PATRON SAINT OF THE FRENCH ARMY COMMISSARIAT

In an Apostolic Letter of 18 February 1981 John Paul II declared Ambrose to be patron of those in the French army who were responsible for procurement and administration. This was at the request of the Military Vicar, and the choice of patron was apparently made on the grounds that Ambrose ran his diocese efficiently.

At the time of Ambrose's birth at Trier, probably in 340, his father, whose name also was Ambrose, was prefect of Gaul. Ambrose senior died while his youngest child was still young, and his widow returned with her family to Rome. She took great care in the upbringing of her children, and Ambrose owed much both to her and to his sister, St Marcellina. He learned Greek, became a good poet and orator, went to the bar, and was soon taken notice of, particularly by Anicius Probus and Symmachus, the last-named being prefect of Rome and still a pagan. The other was praetorian prefect of Italy, and in his court St Ambrose pleaded causes with so much success that Probus made choice of him to be his assessor. Then the emperor Valentinian made him governor of Liguria and Aemilia, with his residence at Milan.

Auxentius, an Arian, who had held the see of Milan for almost twenty years, died in 374. The city was distracted by party strife about the election of a new bishop, some demanding an Arian, others a Catholic. To prevent, if possible, too outrageous a disorder St Ambrose went to the church in which the assembly was held. There he made a speech to the people, exhorting them to proceed in their choice in the spirit of peace and without tumult. While he was speaking a voice cried out: 'Ambrose, bishop!' and the whole assembly took up the cry with enthusiasm. This unexpected choice astounded Ambrose, for though professedly a Christian, he was still unbaptized.

A relation of all that had passed was sent to the emperor, and Ambrose wrote also on his own behalf, asking that he might be excused. Valentinian answered that it gave him the greatest pleasure that he had chosen governors who were fit for the episcopal office; and at the same time sent an order to the vicariusof the province to see that the election took place. In the meantime Ambrose tried to escape, and hid himself in the house of senator Leontius, who, when he heard the imperial decision, gave him up, and Ambrose received episcopal consecration a week later, on 7 December, 374. He was about thirty-five years old.

St Ambrose was acutely conscious of his ignorance of theological science, and at once applied himself to study the Holy Scriptures and the works of religious writers, particularly Origen and St Basil. His personal life was one of simplicity and hard work; he dined only on Sundays, the feasts of certain famous martyrs, and all Saturdays, on which it was the custom at Milan never to fast (but when he was at Rome he fasted on Saturdays); he excused himself from going to banquets, and entertained others with decent frugality. Every day he offered the Holy Sacrifice for his people, and devoted himself entirely to the service of his flock, any member of which could see and speak with him at any time, so that his people loved and admired him. It was his rule never to have any hand in making matches, never to persuade anyone to serve in the army, and never recommend to places at court. Ambrose in his discourses frequently spoke in praise of the state and virtue of virginity undertaken for God's sake, and he had many consecrated virgins under his direction. At the request of his sister, St Marcellina, he collected his sermons on this subject, making hereby a famous treatise. Mothers tried to keep their daughters away from his sermons, and he was charged with trying to depopulate the empire. Wars, he said, and not maidens, are the destroyers of the human race.

The Goths having invaded Roman territories in the East, the Emperor Gratian determined to lead an army to the succour of his uncle, Valens. But in order to guard himself against Arianism, of which Valens was the protector, he asked St Ambrose for instruction against that heresy. He accordingly wrote in 377 the work entitled To Gratian, concerning the Faith, which he afterwards expanded. After the murder of Gratian in 383 the Empress Justina implored St Ambrose to treat with the usurper Maximus lest he attack her son, Valentinian II. He went and induced Maximus at Trier to confine himself to Gaul, Spain and Britain. This is said to have been the first occasion on which a minister of the gospel was called on to interfere in matters of high politics.

