Person

Ambrose of Milan

Bishop of Milan from AD 374 to 397 and one of the four traditional Latin Doctors of the Church (with Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great). Trained as a lawyer and Roman governor, he was acclaimed bishop of Milan by popular demand while still a catechumen and was baptized, ordained, and consecrated in the same week. As bishop he became the most influential ecclesiastical figure in the Western empire of his generation: a vigorous opponent of Arianism, a major contributor to Latin pneumatology, an author of hymns and liturgical practice, and the preacher whose Old Testament exegesis decisively influenced Augustine's path to conversion.

Biographical sketch

Born c. AD 339 in Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Gaul, into the senatorial Aurelii Symmachi family; his father was praetorian prefect
Educated at Rome in rhetoric, literature, and law
Appointed consularis (governor) of Liguria and Aemilia, headquartered in Milan
AD 374: on the death of bishop Auxentius (an Arian), Ambrose intervened in the contested election to keep the peace and was acclaimed bishop by the crowd; baptized, ordained, and consecrated within a week
Bishop of Milan AD 374-397
Key public confrontations: the Altar of Victory dispute (against the senator Symmachus, his cousin); the basilica conflict with the Arian empress Justina (385-386); his rebuke of emperor Theodosius I after the Thessalonica massacre (390), requiring public penance before readmission to communion
Died Easter Eve, 4 April 397

Major works

De Officiis Ministrorum (On the Duties of the Clergy, c. 386), Christian rewrite of Cicero's De Officiis for clergy formation; treats prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance
De Spiritu Sancto (On the Holy Spirit, c. 381), three books on the divinity of the Holy Spirit, drawing heavily on Basil of Caesarea and Didymus the Blind
De Fide ad Gratianum (On the Faith), anti-Arian defense of the divinity of Christ
De Incarnationis Dominicae Sacramento (On the Mystery of the Lord's Incarnation)
De Mysteriis and De Sacramentis, early catechetical instructions on baptism and Eucharist
Hexaemeron, homilies on the six days of creation, modeled on Basil's
Commentaries on the Psalms, Luke, and several OT books
Letters and funeral orations (notably De Obitu Theodosii and De Obitu Valentiniani)
Hymns: traditionally credited with several Latin hymns including Aeterne rerum Conditor, Deus Creator omnium, Veni Redemptor gentium; the Ambrosian style of antiphonal singing is named for him

Theological contributions

1. Pneumatology, the divinity of the Holy Spirit

De Spiritu Sancto (c. 381, contemporary with the Council of Constantinople) is one of the earliest Latin treatises arguing the full divinity and consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, against the Pneumatomachian ("Spirit-fighting") current that accepted Christ's divinity but denied the Spirit's. Ambrose translates and adapts Basil of Caesarea's Greek arguments into Latin idiom, helping bring the Cappadocian Trinitarian settlement into the Western church.

2. Anti-Arianism in the West

Milan in the 370s and 380s was a contested seat between Nicene and Homoian (Arian) Christians, especially under empress Justina. Ambrose's preaching, treatises, and the celebrated 386 sit-in (during which the congregation occupied the basilica to prevent its handover to the Arians) cemented the Nicene position in the imperial capital. De Fide defends the Son's eternal generation and consubstantiality with the Father.

3. Allegorical OT exegesis

Ambrose's preaching on the Old Testament, drawing on Philo, Origen, and Basil, opened up for Augustine the possibility of a non-literalist Christian reading of scripture. Augustine reports in Confessions VI.4 that Ambrose's allegorical exegesis (especially of difficult OT passages) dissolved his Manichaean objections and made the church's faith intellectually credible to him.

4. Catechetical and sacramental theology

De Mysteriis and De Sacramentis are among the earliest Western catechetical instructions on baptism and Eucharist. They emphasize the real efficacy of the sacramental signs and the connection between Old Testament types and New Testament fulfillment.

5. Church and state

Ambrose's confrontations with Theodosius I (after the 390 Thessalonica massacre, requiring public penance from the emperor) and with Justina (over the basilica) became founding precedents for the Western view that the church possesses moral authority over the civil power in matters touching faith and conscience. "The emperor is within the church, not above it" (Sermo contra Auxentium 36).

6. Hymnody and liturgy

Ambrose introduced antiphonal psalm singing in Milan and composed Latin hymns in iambic dimeter that became the model for later Western hymnody. Several hymns securely attributed to him (e.g., Aeterne rerum Conditor) remain in the breviary.

Relation to Augustine

Augustine arrived in Milan in 384 as a professor of rhetoric and a Manichaean. Ambrose's preaching, and personal intellectual gravitas, was the immediate human cause of Augustine's path toward Christianity. Ambrose baptized Augustine at the Easter Vigil, AD 387. The traditional pairing of Ambrose's name in lists of Latin Doctors with Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great reflects this generative role.