Chapter XV.

Returning from this digression, St. Ambrose explains what is the meaning of St. Paul where he speaks of coming “with a rod or in the spirit of meekness.”  One who has grievously fallen is to be separated, but to be again restored to religious privileges when he has sufficiently repented. The old leaven is purged out when the hardness of the letter is tempered by the meal of a milder interpretation. All should be sprinkled with the Church’s meal and fed with the food of charity, lest they become like that envious elder brother, whose example is followed by the Novatians.

78. That faithful teacher, having promised one of two things, gave each. He came with a rod, for he separated the guilty man from the holy fellowship. And well is he said to be delivered to Satan who is separated from the body of Christ. But he came in love and with the spirit of meekness, whether because he so delivered him up as to save his soul, or because he afterwards restored to the sacraments him whom he had before separated.

79. For it is needful to separate one who has grievously fallen, lest a little leaven corrupt the whole lump. And the old leaven must be purged out, or the old man in each person; that is, the outward man and his deeds, he who among the people has grown old in sin and hardened in vices. And well did he say purged, not cast forth, for what is purged is not considered wholly valueless, for to this end is it purged, that what is of value be separated from the worthless, but that which is cast forth is considered to have in itself nothing of value.

80. The Apostle then judged that the sinner should then at once be restored to the heavenly sacraments if he himself wished to be cleansed. And well is it said “Purge,” for he is purged as by certain things done by the whole people, and is washed in the tears of the multitude, and redeemed from sin by the weeping of the multitude, and is purged in the inner man. For Christ granted to His Church that one should be redeemed by means of all, as she herself was found worthy of the coming of the Lord Jesus, in order that through One all might be redeemed.

81. This is Paul’s meaning which the words make more obscure. Let us consider the exact words of the Apostle: “Purge out,” says he, “the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened.”125    1 Cor. v. 7. Either that the whole Church takes up the burden of the sinner, with whom she has to suffer in weeping and prayer and pain, and, as it were, covers herself with his leaven, in order that by means of all that which is to be done away in the individual doing penance may be purged by a kind of contribution and commixture of compassion and mercy offered with manly vigor.126    There is probably here a reference to a generous custom of antiquity, whereby if any one were visited by calamity and loss of goods, his friends contributed according to their power to present him with a gift which should help to re-establish him. St. Ambrose seems to apply this to the bearing one another’s burdens by mourning, fasting, and praying with the penitent, that God might be moved by the entreaties of all, offered with great energy, and forgive what might be lacking in the individual. It is an instructive commentary on the doctrine of the communion of saints. Or one may understand it as that woman in the Gospel teaches us, who is a type of the Church, when she hid the leaven in her meal, till all was leavened, and the whole could be used as pure.

82. The Lord taught me in the Gospel what leaven is when He said: “Do ye not understand that I said not concerning bread, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees?”127    S. Matt. xvi. 11. Then, it is said, they understood that He spake not of bread, but that they should beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. This leaven, then—that is, the doctrine of the Pharisees and the contentiousness of the Sadducees—the Church hides in her meal, when she softened the hard letter of the Law by a spiritual interpretation, and ground it as it were in the mill of her explanations, bringing out as it were from the husks of the letter the inner secrets of the mysteries, and setting forth the belief in the Resurrection, wherein the mercy of God is proclaimed, and wherein it is believed that the life of those who are dead is restored.

83. Now this comparison seems to be not unfitly brought forward in this place, since the kingdom of heaven is redemption from sin, and therefore we all, both bad and good, are mingled with the meal of the Church that we all may be a new lump. But that no one may be afraid that an admixture of evil leaven might injure the lump, the Apostle said: “That ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened;”128    1 Cor. v. 7. that is to say, This mixture will render you again such, as in the pure integrity of your innocence. If we thus have compassion, we are not stained with the sins of others, but we gain the restoration of another to the increase of our own grace, so that our integrity remains as it was. And therefore he adds: “For Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; ”129    1 Cor. v. 7. that is, the Passion of the Lord profited all, and gave redemption to sinners who repented of the sins they had committed.

84. Let us then keep the feast on good food, doing penance yet joyful in our redemption, for no food is sweeter than kindness and gentleness. Let no envy towards the sinner who is saved be mingled with our feasts and joy, lest that envious brother, as is set forth in the Gospel, exclude himself from the house of his Father, because he grieved at the reception of his brother, at whose lasting exile he was wont to rejoice.

85. And you Novatians cannot deny that you are like him, who, as you say, do not come together to the Church because by penance a hope of return had been given to those who had lapsed. But this is only a pretence, for Novatian contrived his schism through grief at his loss of the episcopal office.

86. But do you not understand that the Apostle also prophesied of you and says to you: “And ye are puffed up and did not rather mourn, that he who did this deed might be taken away from among you”?130    1 Cor. v. 2. He is, then, wholly taken away when his sin is done away, but the Apostle does not say that the sinner is to be shut out of the Church who counsels his cleansing.

CAPUT XV.

0489D Rediens a digressione, quid sit venire in virga vel in 0490A spiritu mansuetudinis docet. Sequestrandum graviter lapsum, sed eum Apostoli exemplo sacris reddendum, ubi piae plebis oratione atque lacrymis fuerit expiatus. Expurgari vetus fermentum, cum litterae durities mollioris explicationis farina temperatur. Quomodo Ecclesiae farina omnes conspergi ac cibo charitatis pasci debeant; ne similes evadant invidi illius fratris, quem aemulantur Novatiani, quorum tumor illic notatur.

