Title: NPNF2-10. Ambrose: Selected Works and Letters Creator(s): Schaff, Philip (1819-1893) (Editor) Rights: Public Domain CCEL Subjects: All; Early Church; Proofed
A SELECT LIBRARY
OF THE
NICENE AND
POST-NICENE FATHERS
OF
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
SECOND SERIES
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH PROLEGOMENA AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
Edited by
PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.,
PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK.
AND
HENRY WACE, D.D.,
PRINCIPAL OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON.
VOLUME X
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
T&T CLARK
EDINBURGH
WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
Some of
The Principal Works of St. Ambrose,
Translated
by
The Rev. H. De Romestin, M.A.
of St. John's College, and Rector of Tiptree, Essex,
with the Assistance of
The Rev. E. De Romestin, M.A.
of New College, Oxford,
and
The Rev. H. T. F. Duckworth, M.A.
of Merton College, Oxford.
Translator's Preface.
Although, according to the plan of this "Library," Commentaries on Holy Scripture are omitted, and the field of selection is thus somewhat lessened, it has been no easy matter to decide which of St. Ambrose's many treatises should be chosen and which omitted.
Obviously the great work on the Faith, De Fide, must be included, and this implied the addition of that on the Holy Spirit. Then the treatise on the Duties of the Clergy, as throwing much light on the ideas of the Fourth Century as to what was expected of ecclesiastics, seemed to claim a place. And after these the difficulty becomes very great. It is unfortunate that the limitations of space do not admit of the inclusion of all the dogmatic and ascetic treatises. Similarly, one would have been glad to insert the addresses on the deaths of the two Emperors Valentinian and Theodosius. More, also, of his letters might well have been added, though, as they have appeared in full in the Oxford "Library of the Fathers," this is a matter for less regret.
As will be seen, I have availed myself of the assistance of my son, the Rev. E. de Romestin, of New College, and of the Rev. H. T. F. Duckworth, of Merton College, each of whom took high honours in the Theological School at Oxford.
The work has been carried out under some difficulties, and not the least has been the loss in travelling of a considerable portion of the manuscript, the whole of which had to be translated anew.
Prolegomena to St. Ambrose.
I.--Literature.
§1. Editions.
All the Editions of the works of St. Ambrose which preceded that of the Benedictines are very inadequate. Of these the chief are the following:
1. Venice, a.d. 1485.
2. Cribellius, a.d. 1490.
3. Auerbach, Basel, a.d. 1492, reprinted in 1506, with a full Index. These are very faulty Editions.
4. Erasmus, Basel, a.d. 1527, reprinted and re-edited by different persons, in various places [by Baronius amongst others, a.d. 1549].
5. Gillot Campanus, Paris, a.d. 1568.
6. Felix de Montalto [afterwards Pope Sixtus V.], Rome, a.d. 1580-1585, reprinted at Paris, a.d. 1603.
7. The Benedictines of St. Maur, Paris, a.d. 1686-1690, reprinted at Venice, a.d. 1748 and 1781, as well as with additions by Migne, Patres Latini, Vols. XIV.-XVII.
8. A new edition by Ballerini, Milan, a.d. 1875-1886, founded on that of the Benedictines, but by no means superior to it.
There is still room for a critical edition of the works of this great Father, which are unfortunately very corrupt, but in many points it is not likely that the work of the Benedictine editors can be improved upon.
9. There are separate editions of some of the treatises of St. Ambrose, as of the Hexaëmeron and De Officiis Clericorum, in the Bibliotheca Patrum Eccl. Latinæ Selecta, Leipzig, Tauchnitz. The De Officiis has also been edited, with considerable improvements in the text, by Krabinger, Tübingen, 1857, and the De Fide and De Poenitentia, by Hurter in the Vienna selections from the Fathers.
§2. Translations.
There seems to have never been any attempt to translate the works of this great Christian Father and Doctor in full.
Some few treatises, De Officiis, De excessu fratris Satyri, De Virginitate, and several other short ones, appear in German, in the select writings of the Fathers, published by Kosel of Kempten. The Epistles have been translated into French by Bonrecueil, Paris, a.d. 1746; and the De Officiis and Epistles into English, the former by Humfrey, London, a.d. 1637; the latter in the Oxford "Library of the Fathers," revised by E. Walford, London, 1881; whilst the De Mysteriis appears in a little volume of Sacramental Treatises, published by Messrs. J. Parker & Co., Oxford, under the supervision of the Editor of this volume. There is a very valuable little monograph entitled Studia Ambrosiana, chiefly critical, and unfortunately brief, by Maximilian Ihm. Leipzig, Teubner, 1889.
