LETTER LXV. 

THIS letter contains a mystical explanation of the statement in Exodus xxiv. 6. that Moses put half of the blood of the sacrifices into basons and poured half on the altar.

AMBROSE TO SIMPLICIANUS, GREETING.

1. You were perplexed, you tell me, when reading that Moses, after offering sacrifice and the immolation of salutary victims to the Lord, put half of the blood in basons, and sprinkled half on the altar, to know what could be the purport of this. But why need you doubt and inquire of me, when for the sake of the faith, and of acquiring Divine knowledge, you have traversed the whole world, and night and day have devoted the whole time of your life to constant reading? Thus with your keen intellect you have embraced all the objects of the understanding, and are wont to prove as concerns even the books of philosophy, how far they deviate from the truth, many of them being so futile that the words of their writers perished sooner than their life.

2. But since gathering words, like money, is of great profit, and great increase is thereby obtained for the general good of trade, I cannot refrain from mentioning how wonderful is that division of the blood. For part of it seems to signify the moral, and part the mystical discipline of wisdom. That part which is put into basons is moral, that which is sprinkled on the altar is mystical; in that by the Divine gift and a certain inspiration it is instilled into men's minds, that the sentiments they conceive of God may be suitable and full of faith.

3. Moreover, they who have spoken of His majesty, and of heavenly things, whether apostles or holy prophets, have only dared to speak of such things as were shewn them by revelation. Hence Paul has testified in his Epistle that he was  caught up into Paradise, and heard words which it is not lawful for a man to utter; Stephen also  saw the heavens opened, and Jesus standing on the right hand of  God, and the Prophet David saw Him sitting on His right hand. And what shall I say of Moses, of whom the Scripture says that  there arose not such a prophet since in Israel, who kneiv the Lord face to face, in all the signs and the wonders which he did in the land of Egypt. 

4. The mystical part therefore is offered to God, Who by the brightness of the Divine Wisdom, Whose Father and Parent He is, quickens the vigour of the soul, and enlightens the mind. But the Wisdom of God is Christ, on Whose breast John lay, that from that secret source of wisdom he might be known to have imbibed Divine mysteries. He himself, conscious of his gift, has recorded this, for he dreaded to claim for himself, and to ascribe to his own genius that which he had received. The Lord also said to the Apostles, opening their mouths,  Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whereby He declared that He is the same Who said to Moses, I  will open thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. Wherefore this wisdom, divine, unspeakable, unadulterated and incorruptible, pours her grace into the minds of her saints, and discloses to them knowledge that they may behold her glory.

5. But that is the discipline of moral wisdom which is poured into basons, and is taken and drank from them. The basons therefore are the organs of the senses. The basons are the two eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth and other parts suitable to this function; for the eyes are the recipients and ministers of sight, the ears of hearing, the nose of smell, the mouth of taste, and so with the rest. Into these basons that Word in Whom is the Headship of the priestly and prophetic office poured the half of His blood; that He might quicken and animate the irrational parts of our nature, and endow them with reason.

6. Again, having rehearsed and proclaimed the precepts of the Law to the people, and being about to explain the meaning of that mystical ark of the testimony, and of the candlestick, and of the censers, he slew victims, and offered sacrifice, sprinkling half of the blood on the sacred altar, and putting half in basons.

7. A division therefore is made between that mystical or divine and moral wisdom. For the λόγος is a divider of souls and of virtues: the λόγος is the  Word of God, quick and powerful, which pierces and penetrates even to the dividing asunder of the soul, and which also distinguishes and divides virtues, whose minister, Moses, by the division of the blood, distinguished the kinds of virtue.

8. And forasmuch as nothing is so emphatically declared in the Law as Christ's Advent, or prefigured as His Passion, consider whether this be not the saving victim which God the Word offered by Himself, and sacrificed in His own body. For first both in the Gospel and also in the Law He taught us moral discipline, and manifested it in His own patience and in very act and deed, transfusing into our lives and senses, as if into basons, the very substance and marrow as it were of wisdom, and quickening thereby men's minds to be a seed-plot of virtue, and instructed in piety, and then, drawing near the altar, He poured out the blood of His offering.

