The Instructor 1.6.33–1.6.52

… and wickedness. The blessed Paul most clearly released us from the inquiry in the first letter to the Corinthians, writing: “Brothers, do not be children in your minds; be infants in evil, but in your minds be perfect.” And the saying, “When I was an infant, I thought as an infant, I spoke as an infant,” hints at his life under the law, in which, not yet as one simple but as one still foolish, thinking childish things he persecuted, and speaking childish things he blasphemed the Word. For “infant” has two meanings. “When I became a man,” Paul says again, “I did away with the things of the infant.” The apostle who confesses that he does away with infancy, banishing it, is not hinting at an immature stage of life, nor at a fixed measure of time, nor at other secret teachings of manly and more perfect lessons; but he calls “infants” those under the law, who are terrified by fear as children are by bogeys, and “men” those who obey the Word and are free: we who have believed, saved by our own free choice, frightened by fear intelligently, not foolishly. The apostle himself will bear witness to this, calling the Jews heirs according to the former covenant, and us heirs according to the promise: “I say,” he says, “that as long as the heir is an infant, he differs in nothing from a slave, though he is lord of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time set by the father. So we too, when we were infants, were enslaved under the elements of the world; but when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption through him.”

See how he acknowledged that those under fear and sins are infants, while he made men of those under faith, calling them sons, in contrast to the infants under the law. “For you are no longer a slave,” he says, “but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” What, then, does the son lack after the inheritance? So it is fitting to explain the words “When I was an infant” thus: that is, when I was a Jew (for he was a Hebrew from the beginning), “I thought as an infant,” since I followed the law; “but when I became a man,” I no longer think the things of the infant, that is, of the law, but the things of the man, that is, of Christ, whom alone Scripture, as we said before, calls “man”; “I did away with the things of the infant.” But infancy in Christ is perfection, compared with the law. Having come this far, we must defend our infancy, and also explain what the apostle said: “I gave you milk to drink, as infants in Christ, not solid food; for you were not yet able; indeed, even now you are not able.” For it seems to me that the saying should not be understood in the Jewish way. I will set beside it that other Scripture: “I will bring you into the good land, flowing with milk and honey.” There arises, then,

… a very great difficulty, when these Scriptures are compared, as to what they mean. For if the infancy that comes by milk is the beginning of faith in Christ, and it is despised as childish and imperfect, how is the rest of the perfect and knowing man, after solid food, honored again with infant's milk? Perhaps, then, the “as,” which indicates a comparison, shows something like this, and the saying should be read as follows: “I gave you milk to drink in Christ,” and, pausing a little, let us add, “as infants,” so that, by this division of the reading, we may accept a meaning like this: I instructed you in Christ with simple, true, and natural spiritual food. For such is the life-nourishing substance of milk, springing from loving breasts. So that the whole may be understood thus: just as nurses rear newborn children on milk, so I too, with the Word, the milk of Christ, instill spiritual food into you.

So milk is perfect food, since it is perfect and leads to the end that has no end. That is why the same milk and honey are promised in the rest as well. Rightly the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, so that the Word may be clearly shown to be both, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end [the Word being figuratively called milk]. Homer too, unwillingly, prophesies something of this kind when he calls the righteous among men “milk-drinkers.” The Scripture can also be understood in this way: “And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to people of the flesh, as to infants in Christ,” so that “people of the flesh” may be understood as those recently instructed and still infants in Christ. For he called spiritual those who have already believed in the Holy Spirit, and fleshly those newly instructed and not yet purified, whom he rightly calls “still fleshly,” since, like the pagans, they still think the things of the flesh. “For where there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and walking as mere men?” That is why he says, “I gave you milk to drink,” meaning, I poured into you the knowledge that nourishes from instruction to eternal life. And the word “I gave to drink” is a symbol of perfect partaking; for the perfect are said to drink, and infants to suck. “For my blood,” says the Lord, “is true drink.” When he said, “I gave you milk to drink,” did he not then hint at the perfect gladness in the Word, the milk, the knowledge of the truth? And what follows, “not solid food, for you were not yet able,” may hint at the clear revelation in the age to come, face to face, like solid food. “For now we see as in a mirror,” the same apostle says, “but then face to face.” So he added that too: “Indeed, even now you are not able, for you are still fleshly,” thinking the things of the flesh: desiring, loving, being jealous, raging, envying. Not because we are still in the flesh, as some have supposed; for with the flesh, having a face like the angels', we shall see the promise face to face.

