Ambrose, Saint

AMBROSE, Saint. - Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church.

A. is one of the most important and solemn figures among the bishops of the late 4th century. Of small stature and frail body, he was animated by a clear-sighted and practical spirit, by an irresistible force of will and persuasion, by a heart of noble and deep sentiments. It was a singular providence that this great spirit, without seeking it, found the place and the time most suited to display all the richness of its gifts, namely the time of the legislative Christianization of the Roman Empire, and the episcopal see of Milan, residence of three emperors, Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius.

I. CHRONOLOGY

The date of death emerges from the ancient biographer Paulinus (Vita, 32 and 48), and it was the eve of Easter of the third year after the death of Theodosius, therefore 4 April 397. The episcopal consecration, according to the explicit testimony of the contemporary St. Jerome (Chronicle, ed. Helm, pp. 247, 16-18), took place in the tenth year of Valentinian I, counting from the first consulate of the new emperor (1 January 365), therefore 374, not 373, as has been stated very recently. With the year the traditional day is also confirmed, 7 December, held by the martyrologies and menologies (Martyr. Romanum, p. 570), which in 374 was a Sunday. The year of birth has not yet been established with certainty. If A.'s father was truly "prefect of the Gauls," it is the year 339-40; if not, the autumn of 334, counting the 53 years completed, which A. indicates in epistle 59, from the arrival of the usurper Maximus in Italy, that is, from the autumn of 387, in which alone the whole situation indicated in that letter seems to have come about.
II. LIFE AND WORKS. HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
- 1. Family. Youth, state career (334-74). - A. was probably born at Trier, where his father seems to have been a high official in the administration of the Gauls (Vita, 3). The senatorial and Christian family of the "gens Aurelia" (De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae Urbis Romae, II, par. 1, Rome 1888, p. 177; id., in Bullettino di archeologia cristiana, 1st series,

2 [1864], p. 76 and 3 [1865], p. 15; id., Roma sotterranea, III, Rome 1877, p. 24; H. Delehaye, in Analecta Bollandiana, 1st series, 48 [1930] p. 193), was of Greek origin, as can be conjectured from the names Ambrosius, Uranius Satyrus (his brother), Sotheris (a relative, a martyr of the Diocletianic persecution). It had, however, long resided at Rome, where it appears among the richest and noblest families, probably related by marriage to the Symmachi (De excessu fratris, I, 32-34 ff.; Symmachus, Epistolae, I, 63; III, 30-37; Basil, Epist., 197, 1). It appears that the father died a few years after the birth of A. The mother therefore returned to Rome with her three children, Marcellina, Satyrus and A., who was the youngest (De excessu fratris, I: PL 54; Vita, 4), and who received the education of a noble Roman in grammar, in Roman and Greek literature, in rhetoric and in law. Nor were the circus and the theater lacking (Expl. Ps., 40, 24). But behind that profane exterior of the paternal house (perhaps St. Ambrose of the Massima, near the theater of Marcellus), there was the profound religious education of the catechumen. Although, according to the custom of the time, he was not yet baptized, it seems he already wrote as a layman a commentary on the four books of Kings and a free translation of the De bello iudaico of Flavius Josephus, the so-called Hegesippus (ed. by V. Ussani, in CSEL, 66, Vienna 1932). The only date that can, with some probability, be established for the Roman life of A. is the Epiphany of 353 or 354, when his sister Marcellina received the veil of the sacred virgins in St. Peter's from the hands of Pope Liberius (cf. De virginibus, III, 1; Vita, 4), with whom A. always felt bound by ties of profound veneration.

When his studies were finished, he departed - it is not known when - from Rome for Sirmium, where he began his state career with the office of advocate at the tribunal of the praetorian prefecture. Sextus Petronius Probus, praetorian prefect (12 March 368 - 3 Dec. 374) appointed him a member of his council, and after a few years, perhaps in 370, consularis, that is, governor of the provinces of Liguria and Aemilia, with his seat at Milan (Vita, 5). Legal practice thus brought him into contact with the most diverse classes of the people, amid the most varied affairs of public life. The stay of A. in Illyricum and of the Arian bishop Auxentius at Milan (355-74) made him thoroughly acquainted with the dissolving effect of Arianism in the Roman empire. It is then that the destinies of Providence for the "consularis" begin to take shape, whose popularity, joined with an extraordinary probity, prepares the ways for the future bishop.

2. First years of the bishop. The ascetic (374-78). - At the death of Auxentius, A. was forty years old. In the election of the successor the clashes between Arians and Catholics threatened to compromise public safety. The governor had to intervene to calm the rioting people, and he did so with such effectiveness that the contending parties united in electing the peacemaker himself, a representative of the imperial policy of religious neutrality, a personality loved by all. That a child had taken the initiative with the cry: A. bishop! is considered a legend already by Paulinus (Vita, 6; cf. Rufinus, Hist. eccl., II, 11; Socrates, IV, 30; Sozomen, VI, 34; Theodoret, IV, 6). The various attempts to escape the unexpected office are quite credible in a catechumen and high Roman official (Vita, 7-9; Ep., 21, 7; Ep., 63, 65); the assent of the emperor was also needed. He, however, not only consents but also guarantees the tranquillity of the city (Vita, 9; Ep., 21, 7). Then

A. accepts, recognizing in the wonderful universal consent the will of God. He prepares for Baptism, receives it, as had been agreed (Vita, 9), from a Catholic bishop (30 Nov. 374), and having received the other Orders in the following week, is consecrated bishop on 7 Dec. 374. The assent of all the bishops, notwithstanding can. 2 of the Nicene Council against neophytes, was well justified by the extraordinary circumstances (Ep., 63, 65).

