Part 21

19. But what rich man passes to eternal life unless he be supported by the riches of virtue, that gift which is the portion of all, and declared to be impossible for the rich alone? Happiness then does not consist in using these things but in perceiving that whereby you may despise them, may regard them as void of truth[164], may judge them to be empty and fruitless, and may love the true beauty of naked truth which confesses the cheating vanities of this world.

Sidenote: Cant. iv. 9.

Sidenote: Ib. vii. 8.

Sidenote: Rev. xxi. 23.

Sidenote: S. John viii. 12.

Sidenote: S. Luke xxiv. 32.

20. Lift up therefore your eyes, O my soul; those eyes of which the Word of God saith, _Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes. Go up then to the palm tree_, overcome the world, that thou mayest reach the height of the Word. Leave out of doors the vain shows of this world, leave its malice, but bring in with you that goodness of mind which has grace in the tree of life, that is, if she wash her robes and enter into the city which is the true grace of the saints, wherein is the Tabernacle of God, around which the scribes of the Lord encamp, where neither day nor sun nor moon afford light, but _the Lord Himself is the light thereof_, and enlightens all that city. For He is the _Light of the world_, not indeed the visible light, but the intellectual brightness of the souls which are in this world, upon which He pours the bright beams of reason and of prudence, and in the Gospel is said to inspire with the breath of His spiritual influences the inmost soul, and the recesses of the mind.

Sidenote: Gen. xix. 30.

Sidenote: Ib. 17.

21. If then any man hath begun to be an inhabitant of that heavenly city, an inhabitant, that is, by his life and manners, let him not depart from it, let him not go out again, or retrace his steps, the steps, that is, not of his body but of his mind; let him not turn back. Behind is luxury, behind is impurity. When Lot went up into the mountain he left behind him the crimes of Sodom, but she who looked back, could not reach the higher ground. It is not your feet but your manners which are never to turn back. Let not your hands hang down, or the knees of your faith and devotion become feeble. Let not the weakness of your will be backsliding, let there be no recurrence of crime. Thou hast entered in, remain therefore; thou hast arrived, stay still; _escape for thy life_.

Sidenote: Joel iii. 13.

Sidenote: S. Luke xvii. 31.

Sidenote: Ps. civ. 2.

22. In your ascent your steps must tend directly upwards, no man can safely turn back. Here is the way, there, downfall; here ascent, there a precipice. In ascending there is labour, in descending danger; but the Lord is mighty, Who, when thou art founded there will guard and hedge thee round with prophetic walls and apostolic bulwarks. Therefore the Lord says to thee, _Come, get you down, for the press is full_. Let us be found within, not out of doors. In the Gospel too the Son of God saith, _He which shall be upon the house-top let him not come down to take away his vessels_. And this He says not of this house-top, but of that of which it is said, _He spreadeth out the heavens like a vault_.

Sidenote: Joel iii. 9.

Sidenote: Phil. iv. 13.

23. Remain within therefore, within Jerusalem, within thine own soul, peaceful, meek, and tranquil. Leave her not, nor descend in order to raise up this vessel of thine, either with honour, or wealth, or pride. Remain within, that aliens may not pass through thee, that sins may not pass through thy mind, vain acts, and idle thoughts: and they will not pass, if thou wilt wage a holy war in the cause of faith and devotion, for the love of truth against the snares of passion, and wilt take up the arms of God against spiritual wickedness and the craft of the devil, who tempts our senses by fraud and stratagem, but who is easily crushed by the gentle warrior, who sees no strife, but, as becomes the servant of God, teaches the faith with modesty, and convinces those who oppose themselves. Of him the Scripture says, _Let the warrior who is gentle arise_[165], and let him that is weak say, _I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me_.

Sidenote: Joel iii. 18.

Sidenote: 1 Cor. iii. 2.

Sidenote: S. John iv. 14.

24. Supported by this faith, even he who is weak shall prevail, and his soul will be holy, and the prophetic or apostolic mountains shall _drop down new wine_ for him, and _the hills shall flow with milk_, like that hill which gave milk to the Corinthians to drink, and water shall flow for him from their vessels, and from their well-heads. _From his belly shall flow living water_, that spiritual water which the Holy Spirit supplies to His faithful; may He vouchsafe to water thy soul also, that in thee may be _a fountain springing up into life eternal_. Farewell: love me as a son, for I love you as a father.

LETTER XXX. A.D. 389.

S. AMBROSE here continues the subject of the last Letter, dwelling especially on the duty of rising above the level of earthly things, and bringing together various passages of the Old Testament which he interprets spiritually as setting forth this Lesson. The true follower of Christ will build Him a Temple in his heart, which his Lord will fill with the adornment of spiritual graces.

