lawful age is fulfilled.

13. The Sevenfold Number of the Body's Organs

There is also in our inward parts a grace of the sevenfold number to be observed; for they say that there are likewise seven interior organs in us, the stomach, the heart, the lung, the spleen, the liver, and two kidneys. Seven also exterior parts, the head, the back parts, the belly, two hands, and two feet.

14. The Eighth Grace That Ends All Pain

These are most excellent, but liable to pain. Who, however, would doubt that greater is the gift of the eighth, which has renewed the whole man, so that now he can suffer no pain? Therefore the seventh age of the world has been closed; the eighth grace has shone forth, which has made man now to belong not to this world, but above the world. For now we live not our own life, but Christ: For to us to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Therefore we live now not in the flesh, but in the faith of Christ. The apostle says: Whence we gather that the day of the world is closed. Finally, in the last hour the Lord Jesus came, and died for us, and we all died in him, that we might live unto God. We, therefore, who once existed, live no more; but Christ lives in us.

15. The New Testament Promised Through Jeremiah

The week, then, has passed; the eighth has come. Yesterday has passed, today has come: that today which was promised, whereby we are admonished that the voice of God is to be heard and followed. That day, then, of the old Testament has passed, the new day has come, on which the new Testament was completed, of which he says: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will confirm to the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new Testament: not according to the Testament which I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. And the reason why the Testament was changed he adds: Because they, he says, continued not in my Testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord.

16. Christ the New Priest After the Order of Melchizedek

The priests of the Law have passed away, the tribunals of the Law: let us draw near to the new priest, to the throne of grace, the visitor of our souls, a priest made not according to the law of a carnal commandment, but chosen according to the power of an unfailing life. For he did not take this honor to himself, but was chosen by the Father, as the Father himself says: Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Let us see, then, what this new priest has offered. Other priests offered for themselves, and for their people: but this one, because he had no sin, that he should offer for himself, offered himself for the whole world, and by his own blood entered into the holy places.

17. The New Priest and Victim Above the Law

This, then, is the new priest, and the new victim, not according to the Law, but above the Law; the advocate of the world, the light of the age, who said: Behold, I come, and he came. To whom let us draw near in abundance of faith, worshiping and beseeching and hoping in him, whom we do not see with our eyes, but hold with our affection: to whom be all honor always, and glory. Farewell, my son, and love us; for we love you.

Ambrose to Sabinus.

1. A Prior Treatise on Paradise Recalled

Having read the Hexaemeron, you thought it should be asked whether I had appended a treatment of paradise, and that it should be made known what opinion I held concerning it, and that you wished to learn this with diligence. But I already wrote about it long ago, when not yet a veteran priest.

2. Josephus on the Rivers of Paradise

Now I have found that opinions about it differ among very many. For Josephus, as being a historian, says that the place was filled with trees and very many shrubs, and was watered also by a river, which is divided into four streams. For, the gathering of the waters having been collected into one, the earth has not entirely emptied itself and defrauded itself of its irrigation: but even today it bursts forth into springs, and draws down the channels of rivers, with which, like a devoted mother, it suckles its offspring with full breasts.

3. Paradise as the Soul's Governing Faculty

Others hold other views, yet all agree that in paradise there was both the tree of life rooted, and the tree of knowledge, which discerns good and evil, and other trees too, full of vigor, full of life-giving power, breathing, and rational. From which it is gathered that paradise itself cannot be seen to be earthly, not in any soil, but in our governing faculty, which is animated and quickened by the virtues of the soul, and by the infusion of the Spirit of God.

4. Solomon's Enclosed Garden as the Virgin Soul

Finally, Solomon in the spirit clearly declared that paradise is in man. And because he expresses mysteries either of the soul and the Word, or of Christ and the Church, therefore he says of the virgin soul, or the Church, whom he wished to present as a chaste virgin to Christ: A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.

5. Garden and Paradise: Susanna and Adam

Paradise in Greek, garden in Latin, is what it is called. Finally, Susanna was in paradise, and so it is read in Latin. And Adam was in paradise, and so we read. Let it not, then, trouble you that some Latin manuscripts have "garden," others "paradise."

