1. BEING newly consecrated to the sacred office, you have requested
me to furnish you with the outlines of your teaching. Having built up
yourself as was fitting, seeing you have been thought worthy of so high
an office, you have now to be informed how to build up others also.
Sidenote: Gen. xxviii. 1, 2.
2. And in the first place remember that it is the Church of God that
is committed to you, and be therefore always on your guard against
the intrusion of any scandal, lest the body thereof become as it
were common by any admixture of heathen. It is on this account that
Scripture says to you _Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of
Canaan, but go to Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel_ (that is the
house of Wisdom) _and take thee a wife from thence_. Mesopotamia is
a country in the East, surrounded by the two greatest rivers in those
parts, the Tigris and Euphrates, which take their rise in Armenia,
falling, each by a different channel, into the Red sea; and so the
Church is signified under the name of Mesopotamia, for she fertilizes
the minds of the faithful by the mighty streams of wisdom and justice,
pouring into them the grace of Baptism, the type of which was foreshewn
in the Red sea, and washing away sin. Wherefore you must instruct the
people that they should contract marriage not with strange-born but
with Christian families.
Sidenote: Deut. xxiv. 14.
3. Let no man defraud his hired servant of his due wages, for we too
are the servants of our God, and look for the reward of our labour from
Him. You then, (you must say) O merchant, whoever you be, refuse your
servant his wages of money, that is, of what is vile and worthless, but
to you will be denied the reward of heavenly promises: therefore _thou
shalt not defraud thy hired servant of his reward_, as the Law saith.
Sidenote: Ps. xv. 1. 6.
Sidenote: Ps. xvii. 13.
4. Thou shalt not give thy money upon usury, for it is written that _he
who hath not given his money upon usury shall dwell in the tabernacle
of God_, for he is _cast down_, who seeks for usurious gains. Therefore
let the Christian, if he have it, give money as though he were not
to receive it again, or at all events only the principal which he has
given. By so doing he receives no small increase of grace. Otherwise
to lend would be to deceive not to succour. For what can be more cruel
than to give money to one that hath not, and then to exact double? He
that can not pay the simple sum how can he pay double the amount?
Sidenote: Tobit iv. 21.
5. Let Tobit be an example to us, who never required again the money he
had lent, till the end of his life; and that rather that he might not
defraud his heir, than in order to levy and recover the money he had
lent out. Nations have often been ruined by usury, and this has been
the cause of public destruction. Wherefore it must be the principal
care of us Bishops, to extirpate those vices which we find to prevail
most extensively.
Sidenote: Prov. xv. 17.
Sidenote: Judges xx. 44.
Sidenote: Gen. xxxiv. 25.
6. Teach them that they ought to exercise hospitality willingly rather
than of necessity, so that in shewing this favour they may not betray
a churlish disposition of mind, and thus in the very reception of their
guest the kindness be spoilt by wrong, but rather let it be fostered
by the practice of social duties, and by the offices of kindness. It is
not rich gifts that are required of thee, but willing services, full of
peace and accordant harmony. _Better is a dinner of herbs_ with grace
and friendship than that the banquet should be adorned with exquisite
viands, while the sentiment of kindness is lacking. We read of a people
perishing by a grievous destruction on account of the violation of the
laws of hospitality. Through lust also fierce wars have been kindled.
Sidenote: Num. xxv. 8.
7. But there is scarce any thing more pernicious than marriage with
a foreigner; already the passions both of lust and disorder, and the
evils of sacrilege are inflamed. For seeing that the marriage ceremony
itself ought to be sanctified by the priestly veil and benediction,
how can that be called a marriage when there is not agreement in faith?
Since their prayers ought to be in common, how can there be the love
of a common wedlock between those whose religion ♦is different. Often
have men ensnared by the love of women betrayed their faith, as did the
Jews at Baal-phegor. For which cause Phineas took a sword, and slew the
Hebrew and the Midianitish woman, and appeased the Divine vengeance,
that the whole people might not be destroyed.
