Ambrose

Church and Society in the Late Roman World

John Moorhead

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317891017
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

An account, and assessment, of the career of St Ambrose (339-397), from 374 bishop of Milan and one of the four Doctors of the Christian Church (with Sts. Jerome, Augustine and Gregory the Great). A key figure in the transition of the later Roman Empire into its medieval successor, Western Christendom, Ambrose was deeply involved in the political, social and religious issues of his day: struggles between church and state (especially with Emperor Theodosius), the fight against heresy, but he also had a deep influence on Church thought such as the role and status of women. John Moorhead considers all these dimensions in a book that will be of compelling interest to historians of the Church and the late classical world and classical studies.

Chapter 1

BEGINNINGS

…

A NEW BISHOP

The choice of a bishop was not a matter taken lightly in late antiquity. The increasing power of the church in society and the high degree of authority bishops enjoyed within the churches they led had made the job increasingly important, and hence desirable. A story was told that Praetextatus, a pagan intellectual whose death in 387 prevented his becoming consul in the following year, used to tease a pope: ‘Make me bishop of Rome and I shall become a Christian on the spot!’¹ According to the practice of the church the people of a town or city had the right to be involved in the choice of their bishop, which meant that elections generated widespread interest. The choice of a bishop was sometimes a catalyst for outbreaks of the civil unrest which were common in the cities of late antiquity.² The death of a bishop of Rome in 366 was followed by rioting and fighting between the supporters of two rivals for the office which culminated in a massacre, after which 137 bodies were found in the church now known as Sta Maria Maggiore.³ When disagreement over the election of a bishop of Milan in 374 seemed likely to endanger the peace of the city, the authorities could not afford to stand by.

This was the year in which Bishop Auxentius died. He had become bishop in 355, when his predecessor, Dionysius, was among a number of bishops exiled by an emperor opposed to their theological convictions. Auxentius had been an unusual occupant of an Italian see, for he had been born in Cappadocia, halfway across modern Turkey, and knew little Latin. Under him the church of Milan took on a distinct oriental colouring.⁴ He was also unusual in his adherence to a minority position in Christianity. The fourth century was a time of major debate within the church, which was complicated by the ties between the church and the empire which followed the conversion of Constantine. While there were various areas of contention, the central issue was the relationship between God the Father and the Son. Judeo-Christian theology has posited a sharp distinction between the Creator and the creation. Given that these two categories contain all things that exist, the Son of God whom Christians believe to have become incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth must belong in one or the other of them. According to a theologian of Alexandria who flourished in the early fourth century, Arms, the distinction between the Father and the Son was such as would place the latter in the realm of the creation. Against this understanding, the council of Nicaea (325), making use of an important concept in Greek philosophy, proclaimed that the Father and the Son were of ‘the same substance’ (Greek ‘homoousios’), and condemned the teaching of Arms. The canons of this council and the Nicene Creed, which was to be finalized later, failed to command universal assent, but the opponents of Nicaea could not agree on exactly how the Father and the Son were related. Those standing in the Nicene tradition were content to label their opponents ‘Arians’, for however diverse their teaching was it seemed to stand in some relation to that of Arius, and in this book we shall use this term when quoting from or paraphrasing authors who employ it, but in other contexts we shall use the value-free terms ‘Nicaeans’ and ‘anti-Nicaeans’. The former had been unhappy at the see of Milan being in the hands of Auxentius, but despite the efforts of Nicaean leaders such as Bishop Hilary of Poitiers, he remained in possession of his see.

Auxentius profited from the attitude of the Emperor Valentinian I (364–375). He was a no-nonsense military man, content to stand in the middle when it came to religious differences and issue laws which gave all people the freedom to worship as they thought best.⁵ His policy of alternating between pagans and Christians in appointments to the office of prefect of the city of Rome⁶ was in line with this attitude, as well as being politically shrewd, for in the face of widespread conversions to the new religion the leading families of Rome proved reluctant to abandon their old beliefs. Valentinian’s easy-going stance meant that he was perfectly happy to receive communion from Auxentius when in Milan. He saw himself as being an ordinary member of the laity. This was a stance more modest than that adopted by Constantine, and an easy one for an emperor whose position was strong. But such humility could allow a bishop to treat the emperor as no more than one among the congregation, and as our study of the successor of Auxentius proceeds we shall see him overthrow the principles of Valentinian’s policy, one by one.

