Chapter VI.

St. Ambrose teaches out of the prophet Isaiah what they must do who have fallen. Then referring to our Lord’s proverbial expression respecting piping and dancing, he condemns dances. Next by the example of Jeremiah he sets forth the necessary accompaniments of repentance. And lastly, in order to show the efficacy of this medicine of penance, he enumerates the names of many who have used it for themselves or for others.

40. But if they be not converted, do you at least repent, who by many a slip have fallen from the lofty pinnacle of innocence and faith. We have a good Lord, Whose will it is to forgive all, Who called you by the prophet and said: “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, and I will not remember, but do thou remember that we may plead together.” “I,” He says, “will not remember, but do thou remember,” that is to say, “I do not recall those transgressions which I have forgiven thee, which are covered, as it were, with oblivion, but do thou remember them. I will not remember them because of My grace, do thou remember them in order to correction; remember, thou mayest know that the sin is forgiven, boast not as though innocent, that thou aggravate not the sin, but thou wilt be justified, confess thy sin.” For a shamefaced confession of sins looses the bands of transgression.

41. You see what God requires of you, that you remember that grace which you have received, and boast not as though you had not received it. You see by how complete a promise of remission He draws you to confession. Take heed, lest by resisting the commandments of God you fall into the offence of the Jews, to whom the Lord Jesus said: “We piped to you and ye danced not; we wailed and ye wept not.”191    S. Luke vii. 32.

42. The words are ordinary words, but the mystery is not ordinary. And so one must be on one’s guard, lest, deceived by any common interpretation of this saying, one should suppose that the movements of wanton dances and the madness of the stage were commended; for these are full of evil in youthful age. But the dancing is commended which David practised before the ark of God. For everything is seemly which is done for religion, so that we need be ashamed of no service which tends to the worship and honouring of Christ.

43. Dancing, then, which is an accompaniment of pleasures and luxury, is not spoken of, but spiritually such as that wherewith one raises the eager body, and suffers not the limbs to lie slothfully on the ground, nor to grow stiff in their accustomed tracks. Paul danced spiritually, when for us he stretched forward, and forgetting the things which were behind, and aiming at those which were before, he pressed on to the prize of Christ.192    Phil. ii. 13, 14. And you, too, when you come to baptism, are warned to raise the hands, and to cause your feet wherewith you ascend to things eternal to be swifter. This dancing accompanies faith, and is the companion of grace.

44. This, then, is the mystery. “We piped to you,” singing in truth the song of the New Testament, “and ye danced not.” That is, did not raise your souls to the spiritual grace. “We wailed, and ye wept not.” That is, ye did not repent. And therefore was the Jewish people forsaken, because it did not repent, and rejected grace. Repentance came by John, grace by Christ. He, as the Lord, gives the one; the other is proclaimed, as it were, by the servant. The Church, then, keeps both that it may both attain to grace and not cast away repentance, for grace is the gift of One Who confers it; repentance is the remedy of the sinner.

45. Jeremiah knew that penitence was a great remedy, which he in his Lamentations took up for Jerusalem, and brings forward Jerusalem itself as repenting, when he says: “She wept sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks, nor is there one to comfort her of all who love her. The ways of Sion do mourn.”193    Lam. i. 2, 4. And he says further: “For these things I weep, my eyes have grown dim with weeping, because he who used to comfort me is gone far from me.”194    Lam. i. 16. We notice that he thought this the bitterest addition to his woes, that he who used to comfort the mourner was gone far from him. How, then, can you take away the very comfort by refusing to repentance the hope of forgiveness?

46. But let those who repent learn how they ought to carry it out, with what zeal, with what affection, with what intention of mind, with what shaking of the inmost bowels, with what conversion of heart: “Behold,” he says, “O Lord, that I am in distress, my bowels are troubled by my weeping, my heart is turned within me.”195    Lam. i. 20.

47. Here you recognize the intention of the soul, the faithfulness of the mind, the disposition of the body: “The elders of the daughters of Sion sat,” he says, “upon the ground, they put dust upon their heads, they girded themselves with haircloth, the princes hung their heads to the ground, the virgins of Jerusalem fainted with weeping, my eyes grew dim, my bowels were troubled, my glory was poured on the earth.”196    Lam. ii. 10, 11.

