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On the Sacraments
St Ambrose of Milan, tr. Thompson, 1919
Book 5, The Writer Returns to the Story of Melchizedek, and Gives Two Reasons Why Water…
Yesterday our sermon and discourse was carried as far as the sacraments of the holy altar. And we learn that those sacraments were prefigured in the times of Abraham, when holy Melchizedek offered sacrifice, having neither beginning nor end of days. Hear, O man, what the Apostle Paul says to the Hebrews. Where are those who say that the Son of God is of time? Of Melchizedek1 it was said that he had neither beginning nor end of days.2 If Melchizedek had not a beginning of days, could Christ have it? But the figure is not greater than the reality. Thou seest therefore that he himself is the first and last.3 First, because he is the author of all things; last, not because he comes to an end, but because he concludes all things.
We said, therefore, that the cup and the bread are set on the altar. What is poured into the cup? Wine. And what else? Water.4 But thou sayest to me: “How then did Melchizedek offer bread and wine? What means the mixture of water? Hear the reason.
First of all, what does the type which was prefigured in the time of Moses tell us? That when the people of the Jews thirsted and murmured because they could not find water, God bade Moses touch the rock with his rod. He touched the rock and the rock poured forth a flood of water,5 as the Apostle says, But they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ.6 It was not an immovable Rock which followed the people. Drink thou also, that Christ may follow thee. Behold the mystery. Moses, that is to say, a prophet; the rod, that is the word of God. The priest touches the rock with the word of God, and the water flows and the people of God drink. Therefore the priest touches the cup, the water streams in the cup, springs up into eternal life,7 and the people of God drink, who have obtained the grace of God. This then thou hast learned.
Hear also another reason. At the time of the Lord’s passion, when a great sabbath was nigh, because our Lord Jesus Christ was alive, or the robbers, men were sent to smite him; coming they found the Lord Jesus Christ dead; then one of the soldiers touched his side with his lance, and from his side water flowed and blood.8 Why water? why blood? Water to cleanse, blood to redeem. Why from his side? Because whence the guilt, thence the grace; guilt through woman, grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Notes
- Another reading is esse de tempore Melchisedech, “that the Son of God is of the time of Melchizedek,” which the editors explain as a reference to a sect mentioned by Epiphanius and Augustine, who held that M. was a heavenly power, superior to Christ. They appealed in support of their view to Heb. v. 10. The reading in the text seems preferable, the reference being to the Arian denial of the eternal Sonship.
- Heb. vii. 3.
- Rev. i. 17.
- The mixture of water with wine in the chalice is referred to by many early writers, beginning with Justin Martyr, and is commented on by Cyprian, Ep. lxiii.
- Ex. xvii. 1-7; Numb. xx. 1-11.
- 1 Cor. x. 4. Cf. de Myst. viii. 49.
- Jn. iv. 14.
- Jn. xix. 31-34. Cf. de Myst, viii. 48.