Ambrose of Milan

How clearly the custom of the rich is portrayed! They are made sad if they are not seizing the property of others; they renounce food, they fast, not that they may lessen their sin but that they may commit crime. You may see them at such times coming to church, dutiful, humble and assiduous, in order that they may deserve to obtain the accomplishment of their wickedness. But to them God says, “Not this fast have I chosen, not if you should wind your head about like a circle and spread also sackcloth and ashes, and not thus will you call an acceptable fast. Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord. Loose every bond of injustice, loose the bonds of violent contracts, let them that are broken go free, and tear asunder every unjust writing. Deal your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and harborless into your house. If you shall see one naked, cover him, and you shall not despise the domestics of your seed. Then shall your morning light arise, and your health shall speedily arise, and your justice shall go before you, and the majesty of the Lord shall surround you. Then shall you call, and God shall hear you; even while you speak, he shall say, Here I am.” Do you hear, O rich person, what the Lord God says? You too come to church, not to bestow anything on a poor person but to take away. You fast, not that the cost of your banquet may profit the needy, but that you may obtain spoil from those in want.

Divine justice is moved by this and condemns the greedy with worthy severity, saying: 'You have killed and taken possession of the inheritance? For this reason, in the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, they will lick up your blood; and the prostitutes will wash themselves in your blood.' How just, how severe is this sentence, that the bitterness of death that he inflicted on another should be dissolved by the horror of his own death! God looks upon the unburied poor and therefore decrees that the rich should lie unburied; and so that the dead may suffer the torment of their own wickedness, he who did not think to spare the dead. Thus, the body soaked in the blood of his own wound revealed the cruelty of his life. When the poor endured these things, the rich were accused; when the rich received them, the poor were justified. But what does it mean that the prostitutes washed themselves in his blood? Unless, perhaps, it is to reveal that there was a kind of prostitution in that ferociousness of the king's treachery, or a bloody luxury, who was so indulgent that he desired a vegetable dish; so bloodthirsty that he would kill a man over a vegetable dish? Worthy punishment consumes the greedy, worthy punishment consumes greed. Finally, even Jezebel herself was eaten by dogs and the birds of the air, in order to show that the spiritual wickedness becomes the prey of the rich burial. Therefore, flee, rich man, from such an end. But you will flee from such an end if you flee from such a disgrace. Do not be like Ahab, desiring a neighboring possession. Do not let that fatal greed of Jezebel dwell in you, which persuades you with bloodshed. It does not recall your desires, but impels them; it makes you even sadder when you possess what you desired; it makes you naked when you have riches.

In this place the question comes up: how do we interpret what the Lord said to Elijah: “Have you seen how Ahab has been moved at my presence? I will not bring evils in his days, but in his sons’ days will I bring evils”—or how do we say that repentance avails before God? “Behold, the king was moved before the face of the Lord and went away weeping, and he tore his garments, and covered himself with haircloth and put on sackcloth from that day on which he killed Naboth the Jezrehite,” so that mercy moved God, and he changed his decree. Therefore either repentance did not avail and did not turn God to mercy or the prophecy is false, for Ahab was vanquished and killed. But consider that he had a wife, Jezebel, by whose will he was inflamed and who turned his heart and made him execrable by reason of his excessive sacrileges. Accordingly, she checked even this desire of repentance on his part. But the Lord cannot be considered changeable if he did not think that he ought to keep for the one unmindful of his confession what, at his confessing, he had promised him.But hear another and truer explanation. Even for him in his unworthiness did the Lord keep the tenor of his decree, but Ahab himself did not hold fast to the divine favors conferred on him. The king of Syria made war. He was defeated and kept for pardon. Although a captive, he was even given his liberty and sent back to his kingdom. It was in keeping with the divine decree that Ahab not only escaped harm but even triumphed; it was due to his own stupid want of firmness that he armed against himself the enemy by whom he was to be conquered. And surely he was warned by the prophet, who said, “Know, and see what you do.” He was warned, I say, because the help of divine favor was due against the servants of the king of Syria, since he had said, “The God of the mountains is the God of Israel and not the god Baal. Therefore,” he says, “they have conquered us. And therefore,” he says, “if we shall not completely overcome them, put satraps in the stead of the king of Syria,” so that he might take from them their valor and the power of the king. Hence in the first battle Ahab was victorious, so that he put his enemy to flight; in the second he was also victorious, in which instance he restored the captured king to his power. For this reason there leaped forth a clear prophecy of Ahab’s defeat, one of the sons of the prophets saying to his neighbor, “Strike me. But he would not strike him. And he said, Because you would not obey the word of the Lord, behold, you depart from me, and a lion shall kill you. And he departed from him, and a lion found him and killed him.” And after this another prophet stood before the king of Israel and said to him, “Thus said the Lord: Because you have let go out of your hand a man of destruction, behold, your life shall be for his life and your people for his people.” It is clear, therefore, from these prophecies that the Lord keeps his promises even to the unworthy but the impious are either destroyed by their own folly or are condemned for a second transgression, though they have escaped the snares of the first. But we should so conduct ourselves that, being worthy through good works, we may deserve to receive the promises of the omnipotent God.