48. So, too, did the people of Nineveh mourn, and escaped the destruction of their city.197    Jon. iii. 5. Such is the remedial power of repentance, that God seems because of it to change His intention. To escape is, then, in your own power; the Lord wills to be entreated, He wills that men should hope in Him, He wills that supplication should be made to Him. Thou art a man, and willest to be asked to forgive, and dost thou think that God will pardon thee without asking Him?

49. The Lord Himself wept over Jerusalem, that, inasmuch as it would not weep itself, it might obtain forgiveness through the tears of the Lord. He wills that we should weep in order that we may escape, as you find it in the Gospel: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves.”198    S. Luke xxiii. 28.

50. David wept, and obtained of the divine mercy the removal of the death of the people who were perishing, when of the three things proposed for his choice he selected that in which he might have the most experience of the divine mercy. Why do you blush to weep for your sins, when God commanded even the prophets to weep for the people?

51. And, lastly, Ezekiel was bidden to weep for Jerusalem, and he took the book, at the beginning of which was written: “Lamentation, and melody, and woe,”199    Ezek. ii. 9 [LXX.]. two things sad and one pleasant, for he shall be saved in the future who has wept most in this age. “For the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of fools in the house of feasting.”200    Eccles. vii. 4. And the Lord Himself said: “Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.”201    S. Luke vi. 21.

CAPUT VI.

A fide vel innocentia lapsos denuo hortaturus ad poenitendum, ex Esaia quid eos a Deo exspectare, quidve 0507B ipsosmet praestare oporteat, docet. Hinc memorata Christi adversus Judaeos proverbiali reprehensione, per ejus occasionem saltationes et choreas perstringens, idem proverbium ad spiritalem traducit intellectum. Deinde ex Jeremia poenitentiam suscipiente pro Jerusalem, quas conditiones ea virtus requirat, aperit. Denique ut quantae sit efficaciae haec illa medicina, clarius exhibeat, qui eadem vel pro se vel pro aliis uti voluerint, multos numerat.

40. Sed si isti non convertuntur, vel vos revertimini, qui lapsu vario de innocentiae fideique praecelso fastigio decidistis. Bonum Dominum habemus qui velit donare omnibus, qui te per prophetam vocavit dicens: Ego sum, ego sum qui deleo iniquitates 0507C tuas, et memor non ero: tu autem memor esto, ut judicemur (Esai. XLIII, 25). Ego, inquit, memor non ero: tu autem memor esto, 426 hoc est: Non revoco illa, quaecumque delicta donavi tibi, velut quadam oblivione tecta sint: tu autem memor esto. Ego, inquit, memor non ero propter gratiam, tu memor esto propter correctionem: memor esto, ut scias donatum esse peccatum; ne glorieris quasi innocens, ne te justificando, plus ingraves: sed si vis justificari, fatere delictum tuum. Solvit enim criminum nexus verecunda confessio peccatorum.

41. Vides quid a te exigat Deus tuus, ut memor sis ejus quam accepisti gratiae, et non glorieris quasi 0508A non acceperis. Vides qua remissionis pollicitatione te provocet ad confitendum: vide ne reluctando mandatis coelestibus, in indevotionem Judaeorum incidias, quibus dicit Dominus Jesus: Cantavimus vobis, et non saltastis: lamentavimus, et non plorastis (Luc. VII, 32).

42. Vilis sermo, sed non vile mysterium. Et ideo cavendum ne quis vulgari quadam sermonis hujus deceptus interpretatione, putet nobis saltationis lubricae histrionicos motus, et scenae deliramenta mandari; haec etiam in adolescentula aetate vitiosa sunt: sed saltationem mandavit, quam saltavit David ante arcam Domini. Totum enim decet, quidquid defertur religioni; ut nullum obsequium quod proficiat ad cultum et observantiam Christi, erubescamus.

