Ambrose of Milan

In his own words on Colossians

• Colossians 1:9

  What, then, is more divine than the working of the Holy Spirit, since God Himself testifies that the Holy Spirit presides over His blessings, saying: "I will put My Spirit upon thy seed and My blessings upon thy children." For no blessing can be full except through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, too, the Apostle found nothing better to wish us than this, as He himself said: "We cease not to pray and make request for you that ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding walking worthily of God." He taught, then, that this was the will of God, that rather by walking in good works and words and affections, we should be filled with the will of God, Who puts His Holy Spirit in our hearts.

  On the Holy Spirit, Book 1

• Colossians 1:15

  Be like the image on the coin, unchangeable, keeping the same habits every day. When you see the coin, see the image; when you see the law, see Christ, the image of God, in the law. And because he himself is the image of the invisible and incorruptible God, let him shine for you as in the mirror of the law. Confess him in the law that you may acknowledge him in the gospel.

  Letter 7

• Colossians 1:15

  The Apostle saith that Christ is the image of the Father-for he calls Him the image of the invisible God, the first-begotten of all creation. First-begotten, mark you, not first-created, in order that He may be believed to be both begotten, in virtue of His nature, and first in virtue of His eternity.

  Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 1

• Colossians 1:16

  But let those who propound this difficulty and endeavour to enwrap the truth in a cloud tell us themselves whether the Father exerts His power of begetting within or without limits of time. If they say "within limits of time," then they will attribute to the Father what they object against the Son, so as to make the Father seem to have begun to be what He was not before. If their answer is "without such limits," then what is left them but to resolve for themselves the problem they have propounded, and acknowledge that the Son is not begotten under limits and conditions of time, since they deny that the Father so begets? If the Son, then, is not begotten within limits of time, we are free to judge that nothing can have existed before the Son, Whose being is not confined by time. If, indeed, there was anything in being before the Son, then it instantly follows that in Him were not created all things in heaven or in earth, and the Apostle is shown to have erred in so setting it down in his Epistle, whereas, if before He was begotten there was nothing, I see not wherefore He, before Whom none was, should be said to have been after any.

  Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 4, Chapter 8.99-100

• Colossians 1:16

  "Thou hast," it is said, "made them all in wisdom." Do we here understand that Wisdom was without a share in the things that were made? But "all things were made by Him." And David says: "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established." So, then, he himself who calls the Son of God the maker even of heavenly things, has also plainly said that all things were made in the Son, that in the renewal of His works He might by no means separate the Son from the Father, but unite Him to the Father. Paul, too, says: "For in Him were all things created in the heavens and in the earth, Visible and invisible." Does he, then, when he says, "in Him," deny that they were made through Him? Certainly he did not deny but affirmed it. And further he says in another place: "One Lord Jesus, through Whom are all things." In saying, then, "through Him," has he denied that all things were made in Him, through Whom he says that all things exist? These words, "in Him" and "with Him," have this force, that by them is understood one and like in all respects, not contrary. Which he also made clear farther on, saying: "All things have been created through Him and in Him;" for, as we said above, Scripture witnesses that these three expressions, "with Him," and "through Him," and "in Him," are equivalent in Christ. For you read that all things were made through Him and in Him.

  On the Holy Spirit, Book 3, Chapter 12.83-84

• Colossians 1:17

  Now we come to that laughable method, attempted by some, of showing a difference of Power to subsist between Father and Son, on the strength of apostolic testimony, it being written "But for us there is One God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him, and One Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and we through Him." It is urged that no small difference in degree of Divine Majesty is signified in the affirmation that all things are "of" the Father, and "through" the Son. Whereas nothing is clearer than that here a plain reason is given of the Omnipotence of the Son, inasmuch as whilst all things are "of" the Father, none the less are they all "through" the Son. The Father is not "amongst" all things, for to Him it is confessed that "all things serve Thee." Nor is the Son reckoned "amongst" all things, for "all things were made by Him," and "all things exist together in Him, and He is above all the heavens." The Son, therefore, exists not "amongst" but above all things, being, indeed, after the flesh, of the people, of the Jews, but yet at the same time God over all, blessed for ever, having a Name which is above every name, it being said of Him, "Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet." But in making all things subject to Him, He left nothing that is not subject, even as the Apostle hath said.

  Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 4

• Colossians 1:19

  In regard of His Godhead, therefore, the Son of God so hath His own glory, that the glory of Father and Son is one: He is not, therefore, inferior in splendour, for the glory is one, nor lower in Godhead, for the fulness of the Godhead is in Christ.

  Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 2

• Colossians 2:3

  On consideration, your Majesty, of the reason wherefore men have so far gone astray, or that many-alas!-should follow diverse ways of belief concerning the Son of God, the marvel seems to be, not at all that human knowledge has been baffled in dealing with superhuman things, but that it has not submitted to the authority of the Scriptures. What reason, indeed, is there to wonder, if by their worldly wisdom men failed to comprehend the mystery of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden, that mystery of which not even angels have been able to take knowledge, save by revelation?

  Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 4

• Colossians 2:9

  Oneness in Godhead the Law hath proved, which speaks of one God, as also the Apostle, by saying of Christ; "In Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." For if, as the Apostle saith, all the fulness of the Godhead, bodily, is in Christ, then must the Father and the Son be confessed to be of one Godhead; or if it is desired to sunder the Godhead of the Son from the Godhead of the Father, whilst the Son possesses all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, what is supposed to be further reserved, seeing that nothing remains over and above the fulness of perfection? Therefore the Godhead is one.

  Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 3

• Colossians 2:11

  Therefore, the Lord permitted mortality to steal in [as an atonement], that guilt might cease. But so that the end set by nature might not also be in death, there was granted a resurrection from the dead, that the guilt might fail through death but the nature be continued through resurrection. And so death is a passage for all men, but you must pass with virtuous steadfastness—a passage from corruption to incorruption, from mortality to immortality, from disquiet to tranquillity…. What indeed is this death but the burial of vices and the awakening of virtues? For this reason "may my soul depart among the souls of the righteous," that is, "may it be buried together with them," that it may lay down its sins and take up the grace of the just, who "bear about the dying of Christ in their body" and soul.

• Colossians 2:11

  This, too, is plain, that in him who is baptized the Son of God is crucified, for our flesh could not do away sin unless it were crucified in Jesus Christ. And then it is written that: "All we who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death." And farther on: "If we have been planted in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing that our old man was fastened with Him to His cross." And to the Colossians he says: "Buried with Him by baptism, wherein ye also rose again with Him." Which was written to the intent that we should believe that He is crucified in us, that our sins may be purged through Him, that He, Who alone can forgive sins, may nail to His cross the handwriting which was against us.

  Concerning Repentance, Book 2

• Colossians 2:14

  But Christ, who was sold, is held by the assumption of the condition, not by the price of guilt, because He Himself did not commit sin. Therefore, He contracted our debt, not His own money; He took away the handwriting, removed the lender, stripped off the debtor: He alone paid what was owed by all. It was not lawful for us to escape from servitude. He undertook this for us, to repel the servitude of the world, restore the freedom of paradise, and bestow a new grace of His fellowship in honor. This is by way of mystery.

  On Joseph the Patriarch

• Colossians 2:16

  What then? shall we esteem festival days by eating and drinking? But let no man judge us in respect of eating; "for we know that the Law is spiritual." "Let no man therefore judge us in any meats or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or new moons, or a sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ." Let us, then, seek the body of Christ which the voice of the Father, from heaven, as it were the last trumpet, has shown to you at the time when the Jews said that it thundered; the body of Christ, which again the last trump shall reveal; for "the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven at the voice of the Archangel, and at the trump of God, and they that are dead in Christ shall rise again;" for "where the body is, there too are the eagles," where the body of Christ is, there is the truth.

  On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus, Book 2

• Colossians 2:20

  Indeed, we are often deceived by sight, and we see things for the most part other than they really are. We are deceived by hearing too. And so, if we do not wish to be deceived, let us contemplate not what is seen but what is unseen…. On this account the apostle also cries out: "Do not touch, nor taste, nor handle, things which must all perish"; for things which are for the body's indulgence are also for its corruption.

