Collected Works 4 part 1/9

AMBROSE excuses himself to the Emperor for not having come, and, after praising his humility, faith, and piety, writes that the books which were requested are being sent by him, and pledges that he will satisfy the Emperor's wish in composing treatises on the Holy Spirit. To the most blessed Augustus GRATIAN, and most Christian prince, from AMBROSE the bishop. 1. Affection was not lacking in me, most Christian of princes — for I have nothing that I may say more truly and more gloriously than this — affection, I say, was not lacking in me, but modesty held back my affection, so that I did not come to meet your clemency. Yet, though I did not meet you on your return in person, I met you in spirit, I met you in desire, in which the duties of a priest are the greater. Did I say I met you?

For when was I ever absent from him whom I followed with all my affection, to whom I clung with sense and mind? And surely the presence of souls is the greater. Daily I traced your journey; placed night and day by care and thought in your camp, I kept watch in the vigils of my prayers; and if weak in merit, yet diligent in affection. 2. And indeed, when I offered these things for your safety, I was acting for ourselves. There is here no flattery, which you do not require, and which I count foreign to our office; but there is the fullest gratitude, which you have given occasion for. He himself, the arbiter of our hearts, whom you confess and in whom you piously believe, knows that my inmost parts are refreshed by your faith, your safety, your glory; and that I pay the prayers due not only by public office, but also by private love.

For you have restored to me the quiet of the Church, and have shut the mouths — and would that the hearts too — of the faithless; and this you have done by an authority no less of faith than of power. 3. For what shall I say of your recent letter? You wrote the whole epistle with your own hand, that the very characters might speak of your faith and piety. So Abraham of old slew the calf with his own hand, that he might minister to his feasting guests, nor in the religious service did he seek the help of others. But he, a private man, rendered service either to the Lord and the angels, or to the Lord in the angels; you, Emperor, with royal condescension honour the lowliest priest. Yet it is to the Lord that honour is rendered, when a poor servant is honoured; for he himself said: «What you did to one of these least, you did to me» (Matthew

XXV, 40). 4. But I proclaim only your humility as lofty in an emperor, and your faith as no greater than you have spoken with a mind truly conscious of your merit — that faith which he teaches you whom you do not deny. For who else could have taught you not to cast up against him as a reproach the creature which you see in yourself? Nothing more upright, nothing more apt, could have been said; for to call Christ a creature is by way of insult and contumely, not by way of confessing reverence. Then, what so insolent as to esteem him to be that which we are? You have therefore taught me, from whom you profess that you wish to learn: nothing of the kind have I yet read, nothing of the kind have I heard. 5. But how pious, how admirable that is, that in God you do not fear to incur envy!

From the Father you presume upon a reward for your love of the Son, and in praising the Son you profess that you can add nothing to him; but you wish, by your proclamation of the Son, to commend yourself even to the Father. This surely he alone taught you who said: «He that loves me shall be loved by my Father» (John XIV, 21). 6. You added to this that you, being weak and frail, did not think yourself such a praiser as to augment the Godhead by words; but that you proclaim as much as you can, not as much as the Godhead itself is. This weakness is the stronger in Christ, as the Apostle also said: «When I am weak, then am I strong» (2 Corinthians XII, 10). This humility shuts out frailty. 7. I will indeed come, and will hasten, as you bid;

so that I may hear these things in your presence, and read these things in your presence, since they proceed from your own mouth. Moreover, I have sent two little books, of which, since they are already approved by your clemency, I shall not fear the risk; but concerning the Holy Spirit, meanwhile, I beg leave to write later, since I have come to know what judge I am to have of my discourse. 8. Yet meanwhile your judgment and your faith, drawn forth concerning the Lord and Saviour, the Son of God, overflows to the most abundant assertion by which the eternal divinity of the Holy Spirit too may be believed; so that you do not cast up against him the creature which you see in yourself, nor suppose that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ envies his own Spirit. For that which lacks fellowship with the creature is divine. 9.

