Theological Reflections on Man from the Hexameron of St. Ambrose of Milan

St. Ambrose’s work The Six Days of Creation traces a practice that had also been the practice of other great authors of the early centuries, from Origen to St. Basil, for the Greek world, to St. Augustine, for the Latin side, that is, that of exegetical commentary on perhaps one of the most commented-upon biblical passages of all time: the days of creation in Genesis. Lenten sermons, in fact, were often developed around the commentary on biblical texts that were used within the liturgy that prepared for the Easter celebrations.

The Work we are about to discuss is, precisely, the result of the preaching of the Bishop of Milan during Holy Week 387.¹ In particular, we are going to analyze selected passages taken from the sixth day, the exposition on the creation of the animals and man. I want to focus on this because man is the most perfect of creatures created in His Image and likeness, of whom the Fathers say the devil was envious. This clearly points to the mystery of the Incarnation, i.e., the fact that God assumed the human nature. It is with this mystery that one understands the real glory of man. “The glory of God is man fully alive, but the life of man is the vision of God,” as we read in St. Irenaeus. Human being and action take on an even greater significance when we consider this statement, for, if God’s glory is man fully alive, man’s life must be a noble thing. This stands in stark contrast to transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and the glorification of technology today. Returning to St. Ambrose’s work, it follows the days of creation according to this subdivision: to the first day corresponds Sermons I and II, where the creation of heaven of earth and light is discussed; to the second day with Sermon III, the firmament; to the third day correspond Sermons IV and V where he expounds the creation of water and plants; to the fourth day, Sermon VI, where he addresses the creation of the sun, moon and stars; to the fifth day he dwells on Sermons VII and VIII, where he talks about fish and birds; and finally on the sixth day, with Sermon IX, St. Ambrose concludes his preaching with an exposition of the creation of animals and man.

The purpose of my research

Our goal is to bring out, from the analysis of the selected texts, the theological thought on man according to Ambrose, and this is most clearly understood in the creation of man. Starting from a direct comparison with the bishop of Milan’s sermons on the six days of creation, our research aims at a personal reworking of an anthropological character, wanting to answer the question who is man? St. Ambrose, like the Fathers and the Scholastics, emphasizes the relation of man to God, unlike what Pico della Mirandola and other fifteenth-century humanists do when they stress the dignity of man qua man. We see where that has taken us in the contemporary world. Man has lost his dignity.

Chapter I

St. Ambrose’s sermon-commentaries to the six days of creation as they are found in the book of Genesis arise for essentially pastoral reasons. St. Ambrose’s intent is not, in fact, to produce a manual or systematic theological treatise, which by the way is inconceivable for a fourth-century father. The reason he speaks to his audience is to communicate to souls the message of salvation contained in Sacred Scripture; he wants to show, through the passages of Scripture, of Genesis in this case, the mystery revealed by God to man, a mystery that concerns the entire created universe, the world, the heavens, living beings, man himself and his “special” vocation within this immense divine plan.

The need to put into practice his task as a pastor of souls, as a bishop, drives St. Ambrose to “learn by teaching,”² meaning that he does not have time to elaborate his own exegetical doctrine. Rather, he develops one from his great cultural heritage, both Greek and Latin, drawing on numerous sources of which he nevertheless makes a choice and application. Although it is difficult to make an overall assessment of all the sources used by St. Ambrose, an “Ambrosian originality,”³ his ability to synthesize in the use of authors in exegetical purpose, is strongly evident. The sources used briefly include Cicero, Philo, Origen, and St. Basil of Caesarea. St. Ambrose demonstrates a vast knowledge in drawing on sources, but his synthesis, creative and rich, shows a profound singularity.

St. Ambrose’s style is original, and what immediately appears decisive is his frequent recourse to figurative images that help the hearer to enter into the discourse, almost representing before the eyes of those who follow him the principles he intends to emphasize; just to cite one example, think of the legend of the viper and the moray eel,⁴ which the Milanese bishop recounts and uses to speak of the indissolubility of marriage and the mutual acceptance and forbearance of spouses in fidelity to the marriage bond.

