Chapter VII.
An exhortation to mourning and confession of sins for
Christ is moved by these and the tears of the Church.
Illustration from the story of Lazarus. After showing that
the Novatians are the successors of those who planned to kill Lazarus,
St. Ambrose argues that the full forgiveness of every sin is signified
by the odour of the ointment poured by Mary on the feet of Christ; and
further, that the Novatian heretics find their likeness in Judas, who
grudged and envied when others rejoiced.
52. Let us, then,
mourn for a time, that we may rejoice for eternity. Let us fear
the Lord, let us anticipate Him with the confession of our sins, let us
correct our backslidings and amend our faults, lest of us too it be
said: “Woe is me, my soul, for the godly man is perished
from the earth, and there is none amongst men to correct
them.”3111
53. Why do you fear to confess your sins to
our good Lord? “Set them forth,” He says, “that
thou mayest be justified.” The rewards of justification are
set before him who is still guilty of sin, for he is justified who
voluntarily confesses his own sin; and lastly, “the just man is
his own accuser in the beginning of his speaking.”3112
The Lord knows all things, but He
waits for your words, not that He may punish, but that He may
pardon. It is not His will that the devil should triumph over you
and accuse you when you conceal your sins. Be beforehand with
your accuser: if you accuse yourself, you will fear no accuser;
if you report yourself, though you were dead you shall live.
54. Christ will come to your grave, and if
He finds there weeping for you Martha the woman of good service, and
Mary who carefully heard the Word of God, like holy Church which has
chosen the best part, He will be moved with compassion, when at your
death He shall see the tears of many and will say: “Where
have ye laid him?”3113
that is to say,
in what condition of guilt is he? in which rank of penitents? I
would see him for whom ye weep, that he himself may move Me with his
tears. I will see if he is already dead to that sin for which
forgiveness is entreated.
55. The people will say to Him, “Come
and see.”3114
What is
the meaning of “Come”? It means, Let forgiveness of
sins come, let the life of the departed come, the resurrection of the
dead, let Thy kingdom come to this sinner also.
56. He will come and will command that the stone
be taken away which his fall has laid on the shoulders of the
sinner. He could have removed the stone by a word of command, for
even inanimate nature is wont to obey the bidding of Christ. He
could by the silent power of His working have removed the stone of the
sepulchre, at Whose Passion the stones being suddenly removed many
sepulchres of the dead were opened, but He bade men remove the stone,
in very truth indeed, that the unbelieving might believe what they saw,
and see the dead rising again, but in a type that He might give us the
power of lightening the burden of sins, the heavy pressure as it were
upon the guilty. Ours it is to remove the burdens, His to raise
again, His to bring forth from the tombs those set free from their
bands.
57. So the Lord Jesus, seeing the heavy
burden of the sinner, weeps, for the Church alone He suffers not to
weep. He has compassion with His beloved, and says to him that is
dead, “Come forth,”3115
that is,
Thou who liest in darkness of conscience, and in the squalor of thy
sins, as in the prison-house of the guilty, come forth, declare thy
sins that thou mayest be justified. “For with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation.”3116
58. If you have confessed at the call of Christ
the bars will be broken, and every chain loosed, even the stench of the
bodily corruption be grievous. For he had been dead four days and
his flesh stank in the tomb; but He Whose flesh saw no corruption was
three days in the sepulchre, for He knew no evils of the flesh, which
consists of the substances of the four elements. However great,
then, the stench of the dead body may be, it is all done away so soon
as the sacred ointment has shed its odour; and the dead rises again,
and the command is given to loose his hands who till now was in sin;
the covering is taken from his face which veiled the truth of the grace
which he had received. But since he has received forgiveness, the command is given to uncover his
face, to lay bare his features. For he whose sin is forgiven has
nothing whereof to be ashamed.
59. But in the presence of such grace given
by the Lord, of such a miracle of divine bounty, when all ought to have
rejoiced, the wicked were stirred up and gathered a council against
Christ,3117
and wished
moreover to kill Lazarus also.3118
Do you
not recognize that you are the successors of those whose hardness you
inherit? For you too are angry and gather a council against the
Church, because you see the dead come to life again in the Church, and
to be raised again by receiving forgiveness of their sins. And
thus, so far as in you, you desire to slay again through envy those who
are raised to life.
60. But Jesus does not revoke His benefits, nay,
rather He amplifies them by additions of His liberality, He anxiously
revisits him who was raised again, and rejoicing in the gift of the
restored life, He comes to the feast which His Church has prepared for
Him, at which he who had been dead is found as one amongst those
sitting down with Christ.
61. Then all wonder who look upon him with the
pure gaze of the mind, who are free from envy, for such children the
Church has. They wonder, as I said, how he who yesterday and the
day before lay in the tomb is one of those sitting with the Lord
Jesus.
62. Mary herself pours ointment on the feet
of the Lord Jesus.3119
Perchance
for this reason on His feet, because one of the lowliest has been
snatched from death, for we are all the body of Christ,3120
but others perchance are the more
honourable members. The Apostle was the mouth of Christ, for he
said, “Ye seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in
me.”3121
The
prophets through whom He spake of things to come were His mouth, would
that I might be found worthy to be His foot, and may Mary pour on me
her precious ointment, and anoint me and wipe away my sin.
63. What, then, we read concerning Lazarus we
ought to believe of every sinner who is converted, who, though he may
have been stinking, nevertheless is cleansed by the precious ointment
of faith. For faith has such grace that there where the dead
stank the day before, now the whole house is filled with good
odour.
64. The house of Corinth stank, when it was
written concerning it: “It is reported that there is
fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the
Gentiles.”3122
There was
a stench, for a little leaven had corrupted the whole lump. A
good odour began when it was said: “If ye forgive anything
to any one I forgive also. For what I also have forgiven, for
your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ.”3123
And so, the sinner being set
free, there was great joy in that place, and the whole house was filled
with the odour of the sweetness of grace. Wherefore the Apostle,
knowing well that he had shed upon all the ointment of apostolic
forgiveness, says: “We are a sweet savour of Christ unto
God in them that are saved.”3124
65. At the pouring forth, then, of this
ointment all rejoice; Judas alone speaks against it.3125
So, too, now he who is a sinner
speaks against it, he who is a traitor blames it, but he is himself
blamed by Christ, as he knows not the remedy of the Lord’s death,
and understands not the mystery of that so great burial. For the
Lord both suffered and died that He might redeem us from death.
This is manifest from the most excellent value from His death, which is
sufficient for the absolution of the sinner, and his restoration to
fresh grace; so that all may come and wonder at his sitting at table
with Christ, and may praise God, saying: “Let us eat and
feast, for he was dead and is alive again, had perished and is
found.”3126
But any
one devoid of faith objects: “Why does He eat with
publicans and sinners?” This is his answer:
“They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that
are sick.”3127
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
