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On the Sacraments

St Ambrose of Milan, tr. Thompson, 1919

Book 4, Comparison of the Jewish and Christian Sacraments. Melchizedek a Type of Christ

Thou camest to the altar, thou sawest the sacraments laid upon the altar, and thou didst wonder at those creatures;¹ yet they are ordinary and familiar.

Perhaps some one will say: “To the Jews God granted such grace, he rained down manna upon them² from heaven; what more has he given to his faithful, what more has he bestowed on those to whom he promised more?”

Hear what things I say, namely, that the mysteries of the Christians are older than those of the Jews,³ and the sacraments of the Christians are more divine than those of the Jews. How? Hear. When did the Jews begin? At the earliest, with Judah, the great-grandson of Abraham; or, if thou preferrest to take this view, with the Law, that is, when the Jews were deemed worthy to receive the Law. Therefore, they were called Jews from the great-grandson of Abraham, or since the time of holy Moses. And if God rained down manna from heaven then upon the murmuring Jews, still there was for thee a yet earlier figure of these sacraments, when Abraham was alive, when he gathered the men born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and then pursued the adversaries, delivering his nephew out of captivity; then he came in triumph; Melchizedek the priest met him, and offered him bread and wine.⁴ Who had the bread and wine? Abraham had not. But who had? Melchizedek. He, then, is the author of the sacraments. Who is Melchizedek? He who is indicated as King of righteousness, King of peace.⁵ Who is the King of righteousness? Can any man be King of righteousness? Who then is the King of righteousness, but the Righteousness of God, he who is the Peace of God, the Wisdom of God?⁶ He who could say, My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave with you.⁷

Therefore, first understand that these sacraments which thou receivest are older than are the sacraments of Moses, whatever they are that the Jews say they have; and that the Christian people began before the people of the Jews—we, however, as predetermined, while they actually bore the name.

Melchizedek, therefore, offered bread and wine. Who is Melchizedek? Without father, it says, without mother, without order of generation, having neither beginning of days nor end of life; this is in the Epistle to the Hebrews.⁸ He is without father, it says, and without mother. Like unto whom? The Son of God. The Son of God was born without mother in his heavenly generation, because he was born of God the Father only. And again, he was born without father, when he was born of the Virgin; for he was not generated of the seed of a man, but born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,⁹ brought forth from a virgin womb, in all things like to the Son of God.¹⁰ Melchizedek was also a priest; since Christ too is a priest to whom it is said, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.¹¹

Notes

creaturam. Cf. Book of Common Prayer, “these thy creatures of bread and wine.” The writer is thinking of the placing of the elements upon the altar. From Ambrose (in Ps. cxviii. prol. 2) it appears that at Milan, as elsewhere in the West, the people made their offerings of bread and wine for the Eucharist, but the newly-baptized did not partake in this “offering” before the octave of Easter.
Ps. lxxviii. (lxxvii. Vulg.) 24. Cf. de Myst. viii. 44.
With this section cf. de Myst. viii. 45, 46.
Gen. xiv. 14 f.
Heb. vii. 2.
Eph. ii. 14; 1 Cor. i. 24.
Jn. xiv. 27. The variation in the order of the clauses is found in some Old Latin and Vulgate MSS.
Heb. vii. 3. The reading generationis ordine is apparently peculiar to the writer; but generationis enumeratione is found in Ambrose, Ep. lxiv. 49.
The old Roman Creed, quoted by Rufinus, similarly has the words qui natus est de spiritu sancto et Maria virgine; the words in the text may be an echo of this (T.).
Heb. vii. 3.
Heb. vii. 17. Cf. Ps. cx. (cix. Vulg.) 4.