6. The Virgin and the Chaste Wife in Paradise

There, then, is the chaste wife, where the virgin is. Although the virgin, being set apart, has her own enclosures and seals, yet both are in paradise; that against the heats of the body and the burning of the flesh she may be cooled by the shades of the virtues.

7. The Tree of Life as the Root of Piety

Therefore paradise is in our governing faculty, growing wild with the plantings of very many opinions: in which God chiefly established the tree of life, that is, the root of piety; for this is the substance of our life, if we render to the Lord our God the worship due to him.

8. The Seedbed of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

He established also the seedbed of the knowledge of good and evil; for man alone among the other earthly living creatures has the knowledge of good and evil. There too are other diverse plantings, whose fruits are the virtues.

9. Banishing Cunning to Preserve Life and Piety

But because the disposition of man, capable of knowledge, was known to God, that it would incline more readily to cunning than to the height of prudence (for the quality of his work could not lie hidden from the judge who established fixed bounds in our soul), he wished, as the provident author of our salvation, to banish cunning from paradise, and to instill zeal for life and the discipline of piety; and therefore he commanded man that he should eat of every tree that is in paradise, but that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he should not eat.

10. The Serpent as a Figure of Delight

But because every creature is subject to passion, therefore delight crept into human affections like the gliding of a serpent. And so not without reason holy Moses figured delight under the likeness of a serpent; for it is prone upon its belly like a serpent, not walking upon feet, nor raised upon any legs, but slippery through the sinuous bending, as it were, of its whole body. Earth is its food, as it is to the serpent, since it knows no heavenly food; for it feeds on bodily things, and is changed into various forms of desires, and is bent into twisted coils. It has venom in its teeth, by which every luxurious person disembowels himself, the glutton kills himself, the epicure destroys himself. How many has wine burst asunder, drunkenness dissolved, indigestion distended?

11. Strengthening the Senses Against Delight

Now I understand for what reason the Lord God breathed upon the face of man: for there is every sense, there the seat and enticement of delight, in the eyes, ears, nostrils, and in the mouth; that he might make our senses stronger against delight. This, then, as a serpent, has instilled cunning into us; for it is not delight, but labor and long-continued meditation, together with the grace of God, that gives perfect prudence.

12. Keeping Christ the Head Uncorrupted

Yet because the inheritance of the human race has been entangled by the deceits of the serpent, let us in this follow the cunning of the serpent; that we not cast our head into perils, but keep it uncorrupted above all else: for our head is Christ. Let this remain unharmed, so that the poisons of the serpent cannot injure us: for wisdom is good together with an inheritance, that is, together with faith; since there is an inheritance for those who believe in the Lord.

13. The Ease of the First Man's Fall

But if that first man, who conversed with God while placed in paradise, was able to fall so easily, though created from a virgin earth, which had been formed and created at the word of God in a fresh springing-forth, not yet compacted with that parricidal and murderous blood, not yet polluted with crimes and disgrace, not yet with our flesh condemned to the curse of a liable inheritance; how much more easily afterward did the slippery road to sinning bring a greater precipice upon the human race, when the worse succeeded the more tolerable through the successions of generation?

14. The Magnet Stone and the Spread of Sin

For indeed, if the magnet stone has so great a force of nature that it draws iron to itself, and transfuses itself into the likeness of it, so that, as many wishing to test it have found, when several iron rings are brought near to that stone, it holds them all in like manner: then, if to the ring to which the stone has adhered you bring near another ring, and again substitute one after another in order; although the force of nature from that stone penetrates into all in order, yet it binds the earlier ones with a more vehement bond, the later ones with a looser one: how much more has the condition and nature of the human race slipped from a purer state into a worse one, the further it has touched something more wicked!

15. One God and One World Against the Philosophers

For if nature is diminished through those kinds which are not capable of guilt; how much more is its power blunted through souls and limbs polluted by the stain of crimes! Whence, because malice had grown up, innocence had been abolished, there was none that did goodness, there was not even one: the Lord came, who might reform the grace of nature, nay rather increase it; that where sin abounded, grace might more abound. Therefore it is plain both that God is the author of man, and that God is one, not many gods: but one who wrought the world; and one world, not many worlds, as the philosophers say.