8. And why should I bring forward more examples? I will produce one out
of many, from the mention of which will appear what an evil thing it is
to marry a strange woman. Who ever was mightier or more richly endowed
from his very cradle with God’s Spirit than Samson the Nazarite? Yet
was he betrayed by a woman, and by her means failed to retain God’s
favour. We will now narrate his birth and the course of his whole life
arranged in the style of history, following the contents of the sacred
Book, which in substance not in form is as follows.
9. The Philistines for many years kept the Hebrew people in subjection;
for they had lost the prerogative of faith, whereby their fathers had
gained victories. Yet had not their Maker wholly blotted out the mark
of their election nor the lot of their inheritance; but as they were
often puffed up by success, He for the most part delivered them into
the hand of their enemies, that thus, after the manner of men, they
might be led to seek for themselves the remedy of their evils from
heaven. For it is when any adversity oppresses us, that we submit
ourselves to God; good fortune is wont to puff up the mind. This is
proved by experience, as in other instances, so particularly in that
change of fortune whereby success returned again from the Philistines
to the Hebrews.
10. After the spirit of the Hebrews had been so subdued by the
pressure of a long subjection that no one dared with a manly spirit to
rouse them to liberty, Samson, fore-ordained by the Divine oracle, was
raised up to them. A great man he was, not one of the multitude, but
first among the few, and beyond controversy far excelling all in bodily
strength. And he is to be regarded by us with great admiration from
the beginning, not because in his early abstinence from vice he gave
signal proofs of temperance and sobriety, nor on account of his long
preserving as a Nazarite his locks unshorn, but because from his very
youth, which in others is an age of softness, he achieved illustrious
deeds of virtue, perfect beyond the measure of human nature. By these
he gained credence to the Divine prophecy, that it was not for nothing
that such grace had gone before upon him, that an Angel came down by
whom his birth beyond their hopes was announced to his parents, to be
the leader and protector of his countrymen, now for a length of years
harassed by the tyranny of the Philistines.
Sidenote: Judges xiii. 8.
11. His father was of the tribe of Dan, a man fearing God, born of no
mean rank, and eminent above others, his mother was barren of body,
but in virtues of the mind not unfruitful; seeing that in the sanctuary
of her soul she was counted worthy to receive the visit of an Angel,
obeyed his command and fulfilled his prophecy. Not enduring however
to know the secrets even of God apart from her husband she mentioned
to him that she had seen a man of God, of beautiful form, bringing her
the Divine promise of future offspring, and that she, confiding in this
promise, was led to share with her husband her faith in the heavenly
promises. But he, informed of this, devoutly offered his prayers to God,
that the grace of this vision might be conferred on him also, saying,
_To me, Lord, let Thine Angel come_.
12. I am of opinion therefore that it was not from jealousy of his
wife, because she was remarkable for her beauty that he acted thus,
as one writer[97] has supposed, but rather that he was filled with
desire of the Divine grace, and sought to participate in the benefit
of the heavenly vision. For one whose mind was depraved could not have
found such favour with the Lord, as that an Angel should return to his
house, who, having given those monitions which the Divine announcement
made requisite, was suddenly carried away in the form of a smoking
flame. This sight, which terrified the man, the woman interpreted more
auspiciously, and so removed his solicitude, in that to see God is a
sign of good not evil.
13. Now Samson, approved by such signal tokens from above, turned his
thoughts as soon as he grew up, to marriage; whether this was that he
abhorred those vague and licentious desires in which young men are wont
to indulge, or that he was seeking an occasion of releasing the necks
of his countrymen from the power of the hard yoke of the Philistines.
Wherefore going down to Timnath, (this is the name of a city situated
in those parts where the Philistines then dwelt,) he beheld a maiden of
a pleasing form and beautiful countenance, and he besought his parents,
by whose company he was supported in his journey, to ask her for him
in marriage. But they, not knowing that his intention, either, if the
Philistine refused her to him, to be more fierce against them, or, if
they assented, to remove their disposition to injure their subjects;
and since from such a connexion a certain equality and kindliness of
intercourse would naturally grow, or, on the other hand, if any offence
were given, this desire of revenge would be more vehement, deemed that
this maiden ought to be avoided as a foreigner. But after they had
vainly attempted to change the purpose of their son by urging upon him
these lawful objections, they of their own accord acquiesced in his
desire.
