De Sacramentis, de Mysteriis. Über die Sakramente, Über die Mysterien (review)

Josef Schmitz, professor of liturgical studies at the Seminary of the Redemptorists at Hennef, near Bonn, and author of a full-scale historical study of the rites of initiation and of the Eucharistie liturgy in Milan at the time of St. Ambrose, entitled Gottesdienst im Altchristlichen Mailand (Cologne, 1975), has now produced a handy, portable edition of St. Ambrose's works On the Sacraments and On the Mysteries, comparable to that by Bernard Botte (Paris, 1961; SC 25 bis). Students and scholars alike will welcome this useful aid to interpreting these classical Patristic catecheses, a task which also offers its own share of crosses for interpreters.

The volume includes the editor's new introduction (pp. 7-68) based on his larger work. The Latin text edited by Otto Faller in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Volume 73 (Vienna, 1955) is reproduced with its critical apparatus. That gives this edition a notable advantage over Botte's, which included Faller's Latin text (except for a few cases where Botte preferred other readings, which he justified by critical notes at the end), but without its apparatus of variants. The Latin text is accompanied by a facing German translation (pp. 69-255). The bibliography proper (pp. 260-268) cites editions and translations of Ambrose's other works as well as of related works of other Church Fathers (under "A. Quellen"); then contemporary scholarly literature ("B. Literatur"). The index lists Bible passages, persons, concepts (Latin words), and subjects treated (pp. 269-279).

The first part of the introduction (pp. 7-14) treats of the authorship, form and content of the two works, their relationship, and dates of writing. The authenticity of The Mysteries (59 paragraphs long) has always generally been accepted. However, since the 16th century The Sacraments (six sermons), which had been held to be authentic from antiquity, was increasingly denied Ambrosian authorship. The studies published by Otto Faller since 1929 and Hugh Connolly since 1941-1942 have brought about a gradual change of opinion, so that now the only scholar writing against the authenticity of The Sacraments is Klaus Gamber, whose faulty methodology, Schmitz remarks, forfeits his reader's assent to his argument.

Concerning the form of the two works, the editor states that for a very long time reference was repeatedly made to the differences between them, without sufficient attention to their extensive correspondences. So, when both of these are taken into account, one may say that The Sacraments is an unrevised transcript of baptismal catecheses which Ambrose delivered to the newly baptized during six successive days of an Easter Week which cannot be assigned a more specific data. The Mysteries on the other hand is a writer's product, which does indeed appear in the form of a spoken catechesis, but is actually a literary composition.

The author of the introduction is suitably frank about the gaps in our information, and appropriately cautious about not going beyond the evidence. Concerning dating, Schmitz writes that an exact date either for The Sacraments or for The Mysteries cannot be given; both works presumably come from the later years of the bishop, who died in 397.

The major part of the introduction comprises a description of Christian initiation according to Ambrose. This consists of a survey of the preparation for the celebration of incorporating new members and of the celebration itself. Preliminaries included the catechumenate, a remote preparation, and the time as competentes, that is, a candidacy, the proximate preparation. This latter took place during the Lenten season, beginning on the sixth Sunday before Easter. Its elements were: enrollment (nomendatio), confession of sin, penance, catechesis, scrutinies, oral presentation of the Apostle's creed (traditio symboli), and recitation of this profession of faith (redditio symboli).

The celebration of initiation in Milan at Ambrose's time took place during the Easter night; it consisted of baptism followed by the baptismal Eucharist. Baptismal ritual meant these ceremonies: opening of eyes and ears by...