(… face to face.) But if that promise truly comes after our departure from here, “which eye has not seen, nor has it entered into the mind of man,” how do they claim to know, not having understood by the Spirit but having received it by learning, “what ear has never heard,” except that which was caught up to the third heaven? But even that he was commanded to keep silent about at the time. And if the boasting of knowledge is human wisdom, which is what remains to be understood, hear the law of Scripture: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, and let not the strong man boast in his strength; but let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” But we are “taught by God” and boast in the name of Christ. How, then, should we not suppose that the apostle understood the milk of infants in this way? And if those who lead the churches are shepherds in the image of the Good Shepherd, and we are the sheep, should we not suppose that the Lord, speaking allegorically, keeps to the sequence by calling himself the milk of the flock? And the saying is again to be fitted to the meaning: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able,” not supposing that the solid food is something other than the milk, but the same in substance. For the same Word is either loosened and gentle like

milk, or set and thickened like solid food. Moreover, taking it in this way, we may understand milk as the proclamation, poured out most widely, and solid food as faith, compacted by instruction into a foundation; faith, being more solid than hearing, is likened to food, being given body in the soul itself. The Lord also expressed this kind of food in another way, by symbols, in the Gospel according to John, when he said, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood,” speaking figuratively of the evident drink and food of faith and of the promise. By these the church, like a human being composed of many members, is watered and grows, is knit together and made firm from both: from the body, which is faith, and from the soul, which is hope; just as the Lord too is of flesh and blood. For hope is truly the blood of faith, by which faith is held together as by a soul; and when hope breathes its last, like blood that has drained away, the vital force of faith is dissolved.

But if some want to argue further, saying that milk signifies the first lessons, as the first food, and solid food spiritual knowledge, raising themselves up to knowledge, let them know that when they call solid food meat and the flesh and blood of Jesus, they are brought down by their own boastful wisdom to the true simplicity. For blood is found to be the first thing formed in a human being, and some have even dared to call it the substance of the soul. This blood, changed by a natural digestion when the mother conceives, blooms and ages through sympathetic love, so that the child need not fear. Blood is more liquid than flesh, being a kind of liquid flesh; and milk is more nourishing than blood and finer in texture. For whether the blood supplied to the embryo, previously sent through the mother's navel, or the menstrual flow itself, shut off from its proper course, is commanded by God, who nourishes all and brings all to birth, to go by a natural diffusion to the breasts, now swelling, and, changed by warm air, is prepared as desirable food for the infant, it is the blood that is changed. For of all the members the breasts are in closest sympathy with the womb. So when, at birth, the vessel by which blood was carried to the embryo is cut off, its passage closes, and the blood takes its course toward the breasts; and when much of it flows there, they are distended and the blood is changed into milk, just as blood is changed into pus in an ulcer. Or again, the veins beside the breasts open when they are stretched in pregnancy, and the blood pours into the natural cavities of the breasts; mixed with the air sent down from the neighboring arteries, while the underlying substance of the blood remains intact, it foams and turns white, and by such agitation is changed into froth, much as the sea, which the poets say, when winds strike it, “spits out the foam of the brine.” But its substance remains blood.

In this way rivers too, rushing along with a roar, are churned by the surrounding air they take in and seethe with foam; and the moisture in our mouths is whitened by breath. What objection, then, is there to admitting that blood too is changed by air to the brightest and whitest? It undergoes the change in quality, not in substance. Indeed, you could find nothing more nourishing than milk, nor sweeter, nor whiter.

The spiritual food is like it in every way: sweet through grace, nourishing as life, white as the day of Christ; and the blood of the Word has been shown to be like milk. In this way milk is provided at birth for the infant by God's plan; and the breasts, which until then stood upright looking toward the husband, now bend toward the child, taught to supply the easily digested food prepared by nature for the nurture of salvation. For the breasts are not full like springs, with milk ready-made flowing into them; they change the food within themselves, make milk, and send it out. This food, suited and fitting for the newly formed and newborn child, is prepared by God, the nourisher and Father of those born and born again, just as the manna flowed from heaven for the Hebrews of old, the heavenly food of angels. Indeed, even now nurses call the first-flowing drink of milk by the same name as that food, “manna.” But women who conceive and become mothers pour forth milk; the Lord Christ, the fruit of the Virgin, did not bless women's breasts nor judge them to be nourishers, but, since the loving and kind Father rained down the Word, he himself has become spiritual food for the self-controlled.

O mystic wonder! One is the Father of all things, one also the Word of all things, and the Holy Spirit is one and the same everywhere; and there is one only virgin mother. I love to call her the church. This mother alone had no milk, because she alone did not become a woman; she is at once virgin and mother, undefiled as a virgin, loving as a mother. Calling her children to her, she nurses them with holy milk, the Word for infants. So she had no milk, because the milk was … this fair and familiar child, the body of Christ, the young people nourished by the Word, whom the Lord himself brought forth in the travail of the flesh, whom the Lord himself swaddled in his precious blood. O holy births! O holy swaddling clothes! The Word is everything to the infant: father and mother and instructor and nurse. “Eat my flesh,” he says, “and drink my blood.”

