Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital by Neil B. McLynn (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 499 Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital. By Neil B. McLynn. [The Transformation of the Classical Heritage, XXII.] (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1994. Pp. xxiv, 406, $45.00.) Norman Baynes observed that "in writing a biography of Ambrose one must refuse to be daunted by the aureole of the saint." Neil McLynn is certainly undaunted . He does not offer a biography but "a fundamental re-reading of the evidence , most of which is supplied by Ambrose himself" (p. xxii) and which is generally not to Ambrose's advantage. He was not as blue-blooded as has usually been supposed and owed his social eminence to his secular office rather than to his family. His election to the see of Milan was not due to an overwhelming demand by the faithful, but was "an improvised response to a botched [Nicene] coup" (p. 52). On his appointment, he lacked theological training and had to educate himself, so that his leadership of the Milanese Church had initially to be moral rather than doctrinal—the first two books of the Defide are "a splendid display of sophistry, misrepresentation on an heroic scale" (p. 103). He was never as close to the Emperor Gratian as he suggested, but won his favor by rescuing him from embarrassment, when Gratian's proposed general council at Aquileia was sabotaged by his colleague, Theodosius. His subsequent "brigandage " against Palladius of Ratiaria at the council was "a piece of pure opportunism , the ruthlessness and audacity of which cannot but command a certain admiration" (p. 137). When he went on the embassy to Maximus at Trier in 383, he went "to tell lies on Valentinian's behalf" (p. 160)—it was a matter of "outright fraud" (pp. 161-162). In his dispute with the imperial court at Easter 386, "he obfuscated his arguments with traditional forensic techniques" (p. 190). His protests against the rich "owe more to patient reading than to close observation of his congregation's behavior" (p. 247). When Valentinian ended his life at Vienne , to be succeeded by Eugenius, "Ambrose should take some incidental credit for this, and [by his funeral sermon for the dead emperor,] for nudging the empire towards a further round of civil war" by not admittingValentinian's death to have been suicide" (p. 341). McLynn is widely and deeply read in both the primary sources and modern studies. He is often right, and even when one disagrees with them, his conclusions are thought-provoking. Yet, in the end, he admits that "Ambrose defied analysis; his audiences had to remain content with what was presented to them" (p. 376). "The deeper springs of Ambrose's personality . . . remain hidden . . . . The 'real'Ambrose will in any case elude us" (pp. 376-377).Yet it is difficult not to feel that McLynn's patent dislike ofhis subject sometimes leads him into unfairness. If Ambrose knew little theology on becoming bishop and had to teach himself, he was probably not unique in the fourth century. Even Augustine , who was certainly better theologically equipped when ordained at Hippo in 391 , asked for a respite to prepare himselfby concentrated reading. To suggest that Ambrose's funeral oration for Valentinian "nudged the empire towards a further round of civil war" takes no account of the political delicacy of the situation, with Valentinian's sisters,Justa and Galla, weeping in the congregation and Theodosius at Constantinople giving no indication ofhow he would 500 BOOK REVIEWS react to the new order ofthings. Interconnected as were religion and politics in the fourth century, they were not identical, and there were some matters where the decision lay with the secular ruler and the Church could only minister consolations to the individual Christian. McLynn, who likes a theatrical metaphor, calls Ambrose "the supreme impresario of the Christian empire" (p. 330). This seems a not inappropriate description of the civil servant turned prelate in a city which was, for a good deal of his reign, the capital of the western part of that Empire. McLynn tells a good story, which will be widely read and rightly applauded ; but it is not the whole story of the man whom Baynes called "a...