At this time certain senators at Rome attempted to restore the cult of the goddess of Victory. At their head was Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, son and successor of that prefect of the city who had patronized the young Ambrose, and an admirable scholar, statesmen and orator. This man presented a request to Valentinian begging that the altar of Victory might be re-established in the senate-house; to it he ascribed the victories and prosperity of ancient Rome. It was a skillfully drawn and in some respects moving document. 'What does it matter', he asked, 'the way in which each seeks for truth? There must be more than one road to the great mystery.' The petition was particularly a covert attack on St Ambrose and he remonstrated with the emperor for not having at once consulted him, since it was a matter of religion. He then drew up a reply whose eloquence surpassed that of Symmachus. Both documents, that of Symmachus and that of Ambrose, were read before Valentinian in council. There was no discussion. Then the emperor spoke: 'My father did not take away the altar. Nor was he asked to put it back. I therefore follow him in changing nothing that was done before my time.'

The Empress Justina dared not openly espouse the interests of the Arians during the lives of her husband and of Gratian, but when the peace which St Ambrose arranged between Maximus and her son gave her an opportunity to oppose the Catholic bishop, she forgot the obligation which she had to him. When Easter was near, in 385, she induced Valentinian to demand the Portian basilica, now called St Victor's, outside Milan, for the use of the Arians, herself and many officers of the court. The saint replied that he could never give up the temple of God. By messengers Valentinian then demanded the new basilica of the Apostles; but the bishop was inflexible. Officers of the court were sent to take possession of the basilica.

Throughout these troubles, when St Ambrose had the bulk of the excited people and even of the army on his side, he was studiously careful to say or do nothing that would precipitate violence or endanger the position of the emperor and his mother. He was resolute in his refusal to give up the churches, but would not himself officiate in either for fear of creating disturbance. While he was expounding a passage of Job to the people in a chapel a party of soldiers, who had been sent to take charge of the larger basilica, came in. They had refused to obey orders and wished to pray with the Catholics. At once the people surged into the adjoining basilica, and tore down the decorations and put up for the emperor's visit, giving them to the children to play with. But Ambrose did not enter the church himself until Easter day, when Valentinian had ordered the guards to be removed, upon which all joined in joy and thanksgiving.

In January of the following year Justina persuaded her son to make a law authorizing the religious assemblies of the Arians and, in effect, proscribing those of the Catholics. It forbade anyone, under pain of death, to oppose Arian assemblies, and no one could so much as present a petition against a church being yielded up to them without danger of being proscribed. St Ambrose disregarded the law, would no give up a single church, and no one dare touch him.

On Palm Sunday he preached on not giving up churches, and then, fears being entertained for his life, the people barricaded themselves in the basilica with their pastor. The imperial troops surrounded the place to starve them out, but on Easter Sunday they were still there. To occupy their time Ambrose taught the people psalms and hymns composed by himself, which they sang at his direction divided into two choirs singing alternate stanzas. Then Dalmatius, a tribune, came to St Ambrose from the emperor, with an order that he should choose judges, as the Arian bishop, Auxentius, had done on his side, that his and Auxentius's cause might be tried before them; if he refused, he was forthwith to retire and yield his see to Auxentius. Ambrose wrote asking to be excused and forcibly reminding Valentinian that laymen (lay-judges had been stipulated) could not judge bishops or make ecclesiastical laws. Then he occupied his episcopal cathedra and related to the people all that had passed between him and Valentinian during the previous year. And in a memorable sentence he summed up the principle at stake: 'The emperor is in the Church, not over it.'

