47. In the moderate style there is that praise of virginity
style of calm diction, which readers can easily discover for themselves.
46. Saint Ambrose too, when dealing with the great matter of the Holy Spirit, to demonstrate his equality with the Father and the Son, employs a plain, calm style of speaking, since the subject he has undertaken does not call for flowery language, or for emotional fireworks to sway people's spirits, but requires instructive examples and illustrations of the matters proposed. So among other things, he says at the beginning of this work:[51]
Gideon was moved by this oracle, and on hearing that the Lord would deliver his people from their enemies through one man, even in the absence of thousands of the people, he offered a kid of the goats, and following the angel's instructions placed its flesh and unleavened bread on the rock, and poured the broth over it all. The moment the angel of God touched it all with the tip of the rod he carried, fire burst out of the rock, and thus the sacrifice which was offered was consumed.[52] This seems to be a clear indication that that rock was a type of the body of Christ, because it is written, They drank from the rock following them, and the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:4). This certainly did not refer to his divinity, but to his flesh, which has flooded the hearts of thirsty people with the perennial river of his blood. So it was then already declared in a mystery that the Lord Jesus would abolish in his flesh, by being crucified, the sins of the whole world, and not only actual misdeeds, but also the greedy lusts entertained in thought. For the flesh of the kid relates to faults of actual commission, the broth to the enticements of greed, as it is written, The people lusted with a very bad desire, and they said, who will feed us with flesh? (Num 11:4). That the angel, therefore, stretched out his rod and touched the rock, from which fire came out, showed that the flesh of the Lord, filled with the divine Spirit, would burn up all the sins of the human condition. Which is why the Lord too said, I have come to cast fire upon the earth (Lk 12:49); and so on in the rest of the work, in which he is at pains to teach and prove the point.
47. In the moderate style there is that praise of virginity