The new bishop, although he immediately manifested his distinctly Catholic character by transporting from Cappadocia certain relics of the last Catholic predecessor, St. Dionysius (Basil, Ep., 197), for the moment prudently avoided dogmatic controversies, studying in depth the most intricate questions under the direction of the presbyter Simplician, and attending above all to the internal reform of the clergy (cf. De Off., I, 1-22) and to the propagation of the ascetic life. His preaching on the ideal of virginity provokes a religious movement throughout Italy and as far as Mauretania (De virginibus, I, 57, 59), and the books De virginibus and De viduis, with which he inaugurates his activity as an ecclesiastical writer (377), increase its effect. He himself, with the renunciation of his goods in favor of the Church of Milan and with the ascetic life of his family, gave a splendid example (Vita, 38). Fasting, assiduous prayer, reading and meditation characterize his private life, while his room is accessible to all who need spiritual and bodily help, and his sermons, with their inner fire and perfection of form, attract everyone (Augustine, Confess., V, 13; VI, 4). The thought of his asceticism is Greek, deriving from Athanasius, Origen, Philo, and later also from Basil; but life, dress, moderation are Roman, and everything is pervaded by a very personal interiority, hitherto too little studied. To that contemplative period of the first years belong, it seems, also his works De paradiso, De Cain et Abel, and De Noë.

The year 378 marked its end with the death of his brother, to whom he raised a perennial monument with the edition of the funeral orations De excessu fratris, a moving document of fraternal love and Christian hope. In the summer Pope Damasus summons him, in all probability, to the Roman Council, held against the accusations of the antipope Ursinus and of the Jew Isaac. The synodical letter to the emperor Gratian Et hoc gloriae (P. Constant, Epist. Rom. Pont., I, Paris 1721, pp. 523-29) betrays in its thoughts and in its language the inspiration of the bishop of Milan. And this is perhaps the first contact of A. with Gratian, who just then asked him for a brief compendium on the Trinitarian faith. A. in the last months of 378 responds with the first two books De fide, with which he inaugurates a new phase of his life, the open attack on Arianism and relations with the emperors.

3. First phase of the anti-Arian and anti-pagan struggle (379-84): A. and Gratian; the theologian. - As in asceticism, so also in theology A. derives his thoughts from the great theologians of the East already named, and for Trinitarian theology especially from Didymus of Alexandria. But the comparison with Hilary easily demonstrates the Roman and personal note of a clarity much more persuasive and definitive than the models: a most important merit for those times of turbulent dogmatic discussions, although obtained at the cost of the almost complete sacrifice of the profound speculation of the Greeks. For the emperor this theology without problems meant the conversion to a new religious policy: he recalled the Catholic bishops banished by Valens (d. 9 Aug. 378), still tolerated the mitigated Arians, but from then on proscribed the extremist Arians, that is, the Eunomians (Socrates, V, 2; Sozomen, VII, 1; Theodoret, V, 2), and a personal meeting with A. in the summer of 379 led to the law Onnes vetitae, which prohibited public worship to all heresies (Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 5, 5). Theodosius, taken as colleague by Gratian on 19 Jan. 379, followed his example and established the Catholic faith of the Roman Church as the sole public religion of the empire (Cunctos populos, of 27 Feb. 380). Under A.'s influence there follows a series of laws not only against heresies, but also against public pagan worship.

Thus, almost suddenly, A. became the foremost champion against Arianism and against ancient paganism. But opposition was not slow to appear: the Arian bishop Palladius of Ratiaria writes against the first two books De fide; Julian Valens of Petovium, in union with the antipope Ursinus, incites the Milanese themselves against him. A. defends himself in a long series of sermons, published in 380 (De fide, III-V) at Gratian's request. Towards Easter of 381 the emperor transfers his residence from Trier to Milan, where an ever closer collaboration with A. now develops. The treatise De Spiritu Sancto, an exhaustive proof of the divinity of the third divine person, seems to have been presented to the emperor at precisely this moment.

