Letter 58

From: Ambrose, Bishop of Milan To: The Church at Milan Date: ~388 AD Context: A meditation on the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, arguing that the fall of the Temple was divinely ordained to clear the way for the universal Church, and warning against any attempt to rebuild it. Ambrose to the faithful. The Emperor Julian [Julian "the Apostate," 361-363, who attempted to reverse the Christianization of the empire] tried to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. He failed. Fires erupted from the foundations. Workers were killed. The project was abandoned. This was not an accident. It was a sign. God destroyed the Temple in 70 AD through the armies of Titus, and he will not allow it to be rebuilt — because what the Temple foreshadowed has been fulfilled in Christ. The sacrifices of the old covenant pointed toward the one sacrifice on the cross. To rebuild the Temple would be to deny that the cross accomplished what it accomplished. Some ask: was the destruction of the Temple not a tragedy? For the Jewish people, it was — and we should not minimize their grief. The Temple was the center of their world, the place where heaven met earth, the dwelling of God's name. Its loss was devastating. But God's purposes are larger than any single building or any single people. The Temple was particular — one place, one nation, one priestly caste. The Church is universal — every place, every nation, every believer a priest. The movement from Temple to Church is the movement from shadow to substance, from promise to fulfillment. Julian tried to reverse that movement, and God stopped him. The ruins of his project at Jerusalem are a permanent testimony that what God has ended, no emperor can restart. We do not build our faith on a mountain in Jerusalem but on the cornerstone that the builders rejected (Psalm 118:22). That cornerstone is Christ, and no fire can shake what is built on him. Farewell.

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