AMBROSE TO IRENÆUS, GREETING.

Sidenote: Hag. i. 4.

Sidenote: Ib. 2.

Sidenote: Ecclus. xxiii. 18.

1. AFTER I had finished my last letter and directed it to be conveyed to you, the words which the Lord spake by the prophet Haggai came into my mind, _Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses?_ What is the meaning of this but that we ought to dwell on high, not in low and subterranean abodes? For they who dwell beneath the earth, cannot build the temple of God, but say, _The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built_, because it is the mark of sensual persons to seek underground dwellings, courting the cool of summer, being enervated by indulgence and requiring shady retreats to enable them to bear the heat, or because the slothful live at ease beneath the earth, or lastly because dark and shady places suit them best, concealing, (as they believe,) their crimes. _I am compassed about with darkness, the walls cover me, what need I to fear?_ But in vain do they hope for this, when God beholds the hidden depths of the abyss, and discovers all things before they take place.

Sidenote: 1 Kings xvii. 19.

Sidenote: 2 Kings iv. 8, 10.

Sidenote: Ib. 16 et seq.

Sidenote: Acts x. 9.

Sidenote: 2 Sam. xviii. 17, 18.

Sidenote: 1 Kings xx. 23.

2. But neither Elijah nor Elisha dwelt in underground dwellings. Moreover the former carried the dead son of the widow up into the loft where he abode, and there raised him to life; and for the latter, that _great woman_, the Shunamite, prepared a _chamber on the wall_, and there she obtained the privilege of conceiving a son, for she was barren, and there also she saw the miracle of his restoration to life. And what shall I say of Peter who at the sixth hour went up upon the house-top, and there learnt the mystery of the baptism of the Gentiles. But the homicide Absalom had reared for himself a pillar in the King’s dale, and then, after his death, he was cast into a great pit. So then the saints ascend unto the Lord, the wicked descend to crime; the saints are on the mountains, the wicked in the valleys; _For God is the God of the hills, not of the plains_.

3. Those therefore who dwelt in the plain, where God dwells not, could not have the house of God in themselves; for this is the house which God required of them, that they should build up themselves, and should erect within them the temple of God with the living stones of faith. For it was not the erection of earthly walls nor of wooden roofs that He required, for these, had they existed, would have been destroyed by the enemies’ hand; but He sought for that temple which should be raised in men’s minds, to whom it might be said, _Ye are the Temple of God_, wherein the Lord Jesus was to dwell, and from whence He was to proceed for the redemption of the world. Thus in the womb of a Virgin a sacred chamber was to be prepared, wherein the King of heaven might dwell, and the human Body might become the temple of God, Which also when It was destroyed, was to be raised again in three days.

Sidenote: Hag. i. 4.

Sidenote: Jer. xxii. 13.

4. But such a house as this sensual persons, _they who dwell in cieled houses_ and delight in chased silver, do not build. For as they despise pure silver, so also they despise simple dwellings. They enlarge the site of their houses, they add more and more, joining house to house and farm to farm, they dig up the ground; so that the very earth itself gives way to their habitations, and like sons of the earth they are laid up within her womb, and hidden in her bowels. They surely are those of whom Jeremiah says, _Woe unto him that buildeth his house in unrighteousness_. For he who builds in righteousness, builds not on earth but in heaven.

Sidenote: Ib. 14.

Sidenote: Cant. iv. 3.

5. _Thou hast built_, saith the Prophet, _a house, measure the upper chambers of it, even airy chambers, furnished with windows, cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion_. Now he _measureth the upper chambers_, who, having contemplated the judgment of God, judgeth the judgment of the humble and the judgment of the poor. But he who seeks after gain and the blood of the innocent builds not his chambers with judgment, nor keeps the due measure, because he has not Christ, nor looks for the breath of Divine grace upon him, nor does he desire the brightness of full light, nor has he chambers painted with vermilion, for it cannot be said to him, _Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet_.

Sidenote: Jer. xxii. 19. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass. Engl. Vers.

6. _A man of this sort_, it is said, _shall not be buried_, for he who has burrowed in the earth, and buried himself alive, so to speak, in a tomb, has deprived himself when dead of the rest of burial. And thus, laid in the pit of carnal pleasures, he has found no grave from whence to rise. Such a man therefore builds no temple to God, because he hath not known the time of his correction. How then can such men build a temple, who like wild beasts betake themselves to dens and hiding places, who like serpents bury themselves in ditches, and burrow in the earth like crafty foxes?

Sidenote: 1 Tim. v. 6.

Sidenote: Ps. xlii. 5.

Sidenote: S. Matt. vii. 7.

