Seven Exegetical Works

Flight from the World (De fuga saeculi)

FLIGHT FROM THE WORLD (De fuga saeculi) INTRODUCTION UHE WORK Flight tram the World} delivered as a ser- , mon,2 may be dated, from a passing reference involving a phrase book of the grammarian Arusianus Messius, to ca. 391-394 A.D.3 The work itself is almost as much moral-ascetical as exegetical . As its title indicates, it sounds the theme of the necessity of flight from the world for the Christian. The various changes are rung on this central theme with numerous examples, mostly from the Old Testament-Jacob, Moses, David, Lot, among others-but a few from the New-Paul and, in a minor reference, John the Baptist. Throughout, there is heavy reliance on the work of Philo, On Flight and Finding.4 1 On the work in general see Dudden 684-85; Palanque 441, 444, 549-50. 2 That the work was so delivered is reasonably clear from the concluding doxology at 9.58. See Palanque 441. The tone of the opening of the work also suggests pulpit delivery, as does the reference (3.16) to a gospel reading that included John 1.29. This lection is noted (under Eastertide) by G. G. Willis, St. Augustine's Lectionary (Alcuin Club Collections 44; London 1962) 15; a table (pp. 14-17) purports to give us "St. Ambrose's lectionary." 3 Cf. 3.16. Some uncertainty remains, since the date of Messius' book is not firm. See Dudden 684 (with a date after 391, before 394); Palanque 549 (autumn 394); Paredi 437 (about 394); U. Moricca, Storia della letteratura latina cristiana 2.1 371-73, especially 371 n. 334 (ca. 391). The history of scholarly work on the problem reflects a tendency to advance the date. 4 This work, titled in Latin De fuga et inventione, appears in English translation as part of the fifth volume of the Loeb Classical Library Philo. The parallels, set out in the CSEL text, have not been repeated in the notes to this volume. The discussion by M. Ihm, "Philo und Ambrosius," Neue Jahrbilcher filr Philologle und Paedagogik (1890) 282-88, sets out the texts of Philo and Ambrose in parallel columns. Ihm cites, in order, Flight from the World 5.26; 4.20; 2.5, 6, 7, 9, 13; 8.47,48,49,45. 279 280 SAINT AMBROSE In the course of his controversy with the followers of Pelagius, Augustine had occasion to quote several passages from Flight from the World. 5 Apparently, no English translation of Ambrose's work has been published; there are, however , published translations into German and Italian.6 5 The citations appear in Augustine, Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum, a work in four books published in 421; they are noted at the appropriate points in the notes to the translation which follows. 6 The German version, by F. X. Schulte, appeared in 1877 in volume 2 of the Ausgewiihlte Schriften des heiligen Ambrosius, pp. 425-71; this work contains also Schulte's German translation of Death as a Good. The Italian translation, by F. Portalupi, appeared under the title De fuga saeculi at Turin in 1959. FLIGHT FROM THE WORLD DHAVE OFTEN PREACHEDl on flight from this worldand would the preaching were so easy as the disposition to flee is wary and cautious! But, what is worse, often the enticements of earthly desires steal in and blinding vanities take possession of the mind. Thus you think upon that which you desire to avoid, and you ponder it in spirit. It is hard for a man to guard against this and impossible to rid himself of it. Indeed, the psalmist bears witness that the matter is more one of wish than of actualization when he says, "Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to covetousness."2 For3 our heart and our thoughts are not in our power. When suddenly blinded, they put mind and spirit into confusion and lead them elsewhere than you had intended, call them back to worldliness, introduce earthly things, bring in pleasures , and interweave enticements. At the very time when we are making ready to lift up our minds, idle thoughts intrude and we are cast down the more to things of earth. (1.2) Who,4 then, is so blessed as always to be ascending in his heart? Yet how is this possible without God's help? In no The text to and including"... ascent is in his heart" in...