If the Lord favour me, I will satisfy this wish of your clemency too, so that you may esteem him whose grace you have received as pre-eminent in the glory of God, to be honoured by his own name. 10. May God almighty, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, deign to guard you, most blessed and most flourishing, with length of years, and to confirm your reign in the highest glory and in perpetual peace, my lord Emperor Augustus, chosen by divine judgment, most glorious of princes. He admonishes CONSTANTIUS, lately elected bishop, that he should govern the Church amid the sea and the rivers, setting forth what is signified by each. He exhorts him to gather the waters with which he is to water the minds of the peoples:

and what manner of discourses his ought to be, and what virtues he ought to enjoin; and, having taught this, he treats of the balance by which a discourse is to be weighed. About to show the usefulness of humility, he brings forward the example of blessed Joseph; and, the vanity of present things being demonstrated by the histories of the same Joseph and of David, he teaches that the peoples are to be roused to procure for themselves true riches. Finally, commending to him the Church of Forum Cornelii, he adds something concerning prudence toward heretics, justice toward neighbours, and humanity toward servants. 1. You have undertaken the office of the priesthood, and, sitting in the stern of the Church, you steer the ship against the waves. Hold fast the helm of faith, that the grievous storms of this world may not be able to throw you into confusion. The sea indeed is great and spacious, but do not fear;

for he himself founded it upon the seas, and upon the rivers prepared it (Psalm XXIII, 2). And so, not without reason, amid so many straits of the world the Church of the Lord, as though built upon the apostolic rock, remains immovable, and abides upon an unshaken foundation against the assaults of the raging brine (Matthew XVI, 18). It is washed by the waves, but not shaken; and though frequently the elements of this world, dashed against it, rebound with a great crash, yet it has a place where it may receive the labouring, the safest harbour of salvation. 2. But still, even though it tosses upon the sea, it runs in the rivers; and see that you fear not rather those rivers of which it is said: «The rivers have lifted up their voice» (Psalm XCII, 3).

For there are rivers which shall flow from the belly of him who has received drink from Christ, and has drunk of the Spirit of God (John VII, 38). These rivers, then, when they overflow with spiritual grace, lift up their voice. There is also a river that runs down upon his saints like a torrent (Isaiah LXVI, 12). There is also the rush of a river that gladdens the soul, peaceful and tranquil (Psalm XLV, 5). Whoever has received of the fullness of this river — as John the Evangelist, as Peter and Paul — lifts up his voice; and as the apostles spread the voice of evangelical preaching, with sonorous proclamation, even to all the ends of the earth, so this man too begins to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Receive, then, from Christ, that your sound also may go forth. 3.

The divine Scripture is a sea, having in itself deep meanings and the height of prophetic enigmas; into which sea very many rivers have entered. There are, then, both sweet and clear rivers, and there are snowy fountains that leap up into eternal life (John IV, 14); there are also good words, like honeycombs (Proverbs XVI, 24), and pleasing sentences which water the souls of the hearers with a certain spiritual draught, and soothe with the sweetness of moral precepts. Diverse, therefore, are the streams of the divine Scriptures. You have what you may drink first, you have what you may drink second, you have what you may drink last. 4. Gather the water of Christ, that water which praises the Lord (Psalm CXLVIII, 5). Gather water from many places, which the prophetic clouds pour out (Ecclesiastes XI, 3).

Whoever gathers water from the mountains and draws it to himself, or draws it from the fountains, himself too sprinkles like a cloud. Fill, therefore, the bosom of your mind, that your land may grow moist and be watered by domestic fountains. Therefore he who reads much and understands is filled; he who has been filled waters others; and so the Scripture says: «If the clouds be filled, they shall pour out rain upon the earth» (Ibid.). 5. Let your discourses, then, be flowing, let them be pure and clear, that by moral disputation you may pour sweetness into the ears of the peoples, and by the grace of your words soothe the people, so that, willing, it may follow whither you lead.