§3. Biographies and Authorities for the Life of St. Ambrose.
(a.) Ancient.
Many of his own writings.--Life of St. Ambrose by Paulinus, [1] a deacon of the Church of Milan.--St. Augustine, Confessions, V. 23, 24; VI. 1-6; IX. 13-16; and many other passages in his writings.--St. Jerome, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, c. 134.--Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, XI, 11, 15, 16, 18.--Socrates, Eccl. History, IV. 30; V. 11.--Sozomen, Eccl. History, VI. 24; VII. 13, 25.
(b.) Modern.
Baronius, Annals, a.d. 397, n. 25-35; Life of St. Ambrose in the prolegomena to the Roman Edition of his works.--The Life of St. Ambrose gathered from his own writings, in the Benedictine Edition (excellent).--Hermant, Vie de St. Ambroise, Paris, 1678.--Tillemont, Mémoires, etc., Tome X. St. Ambroise [pp. 78-386], and notes, pp. 729-770.--Ceillier, Histoire générale des Auteurs sacrés, Tome V. pp. 328 ff. Ed. 2, Paris, 1860.--Dupin, Tome ii. pp. 438-515. [This writer says that the text of St. Ambrose is more corrupt than that of any other Father. See Alzog, Patrologie, p. 296. Ed. i.]--Cave, Hist. Lit. Vol. I. 262.--Schoeneman, Biblíotheca historica PP. Lat. I. 388-419.--Silbert, Leben des heiligen Ambrosius, Vienna, 1841--Baunard, Histoire de St. Ambroise, Paris, 1872 [translated into German, Freiburg, 1873].--Life of St. Ambrose, by Archdeacon Thornton, London, and other shorter sketches.--Fessler [Jungmann], Institutiones Patrologiæ, I. 655 [also Patrologies of Moehler, Alzog, etc.]. Articles in the Freiburg Kirchen-Lexikon, the Dictionary of Christian Biography, and other encyclopædias.
[1] Paulinus, who had been in constant attendance on St. Ambrose, and was with him at his death, wrote this life a few years after that event, at the request of St. Augustine.
II. Notes on Secular and Church History During the Latter Part of the Fourth Century.
After the Council of Nicæa, a.d. 325, the faith of the Catholic Church was established, but a considerable time was to elapse, and the tide of heterodoxy was to ebb and flow many times before peace should finally ensue. The "conversion" of the Emperor Constantine, though not followed, till he was dying, by baptism, led not merely to the toleration but to the protection and, as it were, the "establishment" of the Christian religion. This very naturally was followed by a large influx of worldliness into the Church, and bishops began to be time-servers and courtiers. St. Ambrose, however, was not of this number, but whether in defence of the Catholic faith, of the property of the Church, or, as in his legations to Maximus, for the protection of those in peril or anxiety who sought his aid, he braved every danger, even that of death itself.
During the greater part of the life of St. Ambrose many of those in power, amongst others the empress mother Justina, were Arians. Julian, though too early to affect the actions of the bishop, apostatized to paganism, which also numbered many supporters of high station. On the other hand, the influence of St. Ambrose, exercised even with severe strictness, was all-powerful with Theodosius, known as the emperor who subdued the Arian heresy and abolished the worship of idols in the Roman Empire.
The various historical events during the lifetime of St. Ambrose will be found entered under the different years in the subjoined table; it remains only here to give some account of his burial-place.
St. Ambrose having discovered the bodies of SS. Cosmas and Damian, a.d. 389, placed them under the right side of the altar in his basilica, and desired that he should be himself buried near them to the left, which was done a.d. 397. In the year 835 the Archbishop of Milan, Angilbert II., caused a large porphyry sarcophagus to be made in which he laid the body of St. Ambrose between the other two under the altar. In 1864 some excavations and repairs revealed in situ a magnificent sarcophagus nearly four and a half feet in length, three in width, and nearly two in height, without the covering, placed lengthwise. Further excavations brought to view two other tombs, one to the right and one to the left, lined with marble and placed east and west, not as the sarcophagus, north and south. In the one to the left were a few pieces of money, one of Flavius Victor, one of Theodosius, with some fragments of cloth of gold and other things. These were evidently the original resting-places of St. Ambrose and of SS. Cosmas and Damian, and the sarcophagus that constructed under Lothair, a.d. 835, by Angilbert.
