Last month, I wrote about how Ambrose of Milan—beloved Catholic saint, doctor of the Church, and one of the main forces behind outlawing every religion in the Roman Empire except for Catholicism—was kind of an antisemite. (But the Jews weren’t special or anything. He was anti-everything except Catholicism.)
If you missed that post and want to check it out, go here.
Or you can just keep reading, because I’m gonna share another instance of Ambrose trying to explain how Christianity predates Judaism, and is also a lot more cool and holy.
This example comes from his sermon on The Sacraments, which was actually written before The Mysteries. (Part 1 of “Ambrose is kinda antisemtic” was taken from The Mysteries.)
So Ambrose has been harping on about this topic for awhile.
I guess his congregation just wouldn’t stop asking questions.
In this excerpt, Ambrose is going to talk about baptism. And he’s going to reference the episode where Moses parted the Red Sea, allowing the Jews to walk across the sea bed and escape the Egyptians. After this, they wandered in the desert for 40 years, where many of them died.
Okay, let’s give Ambrose the mic.
“This I assure you, that the sacraments of the Christians are more divine and earlier than those of the Jews.
“What superiority is there over the people of the Jews having passed through the sea, that meanwhile we may speak of baptism?
“Yet the Jews who passed through the sea, all died in the desert. But who passes through this font [the baptismal font], that is from the earthly to the heavenly… he who passes through this font does not die but rises.”
Okay, at first glance this seems like kind of a weird comparison. Why is Ambrose comparing crossing the Red Sea to baptism?
Because in Ambrose-land, water symbolizes purification—or the potential for purification. So crossing the Red Sea could have been a purifying rite, just like baptism.
Except it wasn’t.
All those Jews died in the desert, DESPITE passing through the Red Sea. Clearly they weren’t purified. Therefore, our rite of baptism is better because it gives eternal life. The Red Sea water was not holy water. As Ambrose says:
“Not all water cures, but the water which has the grace of Christ cures. One is an element, the other a consecration.”
Wow . . . Ambrose, that’s actually really beautifully said. I’m not buying it, but you do have a way with words.
“You are a heathen.”
So why was the miracle of the Red Sea crossing not enough to purify the Jews? Well, one reason was because before Moses raised his staff and parted the Red Sea, the Jews DOUBTED and COMPLAINED:
“The Egyptian approached with armed men. On one side the Hebrews were shut in by the sea. They were unable to cross the sea or to turn back against the enemy. They began to murmur.”
Wait—‘they began to murmur?’ What’s that mean?
“They whispered to each other. Things like ‘Oh, we are so fucked.’ And other crude expressions of faithless doubt.”
Ah, I see.
“Let it not provoke you that they were heard by the Lord. For although He heard (and performed a miracle through Moses), yet they are not without fault who murmured. It is your duty, when you are restrained, to believe that you will go forth, not to murmur… not to express a complaint.”
So if the Jews hadn’t murmured, would God have spared them in the desert?
“Probably not. There was still the whole golden calf/idol worship thing to come later.”
Oh, right.
But I bet if Christians had crossed the Red Sea, it would have totally purified them. Like a real baptism. Because these symbols of baptism are just—
“Wait a minute, I’m not done. In the flood, also—“
Wait, the flood? Like Noah’s flood?
“YES, what other flood would I be referencing, heathen? The flood was a figure of baptism.”
. . . because it cleansed the earth of all the bad people?
“Yes.”
Yikes, dude. That’s cold.
“God had to rule with an iron fist back in the day. Anyway. If the form of baptism preceded, you see that the mysteries of the Christians are older than were those of the Jews.”
So . . . you’re saying that things like the flood and the parting of the Red Sea were like foreshadowing of baptism? And the Jews didn’t get the purification out of it—it didn’t become a sacrament for them—because they were Jews, and not Christians?
“Precisely.” *
(* I THINK this is what Ambrose is trying to say. The guy can be pretty thick with his rhetoric and symbolism.)
Huh. Well, I guess I see what you’re trying to prove, but I just still don’t buy it.
“The depth of your heathenism resembles nothing so much as a farcical performance. Accept what I say: that the mysteries of the Christians are earlier than those of the Jews and the sacraments of the Christians are more divine than those of the Jews. How? Accept.”
Well. I feel put in my place.
*
I know I have fun peppering in some back-and-forth between me and Ambrose, but Ambrose really did say a lot of this—including the part in italics.
The number of times he orders his congregation to just ACCEPT what he says is very telling. It shows how important blind faith was to him—the blindness of it was essential, otherwise it wouldn’t be faith—and how often he had to remind his congregation of that.
We’ll revisit Ambrose’s rhetoric soon. For now, thanks for sitting in on this farcical performance with me, fellow plebs.
*
Love, L.