Collected Works 4 part 3/9

they certainly ought to have awaited our judgment also concerning him. We do not claim the prerogative of examination, yet there ought to have been a sharing of common arbitration. 5. Finally, it ought first to have been settled whether the priesthood should seem to be taken away from this man, before it should be conferred on another — and that especially by those by whom Maximus complained that he was either abandoned or wrongfully assailed. And so, when our fellowships received Maximus the bishop into communion, since it was established that he was ordained by catholic bishops, we did not think he should be removed from the claim of the Constantinopolitan episcopate. We judged that his allegation should be weighed in the presence of the parties.

As for Nectarius, since our humble selves have learned that he was lately ordained at Constantinople, we do not see that our communion coheres with the Eastern parts; especially since Nectarius is said to have been at once abandoned, without the fellowship of communion, by the very men by whom he had been ordained. 6. No small scruple, therefore, is here. Nor does any contention from domestic zeal and ambition vex us, but communion loosed and dissociated disturbs us. Nor do we see that it can otherwise be brought together, unless either he who was first ordained be restored to Constantinople, or surely that, concerning the ordination of the two, there be in the city of Rome a council of ourselves and of the Easterners. 7.

For it does not seem unworthy, O Augustus, that they should undergo the deliberation of the bishop of the Roman Church and of the neighbouring and Italian bishops, who thought that the judgment of one bishop, Acholius alone, was so to be awaited that they judged him to be summoned from the Western parts to Constantinople. If something is reserved to this one alone, how much more is it to be reserved to many! 8. But we, admonished by the most blessed prince, your piety's brother, to write to your clemency's command, request that, where there is one communion, you would wish there to be a common judgment and a concordant consent.

Having commended THEODOSIUS for the pains he had taken to restore unity between the Eastern and Western Church, the bishops set forth why they had written the earlier letter about that matter; they add that they had also been concerned that the supporters of Apollinaris be condemned; finally they assert that neither in seeking a Council had they done injury to anyone, nor had they anywhere departed from the institution of the forefathers. To the most blessed Emperor and most clement prince THEODOSIUS, AMBROSE and the other bishops of Italy. 1. The knowledge of your faith, spread throughout the whole world, has soothed the inmost affection of our mind;

and therefore, that this glory too might be created for your empire — namely that you should be seen to have restored unity to the Churches of the West no less than of the East — we judged that your clemency should likewise be entreated, and instructed by our letters concerning ecclesiastical affairs, O most tranquil and most faithful Emperor. For it was a grief that between the Easterners and Westerners the fellowships of sacred communion had been interrupted. 2. We now keep silence as to whose error or whose offence it was, lest we should seem to be sowing tales and empty talk. Nor do we repent of having made the attempt, which, left unattempted, would have fallen into blame. For we were often reproached on this account, that we seemed to slight the fellowship of the Easterners and to refuse their grace. 3.

Indeed we thought that the labour should be undertaken by us — not for Italy's sake, which has long been quiet and secure from the Arians, nor is vexed by any heretical disturbance; not, I say, for ourselves, because we seek not the things that are our own, but the things that are of all; not for Gaul and Africa, which enjoy the concordant fellowship of all the priests — but that those things which had disturbed our communion on the side of the East might be examined in a synod, and every scruple be removed from our midst. 4. For not only concerning those things about which your clemency deigned to write, but also concerning those who attempt to introduce into the Church some doctrine — which is said to be that of Apollinaris — many things moved us, which ought to have been cut off with the parties present;

so that the man convicted in a new doctrine and refuted in error should by no means lie hidden under the general name of the faith; but at once should both lay aside his office and the title of priest, since he held not by the mastery of teaching; nor should any fibres thereafter remain for those desiring to deceive, nor the contrivances of trickery. For he who has not been convicted with the parties present — that which your clemency, by a truly august and princely response, has determined — will always seize the little handle of fresh inquiry. 5. We therefore beseeched the priestly council that it should be permitted to no one to compose a lie against an absent man, and that there should be discussed in the council what was the truth.

And so no suspicion of partiality or of laxity falls upon those who observed all things with the parties present. 6. Truly we have woven together the allegations, not for the sake of deciding but of instructing; and we who have sought judgment do not pronounce a prejudgment. Nor was any of these to be reckoned a reproach, when the priests were invited to the council, whose absence was often more present than their presence, when they took counsel in common. For neither did we reckon it a reproach when one presbyter of the Church of Constantinople, Paul by name, requested within Achaia a synod of the Easterners no less than of the Westerners. 7. Your clemency perceives that the request was not unreasonable, since it was sought even by the Easterners.