9. Should you choose then to understand it thus, the sense is pious; the interpretation also which follows that of Solomon is, if you prefer it, equally concordant, namely, that whereas the prophet Moses put the blood into basons, this is the same blood whereof it is written that  Wisdom hath mingled her wine, bidding men to forsake foolishness, and seek after understanding. From the bason then we drink wisdom, discipline, understanding, correction, amendment of life, regulation of habits and counsels, the grace of piety, increase of virtue, a fountain of plenty.

10. But by this sprinkling the blood on the Altar you may understand the cleansing of the world, the remission of all sins. For He sprinkles that blood on the Altar as a Victim to atone for the sins of many. For the Victim is a Lamb, but a Lamb not of irrational nature but of divine power, of Which it is said,  Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. For not only has He cleansed with His blood the sins of all men, but has also gifted them with divine power. Does not He seem to you to have indeed shed His blood, from Whose side blood and water flowed over the very altar of His Passion?

Farewell; love me as you do, with the affection of a parent.

EPISTOLA LXV.

SIMPLICIANUM  cur hostiarum sanguis partim super altare, partim in crateras infunderetur, scire cupientem Ambrosius honorifice allocutus, per cruoris partem   1222B   qua perfundebatur altare mysteriorum cognitionem: per eam vero, quae in crateras immittebatur, morum scientiam significari docet. Subdit insuper adventum Christi, qui utraque disciplina nos erudivit, quique proprio sanguine omnes redemit, in eodem sacrificio figuratum. 

AMBROSIUS SIMPLICIANO salutem.

1. Motum te, cum legeres, significasti mihi, quid sibi velit, quod Moyses 1052 post oblatum sacrificium, et immolatas Domino salutares hostias, dimidiam partem sanguinis in crateras miserit, dimidiam autem ad altare effuderit (Exod. XXIV, 6). Sed quid est, quod ipse dubites, et a nobis requiras; cum fidei et acquirendae cognitionis divinae gratia totum orbem peragraveris, et quotidianae lectioni nocturnis  1222C ac diurnis vicibus omne vitae hujus tempus deputaveris, acri praesertim ingenio etiam intelligibilia complectens, ut pote qui etiam philosophiae libros, quam a vero sint devii demonstrare soleas et plerosque tam inanes esse, ut prius scribentium in suis scriptis sermo, quam vita eorum defecerit.

2. Tamen quia collatio sermonis, ut pecuniae, magno est usui, atque ea maximus in commune emolumentum negotiationis profectus paratur, quam mirabilis  1223A sit ista sanguinis divisio, reticere non queo. Pars enim ejus moralem sapientiae disciplinam videtur significare, pars mysticam. Illa quae in crateras mittitur, moralis est: haec quae ad altare effunditur, mystica; eo quod divino munere et aspiratione quadam humanis infundatur mentibus, ut convenientia et fidei plena de Deo sentiant.

3. Denique qui locuti sunt de ejus majestate, et de coelestibus, vel apostoli, vel sancti prophetae, nonnisi ex revelatione demonstrata sibi loqui ausi sunt. Unde Paulus et raptum se in paradisum, et audisse se verba, quae non licet homini loqui, in epistola sua testificatus est (II Cor. XI, 4): Stephanus quoque vidit coelos apertos, et Jesum ad dexteram Dei stantem (Act. VII, 55): et David propheta vidit sedentem  1223B (Psal. CIX, 1). Nam de Moyse quid loquar, de quo dicit Scriptura, quod non surrexit amplius propheta in Israel, sicut Moyses, qui scivit Dominum facie ad faciem, in omnibus signis et prodigiis, quae fecit in terra Aegypti (Deut. XXXIV, 10, 11).

