St. Ambrose of Milan

Oversimplified

• Bishop of Milan (c. 339–397), the pastor-statesman who baptized St. Augustine of Hippo and taught emperors that they too stand under the law of God.
• A father of Latin hymnody whose preaching drew the ancient wisdom of the Greek Fathers into the Western Church.

Summary

Ambrose was a provincial governor, still unbaptized, when the people of Milan acclaimed him their bishop by surprise. He rose to it magnificently — giving away his wealth, immersing himself in Scripture and the Greek Fathers, and becoming one of the most influential churchmen of the age.[^1] His allegorical preaching was the human means by which the restless Augustine was finally won to the faith.

Pastor and Statesman

Ambrose held that the Church is not a department of the state and that no ruler is above accountability to God: he famously required the emperor Theodosius to do public penance after the massacre at Thessalonica.[^2] He shaped Western worship through his hymns and his treatises on the sacraments and Christian duty, leaving a model of a bishop who is at once contemplative, doctrinally serious, and courageous before power. See Baptism, The Church, The Trinity.

[^1]: St. Ambrose, On the Duties of the Clergy (De Officiis) and On the Mysteries. [^2]: On the penance of Theodosius (390).