Theological and Dogmatic Works

Book VI

THE SACRAMENTS: VI Chapter 1 (1) Just as our Lord Jesus Christ is the true Son of God, not as man through grace, but as the Son of God from the substance of the Father, thus He is true flesh, as He himself said, which we receive and is His true drink.1 (2) But perchance you say what the disciples of Christ also said at that time when they heard Him say: 'Unless one eat my flesh and drink my blood, he will not abide in me and will not have eternal life'2-perchance you say: 'How true [flesh]? Certainly I sec a likeness, I do not see true blood.' (3) First of all, I told you about the words of Christ which operate so as to be able to change and transform the established orders of nature. Then, when His disciples did not tolerate the words of Christ, but hearing that He gave His flesh to eat and gave His blood to drink, went back, and yet Peter alone said: 'Thou hast words of eternal life, and whither shall I go back from yoU?'3_lest, then, more might say that 1 Cf. Reb. 1.2,3; John 6.55. 2 Cf. Tohn 6.54·61. 3 Cf. Tohn 6.69. 319 320 SAINT AMBROSE they go, as if there were a kind of horror of the blood, but as if the grace of redemption did abide, thus indeed in likeness you receive the sacraments, but obtain the grace and virtue of true nature. (4) 'I am the living bread,' He says, 'which came down from heaven.'4 But flesh did not come down from heaven, that is, He took on flesh on earth from a virgin. How, then, did bread come down from heaven and living bread? Because our same Lord Jesus Christ is a sharer of both divinity and body, and you who receive the flesh participate in that nourishment of His divine substance. Chapter 2 (5) Therefore, you received of the sacraments; most fully do you know all. Because you have been baptized in the name of the Trinity, in all that we have done the mystery of the Trinity has been preserved. Everywhere the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one operation, one sanctification, although they seem to be, as it were, certain special things. (6) How? God, who anointed you, and the Lord sealed you, and placed the Holy Spirit in your heart.l Therefore, you have received the Holy Spirit in your heart. Take another example, as the Holy Spirit is in the heart, so also is Christ in the heart. How? You have this in the Canticle of Canticles, Christ saying to the Church: 'Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm.'2 (7) Therefore, God anointed you, Christ sealed you. How? Because you were sealed unto the form of the cross itself, 4 John 6.41. 1 CE. 2 Cor. 1.21,22. 2 Cant. 8.6. THE SACRAMENTS: VI 321 unto His passion. You have received the seal unto His likeness, that you may rise again unto His form, may live unto His figure, who was crucified to sin and liveth unto God. And your old man is dipped in the font, was crucified unto sin, but arose again unto God.3 (8) Then you have elsewhere a special thing, that God has called you; in baptism, moreover, as if you were crucified in a special way unto Christ, then as if something special, when you receive the spiritual seal. You see that there is a distinction of persons, but a mystery of the Trinity all connected . (9) Then what did the Apostle say to you, as it was read clearly and concisely? 'Now there are diversities of graces, but the same spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord, and there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all.4 He says, God worketh all. But of the Spirit of God also it was read: 'One and the same Spirit, dividing to everyone according as He Will.'5 Hear Scripture saying that the Spirit divides as according to His will, not according to obedience. So the Spirit divided grace for you, 'according as He will,' not according as He is ordered, and especially because He is the Spirit of God, the...