On the Mysteries

Contents

Reading pages: 1–8 · 9

1. 1Ambrose explains why he teaches the newly baptized about the sacraments only after their initiation, beginning with the rite of “Ephphatha.”
2. 2In the baptistery the candidates renounced the devil and the world before the clergy, whose office, not their persons, matters, and turned to the east toward Christ.
3. 3The font is no mere water: the Spirit’s presence there is prefigured in creation, the flood, the Red Sea, Marah, and Naaman’s cleansing.
4. 4Water cleanses only with the Spirit and the cross; baptism in the Trinity, foreshadowed by the pool of Bethesda and the dove, truly heals and regenerates.
5. 5The whole Trinity testifies at Christ’s baptism, and Christ is present at the font through the priests’ prayer; the baptismal confession binds the candidate to equal faith in Father, Son, and Spirit.
6. 6After the font come the anointing of the head, signifying a priestly people, and the washing of the feet, which Ambrose links to the removal of hereditary sin and to humility.
7. 7The white garments of the newly baptized signify cleansing, and Ambrose reads the Song of Songs of the Church and the soul washed in baptism, ending with the spiritual seal of the Spirit’s sevenfold gifts.
8. 8The newly baptized approach the altar; the Church’s sacraments are older than the Synagogue’s, as Melchizedek shows, and greater than the manna, for the Eucharist is the body of Christ that gives eternal life.
9. 9Ambrose argues from the miracles of Scripture and from the virgin birth that the word of Christ changes the bread and wine into his body and blood, which feed the Church, and that the Spirit truly regenerates in baptism.