But because Illyricum is moved by suspicion, therefore the maritime and safer places were sought. Nor have we plainly innovated anything as if by some form; but keeping the things defined in councils by Athanasius of holy memory, who was as it were the pillar of the faith, and by the ancient holiness of our fathers, we do not tear up the boundaries which our fathers set, nor do we violate the rights of our hereditary communion; but, reserving the honour due to your empire, we show ourselves zealous for peace and quiet. It belongs to emperors to protect religion, and not to demand from them the restoration of superstition. No account, therefore, is to be taken of those by whom anything is demanded against the honour of the Christian faith.

That the petition was falsely offered in the name of the senate, since the Christian senators did not consent to it. That on this matter report ought to be made to Theodosius and to the bishops: that Valentinian, if he grant privileges to unbelievers, is to be rejected by the Church, and would moreover do injury to the memory of his brother and father — over which, gravely protesting, they are led to write. AMBROSE the bishop to the most blessed prince and most Christian emperor VALENTINIAN. 1. Since all men who are under Roman dominion serve you, the emperors of lands and princes, you yourselves serve almighty God and the sacred faith.

For otherwise welfare cannot be safe, unless each one truly worships the true God — that is, the God of the Christians, by whom all things are governed; for he alone is the true God, who is to be venerated with the inmost mind: for the gods of the nations are demons, as the Scripture says (Ps. 95:5). 2. Whoever, then, serves this true God, and receives him to be worshipped with inmost affection, renders not dissimulation, not connivance, but the zeal of faith and devotion. Finally, if not these, he ought at least to display no consent to the worship of idols and to the profane cults of ceremonies. For no one deceives God, to whom all things, even the secrets of the heart, are manifest. 3.

Therefore, since by you, O most Christian Emperor, faith is to be shown to the true God, and the zeal, caution, and devotion of that very faith, I wonder how it came into the hope of some that you ought by your command to restore the altars of the gods of the nations, and to furnish expense also for the uses of profane sacrifices; for what has long since been claimed for the treasury or the public chest, you will be seen rather to bestow from your own than to render from theirs. 4. And they complain of losses, who never spared our blood, who themselves overthrew the very buildings of the Churches. They ask also that you grant privileges to those who by Julian's recent law denied us the common use of speaking and teaching, and those privileges by which even Christians have often been deceived:

for they wished to ensnare some by those privileges, partly through imprudence, partly in order to avoid the troubles of public obligations; and because not all are found strong, very many have lapsed even under Christian princes. 5. But even if these things had not already been abolished, I would approve that they be taken away by your command; but since throughout almost the whole world they have been checked and forbidden by many former princes, and at Rome moreover by your clemency's brother Gratian of august memory they were abolished by reason of the true faith, and antiquated by issued rescripts — do not, I pray, either tear up what has been faithfully established, or rescind your brother's precepts. In civil affairs, if he has determined anything, no one thinks it should be violated;

and is a precept concerning religion trampled upon? 6. Let no one creep upon your youthful age: whether he who demands these things be a heathen, he ought not to entangle your mind in the bonds of his own superstition; but rather by his own zeal he ought to teach and admonish you how you ought to be zealous for the true faith, when with so great commotion he defends the empty things of the false. I too advise that deference be given to the merits of illustrious men; but it is certain that God is to be preferred to all. 7. If a matter of war is to be deliberated, the opinion of a man practised in battles should be awaited and his counsel approved; when there is treating of religion, think of God. It is no man's injury, when almighty God is set before him. He has his own opinion. You do not compel the unwilling to worship what he wills not;

let this same thing be lawful to you, O Emperor, and let each one patiently bear it, if he does not extort from the emperor what the emperor would bear ill, if the emperor wished to extort it from him. The disposition of a prevaricator is wont to displease even the heathen themselves; for each one ought freely to defend the faithful purpose of his own mind and to preserve it. 8. But if some under the name of Christian think that any such thing should be decreed, let bare words not catch your mind, let empty names not deceive you. Whoever advises this, sacrifices; and whoever establishes this: yet more tolerable is the sacrifice of one than the fall of all. The whole senate of Christians here is in peril. 9.