III. Historical Summary and Chronological Tables.
a.d.
340. Birth of St. Ambrose (probably at Trèves), youngest son of Ambrose, Prefect of the Gauls. Constantine II. killed at Aquileia. Death of Eusebius.
341. Seventh Council of Antioch. Second exile of St. Athanasius.
343. Photinus begins teaching his heresy.
347. Birth of St. John Chrysostom. Council of Sardica. St. Athanasius restored.
348. Birth of Prudentius the Christian poet.
349. Synod of Sirmium against Photinus.
350. Death of the Emperor Constans. St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers. Magnentius proclaimed Emperor of the West.
351. Photinus condemned by a semi-Arian synod.
352. Liberius, Pope in succession to Julius.
353-4. About this date St. Ambrose is taken by his mother to live at Rome, where his sister Marcellina received the veil at the hands of Liberius at Christmas, either a.d. 353, or more probably 354. Suicide of Magnentius the Emperor.
354. Birth of St. Augustine. Death of the Emperor Gallus.
355. Liberius the Pope, Dionysius, Bishop of Milan, and Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari, banished by an Arian synod at Milan. Third exile of St. Athanasius.
356. Banishment of St. Hilary of Poitiers.
357. Liberius subscribes (as the Arians say) an Arian Creed, and returns to Rome a.d. 358.
359. Council of Ariminum. Macedonius of Constantinople deposed. Eudoxius consecrated Bishop.
361. Julian Emperor.
362. Fourth exile of St. Athanasius.
363. Death of the Emperor Julian. St. Athanasius restored. Felix Pope.
364. Death of the Emperor Jovian. Valentinian and Valens Emperors.
366. Death of Liberius in September. Damasus elected in his place, but the see is also claimed by Ursinus.
367. Gratian, though only a boy, declared Augustus by his father Valentinian.
368-74. Successful career of St. Ambrose in legal business and as "consular."
370. St. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea.
372. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop of Susium.
373. Death of St. Athanasius.
374. Death of Auxentius, the Arian Bishop of Milan, and election of St. Ambrose, though still only a catechumen, by acclamation. St. Martin Bishop of Tours.
374-5. St. Ambrose sends a deputation of clerics to St. Basil to ask for the body of St. Dionysius, late Catholic Bishop of Milan. [St. Basil, Ep. 197.]
375. Death of Valentinian in November. His son Valentinian is admitted by Gratian to be Emperor of the East, though only four years old.
377. St. Ambrose writes the three books, De Virginibus; one, De Viduis; which is followed by the book, De Virginitate.
378. The first two books, De Fide, written at the request of Gratian, who was setting out to the relief of Valens against the Goths. Valens is overcome and killed at Adrianople. Many Christians having been made captives, St. Ambrose sells Church plate to redeem them.
379. Theodosius is proclaimed Augustus. Death of St. Basil and of St. Ephrem Syrum. Gratian, on his way back from Thrace, requests St. Ambrose to come to meet him and receives the first two books of the treatise De Fide, and asks for a further one of the Holy Spirit; the latter was written two years later. Death of Satyrus, brother of St. Ambrose. The two treatises on his death written.
379-80. Famine in Rome.--See De Off. III. 46-48.
380. Baptism of Theodosius at Thessalonica. Books III.-V. of the De Fide written about this time. The basilica which had been sequestered by Gratian is restored to the Church.
380. Synod at Rome under Damasus at which St. Ambrose was present. Probably in the same year St. Ambrose consecrated Anemius Bishop of Sirmium in spite of Arian opposition.
381. Death at Constantinople of Athanaricus, leader of the Goths. The three books, De Spiritu Sancto, written. Death of Peter, Bishop of Alexandria. The OEcumenical Council of Constantinople commences under the presidency of Meletius of Antioch. Also at Aquileia a council, at which St. Ambrose took a leading part, was held against the heretics Palladius and Secundianus. An account is given of the proceedings in Epistles 9-12.
381-2. St. Ambrose presides over a council of Italian bishops to take into consideration the troubles at Antioch and Constantinople. Epistles 13, to Theodosius, and 14, his reply, state the proceedings. Theodosius summoned a council to consider the same matters at Constantinople.