LETTER XLV. [A.D. 385.]

S. Ambrose replies to the inquiry of Sabinus whether he had written concerning Paradise, and what was his opinion concerning it. Having first touched on the historical description of the place, he proceeds to the mystical explanation of it. And having shewn that Paradise is situate in the principal region of the soul, he teaches what is signified by the several parts thereof, and what men should imitate in the serpent. Lastly, having declared the greatness of human weakness and what great love God hns shewn us from the beginning, he exhorts men to fly the pleasures of the senses,

AMBROSE TO SABINUS.

1, Having read my work on the six days of creation, you have thought good to enquire whether I have added ought concerning Paradise, and to express your strong desire to know what opinion I hold concerning it. I have, in truth, written on this subject, though not yet a veteran priest.

2. The opinions about it I have found to be many and various. Josephus, as an historian, tells us it is a place filled with trees and thick shrubs, and that it is watered by a river which divides itself into four streams. Its waters being thus gathered into one, this region does not entirely empty and deprive itself of its feeders, but up to this day bursts out into fountains and sends forth its winding streams, nourishing by them her offspring as from the full breasts of a pious mother.

3. Others expound it differently, but all agree that in Paradise is the deep rooted Tree of life, and the Tree of Knowledge whereby good and evil are discerned, the other trees also, full of vigor, and life, endued both with breath and reason. Wherefore we conclude that the real Paradise is no earthly one which can be seen; that it is placed in no spot of ground, but in the highest part of our own nature, which receives animation and life from the powers of the soul, and from the communication of the Spirit of God.

4. Moreover, Solomon by inspiration of the Spirit has plainly shown that Paradise is in man himself. And seeing that he declares the mysteries either of the soul and the Word, or of Christ and the Church, he says of the virgin soul, or of the Church which he wished  to present as a chaste virgin to Christ, A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring scaled up, a fountain closed. 

5. 'Paradisus' is the Greek, 'hortus' the Latin name. And in the Latin text we read that Susannah was in a paradise. Adam too was in a paradise. Let it not trouble you then that some Latin manuscripts have the word 'hortus,' others 'paradisus.'

6. Where the chaste wife is, there also is the virgin; the chosen virgin has indeed her barriers and enclosures, but both are in a garden, that thus by the shade of virtue they may be shielded from the heats of the body and concupiscence of the flesh.

7. Hence also Paradise is in our highest part, thick set with the growth of many opinions, and wherein chiefly God hath placed the Tree of life, that is, the root of piety, for this is the true substance of our life, that we should offer due service to our Lord and God.

8. He has likewise planted within us a seed-plot of the knowledge of good and evil; for man alone of all creatures of the earth possesses the knowledge of good and evil. Divers other plants are also there, whose fruits are virtues.

9. Now since God knew that man's affections, once endued with knowledge, would more readily incline towards craft than towards perfect prudence, (for how could the qualities of His work be concealed from His discerning eye, Who had set up certain boundaries in our soul?) He desired to cast out craft from Paradise, and as the provident Author of our salvation, to place therein the desire of life and the discipline of piety. Wherefore He commanded man to eat of every tree which is in Paradise, but that of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he should not eat.

10. But since all creatures are subject to passions, lust, with the stealth of a serpent, has crept over man's affections: well therefore has holy Moses represented lust under the similitude of a serpent; for it creeps upon its belly like a serpent, not walking on foot, nor raised up on legs, gliding along by the sinuous contortions, as it were, of its whole body. Its food, as that of the serpent, is earthly, for it knows not heavenly food, but feeds on carnal things, and changes itself into various kinds of desire, and bends to and fro in tortuous wreaths. It has poison in its fangs, whereby the belly of every luxurious man is ripped up, the glutton is slain, the licker up of dishes perishes. How many have been burst by wine, weakened by drunkenness, distended by gluttony.

11. Now I understand why the Lord God breathed on the face of man; for there is the seat and there are the incitements to lust, the eyes, the ears, the nose and the mouth; it was to fortify our senses against lust. Now it was this lust, which, as a serpent, inspired us with craft, for it is not lust but labour and constant meditation, which, by God's grace, gives perfect wisdom.