Our work essentially turns to theological reflection on the creature that marks the culmination of the divine plan of Creation: man. What we see is that God creates him at the end for what is most perfect is reserved for last, but this does not mean that there is an evolution of man from something less perfect to something more perfect. Rather, everything God creates is perfectly what it ought to be, including man. The ordering shows that man is more perfect than everything else, and we know that this is because God will assume human nature. Let us not forget that St. Ambrose writes the Exsultet, where we read O Felix Culpa! The sixth day, addressed in the last sermon, is devoted to the “nature of the beasts and the creation of man.”⁵ The creation of man is prepared by the description concerning the other animals; in fact, St. Ambrose takes the opportunity, illustrating the properties of each species, to refer to man and his moral conduct. Thus, the laziness of the donkey should prompt us to strive against sloth and the industriousness of the ant to be diligent in the good. Animals are occasions for man to reflect on vices and virtues, juxtapositions, those with animals, that St. Ambrose always elaborates by justifying them with the sacred text. Finally, we come to the Genesis passage in which it is said: “let us make man in our image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). The commentary on the creation of man takes on a more lively and solemn tone, because of the sublimity of the mystery and because of the new interest the subject arouses in the hearers. St. Ambrose now addresses his hearers directly to reveal to them a fundamental truth: the height of man’s dignity.

Chapter II

Our discussion concerns exclusively the study of Sermon IX, from which we have selected specific passages. For expository convenience we have divided the discussion into thematic units, each of which is developed from St. Ambrose’s text, which we preferred to quote in its entirety, for clarity and order in the argumentation.

St. Ambrose opens the sermon by specifying from the outset that we are at the conclusion of the work; the end of the creation narrative is also the end of the preaching that has seen the bishop engaged in his work “with not inconsiderable fatigue”⁶ and that finally sees him address an important theme that concludes and crowns all the effort so far achieved but that constitutes “the essential part of all our effort,”⁷ as he expresses himself in the first chapter. In the same opening chapter, with the image of the theater, which is creation, he invites his auditors to follow him more attentively, because this last chapter, is the one that most closely interests his listeners: he prepares to speak, in fact, about man. And this talk about man is even more important; “how much greater are the privileges granted to you by the Creator of the universe than to all other creatures.” St. Ambrose seems to want to rouse the crowd and call them to fresh attention, since this last topic concerns everyone more closely.

“For you therefore this crown is put up for grabs; it is you whom I wish to crown today through your own judgment.”⁸ With this brief introduction, St. Ambrose already summarizes what will be the main pillar of his anthropological reflection and from which other related themes take development: man, as a privileged creature who surpasses the rest of creation.

Man: the center and end of creation

So let us begin with this first key, which we can detect from reading the Ambrosian texts: the beauty and splendor of all creatures have man as their term, who is shown as the very end of the creative work.

“How long will we wait to learn what does not affect us and ignore what directly affects us? Until when will we be provided with cognitions about other living beings while we do not know ourselves? Say what is useful for me to know myself.” This complaint is right, but we must follow the order laid out in Scripture, not least because we cannot know ourselves truly fully unless we have first learned to know what the nature of all living things is.⁹

Responding to a hypothetical criticism from someone who was bored listening to talk about other creatures in the previous sermons, St. Ambrose begins to deal with man, but this new and important reflection is introduced by an essential consideration: the whole creation as we have seen it presented in the previous sermons prepares for the creation of man, who is its crowning and synthesis of Creation itself. Knowing the nature of other beings is functional to the knowledge of man himself; for in man we have the perfection of the characteristics that are discovered in creation, and everything in it contains a teaching for man.¹⁰ Let us not forget what St. Thomas Aquinas will do in De Veritate q. 20 when he divides all of being into a hierarchy: 1) Inanimate, 2.) Vegetative, 3) Sensitive, 4) Rational, 5) Divine. Only in our modern age do we worry about the ecology more than about man. While ecology itself is not wrong, what is wrong is to emphasize a disordered structure of being that places animals and plants on the same level as people. This false egalitarianism is typical of gnostic thought.

Man’s upright position in comparison with other animals.

To begin talking about man, St. Ambrose compares him to other creatures; this contrast is functional to the fact that man has characteristics that make him above other living beings, each created according to his own species:

Will you turn these creatures to man’s profit? By not refusing each species the truth of its own nature, the more will you turn them to man’s advantage, first of all because nature has laid on its belly every species of cattle, beasts and fish, so that some crawl on their bellies, others who yet stand on their feet seem to you sunk with the gait of their four-legged bodies and as if nailed to the ground rather than free, since, unable to stand upright, they derive their sustenance from the earth and seek only the pleasures of the belly they have bent down.