On 3 Sept. 381 (a date to be retained according to the ancient manuscripts) a council of the bishops of northern Italy gathers at Aquileia. Gratian had promised it to two Arian bishops of Illyricum as a general council, but A., in full agreement with Pope Damasus (cf. Dissertatio Maximini, ed. F. Kauffmann, Aus der Schule des Wulfila, Strasbourg 1899, pp. 86-87), had persuaded the emperor that an ecumenical council would have made no sense to judge the orthodoxy of two bishops of very little standing (cf. Gesta concilii Aquileiensis, 4: PL 16, 917). Indeed, the aforementioned Palladius of Ratiaria (Dacia) and Secundianus of Singidunum (Moesia), after a brief consultation of the synod are judged heretics. The synodical letter Benedictus (Epist., 10) asks Gratian for state help for their deposition; two others, Provisum and Quamlibet (Epist., 11 and 12) recommend to him an intervention against the antipope Ursinus, by now a common enemy of A. and of Damasus, and for the concord of the Churches of Alexandria and Antioch, whose parties had implored the synod's help. Gratian complied in the case of the antipope, remitting the other affair to A. himself. Thus the latter, trusting too much in the false information of the intruded bishop of Constantinople, Maximus, wrote that unfortunate letter Sanctum (Ep., 13) to Theodosius, directly attacking the decisions of the Council of Constantinople approved by Theodosius on 30 July and learned in Milan around mid-September. This was the first contact between the two great figures. Theodosius was offended by it, and instead of granting A.'s request for a general Roman council (Ep., 13, 6), he again gathered the Eastern bishops at Constantinople, while simultaneously or shortly afterwards Damasus with A. and the most important bishops of the West sat at Rome (summer 382). Better informed than before, they recognize the election of Nectarius made at Constantinople I, but not that of Flavian of Antioch, and compose the so-called Tomus Damasi, probably under the special influence of A. (cf. P. Galtier, in Rech. de scienc. relig., 26 [1936], pp. 385-418; 563-79). To the same year belongs the De Incarnationis dominicae sacramento, a reply to Palladius, to the Dissertatio Maximini and to the Apollinarians, who had by now appeared in northern Italy, but at the same time a new attack against Constantinople I for its primatus honoris of canon 2: this is the meaning of De Incarn., 32 ff.

The same close contact with Damasus is observed in the anti-pagan polemic of 382-83. Gratian, under the inspiration of A., who from now on attempts to realize with logical consistency the ideal of the Christian empire, abolishes the imperial title Pontifex Maximus (Zosimus, IV, 35 ff.), removes the altar of Victory from the curia of the Roman senate, abolishes the priestly colleges and the exemptions of the Vestals, whose revenues are confiscated. Two legations come to Milan, one under Symmachus prefect of the City, to the emperor to protest and ask for the withdrawal of the decrees, the other from Pope Damasus to A., in the name of the Christian senators. The first was not even received by Gratian, since A. had already presented him with the ecclesiastical opinion (Epist., 17, 10; Relatio Symmachi, 20).

The violent death of the emperor, which occurred shortly afterwards (25 ff. 383), seemed to destroy everything. The court of the twelve-year-old Valentinian II was under the influence of his mother Justina, an Arian. But soon the need for the moral authority of the bishop of Milan was felt. The usurper Maximus, under the mask of protector, had invited Valentinian to come to the court of Trier. With tact Justina asked A. to go on a diplomatic mission to Trier, to gain time and to set a snare for the bishop. He, on the other hand, immediately recognized the opportunity to oblige the young emperor for the advantage of the Church and accepted. Without calling into question the sovereignty of the usurper over Britain, the Gauls and Spain, a sovereignty recognized by Theodosius himself, he succeeded in inducing Maximus to desist for the time being from his plan (Epist., 24, 4-7). In the summer of the following year (384) the mission bore its first fruits. Valentinian decided, against the unanimous consent of his consistory, in favor of A.'s opinion, when Symmachus advanced his new and famous request against the anti-pagan legislation of the late Gratian (Epist. 17 and 18 of A.; Relatio Symmachi; cf. De obitu Valentiniani, 19).