12. Now since the posterity of Adam are involved in the snares of the serpent, let us imitate herein the fraud of the serpent, and not run our head into danger, but be careful of its security beyond that of our other members, for  the head of every man is Christ. Let this remain safe, that the poison of the serpent may not harm us. For  Wisdom is good with an inheritance, that is, with faith, for there is an inheritance to them that believe in God.

13. But if that first man, who, dwelling in Paradise, conversed with God, could fall so easily, though made of that virgin clay which had lately been formed and created by the word of God, nor as yet clotted with gore and the murder of kindred, nor polluted by iniquity and shame; nor condemned in our flesh to the curse of a guilty posterity; how much more easily afterwards did the smooth-worn path of sin lead the human race to a greater fall, when, one after another, generations more and more depraved succeeded others less wicked?

14. For if the magnet has such natural power as to attract iron to it, and transfuse itself into the character of iron, so that often when persons, wishing to try the experiment, apply iron rings to the same stone, it retains all equally firmly: whereas, if to that ring to which the stone adheres you add another, and so on in succession, although the natural power of the magnet reaches through all in succession, it hinds the first with a firm, the hindermost with a slighter bond: if such he the case, how much more must the condition and nature of the human race have fallen from a pure state into one less pure, seeing that it was always attracted to a generation more wicked than itself?

15. For if the power of nature is diminished even by passing through those substances which are not capable of sin, how much more must its vigour be abated by minds and bodies polluted by the stain of crime? Wherefore, seeing that wickedness had increased, that innocence had decayed, that  there was no one that did good, no, not one; the Lord came in order to form anew, nay to augment, the grace of nature;  that where sin had abounded, grace might much more abound. It is plain then both that God is the Creator of man, and that there is one God not many gods; but that there is one God Who made the world, and one world, not many worlds, as the philosophers assert.

10. First therefore He created the world, and then its inhabitant, man, that the whole world might be his country. For if, up to this day, wherever the wise man goes, he finds himself a citizen, he understands his own position, he considers himself no where as a stranger or sojourner, how much more was that first man an inhabitant of the whole world, and, as the Greeks say, a cosmopolite, he who was the recent creation of God, conversing continually with Him, the fellow-citizen of the saints, the seed-plot of virtue, set over all creatures in the earth sea and air, who considered the whole world to be his dominion; whom the Lord defended as His own work, and as a loving Father and Maker never deserted? In fine He so cherished this His creation, as to redeem him when lost, to receive him when banished, when dead to raise him to life by the passion of His Only-begotten Son. Wherefore God is the Author of man, and, as a good Creator, loves His own work, as a gracious Father, abandons not him, whom, in the character of a rich householder, He has redeemed at the cost of His own possessions.

17. Let us be on our guard therefore that this man, that is, our understanding  ^{05-20 20. 1 νους.} be not enervated by that woman, that is passion, who was herself deceived and beguiled by the pleasure of our senses; that she do not circumvent and draw him over to her own maxims and opinions. Let us fly pleasure as a serpent; it has many allurements, and especially as regards man. For other animals arc captivated by greediness after food; man, in that the powers of his eyes and ears are more varied, is exposed to greater dangers.

Farewell; love me, as you indeed do, for I love you.

EPISTOLA XLV.

 1142A 

 Sabino sciscitanti an de paradiso scripsisset Ambrosius, quaeve ipsius de illo esset sententia, respondet; leviterque perstricta secundum historiam loci descriptione, ad mysticam transit expositionem. Itaque ubi docuit in principali animae portione paradisum esse, quid per ea quae illic exstiterunt, significetur; quidve in serpente homines imitentur edocet; et quanta sit humana infirmitas, quantave in eum Dei charitas semper fuerit, declarato, nos ad fugiendam sensuum delectationem hortatur. 

AMBROSIUS SABINO.

1. Lecto Hexaemero, utrum paradisum subtexuerim, requirendum putasti, et quam de eo haberem sententiam, significandum, idque velle te studiose  1142B cognoscere. Ego autem jam dudum de eo scripsi, nondum veteranus sacerdos.

