XV.

the end of a great life.

ad 395-397

Ambrose's own term was now drawing to a close. He was in his fifty-fifth year, scarcely more than a middle-aged man according to our reckoning. But the anxieties and labors of twenty years had had their effect upon him; and his ascetic mode of life, if it enhanced his spiritual powers, did not certainly increase his physical strength.

He allowed himself no midday meal except on Sundays and saints’ days, and, owing to a fortunate peculiarity of his own church, on Saturdays also; the Saturday feast, we learn, was one of the usages of the Church of Milan, for in Rome the ‘Sabbath’ (the day before the Lord’s Day) was kept as a fast. And at the same time he was continually engaged in preaching, writing (not by an amanuensis, but with his own hand), and in giving counsel to those who resorted to him.

The wear of this branch of the pastoral office must have been excessive. Numbers flocked to him to give him their confidences before performing that public penance for sin which was customary at that time, and to ask his advice and consolation; and he threw himself heart and soul into each case, “rejoicing”, says Paulinus, “with them that did rejoice, and weeping with them that did weep; for he would weep so with one who acknowledged his errors with a view to penance, as to force him to weep also”.

His assiduity about the due performance of the rites of religion was equally great, and involved almost an equal tax on his energies, for he would do single-handed at baptisms what five bishops of his time could scarcely perform together. When we remember that at Milan in the fourth century “a baptism” implied commonly the immersion of a number of adults, and was not confined to the pouring of water on a few infants, we shall see that the bodily fatigue of a solemn baptismal day to the officiating bishop (for it was he, not the presbyters, still less the deacons, who usually administered the sacrament) must have been enormous.

The death of Theodosius, while it could have no effect upon his austerities and his labors, must have increased tenfold his anxieties for Church and State. The Huns, a new and terrible enemy, were beginning to threaten the East. The Goths, under Alaric, were stirring in Greece. Gildo the Moor (the brother of that Firmus whom the father of Theodosius had subdued for Valentinian I in 374) was a rebel, and all but independent, in Africa, and had proclaimed himself a supporter of the persecuting Donatists. With a gentle but unpromising boy of ten (Honorius) for emperor of the West, and an equally gentle fool of eighteen (Arcadius) ruling in the East, guided by the contemptible and irreligious Rufinus, the most dismal forebodings respecting the Empire were inevitable. But the battle of the Faith was already won in the West, and no one had contributed more to the victory than the great Bishop of Milan himself. That man could not fail to leave his mark upon the Church who had brought a Theodosius to do penance and converted an Augus­tine. Three years later (398), John, the eloquent and fearless preacher of Antioch, was to ascend the patriarchal throne of Constantinople, and leave his mark too behind him, as a champion of the truth in the East, following up and completing the work of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen. The Church was sure to hold her own when it pleased her Divine Master to send her such rulers as Ambrose and Chrysostom.

Stilicho, who was during the minority of Honorius the virtual Emperor of the West, and had taken care to prevent, by the death of Rufinus, the presence of a rival in the East, discovered soon that the old spirit was not extinct in the Bishop of Milan. One Cresconius, a criminal, had been condemned to be exposed to the wild beasts in the Amphitheatre. Christianity had not yet succeeded in inducing the Romans to lay aside their barbarous delight in the sanguinary spectacles of the arena; it has not yet led their Spanish descendants to give up the bull-fight, and only a century ago similar “sports” were not unknown to the inhabitants of a western isle who prided themselves on possessing a purer form of Christianity than that of modern Spain, or, as some of them even said, than that of Milan fourteen centuries before. The unhappy wretch had managed to make his escape, and fled for refuge into a church. Stilicho was persuaded to order a detachment of soldiers to drag him from the sanctuary. Disregarding the protests and the resistance of the bishop and his clergy, a body of men, headed, said the Catholic gossip of the day, by some Arian officers (probably Goths), forced their way into the sacred building and tore the miserable Cresconius away.

The privilege of sanctuary would be justly considered by nations like ourselves, with a settled constitutional government and a regular judicial system, to be a meaningless and intolerable interference with the due course of the law; it was by no means without its use at other times and among other people. It often afforded a means of appeal against an unjust or too rigorous sentence, against the passion of a despot, or the baseness of a mercenary judge. It would nowadays be a dangerous advantage to the guilty; it was once a shield to the innocent. Guilty therefore as the man was, and little as Ambrose desired to infringe on the majesty of the law or thwart its action, he felt deeply moved at this desecration of his church by the violent encroachment on its recognized privilege. It was in his sight an insult to Him to Whom the place was dedicated, and implied a disregard of its sanctity which might eventually terminate in such buildings being handed over for Arian worship, or secular or even heathen purposes. Throwing himself on his knees before the altar, he prayed with many sighs and tears. Stilicho, meanwhile, had begun to regret (we may believe for religious as well as political reasons) the order he had given, and the intelligence brought to him of the conduct of the bishop and clergy increased the feeling. It chanced that the soldiers who had been foremost in the proceedings at the church contrived, in some manner or other, to get into the way of some African leopards which had been let into the arena to do their murderous work, and the beasts, not being able to distinguish between criminals and executioners, had attacked and severely wounded them. This occurrence, in which some imagined that they saw the interposition of a Higher Power, may possibly have influenced Stilicho still further; it certainly did not prejudice the people against his decision, which was that the criminal’s life should be spared, and his sentence commuted to exile. The Christians could overlook the arrest of a malefactor within the walls of a church, provided such arrest did not lead to the shedding of blood.

