Many of us know quite well St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430), the famous Latin Church Father and bishop of Hippo. Augustine penned one of the most quoted sayings in the history of Christianity which in Latin goes, “Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te” (“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” [The Confessions 1.1].). But the Lord used the sermons of Ambrose to quiet the restless heart of Augustine.
Ambrose of Milan (A.D. 338-397) was born in a powerful Roman Christian family. It was told that the bishop of Rome and many church dignitaries visited his parents' home when he was a child. He served as a public servant, a governor in northern Italy at that, before he became a bishop.
Two significant events in Ambrose's life are worth mentioning here. The first one is the circumstance that catapulted him to the office of bishop. One account says that "even as governor he had ecclesiastical problems to deal with. Orthodox Christians and Arians were practically at war at the time. Ambrose was no friend of the Arians, but he was so well regarded that both sides supported him. When the bishop of Milan (an Arian) died, Ambrose attended the meeting to elect a replacement, hoping that his presence would preempt violence between the parties. Much to his surprise, both sides shouted their wish for him to be their replacement.
"Ambrose really didn't want to be an ecclesiastical leader; he was doing quite well as a political one. And he hadn't even been baptized yet! But the people wrote to Emperor Valentian, asking for his seal on their verdict. Ambrose was placed under arrest until he agreed to serve" (131 Christians Everyone Should Know, 81).
The other event in Ambrose's life that's fascinating is his courage in confronting Emperor Theodosius and his atrocious order to kill 7,000 people in Thessalonica in A.D. 390. The emperor was exacting vengeance against the people for the death of his governor who did not yield to the people's demand to free a certain charioteer whom the people loved.
"Ambrose was horrified. He wrote an angry letter to Theodosius demanding his repentance. 'I exhort, I beg, I entreat, I admonish you, because it is grief to me that the perishing of so many innocent is no grief to you,' he wrote. 'And now I call on you to repent.' He forbade the emperor to attend worship until he prostrated himself at the altar.
"Theodosius obeyed, marking the first time church triumphed over state" (131 Christians Everyone Should Know, 81-82).
Later in Ambrose's ministry, one "skeptical professor of rhetoric had gone to Milan in 384 to hear the bishop's famous allegorical preaching. By the time he left four years later, he had been baptized by Ambrose and given a philosophical basis he would use to transform Christian theology" (131 Christians Everyone Should Know, 82). This professor of rhetoric was Augustine. He was greatly influenced by this eloquent preacher and godly bishop of Milan.
Just how much influence did Ambrose have on Augustine? Here's the latter's account in his book, The Confessions:
"So I came to Milan and to Bishop Ambrose, who was known throughout the world as one of the best men. He was a devout worshiper of you, lord, and at that time his energetic preaching provided your people with choicest wheat and the joy of oil and the sober intoxication of wine. Unknowingly I was led by you to him, so that through him I might be led, knowingly, to you.
"This man of God welcomed me with fatherly kindness and showed the charitable concern for my pilgrimage that befitted a bishop. I began to feel affection for him, not at first as a teacher of truth, for that I had given up hope of finding in your Church, but simply as a man who was kind to me. With professional interest I listened to him conducting disputes before the people, but my intention was not the right one: I was assessing his eloquence to see whether it matched with which rumor credited him was really there, or something more, or less. I hung keenly upon his words, but cared little for their content, and indeed despised it, as I stood there delighting in the sweetness of his discourse. Though more learned than that of Faustus it was less light-hearted and beguiling; but such criticism concerns the style only, for with regard to the content there was no comparison. While Faustus would wander off into Manichean whimsy, this man was teaching about salvation in a thoroughly salutary way. But salvation is far from sinners, and a sinner I was at that time. Yet little by little, without knowing it, I was drawing near" (The Confessions [Maria Boulding, OSB, trans.] 5.13).
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