16. Man as Citizen of the Whole World

First, therefore, He created the world, then the inhabitant of the world, for whom the whole world should be a fatherland. For if today, wherever the wise man arrives, he is a citizen everywhere, everywhere understands his own affairs, nowhere judges himself a stranger, nowhere a guest; how much more was that first man an inhabitant of the whole world, and, as the Greeks say, κοσμοπολίτης (a citizen of the world), the fresh work of God, a constant conversant with Him, a citizen of the saints, planted together with the virtues, set over all earthly living things, the creatures of the sea, and the birds of the air, he thought the whole world his own possession: whom the Lord watched over as His own work, nor did He, as a good parent and author, abandon him! In the end He so cherished His creation that He redeemed the disowned, received back the exiled, raised up the dead by the passion of His only-begotten Son.

Therefore God is the author of man, and, being a good worker, loves His own work, nor does the good Father forsake him whom, like a rich head of a household, He redeemed at the price of His own inheritance.

17. Fleeing Delight as We Would a Serpent

Let us beware, therefore, lest that woman, that is, the passion of our senses, deceived and deluded by delight itself, should effeminate this man, that is, the νοῦν (mind), and, having circumscribed him, draw him into her own laws and judgment. Let us flee delight as we would a serpent: it has many arts, and especially in man. For other living creatures are caught by greed for food only; man, the more senses of eyes and ears he has, the greater are his dangers. Farewell, and love us, as you do; for we love you.

Ambrose to Sabinus.

1. Answering a Slanderer Infected by Apollinaris

He whom you wrote of as a sower of slanderous talk is a very light matter, one who has already received the wages of his own poison. For indeed answer has been given to him publicly; and what he sowed privately, he has openly reaped. As for me, I had before held him merely as a vain man and an envier: but when this talk reached my ears, I answered at once that Apollinaris had infected him with his poison, who cannot bear to hear that our Lord Jesus took up servitude for us in the assumption of this body; whereas the Apostle cries out that He took the form of a servant. This is the fortification, this the hedge of our faith; whoever destroys this shall himself be destroyed, as it is written: For he who breaks down a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.

2. Welcoming Correction of His Own Writings

Indeed at first I gently sent word to him: For what reason do you do a good thing with an evil mind? For I count it a benefit, if anyone, reading my writings, tells me by what he seems moved. First, because even in the things which I know, I can be mistaken. Many things pass by the ear, many things sound differently to some; it is a fine thing, if it can be done, to guard against everything. Then because I ought not to take it ill, when concerning apostolic and even the words of the Gospel and of the Lord Himself many sow many questions; if they find something even in my writings which they think should be disputed: for many indulge their own zeal, as does this man who has therefore gone round the world, that he might seek someone to reprehend, not someone whom he might think worthy of his own imitation.

3. The Father as Lord of Heaven and Earth

This man, therefore, that he might gnaw at something of my writings, found for himself an ample path there, in the place where the Lord Jesus said: I confess to thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth; we said this was said, that we might understand Him to be the Father of the Son, and the Lord of creation. Although in the psalm the Son plainly called the Father Lord: They saw me, and shook their heads: help me, O Lord my God. For indeed, speaking according to the form of a servant, He called Lord Him whom He knew as Father, being equal in the form of God, proclaiming Himself a servant according to the substance of the flesh; for servitude belongs to the flesh, but dominion to the divinity.

4. Gospel Words Belong to the Time of the Incarnation

You perceive, then, first, by your admirable prudence, that the things which are said in the Gospel are to be referred to the time of the Gospel, when the Lord Jesus dwelt among men in human appearance; for now we know Christ no longer after the flesh. Let Him have been seen and known thus by the men of old; the old things have already passed away, and all things have become new. Yet all things are from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ; for we were dead, and therefore one became a servant for all. What shall I say, a servant? He was made sin, reproach, a curse. For the Apostle said: That He was made sin for us, that He was made a curse, the Lord Jesus. It is said, that when He shall have subjected all things to Himself, then He Himself also shall be subjected. Peter too said: In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk, in the Acts of the Apostles.

It is said there, that He glorified His servant Jesus, and no one cavils about the time. But in the Apocalypse, too, He is called a lamb by John; He is called in the psalm a worm, and not a man. All these things He became, that He might blunt the sting of our death, take away our servitude, blot out curses, sins, reproaches.