7. Neither does he build a sepulchre for himself who dies before the time, for _he is dead while he liveth_; and he hears not the voice of Haggai, that is being interpreted, of the Feaster, for he enters not the Tabernacle of God, _in the voice of praise and thanksgiving, the sound of one feasting_. For how can he hear His voice, who sees not His works? If he saw them, he would have heard the Word which has been put in His Hand, rejoicing in His acts, whereby _He knocked and it was opened to Him_, and He descended into his soul that He might feed therein upon the food of sincerity and truth.

Sidenote: Hag. i. 8.

8. Now because he has not heard, the word of Haggai comes again to hand, and says, Rise up from your _cieled houses_ that are weighed down by wickedness, and _go up to the mountain_ of the heavenly Scriptures, and _hew wood_, the wood of wisdom, the wood of life, the wood of knowledge; and make straight your ways, direct your acts that they may keep their due order which is useful and necessary for building the house of God.

Sidenote: Ib. 10.

9. For if ye do it not, the _heaven over you shall be stayed of her dew_, that is, the heavenly Word, Which descends _as the dew upon the grass_, shall not temper the fevered motions of your bodily passions, nor extinguish the fiery darts of your various desires; and _the earth_, that is, your soul, _shall be stayed from her fruit_, so that it shall be dried up, unless fully watered by the Word of God, and sprinkled with heavenly dew, even the fulness of spiritual Grace.

Sidenote: Hag. i. 14.

Sidenote: Ps. cxxvii. 1.

Sidenote: Col. i. 16, 17.

Sidenote: S. John vii. 37.

10. And as He knew how slothful they are who dwelt beneath the earth, and in the dark abodes of pleasure, _I will stir up_, it is said, _the spirit of Jerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Governor of Judah_, and _the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest_, that they may be stirred up to build the Divine house. For _except the Lord build the house, their labour is lost that build it_. Now Zerubbabel means, ‘constant overflowing,’ like the Fountain of life, and the Word of God, _by Whom and from Whom are all things and in Whom all things consist_. Thus saith the overflowing Fountain, _If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink_; drink, that is, from the stream of the unfailing flood. We read also of Zabulon, a nocturnal flood, that is to say prophetic, but it also is now brightened by the intermixture of this stream, whereby was swallowed up that flood of vanity typified by Jezabel, which was opposed to truth and to the utterances of prophets, and was so torn in pieces by dogs that not a trace of it remained, but all its frame with every mark of its posterity was destroyed. Zerubbabel therefore of the tribe of Judah, and Jesus the High Priest, thus designated both by tribe and name seem to represent two persons, though one only is meant; for He Who as Almighty is born from the Almighty, as Redeemer is born of the Virgin, being the Same in the diversity of His two divisible natures, hath fulfilled as the Giant of salvation[166] the verity of the one Son of God.

Sidenote: Hag. ii. 6.

Sidenote: Exod. xiii. 21.

Sidenote: Ib. xiv. 22.

Sidenote: S. Luke xxiii. 44.

11. Now being about to raise from the dead holy Zerubbabel He says, _Yet once, it is a little while, I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land_. Once before he had shaken these things when He delivered his people from Egypt, when there was in heaven a pillar of fire, dry land among the waves, a wall in the sea, a path in the waters, when in the desert a daily supply of heavenly food was produced, and the rock was melted into streams of water. But He shook them also afterwards in the Passion of the Lord Jesus, when the heaven was covered with darkness, the sun withdrew his light, the rocks were rent, the tombs opened, the dead raised, the Dragon, vanquished on his own waves, saw the fishers of men not only sailing, but even walking on the sea without danger.

Sidenote: Ps. xix. 4.

Sidenote: Is. liv. 1.

Sidenote: Ib. xxxv. 1.

Sidenote: Rom. xi. 5.

12. The _dry land was also shaken_ when the barren Gentile nations began to ripen with the harvest of devotion and faith, and the desert and the Gentiles were so much shaken, that the preaching of the Apostles, whom He sent to call the Gentiles, was so loud and vehement, that _their sound went out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world_. So greatly, indeed, was the desert shaken that _more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife_, and _the desert blossomed as a rose_, the elect of the Gentiles entered in to the remnant of the people, that the _remnant might be saved according to the election of grace_.

Sidenote: Hag. ii. 7, 8.

Sidenote: Ps. xii. 7.

13. _And I will fill_, it is said, _this house with My silver and gold_, with the heavenly oracles, which are as _silver tried in the fire_, and in the brightness of the true light, glistening like spiritual gold in the secret hearts of the saints. These riches He confers on His Church, riches whereby spiritual treasures are increased, and the glory of the house is exalted above the former glory which the elect people enjoyed.

Sidenote: Phil. iv. 7.

Sidenote: S. Matt. xxiv. 35.

Sidenote: Heb. iv. 12.