14. This request was granted; and Samson on his return to visit his
promised bride, turned a little way out of the road, and straightway
there met him a lion from the wood, fierce in its savage freedom.
Samson had no companion, nor any weapon in his hand; but he felt
ashamed to fly, and conscious power gave him courage. He caught the
lion as it rushed upon him in his arms, and strangled it by the
tightness of his embrace, leaving it near the wayside lying upon the
underwood, for the spot was clothed with luxuriant herbage, and planted
with vineyards. The skin of the beast he thought would be little
esteemed by his beloved bride, for seasons such as these derive their
grace not from savage trophies, but rather from gentle joys and festal
garlands. On his returning by the same road he found an honeycomb in
the belly of the lion, and carried it off as a gift to the maiden and
her parents; for such gifts befit a bride. And having first tasted the
honey, he gave them the comb to eat, but was silent as to whence it
came.
Sidenote: Judg. xiv. 14.
15. But it happened on a certain day that a nuptial feast was held,
and that the young men inspirited by the banquet provoked each other
to sport by question and answer, and as they assailed each other with
wanton jests, as is the wont on such occasions, the contest of pleasure
waxed hot. And then Samson put forth this riddle to his comrades,
_Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth
sweetness_, promising them as a reward of their sagacity if they
guessed it, thirty sheets and as many changes of garments according to
the number of the company, while they on their part, if they could not
solve the riddle, were to pay a like penalty.
Sidenote: Judg. xiv. 16.
16. But they, unable to untie the knot and to expound the riddle,
induced his wife, partly by intimidation, partly by importunate
entreaties, to require from her husband the solution of the riddle
to be a token of conjugal affection in return for her love. And
she, either terrified, and won over as women are wont to be, as if
complaining tenderly of her husband’s aversion, began to profess grief
that she, the consort and intimate of his whole life, had not learnt
this, but that she was treated like the others as one to whom her
own husband’s secret should not be confided. _Thou dost but hate me_,
she said, _and lovest me not, thou hast put forth a riddle unto the
children of my people and hast not told it me_.
Sidenote: ib. 18.
17. Samson’s mind, otherwise inflexible, was softened by these and
the like blandishments of his wife, and discovered to her his riddle,
and she told it to her countrymen. And they, having thus but just
learned it on the seventh day, which was the term prescribed for its
solution, answered after this manner, _What is sweeter than honey, or
what is stronger than a lion?_ To which he replied, Nor is ought more
treacherous than a woman; _If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye
had not found out my riddle_, and he straightway went down to Ascalon,
and slew thirty men, and taking their spoils, bestowed on the men who
had expounded the riddle their promised reward.
18. But the perfidy of the maiden being thus discovered, he abstained
from intercourse with her, and returned to his father’s house. The
damsel, disturbed in mind, and justly dreading that the wrath of this
mighty man would be kindled into fury by this wrong, gave her hand to
another man, one whom Samson, relying on his fidelity, had brought with
him as his bridesman to his marriage. But neither by this expedient of
a marriage did she avoid offence. For when the affair was disclosed,
and he was forbidden to return to his wife, and her father said that
she was married to another man, but that he might, if he chose, marry
her sister, he was exasperated by the affront, and determined to take a
public revenge for his domestic injury. Wherefore he took three hundred
foxes, and in the heat of summer, when the corn was now ripe in the
fields, he tied them together two and two by the tails, and fastened
a burning firebrand between them, binding it with a firm knot, and by
way of avenging his wrong turned them loose among the sheaves which the
Philistines had cut. But the foxes, terrified by the fire, scattered
flames whichever way they turned, and burnt the harvest. And the
Philistines, incensed by the loss of all their corn in that region,
told it to the princes of their land. And they sent men to Timnath, and
burnt in the fire the woman who had been faithless to her husband, and
her parents and all her house; saying that she had been the cause of
this injury and devastation, and ought not to have provoked a man who
could avenge himself by a public calamity.
