Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/36

18 orthodox faith. The work de Spiritu Sancto, in three books, was written in the year 381.

The successes of the Goths which attended the defeat and death of Valens were the occasion of frightful calamities to the empire. From Illyricum and Thrace, especially, an immense number of captives were carried off by the barbarians, in ransoming whom the whole available resources of the church were exhausted by Ambrose; and when everything else had been taken, he did not scruple to break up and sell the sacramental vessels. He himself relates this fact with pride (de Off. lib. ii. 136, 138). We now see Ambrose zealous in the general affairs of the church, and the leading ecclesiastic of his time. Presiding in the council of Aquileia, 381, he questioned the two Arianizing prelates who were put on their trial before it. Several letters addressed to the emperor at this time in the name of the council of Aquileia or of the Italian episcopate on the general government of the church are preserved amongst Ambrose's letters (Epp. ix.‒xii.). When Acholius died—the bp. of Thessalonica by whom Theodosius had been baptized—his death was formally announced to Ambrose by the clergy and people of his diocese; and we have two letters in reply, one written to the church and the other to Anysius the new bishop. The next two letters of the collection (xvii., xviii.) are addressed to the emperor Valentinian, after the death of Gratian, to exhort him not to comply with a request of Symmachus, prefect of the city, that he would replace the altar of Victory in the Senate House, and restore the funds for certain heathen ceremonies. Ambrose, whose influence was invoked by the bp. of Rome, protested strongly against any such concessions to paganism; and Victory, as it was said, favoured in the result her enemy more than her champion.

The struggle between Ambrose and Justina, the mother of Valentinian II., which afterwards reached such a height at Milan, had been begun with a preliminary trial of strength about the appointment of a bishop at Sirmium. But when the usurpation of Maximus occurred (A.D. 383), and had been stained by the violent death of Gratian, Justina in her alarm had recourse to the great Catholic bishop, and persuaded him to go on an embassy to Maximus, to beg him to leave Italy untouched. Maximus had Theodosius to deal with behind the boy-emperor and his mother; and his first act, when Gaul had fallen into his hands, was to send to Theodosius and propose to him, instead of war, the partition of the empire. Theodosius was constrained by motives of policy to assent to the proposal; and Ambrose had the comfort of returning to Milan with the announcement that the new emperor would refrain from passing the boundary of the Alps. Allusions are made to this embassy in a letter of Ambrose (Ep. xxiv. 7) in which he reports the less successful issue of a later appeal to Maximus.

One of the chief glories of Ambrose is that St. Augustine ascribed to him his conversion, and sought Christian baptism at his hands. The circumstances of his intercourse with St. Ambrose (A.D. 383‒387) are related by St. Augustine in his Confessions. He tells us of the singularly eminent position of St. Ambrose (vi. 3), of his reputation for eloquence (vi. 13), of the difficulty of getting an opportunity of conversing with him on account of his many engagements, and his habit of reading to himself when company was present (v. 3), and of his method of expounding the Old Testament by finding under the letter a spiritual or mystical sense (vi. 4).

It was during this period, in the years 385‒6, that Ambrose defended the churches of Milan so stoutly against the intrusion of Arian worship. Justina, who patronized the languishing Arian party, was bent on obtaining one of the churches at Milan for the use of her friends. Ambrose was not likely to make the concession. How in this matter he resisted the violent efforts of Justina, and the authority of her son (at this time fifteen years of age), is described at length by Ambrose himself in letters to his sister Marcellina and to Valentinian, and in a sermon preached at the crisis of the struggle (Epp. xx. xxi., and the Sermo de Basilicis Tradendis which follows them). There appear to have been two churches at Milan, the one without, the other within, the walls. The former, as of less importance, was first asked for. This being refused, some persons of the court came to Ambrose, and begged him to concede—probably for partial use only—the newer and larger basilica, and to exert his influence to prevent any popular disturbance. For it is important to observe that throughout the struggle the people were on the Catholic side. Ambrose replied loftily that the temple of God could not be surrendered by His priest. The next day, which was Sunday, as Ambrose was officiating in the principal basilica, news came that police-agents had been sent from the palace, who were hanging on the Portian basilica the curtains which marked a building as claimed for the imperial treasury. A part of the multitude hastened thither; Ambrose remained to perform Mass. Then he heard that the people had seized on a certain Arian presbyter, whom they met on the way. Ambrose began to pray with bitter tears that the cause of the church might not be stained with blood; and sent presbyters and deacons, who succeeded in rescuing the prisoner unhurt. Justina, in her irritation, treated the rich men of the city as responsible for a tumult, and threw many of them into prison. The imperial authority was being dangerously strained. Politic officials came to Ambrose and entreated him to give way to the sovereign rights of the emperor; Ambrose replied that the emperor had no rights over what belonged to God. A body of troops was sent to take possession of the basilica, and there was great fear of blood being shed; but after mutual appeals between their officers and Ambrose, the soldiers withdrew, and Ambrose remained all day in the church. At night he went home, and on coming out the next morning he found that the church (the Portian) was surrounded by soldiers. But the soldiers were in awe of Ambrose, and, learning that he had threatened them with excommunication, they began to crowd in, protesting that they came to pray and not to fight. Ambrose took the lesson for the day as the subject of a sermon, and