78. Bonus itaque doctor dum promittit alterum de duobus, utrumque donavit. Venit in virga, quia a communione sacra convictum removit. Et bene dicitur tradi satanae, qui separatur a Christi corpore. Venit 411 etiam in charitate, spirituque mansuetudinis, vel quia sic tradidit, ut spiritum ejus salvum 0490B faceret, vel quia eum quem ante sequestraverat postea sacramentis reddidit.

79. Nam et sequestrari oportet graviter lapsum, ne modicum fermentum totam massam corrumpat: et expurgandum est vetus fermentum, vel in singulis vetus homo, hoc est, exterior homo cum actibus suis, vel in populo inveteratus peccatis, vitiisque concretus. Et bene dixit expurgandum, non projiciendum: quod enim expurgatur, non totum judicatur inutile; ideo enim purgatur, ut utile ab inutili separetur: quod autem projicitur, nihil in se utile habere creditur.

80. [Alias cap. XV.] Jam tunc igitur Apostolus reddendum sacramentis judicavit coelestibus, si purgari se ipse vellet. Et bene ait: Expurgate; velut 0490C enim operibus quibusdam totius populi purgatur, et plebis lacrymis abluitur, qui orationibus et fletibus plebis redimitur a peccato, et in homine mundatur interiore. Donavit enim Christus Ecclesiae suae, ut unum per omnes redimeret, quae Domini Jesu meruit adventum, ut per unum omnes redimerentur.

81. Hic sensus Pauli est, quem verba obscuriorem faciunt. Consideremus ipsum Apostoli sermonem: Expurgate, inquit, vetus fermentum; ut sitis nova conspersio, sicut estis azymi (I Cor. V, 7). Sive quod tota Ecclesia suscipiat onus peccatoris, cui compatiendum et fletu, et oratione, et dolore est: et quasi fermento ejus se totam conspergat; ut per universos ea quae superflua sunt in aliquo poenitentiam agente, virilis misericordiae aut compassionis velut collativa 0490D quadam admixtione, purgentur. Sive ut illa mulier 0491A Evangelica docet (Luc. XIII, 21), quae typum praetendit Ecclesiae, eo quod fermentum abscondat in farina sua, donec fermentetur totum; ut mundum omne sumatur.

82. Docuit me Dominus in Evangelio quid sit fermentum, dicens: Non intelligitis quia non de pane dixi: Attendite a fermento Pharisaeorum et Sadducaeorum (Matth. XVI, 11)? Tunc, inquit, intellexerunt quia non dixit a panibus, sed a doctrina Pharisaeorum et Sadducaeorum attenderent sibi. Hoc ergo fermentum, hoc est, doctrinam Pharisaeorum, 412 et disputationem Sadducaeorum abscondit Ecclesia in farina sua; cum litteram legis duriorem spiritali interpretatione mollivit, et velut mola quadam suae disputationis infregit, proferens velut de folliculis 0491B litterarum mysteriorum interna secreta, et resurrectionis fidem astruens; qua Dei misericordia praedicatur, qua reparari vita creditur mortuorum.

83. Non absurda autem videtur ad hunc locum assumptio comparationis hujus. Siquidem regnum coelorum est peccatoris redemptio: et ideo farina Ecclesiae conspergamur omnes boni et mali, ut simus omnes nova conspersio. Ne quis autem vereretur, ne fermenti vitiosioris admixtio massam decoloraret, ideo dixit: Ut sitis nova conspersio, sicut estis azymi (I Cor. V, 7); hoc est, tales conspersio vos reddet, qualis erat innocentiae vestrae pura sinceritas. Ita si misereamur, non fuscamur peccato alieno: sed redemptionem ejus acquirimus nostrae gratiae; ut qualis erat puritas, perseveret. Et ideo addidit: 0491C Etenim pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus (Ibid.), hoc est, passio Domini omnibus profuit, et peccatoribus donavit redemptionem, quos flagitii poenituit admissi.

84. Itaque epulemur bonum cibum, poenitentiam gerentes, laeti redemptione; nullus enim cibus est benevolentia et pietate dulcior: epulis nostris atque laetitiae nulla de peccatore servato invidia admisceatur; ne se ipse a domo Patris, quemadmodum expositus in Evangelio invidus ille frater, excludat, qui fratrem receptum doluit, quem in perpetuum gaudebat exclusum (Luc. XV, 28).

85. Cujus vos similes esse, Novatiani, non potestis negare, qui ideo, ut dicitis, in Ecclesiam non convenitis, 0492A quia per poenitentiam tributa spes fuerat his qui lapsi sunt, revertendi. Sed hoc praetentum est specie. Caeterum episcopatus amissi dolore succensus Novatianus schisma composuit.

86. Sed non intelligitis quia de vobis quoque prophetavit Apostolus, et vobis dicit: Et vos inflati estis, et non magis luctum habuistis; ut tollatur de medio vestrum, qui hoc opus fecit (I Cor. V, 2)? Utique tunc penitus tollitur, cum aboletur peccatum ejus; non enim excludendum ab Ecclesia dicit Apostolus, qui suadet esse purgandum.