Calvin, Ambrose, Jacob's Blessing, Justification, and the Sensus Plenior

Image: Govert Flinck, "Isaac Blessing Jacob" (1638, oil on canvas), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

In preparing to give the message at the 2018 Keach Conference, I re-read Calvin’s discussion of the doctrine of justification by faith in book 3 chapter 11 of the Institutes.

Calvin closes with an illustration of justification by Ambrose taken from the Genesis 27 account of Jacob receiving the blessing of his father Isaac while wearing the clothing of his brother Esau:

            For this reason, it seems to me that Ambrose beautifully stated an example of this righteousness in the blessing of Jacob: noting that, as he did not of himself deserve the right of the first-born, which gave out an agreeable odor [Gen 27:27], he ingratiated himself with his father, so that to his own benefit he received the blessing while impersonating another. And we in like manner hide under the precious purity of our first-born brother, Christ, so that we may be attested righteous in God’s sight. Here are the words of Ambrose: “That Isaac smelled the odor of the garments perhaps means that we are justified not by works but by faith, since the weakness of the flesh is a hindrance to works, but the brightness of faith, which merits the pardon of sins, overshadows the error of deeds.”

            And this is indeed the truth, for in order that we may appear before God’s face unto salvation we must smell sweetly with his odor, and our vices must be covered and buried by his perfection (Institutes, 3.11.23).

In reading this, I was struck not only Calvin’s drawing upon Ambrose (see Anthony N. S. Lane’s John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers [Baker, 1999]), but by his pre-critical reading of Genesis 27 and the application of it to justification. Isaac is like God the Father; Jacob is like the elect sinner; Esau’s garments are like the imputed righteousness of Christ. This sensus plenior reading of Genesis 27 is not one that modern scholars using the historical-critical method would approve, but it is a “Great Tradition” reading of the historic church (see Craig A. Carter, Interpreting Scripture in the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis [Baker Academic, 2018]) that remains spiritually satisfying.

JTR  

Augustine on Ambrose's Practice of Pastoral Care

In the last post, I noted Augustine’s high esteem for Ambrose, expressed in his Confessions, Book V, Chapter XIII.

He returns to Ambrose in Book VI, Chapter III, noting that he esteemed him to be “a happy man, as the world counts happiness, because great personages held him in honor.” He adds: “Only his celibacy appeared to me to be a painful burden.”

Augustine also describes, however, how the great pastor seemed sometimes to be aloof, indifferent to him and others, or too busy to bother with him.

So he writes of Ambrose:

But what hope he cherished, what stuggles he had against the temptations that beset his high station, what solace in adversity, and what savory joys thy bread possessed for the hidden mouth of his heart when feeding on it, I could neither conjecture nor experience.

Nor did he know my own frustrations, nor the pit of my danger. For I could not request of him what I wanted as I wanted it, because I was debarred from hearing and speaking to him by crowds of busy people to whose infirmities he devoted himself. And when he was not engaged with them—which was never for long at a time—he was either refreshing his body with necessary food or his mind with reading.

Augustine notes how Ambrose (apparently strange for the times) would often sit and read in silence (as opposed to reading aloud): “Now, as he read, his eyes glanced over the pages and his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent.”

He recalls how he and some friends often went to Ambrose’s room “for no one was forbidden to enter” only to find the esteemed bishop reading to himself in silence. He then says:

After we had sat a long time in silence—for who would dare interrupt one so intent?—we would then depart, realizing that he was unwilling to be distracted in the little time he could gain from for the recruiting of his mind, free from the clamor of other men’s business.

Augustine confides: “But actually I could find no opportunity of putting the questions I desired to that holy oracle of thine in his heart, unless it could be dealt with briefly. However, those surgings in me required that he should give me his full leisure so that I might pour them out to him; but I never found him so.”

Though he did not get the personal, pastoral attention he desired, Augustine notes that still, “I heard him, indeed, every Lord’s Day, ‘rightly dividing the word of truth’ among the people.” This proved adequate slowly to unravel “all those knots of crafty calumnies” which the Manicheans “had knit together against the divine books.”

Though one might not necessarily commend Ambrose’s pastoral care methods, one can at least perhaps surmise that while there might not always be adequate time or opportunity for personal work, the public ministry of the Word can still prove effective.

JTR

Augustine on Ambrose: Friendly and Eloquent

In his Confessions, Augustine describes how, as a young man, he bounced from Carthage to Rome to Milan, picking up work teaching rhetoric along the way and dabbling in philosophy and Manichean theology.

In Milan he encountered the preaching ministry of Ambrose (c. 340-397), which eventually led to his conversion. Here is Augustine’s first description of Ambrose in Book V, Chapter XIII:

And to Milan I came, to Ambrose the bishop, famed through the whole world as one of the best of men, thy devoted servant. His eloquent discourse in those times abundantly provided thy people with the flour of thy wheat, the gladness of thy oil, and the sober intoxication of thy wine. To him I was led by thee without my knowledge, that by him I might be led to thee in full knowledge. The man of God received me as a father would, and welcomed my coming as a good bishop should. And I began to love him, of course, not at the first as a teacher of the truth, for I had entirely despaired of finding that in thy Church—but as a friendly man. And I studiously listened to him—though not with the right motive—as he preached to the people. I was trying to discover whether his eloquence came up to his reputation, and whether it flowed fuller or thinner than others said it did. And thus I hung on his words intently, but, as to his subject matter, I was only a careless and contemptuous listener.

This is a reminder to Christian preachers to strive for friendliness and eloquence as we conduct our public ministry. We never know how God might be pleased to be working among our hearers.

JTR