But if there be in the people, or in any individuals, some obstinacy or fault, let your discourses be of such a kind as to goad the hearer and prick the man of evil conscience: for «the words of the wise are as goads» (Ecclesiastes XII, 11). The Lord Jesus too goaded Saul when he was a persecutor. Consider how salutary that goad was, which made an apostle out of a persecutor, by saying: «It is hard for you to kick against the goad» (Acts IX, 5). 6. There are also discourses like milk, such as Paul poured into the Corinthians (1 Corinthians III, 2); for those who cannot feast on stronger food exercise the infancy of their understanding with the juice of milk. 7. Let your addresses be full of meaning. Whence Solomon also says: «The lips of the wise are the arms of understanding» (Proverbs XIV, 3);

and elsewhere: «Let your lips be bound with sense» (Proverbs XV, 7) — that is, let the clarity of your discourses shine, let understanding flash forth, and let your address and treatise need no assertion from another; but let your discourse defend itself, as it were, by its own arms, and let no word of yours go out in vain or come forth without meaning. For there is a bandage which is wont to bind up the wounds of souls; and if anyone casts it off, he betrays his salvation as despaired of (Isaiah I, 6). And therefore, toward those who are afflicted with a grievous ulcer, use the oil of discourse, with which you may foment the hardness of the mind; apply a poultice, add the bandage of the saving precept;

that you may by no means suffer to perish, with slack soul and relaxed vigour, those who waver and fluctuate concerning the faith or the observance of discipline. 8. Admonish, therefore, the people of the Lord, and beseech them to abound in good works, to renounce shameful deeds, not to kindle the fires of flames — I will not say on the Sabbath only, but at all times — lest a man burn his own body; let fornication and uncleanness not be among the servants of God; for we serve the immaculate Son of God (Ephesians V, 3). Let each one know himself and possess his own vessel (1 Thessalonians IV, 4), so that, having subdued the soil, as it were, of his own body, he may await the due fruits, and his land may not bring forth thorns and thistles for him (Genesis III, 18), but he too may say: «The earth has given its fruits» (Psalm LXXXIV, 13);

and that in this once-thorny frailty of the passions, the grafted virtues may bloom forth. 9. Teach also and instruct them to do what is good, and that each one may not leave off a praiseworthy work, whether it be seen by many or be without a witness; for the conscience, a wealthy witness, abounds to itself. 10. Let him flee also evil reproaches, even if he believes that he cannot be convicted. For even if he be shut within walls and covered by darkness, without a witness, without one privy to it, yet he has an arbiter of the deed whom nothing escapes, to whom all deeds cry out. In short, even the voice of blood cried out (Genesis IV, 10). Each one has himself, and his own soul, as a severe judge of himself, an avenger of wickedness, and a punisher of crime.

In short, fearing and trembling Cain wandered about (Ibid., 14), paying the penalties of his fratricidal crime; so that his death was a remedy to him, which stripped from him, through death, that wandering exile that was terrified through all moments by the dreaded terror of death. Let no one, therefore, whether alone or with another, do anything base or wicked. And if anyone is alone, let him blush before himself above all others, whom he ought most to revere. 11. Nor let him covet many things, for to him even few things are many; for poverty and wealth are but the words for want and satiety. He is not rich who is in need of anything, nor poor who is not in need. Nor let anyone despise a widow, circumvent an orphan, or defraud his neighbour.

For woe to him who holds substance gathered by guile, and builds a city in blood (Habakkuk II, 12) — that is, his own soul! For this is what is built like a city (Psalm CXXI, 3). This city avarice does not build, but destroys; lust does not build, but scorches and sets it on fire. Do you wish to build a city well? «Better is a little with the fear of God than great treasures without that fear» (Proverbs XV, 16). The riches of a man ought to profit toward the redemption of his soul, not toward its destruction. And a treasure is a redemption, if a man use it well; and again it is a snare, if a man know not how to use it (Proverbs XIII, 8). For what is a man's money to him but a kind of travelling-provision?