5. The Manna Neither Lessened Nor Increased

These things and others, which you wrote to a certain inquirer, and many more besides, as reported to you—since Holy Scripture itself has this, how shall anyone doubt to say what has been written piously, since it looks to the glory of Christ, not to His diminishment? For since concerning His gift, that is, the manna, it is said that he who gathered less did not lessen it, and he who gathered most did not increase it; could He Himself be either lessened or increased? For what was diminished in Him, who had taken up our servitude, our infirmities? He was humbled, He was in the form of a servant, but the same was in the glory of God the Father. He was a worm on the cross, but the same forgave the sins even of His own persecutors. He was a reproach, but the same was the majesty of the Lord, as it is written: And the majesty of the Lord shall be seen, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

What did He lose, to whom nothing is less? He had indeed no form nor beauty, but He had the fullness of divinity. He was accounted infirm, but had not ceased to be the power of God. He was seen as a man, but the divine majesty and the glory of the Father shone upon the earth.

6. The Form of God and the Form of a Servant

Whence the Apostle beautifully used the repetition of the same word, saying of the Lord Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. What is it to be in the form of God, but to be in the fullness of divinity, in that expression of divine perfection? Therefore, being in the fullness of divinity, He emptied Himself, and took on the fullness of human nature and perfection: as nothing was lacking to God, so neither to the completion of man, that He might be perfect in both forms. Whence David also says: Fair in form beyond the sons of men.

7. Answering the Argument on the Form of a Servant

The Apollinarist is shut in, having nowhere to turn, closed in by his own nets. For he himself had said: He took the form of a servant, He was not chosen as a servant. Again, then, I ask, what is it to be in the form of God? He answers: In the nature of God. For there are, says the Apostle, those who by nature are not gods (—). I ask what it is, taking the form of a servant? Without doubt the perfection of the nature and condition, as I said, of humanity, that He might be in the likeness of men. And beautifully he said not the likeness of flesh, but of men; because the flesh is the same in all. But because He alone was without sin, while every man is in sin, He was seen in the appearance of man. Whence the prophet also says: And he is a man, and who shall know him? Man according to the flesh, but beyond man according to the divine operation.

Finally, when He touched the leper, He seemed a man: but beyond man, when He cleansed him. And when He wept for Lazarus dead, He wept as a man; but He was above man, when He ordered the dead man, his feet bound, to come forth. He seemed a man, when He hung upon the cross: but above man, when, the tombs being opened, He raised the dead.

8. Appearance as a Man Does Not Deny His Manhood

Nor let the poison of Apollinaris flatter itself, because it is read: And in appearance was found as a man; for the man Jesus is not thereby denied, since elsewhere Paul himself says of Him: Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, but rather it is confirmed. For this is the use and custom of Scripture, to signify thus, as we read also in the Gospel: And we saw his glory, glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father. Just as, then, He is called as it were the only-begotten, and yet He is not thereby denied to be the only-begotten Son of God; so, when He is called as a man, it is not denied that the perfection of manhood was in Him.

9. The Servant Humbled Yet in the Glory of God

Being, therefore, in the form of a servant, humbled even unto death, He was yet in the glory of God. What harm, then, did servitude do Him? He is read to have been made a servant, because He is read to have been made of a Virgin, and created in the flesh; for every creature serves, as the Prophet says: For all things serve thee. Whence God the Father also says: I have found David my servant, I have anointed him with my holy oil. He shall call upon me: Thou art my Father, my God, and the strength of my salvation. And I will make him my firstborn; and in another psalm: Preserve my soul, for I am holy: save thy servant; and below in the same psalm: Give thy strength unto thy servant, and save the son of thy handmaid. For I have gathered together the words of the Father and the Son; that not human arguments, but divine oracles might answer him.

10. Further Prophetic Witness to Christ as Servant

Elsewhere He says: Into thy hands I commend my spirit; and: Thou hast set my feet in a spacious place; and: I am become a reproach above all my enemies. And in the same psalm: Make thy face to shine upon thy servant. Through Isaiah too the Son of God Himself says: The Lord called my name from my mother's womb, and made my mouth like a sharp sword, and hid me under the shadow of his hand. He made me as a chosen arrow, and covered me in his quiver; and said to me: Thou art my servant, Israel. For the Son of God is also called Israel, as elsewhere: Jacob my servant, Israel my beloved. For He alone truly not only saw the Father God, but also declared Him.