4. Mystica ergo Deo libatur, qui splendore divinae sapientiae, cujus pater et genitor est, inflammat animae vigorem ac mentem illuminat. Sapientia autem Dei Christus, in cujus pectore recumbebat Joannes (Joan. XIII, 25), ut de principali illo secretoque sapientiae hausisse divina proderetur mysteria. Denique ipse conscius muneris hoc scripsit, qui sibi, quod acceperat, vindicare, et suo assignare ingenio reformidabat. Sed et ipse Dominus dicebat apostolis, os suum aperiens:  Accipite Spiritum sanctum (Joan. XX, 22);  1223C quo declaravit 1053 se esse, qui Moysi dixerat:  Ego aperiam os tuum, et instruam te quid debeas loqui (Exod. IV, 12). Ergo haec sapientia divina, inenarrabilis, impermixta atque incorrupta sanctorum animis sui infundit gratiam, et cognitionem revelat, ut speculentur ejus gloriam.

5. Illa autem moralis sapientiae disciplina est, quae mittitur in crateras, et ex illis percipitur atque hauritur. Crateres igitur sensuum receptacula. Crateres oculi sunt duo, aures sunt, nares sunt, os quoque, et aliae partes convenientes muneri; oculi enim visum recipiunt et ministrant, auditum aures, odorem nares, ora gustatum, et caetera. In istos crateres Verbum illud, in quo est principatus sacerdotii vel prophetiae, effundit sanguinis sui partes, ut vivificet atque  1223D animet irrationabiles portiones, et faciat rationabiles.

6. Denique ubi Legis praecepta enumeravit atque annuntiavit populo, theoriam postea intelligibilis illius arcae testimonii, vel candelabri, vel thymiamaterii locuturus, immolavit hostias et libavit, sanguinis partem affundens altaribus sacris, partem autem infundens crateribus (Exod. XXV, 31 et seq.).

 1224A 7. Fit ergo divisio mysticae illius, hoc est, divinae moralisque sapientiae. Λόγος enim divisor est animarum atque virtutum: λόγος autem verbum Dei validum et acutum, quod pertransit ac penetrat usque ad divisionem animae, virtutes quoque distinguit et dividit (Hebr. IV, 12); cujus minister Moyses divisione sanguinis virtutum genera distinxit.

8. Et quia nihil prae caeteris in Lege, nisi Christi adventus annuntiatur, atque ejus praefiguratur passio; vide ne ista sit hostia salutaris, quam Verbum Deus in semetipso obtulit, atque in suo immolavit corpore: quod primo moralem in Evangelio, sed etiam in Lege docuit disciplinam, et in sua patientia atque in ipso actu et opere monstravit, tamquam in crateras, ita in mores nostros sensusque transfundens velut substantiam  1224B quamdam et vitalia ipsa sapientiae, quibus mentes hominum vivificavit ad virtutis seminarium, et instituta pietatis: deinde accedens ad altare, effudit hostiae suae sanguinem.

9. Itaque sive ita haec accipias, pius, ut arbitror, sensus est: sive secundum Salomonem velis, concurrit aeque, ut quia sanguinem misit in crateras Moyses propheta, cognoscas ipsum esse sanguinem, de quo scriptum est quia sapientia miscuit in cratere vinum suum (Prov. IX, 2), dicens ut relinquerent insipientiam, et quaererent sapientiam. Hauritur ergo de cratere sapientia, hauritur disciplina, hauritur intellectus, hauritur correctio, hauritur vitae emendatio, hauritur morum et consiliorum temperatio, pietatis gratia, virtutis incrementum, fons ubertatis.

 1224C 10. Quod vero ad altare effundit sanguinem, ut intelligas licet ablutionem mundi, remissionem 1054 omnium peccatorum. Etenim sanguinem illum ad altare quasi hostiam effundit ad multorum exhaurienda peccata. Agnus enim hostia est, sed agnus non irrationabilis naturae, sed divinae potentiae, de quo dictum est:  Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi (Joan. I, 29). Non solum enim mundavit sanguine delicta universorum, sed etiam divina potestate donavit. An non tibi videtur effudisse sanguinem suum, de cujus latere supra ipsum passionis altare aqua cucurrit et sanguis (Joan. XIX, 34)? Vale, et nos parentis affectu dilige, ut facis.