Beware, O man, of bending in the likeness of beasts, beware of bending over your belly, not so much with your body as with your unbridled desires.¹¹

The image of the beasts hunched over themselves and walking on all fours, facing the ground, reminds man of his dignity: he is not created for the things of the earth, he is not to turn to the pursuit of baser pleasures, but he proceeds upright, his head held high, expressing his freedom. The image is profound, and it is rooted in a clear anthropology: the human being is not an animal like any other; his life is elevated by his rational being, which enables him not to limit himself to the sensible life alone, and always he must bring this back to mind, on pain of the decay into the low state of beasts. Man is not incurvatus nimis, bent in on himself, like the demons are. His salvation comes from taking into consideration God. This is very clear in the ST I q. 61, for example, and the uprightness of man is very clear in the ST I q. 91.

Look at the trim of your body and assume the appearance of noble vigor that befits it: let only animals graze facing the ground. Why in eating do you lie downward, when nature has not so laid you down? Why do you delight in that which offends nature? Why night and day, turned only to food, do you feed on earthly things like cattle? Why, abandoning yourself to the allurements of the flesh, do you dishonor yourself by serving the belly and its lusts? Why do you forsake the use of intelligence that the Creator has given you? Why do you make yourself similar to the mares from which the Lord wanted to distinguish you by saying, Do not become like the horse and the mule that have no intelligence (Psalm 31:9)?¹²

St. Ambrose speaks of the essence of the human person: the human acts of knowledge and will explain and reveal the nature of man, which emerges as what is noblest in the created material cosmos. Again, we see a hint to the Incarnation, the real apex of it all. It is with this thought that one wonders how Condorcet and other eighteenth-century philosophes could imagine the necessity for space travel. They could only see it is as necessary, much like we see with Elon Musk today, because they think that man is not that important in the scheme of the universe. The psalm text, i.e., Psalm 31:9, serves precisely to highlight this metaphysical foundation. Man cannot renounce being what he is, a being endowed with reason, therefore bound to behave accordingly, following reason and not the senses, like other animals, which are devoid of reason. The mention of the Creator who gave intelligence to man underscores a point that seems to go unnoticed, but whose force is clear: man can know God himself, whose creature he is. And man’s end is not to satisfy the body, in food and sensible pleasure, but to elevate himself to higher, immaterial things. He can elevate himself to God. Man is composed of soul, spiritual, and body, material, and in this union the soul is the one that governs the body, is the form of it, one might say in philosophical language later than St. Ambrose; so, it is the rational soul that must prevail and guide the body, so that man’s life is raised to a higher level.

The soul is the image of God

In creating man, God makes an exception: in the climax of creation, in fact, the Almighty seems to pause for a moment and reflect with Himself, before enacting the making of the ultimate creature by saying, “Let us make man.” And the novelty in the procedure, as seen in the story, is in fact justified by the words that follow: in the image and likeness. Man is privileged, he possesses something more, and in this lies the cause of the fact that he is constituted ruler over all other beings. The theme of creation in the image and likeness has been addressed by many Fathers and in St. Ambrose also finds its development.¹³

Now, since you see that to you are subject to elephants and subject to lions, know thyself, O man. This maxim is not of Apollo Pythius, as they say, but of the holy Solomon who says, If thou knowest not thyself, O fair among women (Cant 1:8); for as long before Moses had written in Deuteronomy, Take heed to thyself, O man, take heed to thyself (Deut 4:9), says the law; and the prophet says, If thou knowest not thyself. To whom does he say this? Beautiful, he says, among women. Who is beautiful among women but the “soul that in both sexes possesses the excellence of beauty”?¹⁴

One more consideration about the human soul: this is where the center of man consists. It is the soul that is the essence of the compound “man.” In the spiritual soul is concentrated all the beauty of man, because the body is intimately united with the soul and depends on it. The soul as a higher immaterial principle is what is most intimate in us, and that is why we are required to know ourselves, an idea that St. Ambrose often emphasizes in his pastoral intent. “Re-entering ourselves” means precisely to pay attention to our soul, to turn our inner gaze to the nerve center from which our vital activity emanates. Understand what the soul is and what importance it has for humans. St. Ambrose quotes Deuteronomy calling the soul “beautiful” precisely because in man’s spiritual activity its high dignity shines forth. Moreover, the soul is clothed with beauty when through a good life it practices the virtues and does not turn to passing things but rises to eternal things. Recourse to Scripture is constant: the Old and New Testaments are mastered skillfully by St. Ambrose, who resorts to them to demonstrate and illuminate his theological positions.

