「What the decree may be, I do not know; and what is said to have been done rashly, I hold uncertain.」 He says: 「Why did you send presbyters to the basilica? If you are a tyrant, I wish to know it, that I may know how to prepare myself against you.」 I replied, saying that I had done nothing to the prejudice of the Church: that at the time when I had heard the basilica was occupied by soldiers, I had only given a freer groaning, and that, though many urged me to go there, I had said: 「I cannot hand over the basilica, but I ought not to fight.」 But afterward, when I had learned that the royal curtains had been removed from there, while the people demanded that I go thither, I had directed presbyters; yet I myself had been unwilling to go, but had said: 「I trust in Christ that the emperor himself will act with us.」 23.
If these things seem to be tyranny, I have arms, but in the name of Christ: I have the power of offering my body. Why should he delay to strike, if he thought me a tyrant? By ancient right, empires were given by priests, not usurped; and it is commonly said that emperors have desired the priesthood more than priests the empire. Christ fled, lest He be made king (John 6:15). We have our own tyranny. The tyranny of a priest is weakness: 「When I am weak,」 he says, 「then am I strong」 (2 Cor. 12:10). Let him take care, however, lest he make a tyrant for himself, for whom God has raised up no adversary. It is no great thing to say that I am a tyrant of Valentinian, who complains that, by the obstacle of my embassy, he could not cross over into Italy.
I added that priests have never been tyrants, but have often suffered tyrants. 24. That whole day was spent in our mourning; yet the royal curtains were torn by mocking boys. I could not return home, because soldiers were surrounding it who guarded the basilica. With the brethren we said psalms in the smaller basilica of the church. 25. The next day the book of Jonah was read according to custom; and when it was completed, I entered upon this discourse: 「The book has been read, brethren, in which it is prophesied that sinners return to repentance. It was so received that it was hoped to come to pass in the present.」 I added that the just man had even wished to incur an offense, that he might neither behold nor announce the destruction of the city.
And because that saying was a mournful one, He was also grieved that the gourd had withered. God too said to the prophet, 'Are you grieved over the gourd?' Jonah answered, 'I am grieved.' The Lord said that if he was pained because the gourd had been scorched, how much more ought the salvation of so great a people to be His care! And therefore He withdrew the destruction that had been prepared for the whole city. 26. Without delay, word was brought that the emperor had ordered the soldiers to withdraw from the basilica, and that to the merchants too what had been exacted from them by way of penalty should be restored. What joy there was then among all the people! What applause from the whole populace! What thanksgivings! Now it was the day on which the Lord gave Himself up for us, on which in the Church penance is relaxed.
The soldiers vied with one another in announcing this, rushing to the altars and signifying with kisses the token of peace. Then I recognized that God had smitten the worm before dawn, so that the whole city might be preserved. 27. These things have happened—and would that they were now ended! But the imperial words, full of agitation, indicate that graver disturbances are to come. I am called a tyrant, and even more than a tyrant. For when the courtiers begged the emperor to go out to the Church, and said that they did so at the soldiers' request, he replied: 'If Ambrose orders you to do it, you will hand me over to him in chains.' Consider what remains after such an utterance. At this utterance all shuddered, but he has those by whom he is exasperated. 28.
Finally, with a special and explicit expression, Calligonus, the chief chamberlain, even dared to send me word: 'While I live, do you despise Valentinian? I will take off your head!' I replied: 'May God grant you to fulfil what you threaten; for I shall suffer what bishops suffer, and you will do what eunuchs do.' And would that God might turn them away from the Church, that they might turn all their weapons against me, and slake their thirst with my blood! Having explained why he renders an account of his legation—how, being compelled to enter the council, he refused the kiss of Maximus; and how he turned back upon Maximus himself the accusations by which Maximus charged that he had been deceived by him and that barbarians had been let loose against the empire by Bauto—he relates the matter.
Then, when he had related with what frankness he had set the clemency of Valentinian against Maximus's cruelty, and how he had insisted that Gratian's body be restored, and how he had been cast out after reproaching the tyrant with the murder of Vallio—he adds his anxiety, not so much over his own peril, as over the exile of Hyginus. 23. Even though the trustworthiness of my earlier legation has been so approved by you that no account of it is required from me—for it became sufficiently clear, from the very fact that I was detained for some days within Gaul, that I did not yield to Maximus's wishes, nor agree to those things which leaned rather toward his will than toward peace; in short, you would not have entrusted me with a second legation had you not approved the first—
but because, as I was returning, he laid upon me the necessity of negotiating with him, I therefore thought that an account of my legation should be conveyed by this letter—lest anyone's report should weave empty things into the truth before my return should make all things plain, whole and stamped with the seal of sincere truth. 2. When I had reached Trier, the next day I went up to the palace. There came out to me a Gallic man, the chief chamberlain, the royal eunuch. I asked for leave to approach; he inquired whether I had a rescript of your Clemency. I answered that I had. He reported that I could not be seen except in the council. I said this was not the priestly custom, and that certainly there were some matters about which I ought to confer in earnest with his prince. What need of more words?
He consulted him, but thought the same answer should be reported back—so that it might be plain that the earlier replies too had been drawn from his decision. Yet I said that this was indeed foreign to our office, but that I would not fail in the duty I had undertaken; that the lowliness was pleasing to me—especially in your case—and, what is true, that it was a matter of brotherly affection. 3. When he had taken his seat in the council, I entered; he rose to give the kiss. I stood among the members of the council. Some began to urge me to go up; he to call me. I answered: 'Why do you kiss one whom you have not recognized? For had you recognized me, you would not see me in this place.' 'You are disturbed, bishop,' he said. 'Not,' I said, 'by any wrong, but by modesty, because I stand in a place not my own.' 'And at your first legation,' he said, 'you entered the council.'