These are the proper foods the Lord supplies to us: he holds out his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking to the children for their growth. O paradoxical mystery! He commands us to strip off the old corruption of the flesh, as also the old food, and, partaking of another, new diet, that of Christ, to receive him, if possible, and store him up within ourselves, and to take the Savior into our breasts, so that we may put an end to the passions of our flesh. But you do not wish to understand it in this way, but perhaps more commonly. Hear it in this way too: the Holy Spirit is figuratively called flesh for us, for the flesh was fashioned by him; and blood points to the Word, for the Word has been poured out on our life like rich blood. The mingling of both is the Lord, the food of the infants: the Lord is Spirit and Word. The food, that is, the Lord Jesus, that is, the Word of God, Spirit made flesh, holy heavenly flesh. The food is the Father's milk, by which alone we infants are nursed. The “beloved” Word himself, our nourisher, poured out his own blood for us, saving humanity; through him, having believed in God, we flee to the “care-forgetting breast” of the Father, the Word; and he alone, it seems, supplies us infants with the milk of love; and truly

blessed are those alone who suck this breast. That is why Peter says: “Putting away, then, all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander, like newborn babes long for the rational milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good.” And even if one were to grant them that solid food is something other than milk, how will they not be impaled on their own arguments, not having understood nature? For in winter, when the surrounding air is dense and gives no passage to the heat shut up inside, food is cooked and digested and passes into the veins as blood; and they, getting no outlet, become very full, and are distended and throb. That is why nurses are then especially full of milk. We showed a little earlier that in women who have given birth blood passes into milk by change, not in substance, just as the fair hair of the aged turns gray. In summer, on the other hand, the body, being more porous, lets the food pass off more easily, and there is least milk, since there is least blood; for not all the food is retained.

If, then, digested food turns to blood, and blood turns to milk, blood is the preparation for milk, as the seed is for a human being and the pip for a vine. With milk, then, the Lord's food, we are nursed as soon as we are born; and as soon as we are born again we have been honored with the hope of rest, being given the good news of the Jerusalem above, in which, it is written, honey and milk rain down; through material food we are betrothed to the holy food as well. For foods are done away with, as the apostle himself says; but the food that comes through milk leads the way to heaven, having reared citizens of heaven and fellow dancers with the angels. And since the Word is a gushing spring of life and is called a river of oil, Paul rightly, speaking figuratively and calling him milk, adds “I gave to drink”; for the Word, the food of truth, is drunk. Indeed, drink is called liquid food. The same thing can be both food and drink, in different respects, just as cheese is a curdling of milk, or curdled milk. I am not concerned now to chase words, except that one substance serves both kinds of food. And for children at the breast milk alone is enough, being both drink and food. “I have food to eat,” says the Lord, “which you do not know; my food is to do the will of him who sent me.”

You see another food, spoken of figuratively like milk: the will of God. He also called the completion of his own passion a “cup,” by extension of the word, because he had only to drink it and finish it. So for Christ the food was the fulfilling of the Father's will; but for us infants, who milk the Word of heaven, the food is Christ himself. That is why seeking is called mastheuein (from mastos, “breast”): because to the infants who seek the Word, the Father's breasts of love for humankind supply milk. Further, the Word also confesses himself to be the bread of heaven: “For it was not Moses,” he says, “who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” Here the mystery of the bread should be noted: he calls it flesh, as rising, supposedly [through fire], just as wheat rises from decay and sowing, and also as formed by fire for the joy of the church, like bread that is baked.

But this will be shown more clearly in our work On the Resurrection. Since he said, “And the bread which I will give is my flesh,” and flesh is watered with blood, and blood is figuratively called wine, we must know that, as bread crumbled into a mixture of wine and water soaks up the wine and leaves the watery part, so the flesh of the Lord, the bread of heaven, drinks up the blood, nourishing to incorruption those of humankind who are heavenly, and leaving to corruption only the fleshly desires. So the Word is spoken of figuratively in many ways: as food, flesh, nourishment, bread, blood, and milk; the Lord is all these for the enjoyment of us who have believed in him. Let no one, then, be surprised that we say the Lord's blood is figuratively called milk. Is it not also figuratively called wine? “Washing his robe in wine,” it says, “and his garment in the blood of the grape.” He says that he will adorn the body of the Word with his own blood, just as he will nourish with his own Spirit those who hunger for the Word. And that the blood is the Word is witnessed by the blood of righteous Abel pleading with God; for the blood would never have uttered a voice unless it is understood as the Word. For the righteous man of old is a type of the new Righteous One, and the old blood that pleads, pleads on behalf of the new blood.