4. Definitive victory in the anti-Arian struggle (385-87): the baptism of St. Augustine. — Justina's reaction against the growing influence of A. was not long in coming. One Mercurinus, Arian bishop of Durostorum in Moesia (?), deposed under Theodosian legislation, came to Milan (probably toward the end of 384), perhaps summoned by Justina herself. The change of his name to "Auxentius" (Sermo contra Auxentium, 22) signified a program. Justina requested a basilica for him from A. (spring 385). But the crowd, when it had learned that A. was being summoned to court for this business, flocked in mass before the palace, so that in the end the bishop himself had to be asked to calm it. He did so, and obtained for this occasion the withdrawal of the request (Sermo c. Aux., 29). But a law of 23 Jan. 386 (Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 1, 4) threatened the death penalty for anyone who dared to obstruct the freedom of worship for the partisans of the semi-Arian creed of Rimini, and shortly afterward the request of the previous year was repeated. A. decided to oppose it without making any concession. Forming a synod with the neighboring bishops, he shut himself up with them and with the faithful in the requested Portian basilica and the adjoining buildings, and sent a flat refusal to the court. The bishop was invited to a compromise; A. refused it (Epist., 21). A long siege of the basilica followed. To maintain the enthusiasm of the people, A. had them sing his hymns and the psalms in two choirs (cf. St. Augustine, Confess., IX, 6-7; Vita, 13; Sermo c. Aux., 34), and addressed to them his tireless word: the Sermo contra Auxentium, and probably also the De Iacob, date from those days. During Holy Week the court's requests and pressures redoubled. But passive resistance brought victory: on Good Friday (3 Apr.) the troops withdrew and with them the requests were withdrawn (Epist., 20). The unexpected change had yet another reason: Maximus had begun to pose as liberator of the Catholic Church against the court of Milan (cf. Collect. Avellan., in CSEL, 35, nos. 39-40), and had complained of being deceived by Valentinian, declaring that he was coming with his troops into Italy. What would A. think of it? Justina, in order to keep him away from Milan for quite some time, in the hope also of thus taking the wind out of Maximus's sails, offered him a second diplomatic mission. A. saw the game, but the religious cause had to be freed from that political friendship with the usurper: only thus can it be explained why he accepted this time as well. In fact he took advantage of the meeting with Maximus (summer 386) at Trier to reproach him for all his sins and to break off openly every relation with him. Expelled from Trier, he urgently made his report to Valentinian, foreseeing the imminent war (Epist., 24). Did the embassy therefore fail? Perhaps yes, in Justina's sense, not in the bishop's sense, for he detached his cause from both political sides. Openly he now threatened divine vengeance upon the murderers of Gratian (Exp. Ps., 61) and upon the usurpers (Apologia Davidis, I, 6, 26 ff.); he proposed to Valentinian the example of David penitent (IV, 1-20), and dedicated that Apologia to Theodosius (summer 387).

But amid all these cares, that year 387 had brought him a satisfaction of the greatest importance for the whole Church: the baptism of the famous rhetor of Tagaste, St. Augustine, at Easter 387. The eloquence of A. and his allegorical method in explaining the Old Testament had been its impulse (St. Augustine, Confess., V, 13; VI, 4).

5. A. and Theodosius. The Christian emperor (388-95). — In the spring of 388 Theodosius decided to march against Maximus, defeated him near Siscia and Poetovio (28 Aug.) and established himself at Milan. The bishop asked and obtained from him a broad amnesty for the followers of the usurper (Epist., 40, 25). But Theodosius avoided too close relations, conscious perhaps, since 381, of the contrasts between ecclesiastical and political opinions. That is, setting aside his private and convinced adherence to the Catholic Church, he believed himself entirely independent of it in his government; whereas A., while also recognizing the emperor's independence in the non-religious sphere, saw him also as a member of the Church, which expected from him the guarantee of the full freedom of the bishops in their sphere: positive help, though never violent, against the enemies of the truth, observance of the moral law and of ecclesiastical discipline also in his activity as emperor (Sermo c. Aux., 36; Epist., 10-14, 17, 18, 21 etc.).

Theodosius had issued a decree obliging the bishop of Callinicum on the Euphrates to rebuild a synagogue destroyed by Christians. A. opposed it first with a letter (Epist., 40), then publicly in a sermon, having not been admitted to the requested audience, and he did not begin the Mass until after the emperor's formal declaration withdrawing the rescript (Epist., 41: to Marcellina). Theodosius felt well that A. had overstepped the limit of the regard owed to the emperor, and from the end of 388 until 390 he manifested his principle of full independence with a series of laws certainly unwelcome to the bishop (Codex Theodos., XII, 1, 121; XVI, 2, 27; 3, 1), while the latter, conscious perhaps of having drawn the bow too tight, withdrew and took advantage of his free time to give the Church a series of his most important books: De officiis ministrorum (389-390), exhortations to the clergy, arranged according to the plan of Cicero's work of the same name; Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam (ca. 390), Sunday sermons of many years; Expositio Psalmi CXVIII, sermons of 389; De Paenitentia, two books against the Novatians (ca. 388-89); De Ioseph, sermons of 388; De Helia, De Tobia, De Nabuthe, three sermons against the false use of wealth (389?).

The end of 390 brought a total change. Theodosius, against the opposition of A., in August had decreed a three-hour massacre among the population of Thessalonica, for the killing of the imperial commander in a riot. Seven thousand people were indiscriminately slaughtered. A. in his admirable Epist. 51 made the emperor understand, with the utmost delicacy, that he would not have dared to celebrate the divine sacrifice in his presence, if he had not first done public penance for the grave sin. Only after some hesitation, the emperor acknowledged the reasons of A., accepted the penance and was reconciled by A. at Christmas 390. This is the story. Paulinus's rhetorical account (Vita, 24) gave rise to Theodoret's legend (V, 17 ff.) about the bishop who stops the emperor under the portal of the cathedral, a legend "less great than the story," which marked the most memorable victory of moral and religious thought over every human greatness. From this moment the friendship between Theodosius and A. is sealed. The year 391 brings as its fruits the laws against every gathering of pagan worship and against heresies (Codex Theodos., XVI, 10, 10; 11; 5, 20). A. peacefully occupied himself with the edition of contemplative works: in the De patriarchis, he sees the blessings of the patriarchs verified in the Church that opens to all nations and to all the erring the safe harbor of salvation; in the De Isaac et anima, he traces the path of the soul toward union with the divine Word; in the De bono mortis he describes its longing for the heavenly homeland; in the De mysteriis (elaborated on the basis of the stenographic record De Sacramentis that has been preserved for us) he publishes the catecheses to the neophytes.