Meanwhile it became known that Maximus was preparing to invade Italy. Valentinian and Justina asked St Ambrose to venture on a second embassy to stop the march of a usurper. At Trier Maximus refused to admit him to audience except in public consistory, though he was both bishop and imperial ambassador. When, therefore, he was introduced into the consistory and Maximus rose to give him a kiss, Ambrose had refused to hold communion with the court prelates who had connived at the execution of the heretic Priscillian, which meant with Maximus himself, and the next day he was ordered to leave Trier. He therefore returned to Milan, writing to Valentinian an account of events and advising him to be cautious how he treated with Maximus. Then Maximus suddenly marched into Italy. Leaving St Ambrose alone to meet the storm at Milan, Justina and Valentinian fled to Greece and threw themselves on the mercy of the Eastern emperor, Theodosius. He declared war on Maximus, defeated and executed him in Pannonia, and restored Valentinian to his own territories and to those of the dead usurper. But henceforeward Theodosius was the real ruler of the whole empire.

As was almost inevitable, conflicts arose between Theodosius himself and Ambrose, in the first of which right does not seem to have been wholly on the side of the bishop. At Kallinikum, in Mesopotamia, Christians pulled down the synagogue. Theodosius, when informed of the affair, ordered the bishop to rebuild it. St Ambrose was appealed to, and he wrote a letter to Theodosius in which he based his protest, not on the uncertainty of the actual circumstances, but on the statement that no Christian bihop could pay for the erection of a building to be used for false worship. Theodosius disregarded the protest, and Ambrose preached against him to his face; whereupon a discussion took place between them in the church, and he would not go up to the altar to sing Mass till he had procured a promise of the revocation of the order.

In the year 390 news of a dreadful massacre committed at Thessalonica was brought to Milan. Butheric, the governor, had a charioteer put in prison for having seduced a servant in his family, and refused to release him when his appearance in the circus was demanded by the public. The people were so enraged that some officers were stoned to death and Butheric himself was slain. Theodosius ordered reprisals. While the people were assembled in the circus, soldiers surrounded it and rushed in on them. The slaughter continued for hours and seven throusand were massacred, without distinguishing age or sex or the innocent from the guilty. Ambrose took counsel with his fellow bishops. Then he wrote to Theodosius exhorting him to penance, and declaring that he neither could nor would receive his offering at the altar or celebrate the Divine Mysteries before him till that obligation was satisfied.

In the funeral oration over Theodosius, St Ambrose himself says simply that: 'He stripped himself of every sign of royalty and bewailed his sin openly in church. He, an emperor, was not ashamed to do the public penance which lesser individuals shrink from, and to the end of his life he never ceased to grieve for his error.' By this triumph of grace in Theodosius and of pastoral duty in Ambrose, Christianity was vindicated as being no respector of persons. And the emperor himself testified to the personal influence of St Ambrose. He was, he said, the only bishop he knew who was worthy of the name.

In 393 occurred the death of the young Valentinian, murdered by Arbogastes while alone among his enemies in Gaul. Arbogastes manoeuvred for the support of Ambrose for his ambitions but Ambrose left Milan before the arrival of Eugenius, the imperial nominee of Arborgastes, who now openly boasted the approaching overthrow of Christianity. St Ambrose went from city to city, strengthening the people against the invaders. Then he returned to his see and there he received the letter of Theodosius announcing his victory over Arbogastes at Aquileia, the final blow to the old paganism within the empire. A few months later Theodosius himself died, in the arms of St Ambrose.

St Ambrose survived him only two years, and one of his last treatises was on the 'Goodness of Death'. His written works, mostly homiletical in origin, exegetical, theological, ascetical and poetical, were numerous; as the Roman empire declined in the West he inaugurated a new lease of life for its language, and in the service of Christianity. When he fell sick he foretold his death, but said he should live till Easter. On the day of his death he lay with his hands extended in the form of a cross for several hours, moving his lips in constant prayer. St Honoratus of Vercelli was there, resting in another room, when he seemed to hear a voice crying three times to him, 'Arise! Make haste! He is going'. He went down and gave him the Body of the Lord, and soon after St Ambrose was dead. It was Good Fridy, 4 April 397, and he was about fifty-seven years old. He was buried on Easter day, and his relics rest under the high altar of his basilica, where they were buried in 835.