If today some heathen, O Emperor — which God forbid — should set up an altar to idols, and should compel Christians to assemble there, so that they might be present at the sacrifices, so that the breath and faces of the faithful should be filled with the ash from the altar, the cinder from the sacrilege, the smoke from the pyre; and in that senate-house he should deliver his opinion, where men sworn at the altar of an idol were compelled into the vote (for they interpret the altar as set there for this purpose, that by its sacrament, as they themselves suppose, each assembly might deliberate for the common good — though the senate-house is now filled with a greater number of Christians) — a Christian would believe it persecution, who was compelled to come to the senate under such a condition: which often happens; for they are even compelled by injuries to assemble.

With you, then, as emperor, shall Christians be compelled to swear at an altar? What is it to swear, but to confess the divine power of him as guarantor of your faith whom you call to witness? With you as emperor, this is sought and demanded: that you should command the altar to be raised, and expense to be given to profane sacrifices? 10. But this cannot be decreed without sacrilege; whence I beg you not to decree, establish, or subscribe it in such decrees. As a priest of Christ I appeal to your faith: all of us bishops would appeal to it, were not this incredible and sudden thing come to the ears of men — that any such thing was either suggested in your consistory, or sought by the senate. But far be it that the senate should be said to have sought this: a few heathen make use of the common name.

For about two years ago, when they attempted to seek this, holy Damasus, priest of the Roman Church, chosen by the judgment of God, sent to me a petition which the Christian senators had given — and indeed countless of them — declaring that they had mandated no such thing, that they did not agree with the heathen petitions of this kind, that they gave no consent: complaining also publicly and privately that they would not assemble at the senate-house, if any such thing were decreed. Is it worthy of your times — that is, of Christian times — that the dignity of Christian senators be abrogated, that the effect of a profane will be conferred upon the heathen? This petition I directed to your clemency's brother; whence it was established that the senate had mandated nothing to the legates concerning the expenses of superstition. 11.

But perhaps it may be said: Why did they not attend the senate at the time when these things were sought? They say plainly enough what they wish, who did not attend; they have spoken enough, who have spoken before the emperor. And yet we wonder, if at Rome they snatch from private men the liberty of resisting — they who do not wish it to be free to you not to command what you do not approve, and to keep what you feel to be right. 12. And therefore, mindful of the legation lately entrusted to me, I appeal again to your faith, I appeal to your mind; that you neither judge fit to respond according to such a petition of the heathen, nor add to responses of this kind the sacrilege of subscription. Surely refer it to the prince Theodosius, the parent of your piety, whom you have been wont to consult on almost all the greater causes.

Nothing is greater than religion, nothing more sublime than faith. 12*. If it were a civil cause, a response would be reserved for the opposing party; it is a cause of religion — I, a bishop, appeal. Let a copy of the relation that was sent be given to me, that I may respond more fully; and thus, consulted on all things, let the parent of your clemency deign to respond. Surely if anything else is established, we bishops cannot bear this with an even mind and dissimulate; it will be permitted you to come to the Church: but there you will not find a priest, or you will find one resisting. 14. What will you answer to the priest who says to you: The Church does not seek your gifts, because you have adorned the temples of the heathen with gifts? The altar of Christ rejects your offerings, since you have made an altar for idols; for your voice it is, your hand;

and your subscription, it is your work. The Lord Jesus refuses and rejects your service, because you have submitted to idols; for he has said to you: You cannot serve two masters (Matt. 6:24). The virgins consecrated to God do not have your privileges, and shall the virgins of Vesta claim them? Why do you seek the priests of God, to whom you have preferred the profane petitions of the heathen? We cannot take up partnership in another's error. 15. What will you answer to these words? That you, a boy, have lapsed? Every age is perfect to Christ; every age is full of God. Childhood is not disqualified from faith: even little children have confessed Christ with undaunted mouth against persecutors. 16. What will you answer to your brother? Will he not say to you:

I did not believe myself conquered, because I left you as emperor; I did not grieve to die, because I had you as heir; I did not lament to depart from empire, because I believed that my decrees, especially concerning divine religion, would abide for all ages? These then were the titles of pious virtue that I had raised, these the spoils I offered from the world, these the trophies from the devil, these the plunder from the adversary of all, in which is eternal victory. What more could my enemy take from me? You have abrogated my decrees: which not even he who lifted arms against me has yet done. Now I receive a graver weapon in my body, that my statutes are condemned by a brother. In the better part of myself I am imperilled in you; for that was the death of the body, this is the death of virtue.