And with good reason it is beautiful, for it desires not earthly goods, but heavenly goods, not corruptible goods, but incorruptible goods in which majestic beauty does not know how to perish: for all material goods, through the passage of time or through the imbalance of disease, rot.¹⁵

The human soul is beautiful because it is incorruptible. As an incorporeal spiritual principle it is not subject to the laws of matter, which corrupts and ends. The soul therefore stands in the middle between time and eternity, between purely material and purely spiritual realities. St. Thomas will call this horizon aeternitatis in his De Potentia q. 6. Here the principle of the soul’s immortality, its incorruptibility, is affirmed. The fact that man possesses a principle that is not corruptible makes him a superior being, untethered from the mere laws of the corporeal world, and this is what St. Ambrose wants to affirm forcefully. The incorporeal soul is immortal, and this grants it that lofty dignity not comparable to other created beings, especially other animals, which do not possess the “rational,” or, in scholastic language, we would say today “subsistent,” soul.

Look to this, says Moses, in which you wholly consist, in which is the best part of you. Finally the Lord explained who you are by saying, Look to yourself by false prophets (Mt 7:15): these sap the soul, undermine the spirit.

You are not flesh. What is flesh without the guidance of the soul, without the power of the spirit? Flesh is assumed today and laid down tomorrow. The flesh lasts in time, the soul lasts forever. The flesh is the cloak of the soul, which is clothed, as it were, with the body. You therefore are not the garment, but the one who uses it.¹⁶

Man consists essentially of his soul, because this is where his proper being resides; however, the soul alone does not exhaust the whole man, who is also equipped with a body, which St. Ambrose compares to a cloak. The image of the cloak referring to the flesh should not confuse us: St. Ambrose is clearly not a dualist, even if the image reflects a Platonic type of culture; for St. Ambrose, the relationship of soul and body and how they both concur in the human compound to achieve its supernatural end is clear. Quoting the Gospel according to St. Matthew, St. Ambrose describes as false prophets everything that lowers the spiritual man, that is, the pleasures of the flesh and the world; the reference to false prophets highlights the care to show deception to those who do not recognize man for what he is.

Therefore, you are told to put off the old man with his works and put on the new man who is renewed, not in the appearance of the body, but in the spirit of mind and knowledge (Col 3:9–10). You are not flesh; I repeat: It is not said to the flesh: For holy is the temple of God which you are (1 Cor 3:17). and elsewhere: You are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit of God dwells in you (1 Cor 3:16), but it is said to those who have been renewed and to the faithful in whom the Spirit of God abides, which does not abide in carnal beings, for it is written: My Spirit shall not abide in these men, for they are flesh (Gen 6:3).¹⁷

Man is called by his life to conform to that vocation received at the moment of creation: to be a dwelling place for God. The reference to Pauline theology of the old man is used by St. Ambrose to complete his depiction of the human creature: a creature made to cooperate actively with his Creator in the work of his own sanctification. An important note: St. Ambrose highlights the importance of the freedom man possesses in disposing of himself and his own body. Being rational enables the human creature to discern what is right and wrong, what is good and what is evil, that is, it makes man a free creature, endowed with autonomy in governing himself, and who renews himself — as St. Paul says — by following the law of the Spirit, and not by following the law of the flesh.

In the image of the Son

The reflection on the creation of man takes on an interesting Christological character, or perhaps it would be better to say in this protological sphere, Word-centric character of the creation of the human being. God speaking to Himself, addresses Himself as Trinity,¹⁸ but St. Ambrose adds a special note: He says it to the Son. This is what is missing in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. The Father addresses the Son, who is the eternal Wisdom of the Father, the perfect model, through whom all things were created, and for man, being the image of the invisible image of the Father (Col 1:15) is of greater relevance, because it is through the Son of God, in the work of the Incarnation and Redemption, that the original fall is repaired and the mystery of salvation is worked out. So, in Christ is manifested the Wisdom, Power and Goodness of God; it is in Him that “the end is joined to the beginning, that is, man to God.”¹⁹ Let us not forget that Infinite Power is an attribute that refers to the Father, Infinite Wisdom to the Son, and Infinite Goodness to the Holy Spirit.