The death of Auxentius was followed by wild scenes, for which our best source is a passage in the Ecclesiastical History by Rufinus. This author describes a tense situation which involved adherents of two factions, by which he doubtless means the Nicaeans and anti-Nicaeans. According to Rufinus, their serious disagreement and the dangerous dissension threatened speedy disaster for the city, whichever side won. The events in Rome which had followed the death of a pope scarcely a decade previously furnished a warning of what could occur in such circumstances, and there would have been few places in which it was more likely for it to take place than the cathedral. That in Milan was a large building, probably capable of holding nearly 3,000 people, and it had been built in the centre of the city, just a few minutes’ walk from the forum.⁷ We are told that the representative of imperial authority in Milan, the governor (consularis) Ambrose, seeing that the city was threatened by ruin, hastened to the church, planning to moderate the sedition of the people. When he had spoken for a long time urging quiet and tranquillity, suddenly a shout arose from the people, and there was just one voice yelling out ‘Ambrose bishop!’ The people cried out that he was to be baptized immediately and given to them as their bishop; there would not be one people and one faith unless Ambrose was given to them as bishop. He resisted, but the emperor ordered that the desire of the people was to be fulfilled with all speed, saying that it was the work of God that the discordant faith of the people and minds which had been at odds had been suddenly came to share the one opinion. So it was that Ambrose was baptized and made a bishop.⁸

There is no reason not to accept the outlines of the account provided by Rufinus, which formed the basis of a later telling of the story by Ambrose’s biographer Paulinus.⁹ Aspects of Rufinus’ account recur in Paulinus, in particular the great importance placed on the will of the people. But Paulinus, writing some fifty years after these events, was a man with a mission, and it may well be that some of what he says, which modern scholars have sometimes taken at face value to suggest the appropriateness or indeed inevitability of Ambrose’s becoming bishop, was crafted precisely to create this impression. This may account for one important detail which Paulinus adds to Rufinus. Paulinus reports that, while Ambrose was speaking to the people, the voice of an infant was suddenly heard to utter the words ‘Ambrose bishop!’ At this all the people, both Arians and catholics, cried out ‘Ambrose bishop!’ While Rufinus and Paulinus have the same words, they place them in the mouths of different speakers. The latter has the more impressive story, for the word ‘infans’ literally means ‘not yet speaking’, although Paulinus seems to use it in the general sense of ‘child’. Paulinus may not have intended his story to be taken literally, for he qualifies it as ‘something which is said to have happened’, and it is oddly reminiscent of Augustine’s narration of his conversion, a little over a decade later, in which he heard in a Milanese garden the voice of a child repeating the words ‘Take and read’ (conf. 8.12.29). Perhaps the young of the city at that time were given to portentous utterances. In any case, Paulinus’ point is not that the utterance of the words was miraculous, but that the nomination of Ambrose came from someone who, being a child, was presumably not associated with one of the factions in the church at Milan.¹⁰

…

AMBROSE

Little is known about the life of Ambrose prior to his becoming bishop. A number of pious stories of his early life were known to Paulinus, but no less than the tale of the speaking child they suggest that the career of Ambrose was pre-ordained, and need not be taken seriously. According to one story, when he was a baby sleeping with his mouth open, bees swarmed over his face and mouth and kept on going in and out of his mouth. His father, who was strolling nearby with his wife and daughter, in a remarkable display of sang froid, forbade a servant girl to intervene, for he wished to see how such a strange incident would end. After a while the bees flew up into the air so high that they passed from sight, and the terrified father said ‘If this little child lives he will be something great.’ Paulinus placed this story in a biblical context, seeing in it evidence for the Lord being already at work while his servant was still an infant and the fulfilment of a biblical text, ‘Good words are as a honeycomb’ (Prov. 24:16; VAmb. 3). The story would have conveyed a different meaning to many of his readers, who would have deduced from it that Ambrose was to be compared to such figures as Plato, who had an experience of this kind when an infant, and they would have taken it as a sign of the sweetness of the speech which would proceed from such a mouth.¹¹ According to another story told by Paulinus, as a young man Ambrose offered his hand to be kissed, saying that he was going to become a bishop (VAmb. 4), but it need not be taken at face value, for it was a literary convention for boys destined to become bishops to behave in an episcopal fashion.¹² Similarly, Paulinus tells how Probus, Ambrose’s superior when he was consularis, had told him to act not as a judge but as a bishop (VAmb. 8.3).¹³ Such data are of no value as background to the adult Ambrose. Deductions drawn from more general evidence take us further.

He had been born, probably in 339, at Trier, a town on the River Moselle less than a hundred kilometres from that frontier of the Roman empire which followed the lower reaches of the River Rhine. Ambrose was later to describe the Rhine as a noteworthy wall of the Roman empire against fierce peoples (exa. 2.3.12), but influences flowed across it in both directions, and the area around Trier was coming under the influence of Germanic tribes who were of increasing concern to the empire. Another indication of the marginal status of the region within the empire was the survival of Celtic speech, which could apparently still be heard there.¹⁴ In some respects Trier was a typical large Roman city, which boasted a forum, an amphitheatre, a circus capable of seating 50,000 people, large baths and a cathedral. It was unusual in its enormous imperial reception hall, thirty metres high, constructed in the first decade of the fourth century. Around it stood villas, the country homes of the wealthy which were often built so as to co...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Editor’s Preface and Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Beginnings
• Chapter 2 Women
• Chapter 3 The Bible
• Chapter 4 Church, State, Heretics and Pagans
• Chapter 5 The Bishop and the City
• Chapter 6 On Duties
• Chapter 7 The Elderly Bishop
• Chapter 8 Nachleben
• Bibliography
• Map: The late Roman world of Ambrose
• Index