“Casta meretrix”: saggio sull'ecclesiologia di sant'Ambrogio

Description

English translation

Rahab a type for the Church

St. Ambrose uses the phrase "casta meretrix " in In Lucam III:23 (Patrologiae Latina XV, 1681):

Rahab illa typo meretrix (Josue , ii, 1), mysterio ecclesia indicavit: quae multorum convenarum publicæ non recusat, et quo conjunctior pluribus, castior; immaculata virgo, sine ruga, pudore integra, amore plebeia, casta meretrix , vidua sterilis, virgo fecunda. Meretrix, quia a pluribus amatoribus frequentatur cum dilectionis illecebra, et sine colluvione delicti: "Qui," enim, "adhæret meretrici, unum corpus est." (I Cor. , vi, 16). Vidua sterilis, quæ viro parare non norit absente: venit vir, et hunc populum plebemque generavit. Virgo fecunda, quæ hanc genuit multitudinem cum fructu amoris, sine usu libidinis.

Rahab [Joshua 2:1] — who as a type was a prostitute, but as a mystery is the Church — showed in her blood the future sign of Universal Salvation amid the world’s carnage; she does not refuse to unite herself with numerous fugitives, and is all the more chaste in the extent to which she is closely joined to the greater number of them; she is the immaculate virgin, without a wrinkle, uncontaminated in her modesty, plebeian in her love, a chaste whore , a barren widow, a fecund virgin.* A whore because she frequents many lovers with the enticements of love: For "he who is joined to a harlot is one body" (1 Cor. 6:16). A barren widow who does not bear when her husband is absent; the husband coming, she gives birth to this people and nation. A fertile virgin who gives birth to this multitude with the fruit of love, without the use of lust.

*translation up to here from Cdl. Biffi, as quoted in Br. André Marie's "Is the Church a 'Harlot'?"; what followers is my translation.

St. Ambrose's "casta meretrix " illustrates the sanctity of the Church and its necessity for salvation; cf. Boccaccio on the Church's sanctity despite a sinful clergy.