11. Christ as the True David and Light of the Gentiles

And it follows: In thee will I be glorified. And I said: I have laboured in vain, and have spent my strength for nought and in vain; therefore my judgment is with the Lord, and my sorrow with my God. And now thus saith the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to gather Jacob and Israel unto him. Who gathered the people of God, if not Christ? Who was glorified before the Lord? Who is the power of God? To whom did the Father say: It is a great thing for thee to be called my servant? And to whom does he say: Behold, I have set thee for a covenant of my kindred, for a light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be for salvation unto the end of the earth?

Of whom also he spoke through the mouth of Ezekiel, saying: I will set up one shepherd over them, and my servant David shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd: and I the Lord will be their God, and David a prince among them. David the king had already died, and therefore the true David, the truly humble, the truly meek, the truly mighty of hand, the Son of God, is announced by this name: who is also signified in the book of the prophet Zachariah, God the Father saying: Behold, I will send my servant, the Orient is his name. Was it, because he had filthy garments, that therefore the Sun of Justice did not have the brightness of his own divinity?

12. Servitude, Sin, and Curse Taken for Our Redemption

And what more? Or do we think servitude to be weaker than sin, than curse, than reproach, than the infirmities which he took upon himself for us, that they might be turned away from us? For he was made all these things, that he might empty out all things. But they do not accept these things for this reason, that he was made servant, reproach, sin, curse; because they assert that the Word and the flesh are of one substance, and they say: Therefore because he redeemed us, he was called servant, and ought to have been called sin. Nor do they perceive that this is the glory of Christ, that he took servitude upon himself in his body, that he might restore liberty to all: he bore our sins, that he might take away the sin of the world.

13. Christ Made a Curse to Bless Us

He was made servant, sin, curse, that thou mightest cease to be a servant of sin, and that he might absolve thee from the curse of the divine sentence. He therefore took upon himself thy curse: For cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. He was made a curse on the cross, that thou mightest be blessed in the kingdom of God. He was dishonoured and undervalued, and esteemed as nothing. He said: I have laboured in vain; through whom Paul deserved to say: I have not laboured in vain; that he might bestow the fruit of good work and the glory of Evangelical preaching upon his little servants, through which all might be absolved from the burden of labour.

14. The Partridge That Gathered What She Did Not Lay

Having heard these things therefore, the partridge is left in the midst of her days, who cried out to gather what she did not bring forth, and was overwhelmed by the voice of the Lord Jesus. Finally, he arranges his flight. Farewell, and love us; for we love you.

Ambrose to Sabinus.

1. Sending a Clearer Copy of the Book

I have sent the requested book written more clearly and plainly than the writing which I sent some time ago; so that no impediment to your judgment may arise from difficulty in reading. For the exemplar book was written not for appearance, but for necessity; for we do not dictate everything, especially at night, when we do not wish to be burdensome and troublesome to others; then too because the things that are dictated rush forth with a certain impetus, and are carried along in a flowing course.

2. Preferring His Own Hand to a Scribe's

But to us, for whom it is a care to distinguish our aged speech to the very nail by familiar use, and to fix it with a certain slow pace, it seems more fitting to apply our own hand to our own pen; so that we may seem not so much to blow something off as to hide it: nor do we blush to have another write for us, but conscious to ourselves alone without any witness, we weigh with the eyes as well as the ears what we write. For the tongue is swifter than the hand, as Scripture says: My tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly.

3. Paul's Example of Writing by His Own Hand

But perhaps you will say that it refers the swiftness to the scribe. Yet it does not escape you that this is signified, that only the swiftness of a scribe writing swiftly could take down the words of a prophetic tongue. The Apostle Paul also wrote with his own hand, as he himself says: I have written to you with mine own hand; he for the sake of honor, we for the sake of modesty.

4. The Value of Letters Between Absent Friends

Yet while you still hold judgment concerning the books, let us play together with letters, whose use is such that, separated by intervals of place, we cling together in affection: in which, among the absent, the image of presence shines forth, and a written conversation joins those who are separated: in which also we mingle our mind with a friend's, and pour our own into his.

