Ambrose of Milan

But if the words of Abraham are not enough to correct, consider the word of God, who condemns such a mode of transmitting inheritance. “This man shall not be your heir,” he says, “but the other who will come out from you, he will be your heir.” Who is this other of whom he speaks? In fact Hagar too bore a son, Ishmael, but he is not speaking of him. Instead, he is speaking of holy Isaac. For this reason he added “who will come out from you.” In fact, the one who truly came out of Abraham is the one who was born of a legitimate marriage. But in Isaac, the legitimate son, we can see the One who is the true legitimate son, the Lord Jesus, of whom at the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew we read that he is the son of Abraham. He was the true heir of Abraham, bringing renown to the descendants of the progenitor. Through him Abraham looked up to heaven and understood that the splendor of his posterity would be no less luminous than the radiance of the stars of heaven. As “one star differs from another in brightness, so it is also for the resurrection of the dead,” said the apostle. The Lord, in joining to his resurrection people whom death was accustomed to hide in the ground, made them sharers in the heavenly kingdom.

The history of the Jews, who went down into Egypt and came out from Egypt, seems to accord with this. The years they spent there were 430, but not all of them lived a hundred years and more, as did Moses and Joshua, so that the time of the fourth generation would be appropriate in this context. So let us search rather for a mystical sense. In fact, the number four adapts well to all numbers, and it is in a certain sense the root and base of the decimal. It also represents the midpoint of the number seven. In fact, the ninety-third psalm is entitled “fourth day of the week” because this number is the intermediary between the first three and those that follow. In fact, three days precede it: the first, the second and the third; and three follow: the fifth, the sixth, the seventh. One who sings this psalm is proceeding through the life of this world, so to speak, in accordance with aptly placed numbers, like a quadrangle stable and perfect. In four books the Gospel is complete and perfect. There are four mystical animals; and there are also four parts of the world, from which the assembled children of the church have propagated the most holy kingdom of Christ, coming from east and west and north and south. The holy church, therefore, has arisen with four sides. The decade too derives from this number. For if you total up the numbers from one to four you will have the number ten. Count one, add two to this: this makes three. Add three to three, this makes six. And to six add four, and this makes ten. Four then generates the decade, and the decade includes all numbers. Four is also the number of ages of a man: childhood, adolescence, virility and maturity. He rises gradually, and his wisdom is consolidated. Thus the fullness of wisdom comes, considering the ages, in fourth place. For this reason even if one has formerly been subjected to the king of Egypt, nevertheless with the age of maturity he is freed from his power and acknowledges his duty to follow the law. Then the sea of this life opens up to him.

Some might still be struck by the fact that Abraham had a relationship with his slave girl when he was already conversing with God, as it is written: “Sarah said to Abraham, ‘See now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my maid to make children from her.’ ” And this is exactly what happened. But we should consider first of all that Abraham lived prior to the law of Moses and before the gospel; adultery, it seems, was not yet prohibited at this time. The penalty for the crime goes back only to the time of the law, which made adultery a crime. So there is no condemnation for the offense that precedes the law but only one based on the law. Abraham then cannot be said to have violated the law since he came before the law. Though in paradise God had praised marriage, he had not condemned adultery. In fact, he does not wish the death of sinners, and for this reason he promises the reward without exacting the penalty. Indeed, God prefers to stimulate with mild proddings than to terrify with severe threats. If you too sinned, when you were a pagan, you have an excuse. But now you have come to the church and have heard the law, “You shall not commit adultery,” you no longer have an excuse for the offense. However, since this discourse is directed also to those who are inscribed to receive the grace of baptism, if anyone has committed such a grave sin, let him be sure that he will be pardoned, but as one who has committed an offense. Let him know, however, that for the future he is obliged to abstain. Indeed, in the case of the adulterous woman spoken of in the Gospel, whom the scribes and Pharisees presented to the Lord, the Lord forgave her former sins but said, “Go, and from now on be careful not to sin any more.” In saying this to her, he says it to you. You have committed adultery as a pagan; you have sinned as a catechumen. The sin is forgiven you, remitted through baptism; go, and in the future, see that you do not sin. Such is the first defense of Abraham.

It was not because he was ablaze with the heat of some unbridled passion, not because he was overcome by the charm of seductive beauty that Abraham gave preference to a relationship with a slave girl over the conjugal bed, but through a desire to procure a posterity and to enlarge his progeny. After the flood the human race was still numerically sparse. Hence it was also a matter of moral obligation that no one be seen to have failed to render the debt to nature. For this reason, even the children of holy Lot were inspired by this motive to procure a posterity for themselves so that the human race would not become extinct. Thus the merit of having done one’s duty to society excused individual guilt. And it is not without significance that the wife is presented as the instigator of the deed. In [a] sense [this] exculpates her husband, so that no one could believe that he was carried away by some mad perversion. At the same time … women might learn to love their husbands, not to allow themselves to be tormented by empty suspicions of infidelity and not to dislike their stepchildren, when they themselves have been childless. That wonderful wife desired only that her husband forgive her sterility, and, wishing to avoid being herself the reason for her husband’s not having children, she persuades him to go in to the slave girl. Later on, Leah and Rachel did the same thing. Learn, O woman, to put aside jealousy, which often drives women to madness.