0508B 43. Non ergo illa deliciarum comes, atque luxuriae praedicatur saltatio, sed qua unusquisque corpus attollat impigrum, nec humi pigra jacere membra, vel tardis sinat torpere vestigiis. Saltabat spiritaliter Paulus, cum se pro nobis extenderet, et posteriora obliviscens, priora appetens, contenderet ad bravium Christi. Tu quoque cum ad baptismum venis, manus elevare, pedes quibus ad aeterna conscendas, velociores habere moneris (Phil. III, 13, 14). Haec saltatio fidei socia, gratiae comes.

44. Hoc est ergo mysterium: Cantavimus vobis, novi utique canticum Testamenti: et non saltastis, hoc est, non elevastis animam ad spiritalem gratiam. Lamentavimus, et non plorastis, hoc est, non egistis poenitentiam. Et ideo derelictus est 0508C Judaeorum populus; quia nec egit poenitentiam, et gratiam refutavit. Per Joannem poenitentia, per Christum gratia. Istam quasi Dominus donat, illam quasi servus annuntiat. Utrumque igitur Ecclesia custodit, ut et consequatur gratiam, et non abjiciat poenitentiam; gratia enim munus largientis est, poenitentia delinquentis remedium.

45. Scivit Jeremias magnum remedium esse poenitentiae, quam in Threnis suis suscepit pro Jerusalem, et ipsam inducit agentem Jerusalem 427 dicens: Plorans ploravit in nocte, et lacrymae ejus in maxillis ejus, nec est qui consoletur eam ab omnibus qui diligunt eam. Viae Sion lugent (Thren. I, 2). Et 0509A adjecit: In his ergo fleo, oculi mei caligaverunt a fletu, quia elongavit a me, qui me consolabatur (Thren. I, 16). Advertimus quod hunc malorum suorum acerbissimum cumulum arbitrabatur, quia deerat qui consolaretur moerentem. Quomodo ergo vos ipsam consolationem aufertis, qui spem relaxandae negatis poenitentiae?

46. Sed audiant qui agunt poenitentiam, quomodo agere debeant, quo studio, quo affectu, qua mentis intentione, qua intimorum concussione viscerum, qua cordis conversione: Vide, inquit, Domine, quia tribulor, venter meus turbatus est a fletu meo, conversum est cor meum in me (Ibid., 20).

47. Cognovisti intentionem animi, fidem mentis cognosce, et habitum corporis. Sederunt, inquit, in terra, tacuerunt seniores filiae Sion, et imposuerunt 0509B terram super caput suum, praecinxerunt se cilicio, deduxerunt in terram principes, virgines Jerusalem defecerunt in lacrymis, oculi mei caligaverunt, turbatus est venter meus, effusa est in terra gloria mea (Thren. II, 10, 11).

48. Sic flevit et Ninive populus, et denuntiatum excidium civitatis evasit (Jonae III, 5); tanta est enim poenitentiae medicina, ut mutare videatur suam Deus sententiam. In te est igitur ut evadas: vult rogari Dominus, vult de se sperari, vult sibi supplicari. Homo es, et vis rogari, ut ignoscas, et putas Deum tibi non roganti ignoscere?

49. Ipse Dominus Jerusalem flevit (Luc. XIX, 41), ut quia ipsa flere nolebat, Domini lacrymis ad veniam pertineret. Ipse nos flere vult, ut evadere 0509C possimus, sicut habes scriptum in Evangelio: Filiae Jerusalem, nolite me flere, sed vos ipsas flete (Luc. XXIII, 28).

50. Flevit David, et meruit ut mortem populi pereuntis divina removeret misericordia (II Reg. XXIV, 10); quando tribus sibi propositis optionibus, eam tamen in qua majorem Domini miserationem experiretur, elegit. Quid erubescis tu peccata tua flere; cum Deus etiam prophetas jusserit flere pro populis?

51. Denique et Ezechiel jussus est flere Jerusalem, et accepit librum, in cujus capite scripta erat: Lamentatio, et melos et vae (Ezech. II, 9), duo tristia et unum delectabile; quoniam ille salvus erit in futurum, qui in hoc saeculo plus fleverit: Cor enim 0510A sapientium in domo luctus, et cor stultorum in domo epularum (Eccl. VII, 5). Et ipse Dominus ait: Beati qui nunc fletis; quia ridebitis (Luc. VI, 21).