Seven Exegetical Works

General Introduction

GENERAL INTRODUCTION DHE CIRCUMSTANCES AND EVENTS of the life of Ambrose (339-397), Bishop of Milan, are so well known as not to need extensive repetition here.1 It was mostly in the last decade of the saint's life that the sermons contained in this volume were composed and, for the most part, preached, from 386, or perhaps 383, to as late as 394. This was a period in which Ambrose was much involved in the affairs of the imperial court at Milan, first in 383 as legate of the boyemperor Valentinian (383-392) to the usurper Maximus,2 and later in the famous conflict with Valentinian's mother, the Arian Empress Justina, who in Holy Week of 385 attempted to gain possession of the cathedral church of Milan for the Arian bishop Auxentius.3 Justina made a further attempt to force Ambrose to capitulate early in 386; it was at this time, when his church was surrounded by imperial troops, that Ambrose introduced the antiphonal singing of psalms andhymns.4 After the deaths of Maximus and Justina (388), but before the murder of Valentinian (392),5 Ambrose came into conflict Standard works are those of Dudden, Palanque, and Paredi (cited in full above, in the Select Bibliography). For a good short survey, see M. R. P. McGuire, "Ambrose, St.," New Catholic Encyclopedia 1 (New York 1967) 372-75; and, for an appreciation with further bibliography , Hans von Campenhausen, "Ambrose," The Fathers of the Latin Church (London 1964) 87-128 (bibliography 317-19). A handy chronological table appears in Saint Ambrose: Theological and Dogmatic Wo-rks, translated by R. J. Deferrari (FOTe 44) xv-xxi. 2 See J.-R. Palanque, "Roman Emperors from Spain: The Emperor Maximus," Classical Folia 22 (1968)85-104. 3 See Ambrose, Letter 20, translated as Letter 60 by Sister M. Melchior Beyenka, O.P., St. Ambrose: Letters (FOTC 26). 4 Cf. Augustine, Confessions 9.7.15. 5 The funeral sermon preached by Ambrose on the Emperor Valentinian 1 2 SAINT AMBROSE on two occasions with the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius. The first of these was the unfortunate incident at Callinicum (388), where the Christians had connived with their bishop to burn a synagogue. Theodosius had ordered the synagogue rebuilt at the local bishop's expense, but Ambrose intervened, out of a misdirected zeal, to have this just order revoked. The second intervention of the Bishop of Milan had considerably more justification, however. In 390 a number of imperial officers had been killed in a riot in Thessalonica. Theodosius ordered a brutal reprisal which resulted in the massacre of seven thousand persons; for this offense he was excommunicated by Ambrose and compelled to do public penance. Throughout, Ambrose kept to one course, through maintaining a single principle, that the Church was supreme in its own sphere, that "the emperor is within the Church, and not above the Church."6 These momentous events receive only the scantiest notice, and then only by way of vague allusion, in the seven exegetical works before us in the present volume. Ambrose considered preaching an important duty; he addressed his people on all Sundays and feast days, and daily in Lent. The principal source for his sermons is Scripture-Genesis and the Psalms especially for the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles for the New, although virtually every book of both Testaments receives at least a citation or two. Above all, Ambrose relies upon allegorical exegesis for the entire Old Testament.7 This is translated by R. J. Deferrari in Funeral Orations . .. (FOTe 22) 263-99. Along with the funeral oration for Theodosius, delivered in 395 and translated in the same volume, it is an important source for the political affairs of the period. 6 Ambrose, Sermon against Auxentius, paragraph 3. 7 For a brief history of the allegorical method to the time of Ambrose. see Paredi 260-64. For a very comprehensive survey in a remarkably short span, see V. Harris, "Allegory to Analogy in the Interpretation of Scriptures," Philological Quarterly 45 (1966) 1-23. The allegorical meanings of virtually all persons and places referred to in the works of Ambrose are listed in W. Wilbrand, "Die Deutungen der biblischen Eigennamen beim hI. Ambrosius," Biblische Zeitschrift 10 (1912) 337-50. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 3 system appears as early as the fifth century B. C. in the explanation of the text of Homer and was adopted by educated...