The blood, the Word, speaks to God, since it signified the Word who was to suffer. And the flesh itself and the blood in it are watered and made to grow by milk, as if by a return of care. The formation of what is conceived also takes place when the seed is mixed with the pure residue left from the monthly cleansing; for the power in the seed, clotting the nature of the blood as rennet sets milk, produces the substance that is formed. For a right mixture flourishes, while an extreme brings the danger of barrenness. So too in the earth itself: seed flooded by heavy rain is washed away, and through drought it is dried up for lack of moisture; but sap, being sticky, holds the seed together and makes it grow. Some suppose that the seed of an animal is in substance the foam of the blood, which, stirred by the innate heat of the male in intercourse, is fanned into foam and deposited in the seminal veins; from this, Diogenes of Apollonia holds, sexual union is called aphrodisia (from aphros, “foam”).

From all this it is plain that blood is the substance of the human body. Indeed, what is in the womb is at first a milk-like consistency of liquid; then this consistency becomes blood and turns into flesh; and, set in the womb by the natural and warm breath by which the embryo is shaped, it is brought to life. And after birth the child is nourished again by the same blood; for the flow of milk is of the nature of blood, and milk is the spring of nourishment, by which a woman is shown to have truly given birth and to be a mother, and by which she gains a charm of love. That is why, mystically, the Holy Spirit in the apostle, using the voice of the Lord, says, “I gave you milk to drink.” For if we have been born again into Christ, he who regenerated us nourishes us with his own milk, the Word; for everything that begets seems at once to supply food to what is begotten. And as the new birth is spiritual, so correspondingly the food of the human being has become spiritual. In every way, then, we have been united to Christ in all things: into kinship through his blood, by which we are redeemed; into sympathy through the nurture that comes from the Word; and into incorruption through his training. “Among mortals, rearing children often wins more love than begetting them.”

The same thing, then, blood and milk, is a symbol of the Lord's passion and teaching. So each of us infants may boast in the Lord, saying: “I claim to be of a good father's race and blood.” That milk comes from blood by change is already clear; but it can also be learned from the flocks and herds. For these animals, in the season of the year we call spring, when the air is moister, and the grass and pastures are then juicy and moist, first fill with blood, as is shown by the swelling of the veins, the vessels bulging; and from the blood the milk flows more abundantly. In summer, on the other hand, the blood, scorched and dried by the heat, stops the change, and so they give less milk. Indeed, milk has a most natural kinship with water, just as the spiritual washing has with the spiritual food. Those who sip a little cold water after drinking the milk just mentioned benefit at once; for its fellowship with water does not let the milk turn sour, not by any antipathy, but by sympathy, as it is further ripened. And the fellowship the Word has with baptism, milk has with water.

For milk alone of liquids accepts mixture with water, and is taken for cleansing, as baptism is taken for the forgiveness of sins. It also mixes naturally with honey, and this again for cleansing, with sweet food; for the Word, mingled with love for humankind, at once heals the passions and cleanses away sins. And the words “From his tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey” seem to me to have been said of the Word, who is honey; and prophecy often exalts him “above honey and the honeycomb.” Milk also mixes with sweet wine, and the mixture is beneficial, as when suffering is blended into incorruption. For milk is curdled by wine and separates, and whatever in it is impure is drained off. In the same way the spiritual fellowship of faith with the human being subject to suffering, curdling out the fleshly desires, draws the human being together into eternity, making him immortal by divine things. Many people also use the fat of milk,

which they call butter, for their lamps, making plain by a clear riddle the abundant oil of the Word, since he alone rightly nourishes, increases, and enlightens the infants. That is why Scripture says of the Lord: “He fed them with the produce of the fields; they sucked honey from the rock and oil from the solid rock, butter of cattle and milk of sheep with the fat of lambs,” and the rest that he gave them. And the one who prophesies the birth of the Child says, “Butter and honey shall he eat.” I am amazed how some dare to call themselves perfect and “gnostics,” thinking themselves above the apostle, puffed up and snorting with pride, when Paul himself confesses about himself: “Not that I have already obtained it or am already perfect; but I press on to see if I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ. Brothers, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus.” He considers himself perfect because he has been set free from his former life and holds to the better one, not as perfect in knowledge but as longing for the perfect. So he adds, “Let those of us who are perfect think this way,” clearly calling perfection the renouncing of sins and being born again to faith in the only Perfect One, forgetting our past sins.