But the following year found him involved in very delicate new affairs: the Antiochene schism, and the consequences of the death of Valentinian II. A council at Capua (winter 391-92), probably convened at A.'s suggestion, attempted in vain to settle the dispute between Evagrius and Flavian of Antioch (Epist. 56). Valentinian summoned A. to Vienne in Gaul to be baptized, but even more to be freed by him from the guardianship of the general Arbogast, imposed on him by Theodosius after the victory over Maximus. Arbogast forestalled A.'s arrival by having the emperor killed (15 May 392). There remained for the bishop the delicate task of the funeral oration, delivered in August after negotiations with Theodosius (Epist. 53) and published in September under the title De obitu Valentiniani. Meanwhile Arbogast proclaimed as emperor the Catholic Eugenius (22 Aug. 392), who sought in vain the support of the bishop of Milan (Epist. 57; Vita, 27, 31). For almost a year (autumn 393-Aug. 394) A. imposed on himself a voluntary exile at Bologna and Florence (Epist. 61, 62), in order to avoid all contact with the new usurper. When Eugenius was defeated at the Frigidus (6 Sept. 394), Theodosius approved A.'s attitude toward Eugenius and granted him the amnesty he had requested for the usurper's partisans: but shortly afterward he fell ill and died at Milan on 17 Jan. 395. In the funeral oration De obitu Theodosii A. delineated in the person of the deceased the ideal of unity between priesthood and empire, anticipating a fundamental idea of the Middle Ages.

6. The last years (395-97). The metropolitan. - Surrounded by the veneration of all, even of distant pagans (Vita, 25, 36), A. continued his apostolate of the pen until death: the De institutione virginis (392), the Exhortatio virginitatis and the De fuga saeculi (394), the Explanatio in XII psalmos, over which he would die (Vita, 42), are the last works. Perhaps also a great number of his letters were published by himself in those years (cf. Epist. 48, 7). Another broad field of action, besides the care of his diocesans, was his relations with many bishops of northern Italy, where he exercised the functions of metropolitan, founding new dioceses, ordaining bishops (cf. for example, Epist. 63). His zeal for that una et intemerata fidelium communio (Epist. 12, 3) extended also outside his metropolitan province, especially to Thessalonica and Illyricum (Epist. 15, 16) and as far as the schisms of the East (Epist. 12-14, 56). His participation, however, in a certain Synod of Sirmium, mentioned by Theodoret (Hist. eccl., IV, 7, 6-9, 9), whose date remains problematic, is ruled out already by the Trinitarian terminology of the synodal acts, certainly not Ambrosian. The ordination of Anemius of Sirmium performed by A. (between 375 and 380) is the only act that could be called quasi-metropolitan, outside upper Italy; but it is not known to us, nor is it even probable, that A. performed it on his own

AMBROGIO santo - Death of A. Fresco by Masolino. Rome, Basilica of S. Clemente.

authority (Vita, 11). The Councils of Aquileia and of Capua were not Ambrosian synods, but Western ones, willed respectively by Gratian and by Theodosius.

From the election of the new bishop of Pavia A. returned ill (Febr. 397), and after a few weeks the physical strength of that weak body, sacrificed for the internal unity of the Church and of the Empire, was extinguished. A. died at dawn on Holy Saturday, 4 Apr. 397, immediately after the Eucharistic communion (Vita, 47). The Church, however, celebrates the day of his episcopal consecration (7 Dec.). For the Ambrosian basilica, v. MILANO.

III. THE WRITER

In his first work A. himself reveals to us the purpose of his literary activity: «necessitas maxima eloquia Dei credita populi funerare mentibus» (De virginibus, I, 1, 1), that is, the sense of responsibility for the divine talent entrusted to him. Hence almost all his works are published sermons. And A. seems to accentuate this particular character of his writings, leaving in the text of the books certain reminiscences of the living word, such as «hodie, fratres, audistis», etc. On the other hand, if these reminiscences are lacking, one cannot forthwith infer that such a book does not consist of sermons actually delivered. In two of his letters, probably still published by himself (Epist. 47, 1-3; 48, 1-3), he describes to us the procedure of editing his works; and the De mysteriis, compared with the De Sacramentis, completes his information. Based on a draft or a stenographic record of his sermons, A. retains what seems to him suitable for publication, but greatly modifies the manner of expression, dictating to his notary, or, especially at night, writing himself; then he has it transcribed in fair copy, sometimes sends it to a friend for a kind of censorship, and then publishes it. But in dictating or writing he always has before him his sources, in the first place Holy Scripture, to which, even without quoting it, he alludes almost continuously; then the Greek theologians named above, whom he puts to use now translating them freely, now following only their thought. From his most fertile memory flow reminiscences of classical authors, especially of Virgil, of Sallust, of Cicero and of many others. Thus the pages of A. appear at times like variegated mosaics. But they are not for this reason less attractive or less personal, since his style, concise, lively, full of maxims, of metaphors and of antitheses, of allegories that shift rapidly from one to another, a style always inflamed by the inner fire of his enthusiasm for Christ and for his Church, constitutes, according to Erasmus, a genus dicendi aliis inimitabile. And this style is the secret of his literary success, despite the severe censor Jerome (Latin version of the treatise of Didymus, De Spir. Sancto, Praefatio: PL 23, 108; Epist. 84, 7: CSEL, 55, p. 130, 8; De viris inlustr., 124: PL 23, 751), and despite his bold allegorism (with which deal J. B. Kellner, Der heilige Ambrosius... als Erklärer des Alten Testamentes,