I know that this part of the text is disturbing to many. Indeed, if circumcision is a good thing, it should be maintained today as well. If it is useless, it never should have been mandated in the first place, particularly not by divine precept. But, inasmuch as the apostle said, “Abraham received the sign of circumcision,” certainly the sign is not the reality itself but points to another reality. That is, it is not the truth but points to the truth. In fact, Paul expounds this teaching in the following terms: “He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of justice and of faith.” For this reason it is not inappropriate for us to understand that bodily circumcision is a sign of spiritual circumcision. Therefore the sign remained until the truth arrived. The Lord Jesus arrived, he who says, “I am the way and the truth and the life,” because he circumcises the whole person in truth, not a minor bodily member in sign. He abolished the sign; he installed the truth, because once that which was perfect arrived, that which was partial was abolished. Thus the circumcision of a part ceased when the circumcision of the whole shone forth. For it is now no longer man in part but the whole man who is saved in body, saved in soul. For it is written, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” This is the perfect circumcision, because through the sacrifice of the body the soul is redeemed, of which the Lord himself says, “Whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.”

And because he is called to what is perfect, Abraham receives the oracle that summons to perfection. “Circumcise,” it says, “every male of yours and circumcise your flesh”; but perfect circumcision is the spiritual one. Indeed, Scripture also teaches this when it says, “Circumcise the hardness of your heart.” Even here many interpret the text to be saying, “Circumcise every male of yours,” that is, your minds; for nothing is more virile than the mind. Moreover, because the male is also holy, it is said, “Every male opening the womb shall be called holy for the Lord.” But what is holier than the mind that produces the seeds of good thoughts by which it opens the womb of the soul, which was closed by the sterility that prevented it from childbearing, so that it might give birth to invisible generations, obviously through that spiritual womb of which Isaiah said, “We have conceived in the womb and given birth to the spirit of salvation”? So what is mandated is the intelligible circumcision of the heart as well as the sensible circumcision of the flesh: the former in truth, the latter in sign. Circumcision then is twofold because it requires the mortification of the mind and the body. The Egyptians in fact circumcise their males in the fourteenth year, and it is said that their women too are circumcised in the same year, because in that year the passion of virility begins to flare up and the menstrual cycles of women commence. But the promulgator of the eternal law requires the mark of carnal circumcision only in males, because in the sexual relationship the man is more impetuous than the woman, and for this reason he wished to check his passionate impulse by the mark of circumcision. Or, because men regard their error as licit, so long as they avoid adultery, and are convinced that the practice of prostitution is in conformity to the natural law, while the truth is that neither men nor woman are permitted to have sexual relationships outside of marriage. But according to a deeper interpretation, the intention is to explain that if the mind has once been purified and circumcised, freed from illicit desires and thoughts, it binds the soul to its own chastity, and, having infused it with purity of the senses, makes it capable of generating good offspring.The law orders that the baby boy be circumcised on the eighth day: evidently a precept that harbors a mystery, because this is precisely the day of the resurrection. Indeed, the Lord Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday. For this reason, if the day of resurrection finds us circumcised and free from excesses and crimes, purified from every filth, cleansed from bodily vices, if you go forth from this day clean, you will rise clean.

Not without reason or by excessive reaction do many find this passage disturbing, in that the Lord should say, “Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” Indeed, it is not taken lightly that the negligence of the parents could bring punishment upon an eight-day-old infant, so much so that his soul would perish, while even in the case of homicide—committed, however, by one who had unintentionally killed a man—the law stipulated to what cities the perpetrator might flee to obtain impunity for the shedding of blood. How is it possible, then, that for the case of homicide the involuntary character of the killing is taken into consideration, while here no account is taken of infancy, in which there could have been no fault whatever, whether of negligence or of purpose—unless perhaps some might think that the parents receive an even graver punishment in the death of their son? But it is regarded as unjust when the crime of a wrongdoer is inflicted on an innocent party or when a person is included in the punishment of another when he is not responsible to the same degree. For this reason some think that the passage is saying that the parent is to be exterminated, that it is his soul that should perish, not that of the baby. But the case is not at all clear, even if this opinion seems to be supported by the comment “because he has violated my covenant.” This then seems to refer to one who is capable of understanding, not to the infant child. Others maintain that the Lord God is threatening the parents, even if silently, with still graver punishments, so that as adults they will have even greater fear when [they see that] not even children are spared.

One should consider the fact that Abraham was uncircumcised when God called him, and he was still uncircumcised when he was promised a legitimate son as heir. You are hereby invited to believe that he is not only the father of the Jews, as they claim, but the progenitor, through faith, of all believers. Sarah also, before the circumcision of her husband and by the addition of one letter to her name, receives the blessing of no small gift, so that she might have the primacy of virtue and of grace. God promises that from her nations and kings of peoples will come, so that in her might be established the type not of the synagogue but of the church. The fact that Abraham laughed when he had been promised a son through her was an expression not of unbelief but of joy. Indeed, he “fell on his face”—in worship, which means he believed. And he added, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And he said, “O that Ishmael might live in thy sight!” He is not incredulous with regard to the promises, nor is he greedy in what he asks for in prayer. “I have no doubt that you will come through, granting a son to an old man of a hundred years and that, as the author of nature, you will effectively stretch its limits. Blessed indeed is the one on whom this gift is bestowed; but I will be doubly favored if even this Ishmael here, whom I begot from the household slave, should live in your presence.” And so the Lord approved Abraham’s sentiments, did not deny his request and confirmed his own promises.