19. But Samson did not forgive the Philistines their wrong, nor rest
content with this measure of vengeance, but he slew them with a great
slaughter, and many of them fell by the sword. And he retired to Etam,
a torrent in the wilderness, where was a rock, a stronghold of the
tribe of Judah. Now the Philistines, not daring to attack him, nor
scale the steep heights on which this fortress stood, began to assail
with threats of war the tribe of Judah: but when they saw that the plea
of the men of Judah was a good one, that it was neither just nor fair
nor expedient for them to destroy their own subjects and tributaries,
especially for another man’s fault, they took counsel, and required
that the author of the outrage should be delivered up to them, in order
that his countrymen might be exonerated from the consequences of it.
20. These terms being imposed upon them, the men of Judah gathered
together three thousand of their tribe and went up to him, and
premising that they were subject to the Philistines, and obliged to
obey them, not willingly but by terror, they thus sought to turn away
from themselves the odium of their act, throwing it upon those by whom
they were constrained. Wherefore he thus replied, What kind of Justice
is it, O children of Abraham, that the satisfaction I have taken for
my bride first over-reached and then torn from me should be injurious
to me, and that I may not safely avenge this private injury? Have ye
so turned your minds to the low offices of slaves, as to become the
ministers of the insolence of others, and to turn your arms against
yourselves? If I must perish, because I gave free vent to my grief,
I had rather perish by the hand of the Philistines. My home has been
attempted, my wife tampered with, if I have not been allowed to live
without harm from them, at least let my own countrymen be free from
the guilt of my death. I did but requite the injury I had received,
I did not inflict one. Judge ye whether it was an equal return. They
complain of the loss of their home, I of the loss of my wife; compare
the sheaves of corn, with a companion of the marriage bed. They have
sanctioned my grief by avenging my injuries. Consider to what an office
they have appointed you. They desire you to put to death that man, whom
they themselves have judged worthy to be avenged on those who wronged
him, and to whose vengeance they ministered. But if your necks are
thus bowed down to these proud men, deliver me into the hand of the
enemy, slay me not yourselves; I refuse not to die, but I shrink
from implicating you in my death. If from fear ye comply with their
insolence, bind my hands with chains: though unarmed they will break
their bonds and find a weapon for themselves. They will assuredly
consider that you have satisfied the imposed condition, if you deliver
me alive into their hands.
21. When they heard this, though three thousand men had come up, they
swore to him that they would make no attempt on his life, only he must
submit to be bound, in order that they might formally surrender him,
and so keep clear of the crime of which they were accused.
22. Their word being pledged he came out of the cave, and left his
fastness on the rock, and was bound with two ropes. When he saw the
mighty men of the Philistines drawing near to seize him, his spirit
rose within him, and he brake all his bands, and taking up a jaw bone
of an ass that lay near he slew a thousand men, and put to flight the
rest by this exploit of valour, whole hosts of armed soldiers giving
way to one unarmed man. Thus those who ventured to close with him hand
to hand he slew without effort; the others saved themselves by flight.
Wherefore to this day the place is called Agon[98], because there
Samson by his great valour achieved a glorious contest.
Sidenote: Judges xv. 16.
23. And I would that his moderation in victory had been equal to his
courage against the enemy. But as is frequently the case, with mind
unused to prosperity, he ascribed to himself the issue of the battle,
which was due to the Divine favour and protection, saying, _With the
jaw bone of an ass have I slain a thousand men_. Nor did he build an
altar to God, nor offer a victim, but neglecting sacrifice and assuming
to himself the glory, to immortalize his triumph by a memorial name he
called the place, The slaying of the jaw bone.
Sidenote: Ib. 18.
24. And now he began to burn with thirst, and there was no water, and
yet he had great need of it. Wherefore perceiving that there is nothing
so easy for human strength, as not to be rendered difficult by the
absence of Divine aid, he besought God not to lay to his charge that he
had ascribed ought to himself, giving Him all the glory of the victory,
by the words, _Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of
Thy servant_, and now help me, for lo, _I die of thirst_, and thirst
gives me over into the hand of those over whom Thou hast given me so
great a triumph. Wherefore God in His mercy clave a hollow place in
the jaw bone which Samson had cast aside, and a stream of water flowed
from it, and Samson drank, and his spirit revived, and he called the
place ‘the invoking of the spring,’ because by his suppliant prayers
he made amends for his boast of victory, and thus two judgements were
opportunely declared, the one that arrogance soon incurs offence, the
other that without any offence humility gains reconciliation.