2. Sententias autem de eo diversas esse plurimorum comperi. Nam Josephus (Lib. I Antiqq., cap. 2), ut pote historiographus, locum dicit refertum arboribus virgultisque plurimis, irrigari etiam flumine, quod dividatur in quatuor fluvios. Collecta etenim in unum congregatione aquarum, non se penitus exinanivit terra, et fraudavit irriguis suis: sed hodieque in fontes prorumpit, et deducit meatus fluminum, quibus pignora sua, quasi pia mater, plenis lactat uberibus.

3. Alii alias, omnes tamen congruunt in paradiso (Gen. II, 9), et lignum vitae radicatum, et lignum scientiae, quae discernat bonum et malum, caetera  1142C quoque ligna plena vigoris, plena vivificationis, spirantia, et rationabilia. Ex quibus colligitur paradisum ipsum non terrenum videri posse, non in solo aliquo, sed in nostro principali, quod animatur et vivificatur animae virtutibus, et infusione Spiritus Dei.

4. Denique Salomon in spiritu paradisum in homine esse evidenter declaravit. Et quia mysteria exprimit vel animae et Verbi, vel Christi et Ecclesiae, ideo ait de virgine anima, vel Ecclesia quam volebat virginem castam assignare Christo (II Cor. XI, 2):  Paradisus clausus, soror mea sponsa, paradisus clausus, fons signatus (Cant. IV, 12).

5. Paradisus Graece, Latine hortus dicitur. Denique Susanna in paradiso erat, et sic legitur Latine  1143A (Dan. XIII, 7). Et Adam in paradiso erat, et sic legimus (Gen. II, 8). 982 Ergo non te moveat quod alii codices Latini hortum habent, alii paradisum.

6. Ibi ergo est casta uxor, ubi virgo. Licet virgo excepta habeat claustra et signacula sua, sed utraque in paradiso; ut adversum aestus corporis et carnis flagrantiam refrigeretur virtutum umbraculis.

7. Ergo paradisus in principali nostro est, silvescens plurimarum opinionum plantariis: in quo principaliter lignum vitae constituit Deus, id est, pietatis radicem; ea est enim vitae nostrae substantia, si Domino et Deo nostro deditos cultus deferamus.

8. Constituit etiam scientiae boni et mali seminarium; homo enim solus in caeteris animantibus terrenis habet scientiam boni et mali. Alia quoque illic  1143B plantaria diversa, quorum fructus virtutes sunt.

9. Sed quia scientiae capax hominis affectus cognitus est Deo, quod citius ad astutiam inclinaretur, quam ad summum prudentiae (neque enim judicem, qui fines certos in anima nostra constituit, operis sui qualitas latere poterat), eliminare voluit astutiam de paradiso, quasi providus auctor nostrae salutis, et vitae studium, et disciplinam pietatis infundere; ideoque praecepit homini ab omni ligno, quod est in paradiso, esse gustandum, de ligno autem scientiae boni et mali non esse gustandum (Gen. III, 2, 3).

10. Sed quia creatura omnis passioni obnoxia, ideo delectatio, sicut serpentino illapsu, humanis irrepsit affectibus. Itaque non immerito sanctus Moyses delectationem serpentis figuravit similitudine;  1143C prona est enim in ventrem sicut serpens, non pedibus incedens, aut ullis elevata cruribus, sed sinuoso flexu totius velut corporis sui lubrica. Ei terra cibus est sicut serpenti, quoniam escam nescit coelestem; corporalibus enim pascitur, atque in varias mutatur species cupiditatum, et tortuosis angulatur anfractibus. Venenum in dentibus habet, quibus unusquisque se eviscerat luxuriosus, helluo internecat, abliguritor perimit. Quantos ruperunt vina, dissolvit ebrietas, distendit cruditas?