• Colossians 2:20

  But they even fear lest their former fasting should be reckoned against them. Let them choose whichever they like: if they ever fasted, let them repent of their good work, if never, let them confess their own intemperance and luxury. And so they assert that Paul was a teacher of excess. But who can be a teacher of temperance if he was a teacher of excess, who chastised his body and brought it into subjection, and recorded his performance of the service he owed to Christ by many fastings; and this not for the purpose of praising himself and his doings, but that he might teach us, what example to follow. Did he then teach excess who said, "Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? Touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using;" who also says, "Not in indulgence of the body, not in any honour to the satisfying and love of the flesh, not in the lusts of error; but in the Spirit by Whom we are renewed." If what the Apostle has said is not enough, let them hear the Prophet saying, "I chastened myself with fasting." He therefore who fasts not is uncovered and naked and exposed to wounds. And if Adam had clothed himself with fasting he would not have been found to be naked. Nineveh delivered itself from death by fasting. And the Lord Himself says, "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."

  Letter 42

• Colossians 2:20

  With the knowledge of what Paul had seen and heard in paradise, he cried out saying: "Why, as if still viewing the world do you lay down rules: 'Do not touch; nor handle; nor taste!'—things which must all perish in their very use!" He wished us to be in the world in figure, not in actual possession and use of it. We are to use the world as if we did not use it, as if we were but passing through, not residing in it, walking through as in a dream, not with desire, so that with the speed of thought we might pass through the shadow of this world.

• Colossians 3:3

  For this is the meaning of flight: to know your goal, to unburden oneself of the world, to unburden oneself of the body…. This is the meaning of flight from here—to die to the elements of this world, to hide one's life in God, to turn aside from corruptions, not to defile oneself with the objects of desire and to be ignorant of the things of this world.

• Colossians 3:3

  We should be aware of the fact, therefore, that where God has planted the tree of life he has also planted a tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of paradise. It is understood that he planted it in the middle. Therefore, in the middle of paradise there was both a tree of life and a cause for death. Keep in mind that man did not create life. By carrying out and observing the precepts of God it was possible for man to find life. This was the life mentioned by the apostle: "Your life is hidden with Christ in God." Man, therefore, was, figuratively speaking, either in the shadow of life—because our life on earth is but a shadow—or man had life, as it were, in pledge, for he had been breathed on by God.

  On Paradise

• Colossians 3:9

  But since the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one Nature, the Father certainly will not be in subjection to Himself. And therefore the Son will not be in subjection in that in which He is one with the Father; lest it should seem that through the unity of the Godhead the Father also is in subjection to the Son. Therefore, as upon that cross it was not the fulness of the Godhead, but our weakness that was brought into subjection, so also will the Son hereafter become subject to the Father in the participation of our nature, in order that when the lusts of the flesh are brought into subjection the heart may have no care for riches, or ambition, or pleasures; but that God may be all to us, if we live after His image and likeness, as far as we can attain to it, through all. The benefit has passed, then, from the individual to the community; for in His flesh He has tamed the nature of all human flesh. Thus, according to the Apostle: "As we have borne the image of the earthly, so also shall we bear the image of the heavenly." This thing certainly cannot come to pass except in the inner man. Therefore, "laying aside all these," that is those things which we read of: "anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication;" as he also says below: "Let us, having put off the old man with his deeds, put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created Him."

  Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 5, Chapter 13.174-175

• Colossians 3:21

  We have here the message of the Scriptures which declares: "Children, love your fathers; parents, do not provoke your children to anger." Nature has implanted in beasts the instinct to love their own brood and hold dear their own progeny. But the beasts know nothing of relationsinlaw. Here, parents do not become estranged from their offspring by the act of changing their mates. They know nothing of preferences given to children of a later union to the neglect of those of a former marriage. They are conscious of the value of their pledges and are unacquainted with distinctions in respect to love, to incentives due to hate and to discriminations in acts that involve wrongdoing. Wild creatures have a nature that is simple and one which has no concern in the perversion of truth. And so the Lord has ordained that those creatures to whom he has bestowed a minimum of reason are endowed with the maximum of feeling.

  The Six Days of Creation