Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/195

 OF THE EOMAN EMPIEE 175 at Milan, his affection for Ambrose was continually increased by the habits of pious and familiar conversation. When Ambrose was informed of the massacre of Thessa- Penance of lonica,^"' his mind was filled with horror and anguish. He retired a.d. 390 into the country to indulge his grief, and to avoid the presence of Theodosius. But, as the archbishop was satisfied that a timid silence would render him the accomplice of his guilt, he re- presented, in a private letter, the enormity of the crime ; which could only be effaced by the tears of penitence. The episcopal vigour of Ambrose was tempered by prudence ; and he contented himself with signifying ^^ an indirect sort of excommunication, by the assurance that he had been warned in a vision not to offer the oblation in the name or in the presence of Theodosius ; and by the advice that he would confine himself to the use of prayer, without presuming to approach the altar of Christ or to receive the holy eucharist with those hands that were still polluted with the blood of an innocent people. The emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches and by those of his spiritual father ; and, after he had bewailed the mischievous and irreparable consequences of his rash fury, he proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his devotions in the great church of Milan. He was stopped in the porch by the archbishop; who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of Heaven, declared to his sovereign that private contrition was not sufficient to atone for a public fault or to appease the justice of the offended Deity. Theodosius humbly represented that, if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, David, the man after God's own heart, had been guilty, not only of murder, but of adultery. " You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then his repent- ance/' was the reply of the imdaunted Ambrose. The rigorous conditions of peace and pardon were accepted ; and the public penance of the emperor Theodosius has been recorded as one of the most honourable events in the annals of the church. Ac cording to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline which were established in the fourth century the crime of homicide was expiated by the penitence of twenty years ; ^^ and, as it was 9^* [A letter from the Bishop of Thessalonica, informing Ambrose, was published (from a Bodl. cod.) by Gaisford in Theodoret, v. 18 ; genuineness uncertain.] 98Ambros. torn. ii. epist. li. p. 997-1001. His Epistle is a miserable rhapsody on a noble subject. Ambrose could act better than he could write. His com- positions are destitute of taste, or genius ; without the spirit of Tertullian, the copious elegance of Lactantius, the lively wit of Jerom, or the grave energy of Augustin. «9 According to the discipline of St. Basil (Canon Ivi. )the voluntary homicide was/bwr years a mourner ; five an hearer ; seven in a prostrate state ; ^n^four in