But let us consider the unfolding of our creation. Let us make, he said, man in our image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). Who says this? Is it not God who created you? What is God? Flesh or spirit? Not flesh certainly, but spirit, to which flesh cannot resemble, because spirit is immaterial and invisible, while flesh can be touched and seen. To whom does he say this? Certainly not to himself, for he does not say, “Let me do,” but let us do; not to the angels, for they are his ministers, and servants cannot participate in the operation together with the master and the work with him who is the author of it; but he says it to the Son, even if the Jews do not agree, even if the Arians object. But let the Jews be silent, and let the Arians with their fathers be silent, they who, while they exclude one Person from participating in the divine operation, include many in it and grant to humble servants the privilege they deny to the Son.²⁰

The criticism against the Jews who do not recognize the Christ and against heretics serves to highlight the error of those who did not recognize the truth of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who in the bosom of the Trinity participates in the creation of everything, especially man, a creature who has a special bond with the Christ that is made clear in the mystery of Redemption.

But let us also admit that it seems to you that God needed the help of his servants to accomplish his work: if God has in common “work” with the angels, does he perhaps have in common with them the image? Would he have said to the angels, Let us make man in our image and likeness? But hear the Apostle say who is the image of God: He who has taken us away, he says, from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his light, in whom we have redemption and the remission of sins, who is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of every creature. The image of the Father is he who always exists and existed from the beginning.²¹

The Son of God, the Lord Jesus, is a Divine Person; the eternal Word united hypostatically with human nature to meet man, who in disobedience had turned away from his Creator, i.e., what St. Thomas Aquinas would say is the non-consideration of God which is at the root of the first sin of the demons. Thus, in the mystery of the Incarnation and through his sacrifice on the cross, Christ obtained redemption for humanity. St. Ambrose then expresses himself on the very nature of God, emphasizing that the Word is God, the second Person of the Trinity, and therefore insofar as God is from everlasting, he is eternal like the Father.

Consequently the image is the one who says, Philip, whoever sees me, sees the Father. And how is it that you, while seeing the living image of the living Father, say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The image of God is power, not weakness, the image of God is wisdom, is righteousness; but wisdom is divine and righteousness is eternal. The image of God is only he who said, I and the Father are one, possessing in such a way the likeness of the Father as to possess with him the unity of divinity and fullness. When he says let us make, how can there be inequality? When he says in our likeness, where is the dissimilarity? So also in the Gospel, when it says I and the Father, certainly it is not one person; and when it says we are one, there is no difference in divinity and operation. So both are not one person, but one substance.²²

St. Ambrose continues with the Trinitarian argument, explaining the consubstantiality of the Father with the Son. The Father and the Son are two distinct Persons, but they have the same divine nature; they are equally God, because the same divine substance. The clarifications inserted here, are evidently aimed at refuting recurrent errors, especially among Gnostics, for whom creation, of man in particular, is attributed to different entities.

The soul, “place” of the human person

St. Ambrose aims to make the hearer focus on the essence of man, to know himself for what he is.²³ Man can reflect on himself and recognize the privilege of being master of his own acts and of distinguishing what is proper to himself and what is part of him, but it does not completely exhaust him. This capax universi is part of man. Human beings are free and masters of their own human nature, a compound nature, complex even, that needs to be understood. Man knows the universe and dominates it, but he also knows himself and is called to dominate himself in order to achieve that for which he was made in the image and likeness of the Creator. Here, many issues arise about the intellectual life, about the pondered life, which St. Thomas Aquinas will say in ST I-II q. 3, the heart of the treatise on happiness, is at the heart of man’s life. Today’s distracted technological world is a hindrance for such a pondered life. Technology is a means, not an end. Man is not one who has but one who is. Here, we see the heart of the difference even between the philosophical approach of the ancient and medieval world and that of the modern world: being vs. act. St. Ambrose, a representative of the classical world which provides great minds like St. Augustine, writes:

