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Hexaemeron

St Ambrose of Milan, tr. Savage, 1961

15. Paradise, Chapter 15

‘The serpent urged me,’ she said. This seemed to God to be pardonable, inasmuch as He knew that the serpent found numerous ways to deceive people. ‘Satan disguises himself as an angel of light’ and ‘his ministers as ministers of justice,’¹ imposing false names on individual things, so as to call ‘rashness’ a virtue and avarice ‘industry.’ The serpent, in fact, deceived the woman and the woman led the man away from truth to a violation of duty. The serpent is a type of the pleasures of the body. The woman stands for our senses and the man, for our minds. Pleasure stirs the senses, which, in turn, have their effect on the mind. Pleasure, therefore, is the primary source of sin. For this reason, do not wonder at the fact that by God’s judgment the serpent was first condemned, then the woman, and finally the man. The order of condemnation, too, corresponded to that of the crimes committed, for pleasure usually captivates the senses and the senses, the mind. To convince you that the serpent is the type of pleasure, take note of his condemnation.

‘On your breast and on your belly shall you crawl,’ we read. Only those who live for the pleasures of the stomach can be said to walk on their bellies, ‘whose god is their belly and their glory is their shame,’² who eat of what is earthy, and who, weighed down with food, are bent over towards what is of earth. The serpent is well called the symbol of pleasure in that, intent on food, he seems to feed on the earth: ‘On your breast and on your belly shall you crawl, dust shall you eat all the days of your life.’³ We should not tolerate any of the excuses the Devil may make. By so doing we may, perchance, offer him an occasion to display his wickedness. We do this when we say that his iniquity resulted from his condemnation and hence that he aimed constantly to injure mankind because he was condemned for the very purpose of doing us harm. This seems to be pretty fanciful. If we regard the sentence passed on him to be in the nature of a condemnation, God did not condemn the serpent in order to cause injury to man. He pointed out what was to happen in the future. Furthermore, we have demonstrated above how that temptation can be of great service to mankind. What we are to expect can in some measure be gathered from our knowledge of what has been written: ‘Whoever shall glorify me, him will I glorify and he that despises me shall be despised.’⁴ God brings to pass what is good, not what is evil, as His words can teach you that He confers glory and disregards punishment. ‘Whosoever shall glorify me,’ He says, ‘him will I glorify,’ thus declaring that the glory of the good is the purpose of His work. And concerning ‘him that despises me,’ He did not say I shall deprive of glory, but that he shall be deprived of glory. He did not avow that injury to them would be the result of His action, but pointed out what was to come. He did not say, therefore, I shall make you crawl on your breast and belly and feed on earth all the days of your life. What He actually said was: ‘You shall crawl and you shall eat,’ in this way showing that He predicted what the serpent would do in the future rather than prescribe what he was to do. The earth, not the soul, He said, is your food, and this, in fact, can be of profit to sinners. Hence the Apostle ‘delivered such a one for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.’⁵ He says that the serpent crawls on his breast and belly. This is due not so much to the shape of his body as to the fact that he has fallen from celestial happiness because of his thoughts of earth. The breast, in fact, is frequently referred to as the seat of wisdom. And so the Apostle leans his head, not on the ground, but on Christ’s breast.⁶ If, therefore, the wisdom of the Devil is compared to that of the most cruel of animals whose breast is between its legs, if men, too, who, ‘minding the things of the earth’⁷ and without the inner urge to rise towards heaven, have the appearance of crawling on their bellies—then we surely ought to fill the belly of our souls with the Word of God rather than with the corruptible things of this world. Fittingly, therefore, does David, assuming the character of Adam, say: ‘My soul is humbled down to the dust, my belly cleaveth to the earth.’⁸ He used the word ‘cleaveth’ in reference to the serpent who feeds on earthly iniquities. Thus the Apostle says that we should take on the pattern of Christ, so that the virtue of Christ may extend to you.⁹ The sentence imposed on the serpent is not considered a heavy one, since even Adam, whose offense was less serious, was accorded a like sentence.

For it is written: ‘Cursed is the earth in thy works; in sadness shall you eat thereof all the days of your life.’ The two sentences seem to have a certain similarity, yet in that similarity there is a great difference. There is a difference in the way a person eats of the earth, as the serpent is related to have done and the manner in which this is recorded of the man: ‘In sadness shall you eat.’ That very phrase ‘in sadness’ makes the precise difference. Note how important this difference is. It is for my benefit that I should eat the earth in sadness rather than with delight, that is to say, that I should appear to feel a certain sadness in my bodily acts and senses rather than experience pleasure in sin. Many, in fact, because of their manifold iniquities have no awareness of sin. But he who says: ‘I chastise my body and bring it into subjection,’¹⁰ feels sadness because of regret for the sins to which we are subject. He himself did not have such serious faults for which he ought to feel sorrow. Hence he teaches us that that kind of sorrow is of value which has, not this world, but God, as its end. It is right, he says, that you become sorrowful, so as to feel repentance in the face of God: ‘For the sorrow that is according to God produces salvation, whereas the sorrow that is according to the world produces death.’¹¹ Take note of those who in the Old Testament were sorrowful in the midst of their bodily labors and who attained grace, while those who found delight in such pleasures continued to be punished. Hence the Hebrews, who groaned in the works of Egypt,¹² attained the grace of the just and those ‘who ate bread with mourning and fear,’ were supplied with spiritual good.¹³ The Egyptians, on the other hand, who, in their service to a detestable king, carried out such works with joy, received no favor.¹⁴

There, too, is that distinction between the serpent who is said to eat the earth and Adam, to whom God said: ‘You shall eat in sadness the herbs of the field.’¹⁵ We may note here a certain gradation. When we eat the earth, it seems that we are in a sort of warfare. When we eat the herbs, there is a certain advance. When finally, we eat bread, then our life of trial has reached its terminus. Let us experience a series of advancements in this life as Paul did: ‘It is now no longer I that live,’¹⁶ that is, not I who before this ate the earth, not I who ate grass, for ‘all flesh is grass,’¹⁷ but ‘Christ lives in me.’¹⁸ This signifies that living bread which comes from heaven,¹⁹ and that wisdom, too, is living, together with grace, justice, and resurrection.

Again, consider the fact that it is the serpent and not man who is cursed. And the earth is not cursed in itself but is ‘cursed in your work.’²⁰ This is said in reference to the soul. The earth is cursed if your works are earthly, that is, of this world. It is not cursed as a whole. It will merely bring forth thorns and thistles, if it is not diligently cared for by the labor of human hands. If we do not toil over it in labor and sweat we shall not eat bread. The law of the flesh wars against the law of the mind.²¹ We must labor and sweat so as to chastise the body and bring it into subjection and sow the seeds of spiritual things. If we sow what is carnal, we shall reap fruit that is carnal. If, however, we sow what is spiritual, we shall reap the fruit of the spirit.²²

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