25. Having, in the course of events closed his war with the Philistines,
and shunning the sloth of his countrymen, Samson now betook himself
to Gaza, which was in the region of the Philistines, and lodged there.
When the men of Gaza knew this they did not dissemble or pass it over,
but beset his lodging in haste, and guarded all the doors of the house
that he might not escape by night. But Samson knowing their design, in
the middle of the night forestalling the snare which had been laid for
him, took the pillars of the house in his arms, and carried the whole
structure and the weight of the roof on his back, up to a high hill
above Hebron, a city inhabited by the Hebrews.
26. But now his licence transgressed the limits not only of his
paternal territory, but of good morals, such as ancient discipline
had prescribed, and this brought upon him destruction in the end. For
although he had experienced in his first marriage the treachery of a
foreign wife, and ought to have avoided it in future, he did not shun
connecting himself with the harlot Delilah, and by his passionate love
of her opened a way for the craft of his enemies to assail him. For
the Philistines came up to her, and promised each of them to give her
eleven hundred pieces of silver if she would disclose to them wherein
his assurance of strength lay, that by means of this knowledge they
might entrap and take him.
27. But she having once prostituted herself for money, began during
the banquet and the blandishments of love, cunningly and craftily to
inquire of him in what respect his strength excelled that of others,
and at the same time, as if solicitous and fearful for his safety, to
entreat him to confide to his beloved by what means he could be bound
and subdued into the power of others. But he, still self-possessed and
unshaken, opposed craft to the allurements of the harlot, and told her
that if he were bound with withs yet green and not dried, his strength
would be like that of other men. When the Philistines learnt this from
Delilah, they bound him while asleep with green withs, and then awoke
him as though on a sudden, but found that he had not fallen off from
his accustomed fortitude, but bursting its bonds his freed strength was
able to resist and drive back a host of assailants.
28. This having failed, Delilah, as if she had been mocked began with
complaints to renew her arts and to require a pledge of his love.
Samson, still firm of purpose, intimated to her that, if he were bound
by seven ropes which had never been used, he would fall into the hands
of the enemy, but this also was in vain. The third time he disclosed
part of the secret, and now drawing nearer to his fall, told her that,
if the seven locks of his head were unfastened and woven[99] to about
a cubit’s length, his strength would depart from him. But herein also
he deluded those who were plotting against his life.
29. But last of all the wanton woman complaining that she had been so
often deceived, and grieving that her lover deemed her unworthy to be
entrusted with his secret, and that under her pretext of succour her
treacherous purpose was suspected, won his confidence by her tears. By
this means, and because also it was ordained that this man of hitherto
unshaken fortitude should fall into calamity, Samson was touched and
opened to her his heart. He told her that he possessed within him
the power of God, that he was sanctified to the Lord, and that by His
command he let his hair grow, and that if it were shorn, he would cease
to be a Nazarite, and lose the use of his strength. The Philistines
having ♦discovered through her means the man’s weakness, bring her the
reward of her perfidy, thus binding her to the commission of the crime.
Sidenote: Judges xvi. 20.
30. And she, having wearied him by the wanton blandishments of love,
threw him into slumber, and then caused the seven locks of his hair to
be cut by a razor, whereupon by his transgression of the commandment
his strength was immediately lost. When he woke out of sleep, he
said, _I will go out as at other times, and shake myself_ against mine
adversaries, but he was no longer sensible of activity and strength,
his vigour was gone, his grace was departed. Wherefore, considering
within himself that he had incautiously trusted to women, and that,
convicted of infirmity, it would be sheer folly for him to contend any
longer, he gave up his eyes to blindness, and his hands to the fetters,
and being bound with chains he entered the confinement from which he
had been for a long season free.
Sidenote: Judges xvi. 28.