Beware, he says, of you alone. We are one thing, our things are another, what is around us is another. That is, we are the ‘soul and intelligence; our things are the limbs of the body and its senses; around us is money, there are . . . the means to this life of ours. Take heed therefore to thyself, know thyself, that is, not what muscles thou hast, not how much physical strength, not how many possessions, how much power, but what soul and what intelligence from which all thy deliberations are derived and to which the fruit of thy works is traced. The soul is full of wisdom, full of godliness and righteousness, for all virtue is from God. To her says God: Behold, Jerusalem, I have painted thy walls. It is painted by God that soul which has in it the bright charm of virtues and the splendor of piety. It is well painted that soul in which shines the effigy of the divine operation, that soul in which there is the splendor of glory and the image of the substance of the Father.²⁴

St. Ambrose still insists on man’s spiritual nature as well: and this is what separates him from matter and makes him a being “in the image of God.” It is a view of the intellect that intuits the profundity of nature, of being. If animals are to spend most of the their time being aware of their surroundings and not merely copulating, as Aristotle reminds us, how much more does man have to reflect on his surroundings and the very being of being. Man possesses the immaterial and immortal soul, but above all he can govern himself; the human soul makes man the master of his individuality. This where the preternatural gift of integrity comes in. It is the capacity to govern one’s passions, concupiscence and irascibility, by means of the faculties of the intellect and the will. That is why it is always necessary for men to remember that the flesh is matter which in itself has no value except that it receives it from the soul. The body is destined to corrupt itself and return to the earth, while the soul lives forever and man’s future condition is determined by man’s free choice. At the same time, we cannot forget that this is not a dualism, much like what St. Augustine will claim against the Manicheans and Lateran IV in 1215 will claim against the Albigensians.

Our soul, then, is in the image of God. You, man, are everything in it, for without it you are nothing, but you are earth and in earth you will be dissolved. Moreover, that you may know that without the soul the flesh is nothing: Do not, he said, fear those who can kill your body, but cannot kill your soul. Why then are you so proud of your body, you who lose nothing if you lose your body? But be afraid of being deprived of the help of your soul. What will man give in exchange for his soul in which is found not a negligible part of his person, but the substance of all that constitutes man?²⁵

The forcefulness with which St. Ambrose wants to teach the importance of caring for one’s soul, and the superiority of the soul over the body, leads him to emphasize that the body, with its vital dynamics and composition, is in common with other animals, while the immaterial soul is what we have in common with God, very much in line with what St. Thomas Aquinas will stress regarding the hierarchy of being in De Veritate q. 20; the passage might seem very strong, almost contemptuous of the body, but if we consider the author’s intent it is understandable:

The soul is the part by merit of which you exercise dominion over all other animals, beasts and birds; it is the part made in the image of God, while the body conforms to the appearance of beasts. In the one appears the venerable badge of God-likeness, in the other the despicable commonality with the ferocious beasts.²⁶

Caring for one’s soul

The nobility of the human soul demands that man strive to keep himself righteous before God, especially by fleeing sin and being careful not to run into the snares of the devil, who is always ready to tempt man. St. Ambrose takes up Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 7:20 that it is not what enters man, food, that makes him unclean — clearly taking up Pharisaic practices — but it is what comes out of man that makes him guilty, that is, it is the bad deeds, words, and thoughts that defile the purity of the soul. It is in his innermost being that man determines who he is; it is from within that he procures his ruin.

Know thyself therefore, O beautiful soul: thou art the image of God. Know thyself, O man: thou art the glory of God. Hear in what manner thou art the glory of it. Says the prophet: Thy knowledge is become admirable coming from me, that is: in my work thy majesty is more admirable, thy wisdom is exalted in man’s sense. As I consider myself, which you also grasp in secret thoughts and intimate feelings, I recognize the mysteries of your science. Know thyself therefore, O man, how great thou art, and watch over thyself lest, at one time or another, running into the snares of the devil who hunts thee, thou mayest not become its prey, lest thou by chance fall into the jaws of that dreary lion who roars and goes about seeking whom to devour. Mind you, considering what goes into you, what comes out of you. I do not speak of food, which is digested and expelled, but I speak of thought, I allude to words. Let not the desire for another’s thalamus enter into thee, let it not creep into thy mind; let not thine eye ravish, let not thy soul shut up the beauty of a passing woman; let not thy speech devise plots of seduction, let not lead them on by deceit, let not cover thy neighbor with slanderous slander.²⁷

