Theological and Dogmatic Works

Book I

THE HOLY SPIRIT BOOK I Prologue ~ HEN JEROBAAL, AS WE READ, was beating out the harvest of wheat with a rod under an oak tree/ he received a message from God to free the people of God from the power of strangers. Nor is it any wonder that he was chosen for grace, since already then, being established under the shadow of the holy cross and of the adorable wisdom in the predestined mystery of the future Incarnation, he was producing perceptible grains of rich corn from their hiding places, and was separating the elect of the saints from the sweepings of the empty chaff. For these elect, disciplined by the rod of truth, laying aside the superfluities of the old man together with his actions, are thus gathered in the Church as in a wine-press; for the Church is the wine-press 1 Cf. Judges 6.11; also, ibid. 6.32: 'From that day Gedeon was called Jerobaal. because Joas had said: Let Baal revenge himself on him that hath cast down his altar.' 35 36 SAINT AMBROSE of the eternal fountain, in which the fruit of the heavenly vine overflows. (2) And Gedeon, moved by this message, when he heard that, although thousands of people failed, the Lord would save his people from the enemy by one man,z offered the young of goats, according to the precept of the angel, and placed unleavened bread upon the rock, and covered them with broth, and, as soon as the angel of God touched these with the tip of the rod which he was carrying, fire burst forth from the rock; and so the sacrifice which was being offered was consumed.3 By this sign it seems to have been declared that the rock possessed the figure of the body of Christ, because it is written: 'And they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ.'4 This surely referred not to His divinity but to His flesh, which flowed over the hearts of the thirsting people with the perpetual stream of His blood. (3) Already at that time then it was declared in a mystery that the Lord Jesus in His flesh, when crucified, would destroy not only the sins of the doers but also the desires of souls. For the flesh of the kid is referred to the fault of the deed, the broth to the enticements of desires, as it is written: 'For the people burned with excessive desire, and said: Who shall give us flesh to eat'?5 That the angel put forth the rod, and touched the rock, from which fire came forth,6 shows that the flesh of the Lord, filled with the Divine Spirit, would burn away all the sins of mankind. Therefore, the Lord also says: '1 am come to send fire on the earth.'7 2 Cf. Judges 6.14. 3 Cf. Judges 6.19-21. 4 I Cor. 10.4. 5 Num. 11.4. 6 Tudges 6.21. 7 Luke 12.49. THE HOLY SPIRIT 37 (4) So the man who is learned and has foreknowledge of the future observes the heavenly mysteries, and therefore, according to the message from God, slew a bullock destined by his father for the idols, and he himself sacrificed another bullock of seven years to God.8 By doing this he revealed very manifestly that after the coming of the Lord all the sacrifices of the Gentiles are to be abolished, and only the sacrifice of the Lord's passion is to be offered to God for the redemption of the people. For that bullock was in figure Christ, in whom, as Isaias said,9 dwelt the fullness of the seven spiritual virtues. This bullock Abraham also offered when he saw the day of the Lord and was glad.10 He it is who was offered now in the figure of a kid, now in that of a sheep, now in that of a bullock. Of a kid, because He is a sacrifice for sins; of a sheep, because He is a willing offering; of a bullock, because He is a victim without stain. (5) Holy Gedeon then foresaw the mystery. Then he selected three hundred for battle that he might show that not by the number of the multitude but by the sacrament of the cross was the world to be freed from the attack...