It was about the same time that Ambrose received a deputation from a new convert to Christianity, Fritigil, queen of the Marcomanni, a German tribe inhabiting part of the modern Bohemia, and in past times, with their allies the Sarmatian Quadi, a terrible disquiet to the Roman Empire. The missionary who won Fritigil to the faith had told her much of the greatness of the Milanese prelate, to whom she accordingly sent, entreating him to give her further instruction. He replied by writing, and placing in the hands of her messenger, a catechism, which she gladly received. It has unfortunately been lost. He did not forget the statesman; with his religious instruction he joined a recommendation, which she acted upon, to persuade her husband to make peace, and join in alliance with Rome.

HONORATUS OF VERCELLI.        

We find Ambrose in the same year (396) not only seconding missionary endeavors, but also called upon to remember his duty as archbishop. The bishopric of Vercelli had become vacant by the death of Limenius, and there was so much strife and party feeling that no election could be made, and the see had remained for some time unfilled. The metropolitan was held responsible for this state of things, either because he had thrown difficulties in the way, or because he had neglected to take the necessary steps towards reconciling the differences and procuring an election. In either case the charge against him was unfair, and without real grounds. In self-defence, and in discharge of his archiepiscopal duty, he addressed a long letter to the Church of Vercelli. It is the last of his which we possess. He urges Churchmen to lay their strife aside, and be at peace, as though Christ Himself were standing among them; and then cautions them against Sarmatio and Barbatianus, two monks whom he had ejected from his monastery in 391 for teaching some of the doctrines of Jovinian. Next he gives a sketch, illustrated from Scripture, of the qualities needed in their bishop, who ought to combine the virtues of the clerical and monastic life; and winds up with some holy counsel to the laity : the rich, the young, the married, masters, and servants, have their special precepts in this fatherly exhortation. The episcopal election was soon made; the choice of the Church fell upon Honoratus, who was consecrated as Limenius’s successor.

It was not long after writing this letter,—sometime in February, 397,—that he was called upon to officiate at the consecration of the Bishop of Pavia. After returning from the service he was taken ill, and compelled to retire to his bed. It was soon only too evident to all that his danger was extreme. Stilicho, who had learnt his worth from Theodosius and from his own experience, felt that his loss would be a terrible blow to Italy. Something must be done, he thought, to bring it about that so valuable a life might be spared. Summoning all the most influential and valued of the bishop's friends, he by turns entreated and commanded them to go to his bedside and bid him pray to be permitted to live. They went and proffered their strange request: the dying prelate calmly replied, “I have not so lived among you as to be ashamed to live on : but I do not fear to die, for our Lord is good”. The prayers, if offered, were in God’s providence not granted; the end drew visibly nearer, and men began to think who should be chosen to fill his place when he was taken from them. It happened that four deacons (one of whom, Venerius, afterwards became Bishop of Milan himself) were standing at the farther end of the gallery in which his couch was placed, and conversing, as they thought, in a scarcely audible tone on this important question. But either they forgot, in their warmth, to moderate their voices, or the sick man’s senses, as not unfrequently happens, were preternaturally sharpened : when they mentioned the name of Simplician, they were terrified to hear the bishop express his approval by exclaiming three times, “Old, but good”. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that Simplician was his successor.

DEATH.

He sank rapidly; but as the outward man perished, the inward man was renewed; the Lord Jesus, he told Bassianus, bishop of Lodi, who had been praying with him, had come to his side and smiled upon him. At last (it was Good Friday, April 3, 397) he ceased to speak : he lay for some hours with his arms stretched out in the form of the Cross, his lips moving, but no sound audible. Midnight passed, and Honoratus the newly-consecrated bishop of Vercelli, who had been with him, had left his side, and was retiring to rest, when he thought he heard a voice which repeated thrice, “Up, hasten, he is departing”. Without delay Honoratus entered the sick chamber, and gave the dying prelate the Blessed Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood. He received it, and a moment after was at rest. It was Easter Eve, April 4, and his body was carried to the “greater” church : thence on Easter Day to the church which bears his name. There he was laid, close to his beloved brother Satyrus. His funeral was attended by a throng of all ranks and ages: and not Christians only, but Jews and heathen, came to testify their respect for the great and holy man who had departed from among them. His catechumen Fritigil journeyed all the way from her German home to see and speak with him : but she came too late; she could only gaze weeping on his honored tomb.