St. Ambrose spurs one to resist temptation, to fight the seductions of the flesh and the evil one. Spiritual combat is necessary for all, and the reward that comes with it is eternal life. Clear in this passage is the reference to St. Paul (2 Timothy 7:9). The initial warning to take care of one’s soul now takes a much more determined form: a true spiritual strategy must be undertaken to face the enemy. Like an athlete one must take care to guard one’s gaze and one’s movements so as not to give the devil an opportunity to have the upper hand.

Stand firm so as not to fall, run so as to earn the prize, compete so as to endure to the end, for the crown is due only to an even fight. Thou art a soldier: spy carefully the enemy, lest by night he creep up to thee; thou art an athlete: stand nearer to the adversary with thy hands than with thy face, lest he strike thine eye. Let the gaze be free, cunning the ‘gait to lay the adversary to the ground when he rushes at you, to clasp him in your arms when he retreats, to avoid wounds by the watchfulness of your gaze, to prevent them by assailing him with decision.²⁸

Should he then be overcome by the weakness or cunning of the enemy, man finds himself succumbing and sinning; however, he need not fear since he can always resort to the remedy of penance. Man is weak, he is frail, subject to falling, but God’s word comes to his rescue by giving him the right direction that should direct his heart and lips, made to praise the Creator and proclaim his Name.

If you are then wounded, look after your health, run to the physician, seek the remedy of penance. Look after yourself, for you have a flesh ready to fall. Come to visit you, good physician of souls, the divine word, spread upon you the Lord’s teachings as salutary remedies. Take heed to thyself, lest the words concealed in thy heart be unrighteous; for they meander like poison and cause deadly contagions. Take heed to thyself, lest thou forget God who created thee, and lest thou uselessly utter his name.²⁹

God’s rest in man

Finally, we come to the last words of this ninth sermon, as well as to the conclusion of the entire work of the six days.³⁰ Almost by way of summary, once again St. Ambrose is keen to reiterate an important concept that is the key to the understanding of his entire anthropology: man is a masterpiece of God, and contains within himself a marvelous synthesis of all of creation, which by admirable mystery has been subjected to his dominion. It is precisely in this last effort, the creation of man, that the Creator finds rest after days of labor. This is the anthropological sense of the world,³¹ that is, of that tending of the entire created cosmos toward that ultimate creature, man, who carries with him part of all creation, thus giving dignity to all things, including material realities. The idea of man as a microcosm finds a particular meaning in St. Ambrose: man is the place of God’s rest. God, who creates all things, finally, by creating man, sees them summed up in him in an admirable way; but more, because that cosmos, which whole cannot contain God, is surpassed by the last created reality, man, in whom God takes up residence, where He can dwell. This dwelling or “abiding in,” after all is the expression St. Thomas uses in ST I q. 35 when talking about the Holy Spirit’s relation to man. Man is capable of God, in the sense that he can know him, love him, reach out to him, and finally possess him.

But now it is time to end our discourse, for the sixth day is over and the creation of the world has come to an end with the formation of that masterpiece which is man, who exercises dominion over all living beings and is like the culmination of the universe and the supreme beauty of every created being. Truly we should maintain a reverent silence, for the Lord rested from all the work of the world. He then rested in man’s innermost being, He rested in his mind and thought; for He had created man endowed with reason, capable of imitating Him, emulating His virtues, yearning for heavenly graces. In these endowments rests God Who said, O on whom shall I rest, if not on him who is humble, quiet, and fears My words?³²

And this rest, which God does not find in the greatest works such as the heavens, the sun and the stars, God still finds in this creature with whom He enters into relationship. God comes toward man, not only once created him by giving him being, but again recreated him through the redemptive mystery of Christ. And in Christ the creation of man takes on a new aspect: the mystery of Christ’s Passion, who incarnate “assumed” human nature to redeem man, shows an interesting connection and surely difficult to understand because it is mysterious: man was created in the image of the One by whom he would be redeemed, through His divine offering, His infinite mercy.