Much is a burden, a moderate amount is for use. We are travellers of this life; many walk, but the need is that one pass through well; for with him is the Lord Jesus who passes through well. Therefore you read: «If you pass through the water, I am with you; the rivers shall not close over you, nor shall the fire scorch your garments, if you pass through» (Isaiah XLIII, 2). But he who binds fire in his body — the fire of lust, the fire of immoderate desire — does not pass through, but scorches that covering of his soul (Proverbs VI, 27). «A good reputation is more excellent than money, and good favour is above all heaps of silver» (Proverbs XXII, 1). Faith itself abounds to itself, sufficiently and more than sufficiently rich in its own wealth. To the wise man, too, nothing is alien except what is incongruous with virtue;

wherever he goes, he will find all things his own. The whole world is his possession, since he uses the whole of it as though it were his own. 12. Why, then, is a brother circumvented? Why is a hireling defrauded? «There is no great gain,» he says (Proverbs VI, 26), «from the wage of a harlot» — that is, of this slippery frailty. This harlot is not a particular one, but a public one; not one woman, but every wandering desire is a harlot. All faithlessness, all deceit is a harlot — not she alone who prostitutes her own body, but every soul that sells its hope, that seeks base gains and degenerate alms. We too are hirelings, who labour for wages, and hope for the wage of this our work from our Lord and God.

If anyone wishes to know how far we are hirelings, let him hear him who says: «How many loaves do my father's hirelings have in abundance? but I here perish with hunger» (Luke XV, 17); and below: «Make me,» he says, «as one of your hirelings» (Ibid., 19). All are hirelings, all are labourers; let him, however, who awaits the fruit of his labour consider that he who has defrauded another of the wage due to him shall himself also be defrauded of his own. That defrauding gives offence, and he shall afterwards pay it out in a fuller measure. Therefore he who does not wish to lose what is perpetual, let him not snatch from another what is temporal. 13. Let no one either speak in guile to his neighbour. There is a snare in our lips, and often each man is not extricated by his own words, but entangled (Proverbs VI, 2).

The mouth of the malevolent is a deep pit: a great precipice for innocence, but a greater for malevolence (Proverbs XXII, 14). The innocent, while he believes easily, quickly slips (Proverbs XIV, 15); yet that fall rises again: but the slanderer is cast down headlong by his own arts, whence he never leaps out nor escapes. Let each man, then, weigh his words, not with fraud and guile: «A false balance is unacceptable before God» (Proverbs XI, 1) — I do not mean that balance which weighs another's merchandise (and in cheap things, indeed, deceit costs dear) — but the balance of words itself is abominable before God, which holds out the weight of sober gravity, and underneath ties on the cunning of fraudulence.

This God especially condemns, if anyone deceive his neighbour by the kindness of promises, and oppress one whom he has cheated by treacherous iniquity, gaining himself nothing by the devices of his cunning. For what does it profit a man if he gain the wealth of the whole world, but defraud his own soul of the wage of eternal life (Matthew XVI, 26)? 14. There is another balance to be considered by pious minds, by which the deeds of each are weighed, in which for the most part sins incline toward judgment, or good deeds outweigh sins. Woe to me, if shameful deeds go before, and incline with deadly weight toward the prejudgment of death! It is more tolerable if they follow after — yet all things are manifest to the Lord, even before judgment;

neither can good deeds be hidden, nor those which are full of offence be concealed (1 Timothy V, 24). 15. How blessed is he who has been able to cut away the root of vices — avarice! He surely will not dread this balance. For avarice for the most part dulls human senses and perverts opinions (1 Timothy VI, 10), so that men reckon gain to be piety, and money to be, as it were, the reward of prudence. But great is the reward of piety, and the gain of sobriety, to have what is enough for use. For what in this world do the superfluities of riches profit, since in them there are neither any helps for being born, nor any hindrances to dying? For we are both born into this world without covering, and depart without travelling-provision, and are buried without inheritance. 16.

For each of us the balance of our merits hangs poised, and by the slight weights now of a good work, now of a base and degenerate sin, it is often tilted this way and that: if evil things sink it down, alas for me! but if good things, pardon is at hand. For no one is free from sin; yet where good things weigh heavier, our sins are lifted up, overshadowed, covered over. Therefore on the day of judgment either our works will come to our aid, or those very works will plunge us into the deep, weighed down as it were by a millstone. For iniquity is heavy, propped up as it were by a leaden talent; greed is unbearable, and all pride, and foul deceit (Zech. V, 7).