Now my empire is abrogated from me, and what is graver, it is abrogated by your own, abrogated by my own; and that is abrogated which even my adversaries proclaimed in me. If you acquiesced willingly, you have condemned my faith; if you yielded unwillingly, you have betrayed your own. Therefore, what is graver, I am imperilled in you also. 16*. What will you answer also to your father, who will meet you with greater grief, saying: Concerning me, my son, you have judged most ill, who thought that I had granted connivance to the heathen: no one reported to me that there was an altar in that Roman senate-house;

I never believed so great an impiety, that in that common council of Christians and heathen the heathen should sacrifice — that is, that the heathen should insult in the presence of Christians, and that Christians should be compelled, unwilling, to be present at the sacrifices. Many and diverse crimes were committed during my reign; I avenged whatever was detected: if anyone then lay hidden, ought he therefore to say that I approved what no one had reported to me? You have judged most ill of me, if it was another's superstition, and not my own faith, that preserved my empire for me. 17. Wherefore, since you perceive this — that injuries are inflicted first on God, then on father and brother, if you decree any such thing — I beg that you do that which you understand will profit your welfare before God.

The senate supplicates the emperors in its own name, that the ancient religions be restored, and the altar of Victory be repaired, that an oath be exacted at it after the ancient manner; for that the earlier princes are not to be imitated in that they removed it, but in that they did not remove the other rites. To demand this of them for Rome, and that it could surely be granted without loss to the treasury: but that to be reckoned unjust, namely that the Vestals and the sacrificing priests be forbidden to take up the goods bequeathed to them; which thing the gods are said to have avenged by sending famine. He denies, finally, that what he seeks should be called a public expense; and he closes his oration by exhorting the emperors to grant his requests. 1.

'When first the most ample senate, and ever your own, recognized vices made subject to laws, and saw the reputation of recent times being purged by pious princes, following the authority of a good age, it poured forth a grief long suppressed, and again bade me be the legate of its complaints: to whom the audience of the divine prince was for this reason denied by the wicked, because justice was not going to be lacking — my lords the emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius, illustrious, victors and triumphators, ever Augusti. 2. Having therefore discharged a twofold office, both as your prefect I prosecute the public acts, and as legate of the citizens I commend their mandates. There is here no dissension of wills;

because men have now ceased to believe that they advance themselves by the zeal of courtiers, if they dissent. To be loved, honoured, esteemed — this is greater than empire. Who could bear that private contentions have stood in the way of the commonwealth? Rightly does the senate pursue those who have preferred their own power to the fame of the prince. 3. But our labour keeps watch on behalf of your clemency. For to whom does it more profit that we defend the institutions of our forefathers, the rights and destinies of our fatherland, than to the glory of the times — which is the greater, when you understand that nothing is permitted you against the custom of your parents? We therefore seek again the state of the religions which long profited the commonwealth. Surely let the princes of either sect, of either persuasion, be counted; the nearer of them cherished the ceremonies of the fathers, the more recent did not remove them.

If the religion of the ancients makes no precedent, let the toleration of those nearest us make one. 4. Who is so familiar with the barbarians as not to require an altar of Victory? We are cautious for the future, and we shun the portents of such things. Yet let honour at least be rendered to the name, which has been denied to the deity. Your eternity owes much to Victory, and will owe yet more. Let those turn away from this power whom it has profited nothing: do not you abandon a patronage friendly to triumphs. To all this power is the object of vows: let no one deny that it should be worshipped, which he professes ought to be desired. 5. But if there were no just avoidance of this omen, it would at least have been fitting to abstain from the ornaments of the senate-house. Grant, I beg you, that what we received as boys we, as old men, may leave to posterity.

The love of custom is great. Rightly did the deed of the divine Constantius not long stand. All examples are to be shunned by you, which you have learned were soon removed. We care for the eternity of your fame and name; lest the future age find anything to be corrected. 6. Where shall we swear upon your laws and words? By what religion shall a false mind be terrified, lest it lie in testimonies? All things indeed are full of God, nor is any place safe for the perfidious: but it avails very much toward the fear of offending to be pressed also by the presence of religion. That altar holds the concord of all, that altar appeals to the faith of each: nor does anything more lend authority to our opinions than that our order decrees all things as if under oath.'

The judgment seat, therefore, will lie open to perjuries, and my illustrious princes—who are protected by a public oath—will reckon this a likely thing. 7. 'But the deified Constantius is said to have done the very same. Let us rather emulate the other deeds of that prince, who would have attempted nothing of the kind, had anyone before him gone astray. For the fall of one who goes before corrects the one who follows, and from the censure of a preceding example arises amendment. It was permissible that that parent of your clemency should not, in a matter still new, guard against odium. Can the same defense fit us as well, if we imitate what we remember to have been condemned? 8. 'Let your eternity receive other deeds of the same prince, which it may turn to more worthy use.