I thank the Lord our God that He created such a wonderful work in which to find His rest. He created the heavens, and I do not read that he rested; he created the earth, and I do not read that he rested; he created the sun, the moon, the stars, and I do not read that even then he rested; but I read that he created man and that at this point he rested, having a being to whom he would forgive sins. Or perhaps even then the mystery of the Lord’s future passion was foreshadowed, by which it was revealed that Christ would rest in man, he who predestined to himself rest in a human body for the redemption of man, according to what he himself affirmed: I slept and rested and arose, because the Lord received me. Indeed the Creator Himself rested.³³

This passage on God’s rest in man represents a point of originality in St. Ambrose: rest from creation is linked to Christ’s redemptive rest in man: God by creating man wants to express an attribute of his, the merciful being.³⁴ Christ’s passion by which the sin that occurred by man’s free choice is healed reveals the meaning of his creation: the love of God the creator is revealed, a merciful love that forgives. God created man free to love, free to love him, and God shows His mercy, His forgiveness in giving Himself to man. The affinity between the sacrifice of Christ, the compendium of the mystery of salvation, and the initial mystery of the creation of man in the image of Him who is the image of the splendor of the Father, represents an absolutely high and profound theological content, in which protology and soteriology touch each other, and St. Ambrose, in this, shows the height of his theology.

Chapter III: Systematic reworking

The theological reflection on man as it emerges from St. Ambrose’s commentary on the six days of creation is original and rich. Man for St. Ambrose is an exceptional creature; he is God’s masterpiece, the synthesis and end of all creation. At the end of the six days, God creates a creature that encompasses both matter and spirit in a profound balance. And in his spiritual, immaterial being, endowed with a rational soul, capable of knowing and willing, the meaning of those mysterious words of Genesis 1:26 shines forth: “let us make man in our image and likeness.” Man is essentially his own soul, and this implies a fundamental consequence: he is made for eternity that does not end. The human creature may insert itself within a creation with which it has much in common, in materiality and sensibility, yet he remains detached from it, because he is “capable” of God, the capax Dei; he can contain his Creator, becoming His dwelling place. The novelty of the creature man, a creature that sees God engaged in a different way from the very first creative instant — where the Trinity seems to reflect between Himself on the work — lies in the fact that he will have an open and direct relationship with the Creator; man has dominion over creation and as the crowning glory of creation, he is made God’s cooperator.

But there is more. In St. Ambrose’s theology of man’s creation, this direct link with God is even more evident, especially on the Christological level: man, made in the image of the Son, the image of the splendor of the Father, speaks to us not only of the great mystery of creation, which lies in the beginning of every created thing, but again, anticipates that great mystery of love and mercy which is the work of Redemption. In creating human nature, which the Word will later assume, however, there is already a glimpse of that wondrous work of redemption by which mankind itself, after the unfaithfulness of sin, finds salvation again, almost as a second creation, realized in the Passion of Christ. The theme of God’s rest in man, dear to St. Ambrose, seems to unveil this mysterious nexus that is realized in the Person of the Son.

Conclusion

St. Ambrose is a prudent and thoughtful pastor; he strives to preach the mysteries of the Christian faith with simplicity and originality, so that he can reach the heart of his audience, of those who listen to him, and ex auditu, can only grow in their Faith. This intent drives him to great creativity, which is developed in an interesting articulation, though not too systematic in its theological content, of which it is dense. Drawing on numerous sources, drawn from his enormous Greek and Latin cultural heritage, he makes use of many images and similes that make his sermons true theological syntheses, in an argumentation that sees the Word of God always at the center. His theology on the creation of man stems from a desire to stimulate his hearers to the good life; it aims at the conversion and sanctification of the faithful so that they may be won to Christ.

Ambrosian theological anthropology sees the human creature as the masterpiece of God, who, in Christ, had made man “that he might lay his head therein.”³⁵ Endowed with an immortal soul, raised above itself by grace, man has the entire universe at his disposal. God rests in the human soul; Christ Himself rested in man by His redemptive death, snatching him from ruin and making him the object of His infinite mercy.

Man is called to live in a manner worthy of his vocation, to be holy before his Creator, so that Christ may “bow his head”³⁶ above him. He truly knows himself when he rediscovers himself made in the image and likeness of God and finds himself in conforming to Christ, for whom and in whom all things were created, and he in a unique and exceptional way.