Regensburg 1893; P. de Labriolle, Saint Ambroise et l'exégèse allégorique, in Annales de philosophie chrétienne, 155 [1908], pp. 591-602).

Here now is the list of the works according to the traditional division: a) exegetical (concerning for the most part the Old Testament); Evaemeron libri sex; De Paradiso; De Cain et Abel; De Noë; De Abraham libri duo; De Isaac et anima; De Iacob et vita beata libri duo; De Ioseph patriarcha; De patriarchis; De interpellatione Iob et David; Apologia prophetae David, ad Theodosium Augustum; Enarrationes in XII psalmos Davidicos; Expositio in ps. 118; De Tobia; De Helia et jejunio; De Nabuthe; Expositionis evangelii secundum Lucam libri decem. Lost: the Commentarii Esaiae. - b) moral and ascetic: De officiis ministrorum libri tres; De virginibus, ad Marcellinam sororem libri tres; De viduis; De virginitate; De institutione virginis et de s. Mariae virginitate perpetua; Exhortatio virginitatis. - c) dogmatic: De fide ad Gratianum Augustum libri quinque; De Spiritu Sancto; De Incarnationis dominicae sacramento; De paenitentia libri duo; De Sacramentis libri sex; Explanatio symboli ad initiaudos; and the fragment of the Explanatio fidei, reported by Theodoret (PG 83, 181-88). - d) rhetorical: De excessu fratris sui Satyri I. duo; Sermo contra Auxentium, de basilicis tradendis; De obitu Valentiniani consolatio; De obitu Theodosii. - e) Letters (of which only 91 remain). - f) Hymns (of which more is said separately below).

IV. THE THEOLOGIAN AND THE MORALIST

A. never wished to be a theologian, for the simple reason that a Latin theology did not yet exist, and to create it A. had neither the time nor the talent. But in Trinitarian theology, which had just elaborated the relation between Father and Son, the Ambrosian contribution is considerable: with the clarity and consistency of his terminology he far surpasses all previous Latin authors, especially Hilary, and prepares the definitive formulas of Augustine. In the theology of the Holy Spirit there is a true advance in A., who several times hints at the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son ("Filioque": cf. De Spiritu Sancto, I, 119-20; II, 12. 133-34, etc.). Through the Ambrosian hymns the Trinitarian formulas were deeply impressed upon the soul of the people. Through Roman religious legislation, strongly influenced by him, the Council of Nicaea became the faith of the Empire. In Christology A. is the first writer of the West to set himself against Apollinaris of Laodicea, whose writings he had studied, as the critical edition of the De Incarnatione, in the CSEL, will demonstrate with evidence. His expressions on the two perfect natures, united in the divine person of Christ, were so felicitous that they were repeated by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, by Leo the Great and by many writers even of the East (cf. G. Galbiati, Della fortuna letteraria etc., in Ambrosiana, Scritti di storia etc., pp. 43-73). Expressions such as: ex persona hominis, said of Christ, according to a common usage of language also found in Hilary, are meant to signify nothing other than "as man." In the doctrine on redemption and grace A. is often cited by the Doctor of grace, Augustine (cf. Opera, ed. P. A. Ballerini, I, pp. xxix-xlii). He does not yet distinguish between original sin itself and its consequence, concupiscence, a lack that makes itself felt especially in the De mysteriis, 6, 32 ("lotio pedum"). But this distinction was not found by theology before Augustine. His theory, on the other hand, on the origin of moral evil in the free will of man already recalls the speculations of his great disciple. As for sacramental theology, still so little elaborated in his times, the testimonies on the sacrificial character of the Eucharist are very frequent (cf. S. Lisiecki, Quid s. Ambrosius de S.ma Eucharistia docuerit, Breslau 1910, p. 85 ff.).