And therefore exhort the people of the Lord to hope rather in the Lord, to abound in the riches of simplicity, in which they may walk without snare and without hindrance (II Cor. VIII, 2). 17. Good too is the sincerity of pure speech, and it is rich in God's sight, even though it walk among snares; for since it knows not how to weave ambushes or bonds for another, it is not itself bound. 18. This also is of chief importance, if you can persuade them to know how to be humbled, that they may understand the true hue of humility, and know its nature. Many have the appearance of humility but not its virtue; many display it without and assail it within; they put it forward for show, but renounce it in truth, and deny it as regards grace. For there is one who humbles himself wickedly, and his inward parts are full of deceit (Sir. XIX, 23).

And there is one who submits himself excessively out of great humility. There is therefore no humility unless it be without disguise, without fraud. That humility is true which possesses a devout sincerity of mind (Rom. V, 19). Great is its virtue. In short, through the disobedience of one man death entered in, and through the obedience of one Lord Jesus Christ the redemption of all was accomplished. 19. Holy Joseph knew how to be humbled, who, when he had been sold by his brothers into slavery, or bought up by merchants (Gen. XXXVII, 28), humbled in fetters, as Scripture says (Ps. CIV, 18), learned the virtue of humility and rejected weakness. And so (Gen.

XXXIX, 1ff.) having been bought in the regions of Egypt by a royal servant, the chief of the cooks, he did not, out of the consciousness of a noble lineage, as a scion of the children of Abraham, scorn the duties of a household servant or disdain his lowly condition; rather he showed himself diligent and faithful to his master's command, fixing his mind on a lofty resolve: that it makes no difference in what station a man proves himself worthy, but that this is the goal of good men, that they be proven worthy in whatever station; and that this above all matters, if his character should commend his station rather than his station his character. For the lower the station, the more eminent the virtue. So he showed himself such, so diligent, that his master entrusted to him his whole house and committed all things to him. 20.

Whence (ibid., 7ff.) his master's wife also cast her eyes upon him, captivated by the charm of his form; for it is nothing against us if by wanton eyes either youth or beauty is desired. Let art be absent, and comeliness is no crime; let enticement cease, and a fair appearance and the grace of form are blameless. And so, inflamed and raging in mind, she accosts the young man, and, driven by lust and overcome by the goads of passion, she confesses her crime. But he renounces the wickedness, saying that it accords neither with the customs of the Hebrews nor with their laws to violate another's marriage bed, for whom it is a care to guard chastity; that those whole and undefiled in marriage should be joined to undefiled virgins, and should not unite with any woman who knows not the lawful use of the marriage bed.

And he held it a matter of religious duty that he should not, drunk with shameful intemperance, prove ungrateful to his master's kindness, and inflict grievous outrage upon the one to whom he owed obedience. 21. Was he ashamed nonetheless to call that man, lowly though he was, his master, and to confess himself a servant? Indeed, even when the woman pressed him, even entreated him with the fear of betrayal, or poured out the tears of her love to wring out compliance by necessity, neither bent by pity to consent to the wickedness, nor compelled by fear, he resisted her entreaties, nor yielded to her threats, preferring a dangerous honor to rewards, and a perilous integrity to a base recompense for his chaste modesty. Again too (Gen.