5. Letters That Breathe the Ancient Scriptures

Now if, as you urge, something of the ancient Scriptures should also breathe in letters, not only do minds seem to be glued together through progress in true doctrine, but also the appearance and form of a fuller conversation is expressed, so that between the mutual turns of asking and answering, the discussion undertaken seems to bring together and set face to face those friends who provoke and embrace one another with such an office.

6. The Apostles Present in Spirit Though Absent

Why should I bring forward the examples of our forefathers, who by their letters poured faith into the minds of the peoples, and wrote to whole and gathered peoples: and signified that they were present, though absent, when they wrote, the holy Apostle saying, that he was absent in body, but present in spirit; not only when he wrote, but even when he judged? Finally, absent, he condemned by letter, and the same man absolved by letter; for a letter of Paul was a certain image of his presence, and the form of his work.

7. The Apostle's Letters as Presence in Absence

For not as the letters of others, he says, weighty and strong, but the presence of the body weak, and speech contemptible; such also was the Apostle's own: but such was this letter, that the form of the precept was such as was the substance of the operation: because such as we are, he says, in word by letter when absent, such are we also present in deed. He expressed the image of his own presence in letters, he signified the fruit and testimony in the deed. Farewell, and love us, as you do; for we also love you.

Ambrose to Sabinus.

1. Requesting a Frank Judgment Before Publication

You have sent back to me the little books, which I shall hold more approved by your judgment. Therefore I have sent others, delighted not by the favor of your judgment, but drawn on by the truth promised by you and asked by me: for I would rather that anything which stirs doubt be corrected by your judgment, before it go abroad, whence there would no longer be any power of recalling it; than that it be praised by you and reprehended by others. And so I have asked you to be the arbiter of the things you request; for I did not ask you to read what is mine, which I sometimes give to the public, but I desired it to come to the reckoning of your judgment. This judgment will not be one of a long bench and delay, as was said of old. It is easy for you to judge of our work.

2. The Self-Deception of an Author's Own Writing

I certainly thought that, invited by you, I should come forward to this: it is yours clearly to decide, and to discuss searchingly what you would correct; lest things which could have crept in upon us should be turned as a fault against you. For I do not know by what means, apart from the fog of imprudence which surrounds me, one's own writings deceive each one, and slip past the ear; and just as even deformed children delight their parents, so too unbecoming words flatter their own writer. Something is often brought forth too incautiously, something is received too malevolently, something comes out ambiguous: then too because things to be examined by another's judgment we ought to weigh and sift through every scruple of malevolence, not so much according to our own opinion as according to another's.

3. A Plea for Rigorous Scrutiny of the Text

Take up, then, with a benevolent mind an ear for shrewdness, and handle everything, pluck at the words; to see whether in them there is not forensic flattery and persuasive words, but sincerity of faith and sobriety of confession. Set a mark against any word of doubtful weight and deceitful balance; lest the adversary should interpret anything as being in his favor. Let it be that it is refuted, if it should come to close quarters: a book is in bad case which cannot be defended without an advocate. He who goes forth without an interpreter speaks for himself: but this our book will nevertheless not go forth from us, unless it has received authority from you. And so when you have bidden it go forth on your good faith, it will be entrusted to itself.

4. The Profession of Faith Against Sabellius and Arius

Yet since the kingdom of God is not in speech, but in power; if a word gives offense, question the power of the profession. Now the profession of faith is that judgment which, against the Sabellians and Arians, we hold as handed down by our forefathers, that we venerate God the Father, and his only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit: that this Trinity is of one substance, majesty, divinity: that we baptize in this name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, as it is written: that the Son, therefore, coeternal with the Father, took flesh, born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, equal to the Father according to divinity in the form of God, that is, in the whole fulness of divinity, which dwells in him, as the Apostle said, bodily; who in the person of a man received the form of a servant, and humbled himself even unto death (Philipp. II, 8).

