7. Hence the Jew, being heir in the letter not in the spirit is as a child under tutors and governours; but the Christian, who recognizes that fulness of time wherein Christ came, Gal. iv. 4. made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeem all who were under the Law; the Christian, I say, Eph. iv. 13. by unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God grows up unto a perfect man: unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
Farewell, my son; love me, for I also love you.
LETTER LXXVI.
AT Irenæus’ request S. Ambrose points out the scope of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Therein is proposed to us a heavenly inheritance, a seat in heavenly places together with Christ, Who has obtained freedom for us. It sets forth to us charity, whereby we are united to Christ, as the end of faith. He adds that no other Epistle contains the mention of so many blessings, and he briefly recounts these one by one.
AMBROSE TO IRENÆUS, GREETING.
1. YOU have asked me to set forth to you the scope and substance of the Epistle to the Ephesians, an Epistle which seems somewhat obscure, unless by analyzing it we can gather what those motives are by which the Apostle would persuade us not to despair of the kingdom of God.
2. In the first place then he points out that the hope of reward and the inheritance of those heavenly promises which have been brought within our reach by the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, are wont to be a great encouragement to the good in the pursuit of virtue.
3. To this he has added that not only has a mode of return to Paradise been opened to us by Christ, but that even the honour of sitting in heavenly places has been imparted to this flesh of our body by its fellowship with the Body of Christ; so that you need no longer doubt the possibility of your own ascension, now that you know that your fellowship with the flesh of Christ subsists even in the kingdom of heaven, knowing also that by His Blood reconciliation has been made for all things, both on earth and in heaven, for He descended that He might fill all things: and, further, that by His Apostles, prophets, and priests, the whole world has been established, and the Gentiles gathered in; and that the end of our hope is the love of Him, that we may Eph. iv. 15. grow up into Him in all things; for He is the Head of all things, and unto Him according to the measure of His working we are all raised and built up by charity into one body.
4. We ought not therefore to despair of the members adhering to their Head; especially since from the beginningwe have Eph. i. 5. been predestinated by Jesus Christ to adoption as children of God in Himself: which predestination He has ratified, instructing us that the prediction made from the first, that Gen. ii. 24. a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh, is a sacrament of Christ and the Church. If therefore the union of Adam and Eve is Eph. v. 31, 32. a great sacrament which relates to Christ and the Church, it is certain that as Eve was bone of the bones of her husband, and flesh of his flesh, so we are members of the Body of Christ, bone of His Bones and flesh of His Flesh.