XXXIX, 11ff.) the woman, having attempted greater temptations, when she perceived him inflexible and unmoved even a second time, with passion grown savage and shamelessness lending her strength, assails the young man, seizing his garment and dragging him toward the bed, offering her embrace; and she had almost caught him, had not Joseph stripped off the garment by which he was held, lest he strip off the robe of humility, the clothing of modesty. 22. He knew, then, how to be humbled, who was humbled even to prison; and when he bore false accusation, he chose rather to undergo a false crime than to commit a true one. He knew, I say, how to be humbled, because he was humbled for the sake of virtue. He was humbled as a figure of Him who was to humble Himself even unto death, even the death of the cross.

who was to come, that He might rouse this life from sleep, and teach that this manner of living is but a dream, in which the diverse turns of changes are as it were drunken, and there is nothing solid, nothing firm; like one sleeping a dream, seeing we do not see, and hearing we do not hear, and eating we are not filled, rejoicing we do not rejoice, running we do not arrive. Vain are the hopes of men in this world, who suppose that the things which are not should be pursued as though they were. And so the empty and hollow appearances of things came, as in a dream, and departed; they stood by, they vanished. They were poured around and scattered; they seem to be held, and are not held. In short, when one has heard Him saying: Rise, you who sleep (Eph.

V, 11), and has risen from the sleep of this world, he understands all these things to be false; he has awakened, and the dream has fled, power has fled, the care of patrimony has departed, the charm of beauty, the pursuit of honors. For these are dreams by which those who watch in heart are not moved; but the sleeping are troubled by them. 23. Holy Joseph is surety for this saying of mine, that the things of this world are neither perpetual nor lasting—he who, noble by birth from the beginning, rich in fortune, suddenly became an ignoble little slave, and (what makes the very baseness of his servitude more bitter) a bought chattel of a base-born master. For to serve a free man is reckoned less vile; but servitude is doubled where one serves home-born slaves.

A slave, then, though of illustrious descent, poor though of a wealthy father, passing from love to hatred, from favor to punishment; again from prison to the palace, from the dock of the accused to the seat of judgment; yet he was neither broken by adversity nor exalted by prosperity (Gen. XLI, 39ff.). 24. The frequently changing fortune of holy David likewise attests that the turns of affairs are momentary—he who was despised by his father, precious to God; noble in triumph, lowly through envy (I Sam. XVI, 11ff.), called to the royal service, chosen for kinship with the king (I Sam. XVIII, 2ff.), and at last with face and countenance altered, exiled from the kingdom, fleeing from a son's parricide, now bewailing his own offenses, now again putting away the offenses of others, made nobler by being reconciled to his heir than by being disfigured (II Sam.

XII, 1ff.). Having therefore experienced all things, he beautifully said: It is good for me that I have been humbled (Ps. CXVIII, 71). 25. Although this can also be referred to Him who, when He was in the form of God, found it easy to bow down the heavens; yet He descended, and taking the form of a servant, bore our infirmities (Phil. II, 6): who, foreseeing His saints, dixit—not, as it were, seizing His own proper honor as a thing to be grasped, but subjecting Himself to His equals and preferring others to Himself, said: It is good for me that I have been humbled. It is good for me that I have subjected myself, so that all things may be made subject to me, and that God may be all and in all (I Cor. XV, 27, 28). Pour this humility into the souls of each, and offer yourself as an example to all, saying:

Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ (I Cor. XI, 1). 26. Let them learn to seek the riches of good works, and to be rich in character. The beauty of riches lies not in the moneybags of the wealthy, but in the sustenance of the poor. In those weak and needy ones wealth shines the better. Let the rich therefore learn to seek not their own things, but the things which are Christ's; that Christ also may seek after them, and bestow His own things upon them. He spent His blood for them (Rom. VIII, 32), He pours out His Spirit for them, He offers them His kingdom. What more will He give, who offered His very Self? Or what is there that the Father will not give, who delivered up His only Son to death for us?

Admonish them therefore to serve the Lord in sobriety and grace, with all diligence of mind to lift their eyes to heavenly things, to count nothing as gain except what belongs to eternal life; for all this gain of the present world is a loss to souls. In short, he suffered the loss of all things (Phil. III, 8) who wished to gain Christ: and although he said this marvelously, yet he expressed less than he had received. For he spoke here of things belonging to others, but Christ said: Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself (Luke IX, 23); so that he himself may be his own loss, whereby the gain of Christ may come about. All these things are fleeting, with loss, without gain: that alone is gain where the fruit is perpetual, where the rewards of eternal rest abide. 27.