Sacramental penance appears as public in the works of penance, imposed by the bishop following a secret confession (cf. De paenitentia, I, 16, 90; II, 10, 91-97). This single sacramental penance is lawful only once in a lifetime (De paen., II, 10, 95). Most beautiful and profound is his baptismal theology (cf. De mysteriis, De Sacramentis), in which he insists among other things on the value of Baptism of desire (De obitu Val., 51-53). On his eschatology (J. Niederhuber, Die Eschatologie des hl. A., Paderborn 1907) it is to be noted that he set aside with the finest tact all Origenism; the same seems to hold for his angelology, which, like his theory on the veneration of the saints and of relics, would still need to be studied particularly (the work of Dudden, Life and Times etc., I, p. 305-20, is insufficient). Ecclesiology, finally, is pervaded, as we have already mentioned above, by a most vivid sense of the internal unity of the venerable communio of all the Churches, which he sees guaranteed in their union with the Roman Church (Epist. 11, 4; De excessu fratris, I, 47; Epist. 42, 1, 12; Epist. 56, 7; De Sacr., III, 1, 5; Explan. in ps. XII, 40, 30 etc.; cf. B. Citterio in S. A. nel XVI centenario della nascita, Milan 1940, pp. 31-68).

As a moralist A. is truly in his element and shows at times a mastery similar to that of St. John Chrysostom in scourging the moral diseases of his time, particularly avarice and lust. He insists on the administrative character of private property (De Nab., 12, 53; De off., I, 28, 132). To the weakness of the many he opposes the attractive and comforting example of the voluntary virginity of the few; with this ideal sacrifice he joins the thought of its satisfactory value for others: "Virgo Dei donum est, munus parentis, sacerdotium castitatis", "Haec parentes redimat, haec fratres" (De virg., I, 7, 32; II, 2, 16). And this thought is based on the more general conception of the "corpus Christi mysticum" (for example, De Cain, I, 9, 39; De paen., I, 15, 80-81; Exp. Luc., V, 92). A moral system is not to be found in his works. Not even in the De officiis ministrorum (a title to be retained with the best manuscripts) does A. intend to give one, but freely following the De officiis of Cicero, he sets out in the form of books a series of exhortations to his spiritual sons, and "ministers" of the altar (De off., I, 7, 24), and admits from Stoic morality as much as is of universal human value, elevating it, not always with full coherence, to the sphere of Christian humility and charity (cf. R. Thamin, S. Ambroise et la morale chrétienne au IVᵉ siècle, Paris 1895; F. H. Dudden, Life etc., II, pp. 502-54).

V. THE HYMN WRITER

The hymns that St. Hilary had already attempted to introduce into the liturgy (cf. CSEL, 65, p. 207 ff.), perhaps against the propaganda of Arianism, were so little popular that we have only a few traces of them left. Thus A. became the first and most effective hymn writer of the West. His meter of (eight?) stanzas of four lines in iambic dimeters, the "metrum ambrosianum," served as a model for the following centuries (Isidore of Seville, De eccl. off., I, 6). But this designation of his meter caused great confusion between the hymns actually written by him and others that merely followed his manner.

G. M. Dreves (Aurelius Ambrosius «der Vater des Kirchengesanges», Freiburg im Br. 1893), and A. Steier (Untersuchungen über die Echtheit der Hymnen des Ambrosius, Leipzig 1903 [here the best edition of the 14 hymns, pp. 651-60]), have demonstrated that 14 are probably authentic; L. Biraghi (Inni sinceri e carmi di s. A., Milan 1862) and A. S. Walpole (Early Latin Hymns,

Oxford 1922) instead admit 18. Certain are: 1) Aeterne rerum conditor (PL 16, 1409, n. 1; St. Augustine Retract., I, 21); 2) Deus creator omnium (PL 16, 1409, n. 2; St. Augustine, Conf., IX, 12, 32); 3) Iam surgit hora tertia (PL 16, 1409, n. 3; St. Augustine, De Natura et Gratia contra Pelag., 63, 74); 4) Intende qui regis Israel (PL 16, 1410, n. 4; St. Augustine, Sermo 372, De nativ. Domini, 4, 3; Celestine at the Roman Council of 430; F. Labbé, Concilia... III, ed. Venice 1725, col. 555); 5) Inluminans Altissime (PL 16, 1411, n. 5); 6) Splendor paternae gloriae (PL 16, 1411, n. 7; cf. St. Augustine, Conf., V, 13, 23); 7) Aeterna Christi munera (PL 16, 1411, n. 8). Probably authentic: 8) Hic est dies verus Dei (PL 17, 1183, n. 20); 9) Apostolorum passio (PL 17, 1215, n. 71); 10) Amore Christi nobilis (PL 17, 1210, n. 64); 11) Apostolorum subparem (PL 17, 1216, n. 73;

12) Grates tibi Iesu novas (PL 17, 1182, n. 19); 13) Agnes beatae virginis (PL 17, 1210-11, n. 65); 14) Victor, Nabor, Felix, pii (Biraghi, op. cit., pp. 74-80; Steier, op. cit., p. 655). Probably not authentic are: 15) Nunc Sancte nobis Spiritus (PL 17, 1184, n. 21: two stanzas); 16) Rector potens, verax Deus (ibid., 1189, n. 22: two stanzas); 17) Rerum Deus tenax vigor (ibid., 1185, n. 23: two stanzas); 18) Iesu, corona virginum (PL 17, 1221, n. 80: 4 stanzas). Nor does it appear that those two poetic texts treated by G. Mercati (Studi e Testi, 12, Rome 1904, pp. 17-36) are by A.: De ternarii numeri excellentia, and a stanza of an Easter hymn, cited by Alcuin and Hincmar (cf. C. Weyman, Beiträge zur Geschichte der christlich-luteinischen Poesie, Munich 1926, pp. 43-46), nor the Advent hymn Eu clara vox redarguit (cf. J. B. van Bebber, in Theologische Quartalschrift, 89 [1907], pp. 373-84). The Te Deum appears to be by Nicetas of Remesiana (cf. O. Bardenhewer, Gesch. der altkirchlichen Literatur, III, Freiburg im Br. 1923, p. 604).