He stripped nothing from the privileges of the sacred virgins; he filled the priesthoods with nobles; he did not deny the costs of the Roman ceremonies; and following the joyful senate through all the streets of the eternal City, he beheld the shrines with a serene countenance, read the names of the gods inscribed upon the pediments, inquired into the origins of the temples, and admired their founders. And although he himself followed other religions, he preserved these for the empire; for each has his own custom, each his own rite. The divine mind has assigned to cities their various guardians and forms of worship. As souls are allotted to the newborn, so to peoples are allotted their guiding genii. There is added that utility which, above all, secures the gods to man.

For since all reasoning lies hidden, whence does knowledge of the divine powers come more rightly than from the memory and records of prosperous events? Now if long age confers authority upon religions, we must keep faith with so many centuries, and we must follow our forefathers, who happily followed their own. 9. 'Let us now imagine Rome standing here and pleading with you in these words: "Best of princes, fathers of your country, reverence my years, to which a pious rite has led me. Let me employ the ancestral ceremonies; for I do not repent of them. Let me live in my own manner, for I am free. This worship brought the world under my laws; these sacred rites drove Hannibal from the walls and the Senones from the Capitol. Was I then preserved for this, that in my old age I should be reproved? I shall consider what is thought needful to be instituted;

yet the amendment of old age is both late and insulting." 10. 'Therefore we ask peace for the gods of our fathers, for the native gods. It is fair that whatever all worship be reckoned one. We gaze upon the same stars; the sky is common to us; the same universe enfolds us. What does it matter by what wisdom each man seeks the truth? It is not possible to arrive at so great a mystery by a single road. But this is the disputation of idle men; now we offer prayers, not contentions.' 11. 'With what advantage to your sacred treasury has the prerogative of the Vestal virgins been taken away? Is that denied under the most bountiful emperors which the most sparing granted? The sole honor lies in that, as it were, stipend of chastity.

As they make an ornament for their lives a crown for the head, so it is held a mark of distinction to be exempt from public duties for the sake of the sacrifice. They require, as it were, the bare name of immunity; since by their poverty they are safe from expense. And so those who detract something add more to their praise; for virginity dedicated to the public welfare grows in merit when it lacks reward. 12. 'Let such profits be far from the purity of your treasury. Let the exchequer of good princes be increased not by the losses of priests, but by the spoils of enemies. Does any gain make up for odium? And because avarice has no place in your character, those are the more wretched whose ancient supports have been cut away.

For indeed, under emperors who abstain from what is another's, who resist greed, it is reduced merely to the injury of him who loses, since the desire of the taker is not stirred. 13. 'The exchequer also retains the lands bequeathed to the virgins and to the ministers by the will of the dying. I beseech you, priests of justice, that the private inheritance be restored to the sacred rites of your city. Let men dictate their wills in security, and let them know that under princes who are not greedy, what they have written is firm. Let this felicity of the human race delight you; the precedent of this case has begun to disturb the dying. Are the Roman religions, then, not subject to Roman laws? What name shall the removal of property receive, which no law, no chance has rendered forfeit?

Freedmen receive legacies; to slaves the lawful benefits of testaments are not denied: only noble virgins and the ministers of the fated rites are excluded from estates acquired by inheritance? What does it profit to dedicate a chaste body to the public welfare, and to prop up the eternity of the empire with heavenly safeguards, to attach friendly powers to your arms and your eagles, to undertake efficacious vows on behalf of all, and yet not to share in the common law with all? Is the servitude, then, better which is bestowed upon men? We injure the commonwealth, for which it is never expedient to be ungrateful. 14. 'Let no one think that I alone defend the cause of the religions: from deeds of this kind have arisen all the misfortunes of the Roman race.

The law of our forefathers had honored the Vestal virgins and the ministers of the gods with modest sustenance and with just privileges: the integrity of this allowance stood firm until the time of degenerate money-changers, who turned the support of sacred chastity into wages for vile porters. Upon this deed there followed a public famine, and a sickly harvest disappointed the hope of all the provinces. These are not faults of the earth. We impute nothing to the stars. Neither did blight harm the crops, nor wild oats kill the grain: the year withered away through sacrilege; for it was necessary that all should perish which was denied to the religions. 15. 'Surely, if there is any precedent for this evil, let us impute so great a famine to the forces of the seasons: a harsh atmosphere bound this barrenness;