Sidenote: Zech. ix. 10.

14. For peace and tranquillity of the soul is above all glory of any house; for _peace passeth all understanding_. This is that peace above all peace which shall be granted after the third shaking of the heaven, the sea, the earth and the dry land, when He shall destroy all Principalities and Powers. For _heaven and earth shall pass away_, and all the fashion of this world; and every man shall rise up against his brother with the sword, that is, with the word _piercing the marrow of the soul_, that whatever opposes itself, the _chariot from Ephraim_ and _the horse from Jerusalem may be cut off_, as Zechariah says. And thus there will be peace over all, the passions of the body offering no resistance, and the unbelieving mind no obstacle, that _Christ may be all in all_, offering in subjection to the Father the hearts of all men.

Sidenote: Hagg. ii. 23.

Sidenote: Cant. vi. 13.

Sidenote: 1 Cor. xv. 48.

Sidenote: Ib. 49.

15. Wherefore to Him alone is it mystically said, _I will take thee, O Zerubbabel, and will make thee as a signet, for I have chosen thee_. When our mind shall have become peaceful so that it may be said to her, _Return, return, o Shulamite_, which signifies ‘peaceful,’ or, to use your own name, Irenice, then shall she receive Christ like a signet on herself, that is, the Image of God, that she may be according to that Image, for _as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly_. And it behoves us _to bear the image of the heavenly_, that is, peace.

Sidenote: Cant. viii. 6.

16. And that we may know the truth of this, it is said in the Canticles to the soul now fully perfect, that which may the Lord Jesus say to you also, _Set me as a seal upon thine arm_; that peace may shine in your heart and Christ in your works, and that wisdom and righteousness and redemption may be formed in you. Farewell, my son: love me for I love you.

LETTER XXXI.

IRENÆUS had asked S. Ambrose whether God had greater love for those who had believed from their early years than for those who had been converted later in life. In answering this question, S. Ambrose enters into the history of the Jewish and Christian Churches, which he considers as set forth under the figures of David’s two wives.

AMBROSE TO IRENÆUS, GREETING.

Sidenote: Joel i. 8.

Sidenote: Hosea ii. 19.

1. YOU have wisely thought it a subject of inquiry, whether there be any difference in God’s love towards those who have believed from their childhood, and those who have believed in the course of their youth or more advanced age; for this also has not been past over nor left unnoticed in the sacred Scriptures. For it is not without meaning that the Lord our God says to the Prophet Joel, _Lament to me for the spouse girded with sackcloth and for the husband of her youth_, expressing his grief for the Synagogue, who, before, in her virginity, had been espoused to the Word of God, or, it may be, for a soul which had fallen from her good deeds, that by the heinousness of her sins she had incurred hatred, and through the defilement of impiety and the stains of unbelief had become miserable and despised, and far removed from the grace of that Spouse which had before been counted worthy to be told, _I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness and in judgment and in lovingkindness and in mercies_.

Sidenote: Mal. iv. 2.

Sidenote: S. Matt. ix. 15.

2. Not without reason is she considered miserable, who has lost gifts of so great a price, and suffered so grievous a loss of her dowry of virtues as to be deprived of the Spouse of her virginity. For according to our merits the Word of God either lives or dies in us; for if our desires and works are good, the Word of God lives and acts in us: if our thoughts and actions are darksome, the Sun of righteousness sets within us. And therefore He bids lamentation to be made for such a soul. For as they have cause of congratulation and feasting with whom the Bridegroom dwells, so that soul is to be mourned for, from whom the Spouse has been taken, as it is written of the Apostles in the Gospel; for _when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, then shall they fast in those days_.

Sidenote: Ps. civ. 15.

3. Thus too this soul, in former times when she possessed the Virgin Word, had joy and gladness. And therefore she fasted not, because it was the season of feasting and refreshment; the Bridegroom was present bestowing by His presence the riches of plenty, stores of heavenly food, and dropping _wine, whereby the hearts of men are made glad_. But after she lost the Bridegroom by her acts, she is commanded to do penance in sackcloth for her sins, and to bewail herself, because Christ, Who is the Virgin Word, died and was crucified for her.

Sidenote: Ecclus. xv. 2.

4. If this soul was espoused from early age, and never bore any other yoke, but from the beginning dedicated the maiden flower of her faith to Christ and as a virgin was united to Him in early days in the mysteries of piety, received a training in holiness as a heifer does the yoke; she is the very soul of the ancient Jewish stock from the family of the patriarchs, who, had she kept her course of faith without stumbling, would have been counted worthy of great things, the Spouse of the Virginal Word, as she who lays hold of Wisdom, _and as a mother shall she meet him, and receive him as a wife married of a virgin_.

Sidenote: 1 Sam. xxv. 39.