5. Against Photinus and Apollinaris on Christ's Manhood

Therefore also against Photinus this is our judgment: but against Apollinaris there is a lawful watchfulness; that we confess that just as in the form of God nothing of the divine nature and fulness was lacking to him, so in that form of man nothing was lacking to him whereby he might be judged an imperfect man: for he came for this, that he might make the whole man safe. For it would not be fitting that he who had accomplished a perfect work in others should suffer this to be imperfect in himself; for if anything was lacking to him, he did not redeem the whole: if he did not redeem the whole, then he deceived, who said he had come for this, that he might make the whole man safe. But since it is impossible for God to lie, he did not deceive: therefore since he came thus, to redeem the whole and make it safe, he assuredly took upon himself the whole of what belonged to human perfection.

6. Faith Unshaken by a Doubtful Phrase

Our judgment is of this kind, as you remember. If the words here and there give offense, they do not prejudice the faith; for a mind that is not in doubt overshadows a doubtful phrase, and defends it from a fall.

7. Placing These Reflections Among Our Letters

These things we have rehearsed together with you, which I will place, if it please you, into the books of our letters, and put back in their number; so that they may be commended under your name, and so that by your letters to us, and ours to you, mutual love may be increased through the Lord: that you may so read what you judge; and that whatever moves you, you may write to me: for true love is proved by constancy. Now it is pleasing—what is easier by practice for old men—to weave letters with daily and familiar speech; and if anything from the divine Scriptures should occur along the way, to weave it in. Farewell, brother, and love him who loves you; for I love you very much.

Ambrose to Sabinus.

1. Never Less Alone Than When Alone

Since the use of our letters has pleased you also, in which there is a certain discourse of persons present though absent, I will proceed to address you more frequently in my writings even when I am alone. For never am I less alone than when I seem to be alone: nor less at leisure than when at leisure. Certainly at my own discretion I summon whom I wish, and join to myself those whom I love more, or whom I judge more suited: no one interrupts, no one interpolates. Then, therefore, I hold you the more, and confer concerning the Scriptures, and together we cut out a longer discourse.

2. Mary, Peter, and Adam Alone With God

Mary was alone, and spoke with the angel. She was alone when the Holy Spirit came upon her, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. She was alone, and wrought the salvation of the world, and conceived the redemption of all. Peter was alone, and knew the mysteries of consecrating the nations through the whole world Adam was alone, and he did not transgress; because his mind clung to God. But after a woman was joined to him, he was not able to cleave to the heavenly commands; and therefore he hid himself, when God walked in paradise.

3. Paradise as the Book of Scripture

And now God walks in paradise, when I read the divine Scriptures. Paradise is the book of Genesis, in which the virtues of the patriarchs sprout forth: paradise is Deuteronomy, in which the precepts of the Law germinate; paradise is the Gospel, in which the tree of life bears good fruits; and spreads abroad the commands of eternal hope through all peoples.

4. Conscience Exposed Before Christ's Commands

Hearing therefore: Love your enemies; hearing: Give up all that you have, and follow me; hearing: Whoever strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and not doing these things, and scarcely loving him who loves me, not giving up what I have, wishing to avenge an injury received, and to wrest back what has been taken from me; while Scripture says also another thing, that is, that more than what is asked or snatched away ought to be granted, I see that I am acting against the commandments of God. And opening the eyes of conscience, I recognize that God is present, walking near me: I long to hide myself, I long to cover myself, but I am naked before God, before whom all things are naked and open.

Blushing therefore I desire to cover the shameful parts of my misdeeds, as if they were members of my own body: but because God sees all things, because though shaded by leaves, covered by hiding-places, I appear, I think myself hidden; because I am clothed with a body. That very thing is the tunic of skin, with which Adam was cast out of paradise, neither safe from cold, nor covered from reproach, but open both to injury and to blame.

5. Solitude as the Condition for God's Presence

It is clear therefore from these things, that when we are alone, then we offer ourselves to God, then we open to him our mind, then we put off the garment of deceit. Adam was alone, when he was set in paradise, he was alone also when he was made in the image of God: but he was not alone, when he was cast out of paradise. The Lord Jesus was alone, when he redeemed the world; for it was not a legate nor a messenger, but the Lord himself alone who saved his people: although he is never alone, in whom the Father always is. Whence let us also be alone, that the Lord may be with us. Farewell, and love us; since we love you.