11. Nunc intelligo qua causa Dominus Deus insufflavit in faciem hominis: ibi enim sensus omnis, ibi sedes atque illecebra delectationis, in oculis, auribus, naribus, atque in ore; ut sensus nostros adversus delectationem fortiores faceret (Gen. II, 7).  1143D Haec ergo nobis, sicut serpens astutiam infudit; non enim delectatio, sed labor et diuturna meditatio cum Dei gratia dat perfectam prudentiam.

12. Tamen quia serpentis fraudibus involuta est  1144A humani generis haereditas, in eo astutiam serpentis sequamur; ut caput nostrum non projiciamus in pericula, sed prae caeteris integrum custodiamus:  Caput autem nostrum Christus est (I Cor. XI, 3). Hoc maneat incolume, ut serpentis venena 983 nobis non possint nocere:  Bona est enim  sapientia cum haereditate (Eccl. VII, 12), id est, cum fide; quoniam est haereditas credentibus in Domino.

13. Quod si primus ille homo, qui cum Deo loquebatur in paradiso positus (Gen. II, 15), labi tam facile potuit, ex terra creatus virgine, quae ad verbum Dei formata et creata recenti fuerat exortu, nondum ea parricidali caediumque concreta sanguine, flagitiis et dedecore polluta, nondum carne nostra damnata maledicto obnoxiae haereditatis;  1144B quanto facilius postea lubrica ad peccandum via majus advexit humano generi praecipitium, cum deterior tolerabiliori per vices generationis successerit?

14. Etenim si magnetis lapis tantam naturae vim habet, ut ferrum ad se trahat, et transfundat se in illius speciem, ita ut plerisque experiri volentibus cum plures annulos ferreos ad cum lapidem admoverint, omnes pari teneat modo: deinde si ei annulo cui adhaeserit lapis, alium admoveas annulum, et rursus per ordinem singulis substituas; licet in omnes penetret per ordinem, ex illo lapide vis naturae, tamen priores nexu vehementiore constringit, posteriores remissiore: quanto magis humani generis conditio atque natura ex puriore statu in deteriorem  1144C lapsa est, quando nequiorem attigit!

15. Nam si per eas species minuitur natura, quae non sunt culpae capaces; quanto magis per animos atque artus labe pollutos scelerum virtus ejus hebetatur! Unde quia excreverat malitia, abolita innocentia fuerat, non erat qui faceret bonitatem, non erat usque ad unum (Psal. XIII, 1): venit Dominus, qui reformaret naturae gratiam, immo augeret; ut ubi superabundavit peccatum, superabundaret gratia. Ergo liquet et quia auctor hominis Deus, et quod Deus unus, non multi dii: sed unus qui mundum operatus est; et unum, non multos mundos, ut dicunt philosophi.

16. Primum igitur mundum creavit, deinde habitatorem mundi, cui totus mundus patria foret. Nam si hodie quocumque accesserit sapiens, ubique civis  1144D est, ubique sua intelligit, nusquam se peregrinum, nusquam hospitem judicat; quanto magis ille primus homo totius erat mundi incola, et, ut Graeci dicunt, κοσμοπολίτης, opus Dei recens, confabulator assiduus,  1145A civis sanctorum, complantatus virtutibus, praepositus omnibus terrenis animantibus, marinis, volatilibus, totum mundum suam possessionem putabat: quem Dominus tuebatur, ut opus suum, neque ut bonus parens atque auctor deserebat! Denique eo usque creatum fovit, 984 ut abdicatum redimeret, eliminatum reciperet, mortuum passione Filii sui unigeniti resuscitaret. Est ergo hominis auctor Deus, et diligit opus suum operator bonus, nec derelinquit bonus Pater, quem etiam, sicut dives paterfamilias, censu propriae haereditatis redemit.

17. Caveamus ergo ne hominem istum, id est, νοῦν, mulier illa, id est, passio sensuum nostrorum delectatione et ipsa decepta atque illusa effeminet, et circumscriptum in leges suas et sententiam trahat. Fugiamus  1145B delectationem sicut serpentem: multas artes habet, et maxime in homine. Nam alia animantia cibi aviditate capiuntur? homo quanto plures sensus oculorum auriumque habet, tanto majora pericula. Vale, et nos dilige, ut facis; quia nos te diligimus.