31. But in process of time his hair began to grow again; and on
the occasion of a great feast Samson is brought out of prison to
the assembly of the Philistines, and set in sight of the people.
There were nearly three thousand in number, men and women; and they
insulted him with bitter reproaches, and carried him about in mockery,
a trial harder to be borne than the very reality of captivity by a
man conscious of innate power. For to live and die is natural, to be
a laughing stock is counted a disgrace. Desirous therefore either of
consoling himself by avenging so great an indignity, or of forestalling
it for the future by death, he pretended that from the weakness of
his limbs and the weight of his fetters he could not support himself,
and desired the boy who guided his steps to bring him to the nearest
pillars by which the whole house was supported. Being brought near,
he grasped with both hands the props of the building, and while the
Philistines were intent on the sacrificial feast which they were
offering to Dagon their god, by whose help they deemed their adversary
had been delivered into their power, reckoning a woman’s perfidy as
a gift from above, he called unto the Lord, and said, ‘_O Lord God,
remember me I pray Thee this once, that I may be avenged of the heathen
for my two eyes_, and that they give not glory to their gods as if by
their help they had gotten me into their power. Let me die with the
Philistines, that they may find my weakness to have been no less fatal
to them than my strength.’
32. Then he shook the columns with great force, and broke them in
pieces, whereon followed the downfall of the upper roof, crushing
Samson himself and casting down all those who were looking on from
above. Thus were a great number of men and women slain together, and
by an end not unworthy or disgraceful, but excelling all his former
victories, the dying Samson obtained a triumph. For although to that
point and thenceforward he was invincible, and incomparable during life
among men versed in war, yet in death he conquered himself, and shewed
an unconquerable soul, so as to despise and count for nothing that end
of life which all men fear.
33. Thus it was through his valour that the last day of his life was
also the sum of his victories, and that he met not a captive but a
triumphant end. But to have been entrapped by a woman is to be ascribed
to nature rather than to the man, because it was by the condition of
his humanity more than through his own fault that he fell; for this
is wont to be overcome, and yield to the allurements of wickedness.
Wherefore, since Scripture bears witness that he slew more in his
death than while in the light of life, it would seem that his captivity
happened rather for the destruction of his adversaries than for his own
fall and humiliation. For he whose burial was more efficacious than his
living strength cannot be said to have found himself inferior. Lastly,
he was overwhelmed and buried not by the weapons but by the bodies of
his enemies, and thus, covered by his own triumph, he left a glorious
memorial to posterity. For he judged his countrymen, whom he found
enslaved, twenty years, and buried in his native soil, left them
inheritors of liberty.
34. By this example then it is plain that alliances with strangers
should be avoided, lest through love for our wife the snares of
treachery should be successful.
Farewell and love us, as we love you.
LETTER XX.
A.D. 385.
AFTER the death of Gratian the empire of the West was nominally
in the hands of Valentinian the 2nd, but, as he was a mere boy,
the real power was exercised by his mother Justina, who was an
Arian. S. Ambrose had already resisted her successfully in the
question of the election of a Bishop at Sirmium (see Footnote
27), and although he had performed a difficult and dangerous
service for them two years before this, in going on an embassy
to Maximus after the death of Gratian, Justina and Valentinian
were bitterly hostile to him, and supported the Arian faction
against him. In March, A.D. 385, S. Ambrose was summoned to
the Palace, as he himself relates in the Sermon of which he
gives an account in this letter (§ 15 sqq.) and called upon to
give up one of the Churches, the Portian Basilica, outside the
walls, for the use of the Arians. This he refused, and was so
energetically supported by the people of Milan, that the demand
was for the time withdrawn. Various other efforts were then
made either to induce him to yield or to get him out of the way,
(one of the latter is recounted in a note on the Sermon against
Auxentius § 15) but they all failed. At last on the Friday
before Palm Sunday a fresh demand is made, not for the Portian
Basilica, as a promise had been given that no further claim
should be made upon it, but for the New Basilica which was
within the walls. It is at this point that the narrative which
S. Ambrose gives in this letter to his sister Marcellina begins.
It recounts the occurrences from the Friday to the Wednesday in
Holy Week, when the persecution was again for the time abandoned.