The poetic form of the authentic hymns, full of objective grandeur and of that "sobrie ebrietas" of the holy Roman, "was made purposely to be popular: easy, fluid, limpid, agile. Sometimes theory and theology oppress, and the hymn drops in tone, but elsewhere the inspiration remains vivid and warm, the feeling universal; simplicity then becomes synonymous with pure perfection" (A. Paredi, S. A. e la sua età, Milan 1941, p. 413). The time of composition remains problematic. But it seems certain that some are earlier than the siege of the Basilica of 386 (cf. G. Lazzati, in S. A. nel XVI centenario etc., pp. 307-20).

VI. THE EPIGRAPHER

No ancient remains of Ambrosian epigraphs on stone have been preserved for us. But that A. made some is beyond doubt. The Lorsch sylloge (Vatican codex Palatinus 833, of the 9th century) preserves for us a collection of Christian inscriptions made at the end of the 8th century, and among these, three Milanese epigrams of A. (cf. G. B. de Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae, II, part I, Rome 1888, pp. 162, 5; 161, 3, 2; [p. xxxv ff. " Pauciora, sed meliora Damasianis, sunt carmina Ambrosii... "]) : the epitaph for his brother Satyrus in the basilica of St. Nazarius (Uranio Satyro supremum, frater, honorem etc., 2 distichs), the dedicatory inscription of the same basilica of St. Nazarius (Condidit Ambrosius templum Dominoque sacravit etc., 5 distichs), and the inscription of the baptistery of the basilica of St. Thecla (Octachorum sanctos templum surrexit in usus etc., 8 distichs).

Lejay's doubt (DACL, I, col. 1386) concerning the third epigram is unfounded; the words non expers ullus aquarum sanctus (cf. mss. 13-14) express a thought very familiar to A. (De Abrah., II, 11, 81 : " omnis aetas peccato obnoxia et ideo omnis aetas sacramento idonea "; De paen., I, 2, 13 : " omnes homines sub peccato nascimur, quorum ipse ortus in vitio est "; Exp. in ps. 118, 8, 30 : " nemo sine sorde peccati "; cf. 16, 32; Expl. ps. 43, 78, etc.; cf. also F. J. Dölger, Zur Symbolik des altchristl. Taufhauses, in Antike und Christentum, 4 [1934], pp. 153-87).

Furthermore there are 21 " Tituli ", published for the first time by Fr. Juretus, in M. de la Bigne's Bibliotheca Patrum (VIII, Paris 1589, col. 1195 ff.), from an ancient codex, now lost, under the title: Incipiunt disticha s. Ambrosii de diversis rebus quae in basilica Ambrosiana scripta sunt. (The best edition is that of S. Merkle, Die ambrosianischen Tituli, in Römische Quartalschrift, 10 [1896], pp. 185-222). These are 21 double hexameters, which must have been subscribed to as many representations of scenes from the Old and New Testament. L. Biraghi, S. Merkle, (locc. citt.), and C. Weyman (op. cit., pp. 35-42) defend the authenticity of the " tituli "; L. Traube (in Hermes, 27 [1892], p. 159) has shown that they already existed in the 9th century, although attributed to Prudentius. The " ex silentio " arguments, advanced by some art historians against the Ambrosian origin of the images, do not seem able to overcome the very strong internal arguments in favor of the epigrams : the thoughts, language, and style are entirely Ambrosian.

Otto Faller

VII. ICONOGRAPHY

He is always represented in pontifical vestments and often enthroned; he bears two individual attributes: a small shield that already characterizes him in a bas-relief of the arch of Porta Romana (1171, Milan, Museo Archeol.) as a scourge of the Arians, and — more rarely — a beehive, a reminder of the miraculous swarm of bees that according to legend settled on the lips of the child. The Milanese mosaic of St. Satiro or St. Vittore in Ciel d'Oro (early 5th century) is followed by the abundant series of images in which A. is depicted for the most part with other spiritually kindred saints (Alvise Vivarini, Venice, Frari; Bergognone, Certosa di Pavia), forming part of the popular group of the four doctors (Bellegambe, Douai; M. Pacher, Munich; Guido Reni, St. Petersburg) or of the sacred Conversations. Among the four cyclic representations of the legend existing in Milan, the repoussé metal reliefs in the area of the Ambrosian basilica, due to the Breton Wolfinius, date back to the 9th century; in Rome Masolino created with the frescoes of S. Clemente, earlier than 1431, a less extensive history of the life of St. A. - See Plates LXXVII-LXXIX.

Kurt Rath