'Nor was that,' I said, 'my error: the fault was the caller's, not the entrant's.' 'Why did you enter?' he said. 'Because then,' I said, 'I was seeking peace as an inferior; now as an equal.' 'By whose favor an equal?' he said. I answered: 'By the favor of Almighty God, who preserved for Valentinian the kingdom He had given.' 4. At last he burst out, saying: 'Since you and that Bauto have made sport of me—Bauto, who wanted to claim the kingdom for himself under the pretense of a boy, who even let loose barbarians against me—as if I had not those whom I could bring forward, since so many thousands of barbarians serve in my army and receive provisions from me! And if at that time, when you came, I had not been held back, who would have stood against me and against my prowess?' 5. To this I gently replied:
'There is no need,' I said, 'for you to be agitated, since there is no cause for agitation; but listen patiently to what is brought forward against these charges. For this very reason I have come, because at the first legation, while you trusted me, you were asserting that you had been deceived through me. It is glorious to me—and this for the welfare of the ward emperor. For whom ought we bishops to protect more than the fatherless? For it is written: "Judge for the fatherless, and justify the widow, and rescue him who suffers wrong" (Isa. 1:17); and elsewhere: "Judges of widows and fathers of orphans" (Ps. 67:6). 6. Yet I will not reproach Valentinian with my service. To speak the truth, where did I oppose your legions, to keep you from pouring into Italy? With what cliffs? With what battle-line? With what numbers?
Or did I bar the Alps against you with my own body? Would that this had been mine to do! I would not fear the objection, I would not dread your accusations. With what promises did I beguile you, to make you acquiesce in peace? Did not, within Gaul, near the city of Mainz, Count Victor meet me—whom you had sent to ask for peace? In what, then, did Valentinian deceive you, who was asked for peace before he demanded it? In what did Bauto deceive you, who showed devotion to his own emperor? Or is it because he did not betray his own prince? 7. In what did I overreach you? When I first came, since you said that Valentinian ought to come to you as a son to a father, I answered that it was not fitting that in the harsh time of winter a boy should cross the Alps with his widowed mother;
and that, on the other hand, he could not be committed without his mother to so great a journey amid uncertain affairs. The legation entrusted to us was about peace, not a promise concerning his coming: it is certain that we could not pledge what had not been commissioned to us; certainly I pledged nothing—so much so that you said: 'Let us wait for what reply Victor brings back.' But it is plain that, while I was detained, he reached Milan, and that what he demanded was refused him. About peace alone our efforts conspired, not about the coming of the emperor, who ought not to be moved. I was present when Victor returned. How then did I recall Valentinian? Envoys were again sent to Gaul to refuse his coming; they found me at Valence in Gaul:
as I was returning, I came upon soldiers of both parties who were guarding the mountain passes. What armies of yours did I call back? What eagles did I turn aside from Italy? What barbarians did Count Bauto let loose? 8. And what wonder if Bauto had done this, who was of Transrhenane stock—when you yourself threaten the Roman empire with barbarian auxiliaries and squadrons from beyond the frontier, whose pay the tributes of the provincials discharged? See, moreover, what difference there is between your threats and the gentleness of the boy Valentinian Augustus. You were demanding that, hemmed about with throngs of barbarians, you might pour yourself into Italy; Valentinian turned aside the Huns and Alans, as they were drawing near to Gaul, through the lands of Alemannia. What is there to envy, if Bauto made barbarians fight against barbarians?
For while you were occupying the Roman soldiery, while it was deploying against itself on both sides, in the very bosom of the Roman empire the Juthungi were ravaging the Raetias; and therefore against the Juthungus the Hun was summoned. Yet because that same Hun was wasting Alemannia from the neighboring border, and was already pressing upon Gaul from the nearness of the evil, he was compelled to abandon his own triumphs, lest you should be afraid. Compare the deed of each. You caused the Raetias to be invaded; Valentinian redeemed peace for you with his own gold. 9. Look too at that man who stands at your right hand, whom Valentinian, though he could have avenged his own grief, caused to return to you honored. He held him in his own lands, and even at the very report of his brother's murder he reined in his impulse;
nor did he return you a like turn—if not of equal dignity, yet of the same close kinship. Compare then, with yourself as judge, the deed of each. He sent back to you your brother alive; do you at least render him even dead. Why do you deny him the remains of his own brother, who did not deny you aid against himself? 10. But you fear lest by the return of the spoils the grief be renewed among the soldiers; for this is what you allege. Will those defend him slain whom they deserted while he lived? Why do you fear him dead, whom you killed when you could have saved him? 'I have slain my enemy,' you say. He was not your enemy, but you were his. He no longer feels the defense; do you consider the cause.
If anyone today should think to usurp the empire in these parts against you, I ask whether you would call yourself his enemy, or him yours? Unless I am mistaken, the usurper brings on war, the emperor defends his own right. Therefore do you deny the remains of him whom you ought not to have killed? Let the emperor Valentinian have even his brother's spoils as pledges of your peace. And how could you allege that you had not ordered him to be killed, when you forbid him to be buried? Will it then be believed that you did not begrudge him his life, you who begrudge him even burial? 11. But let me return to my own concern. I hear that you complain that those who are with the emperor Valentinian have betaken themselves rather to the emperor Theodosius. What then did you hope would happen, when you demanded for punishment those fleeing to you, and slew the captives—
while Theodosius, on the other hand, enriched them with gifts and bestowed honors upon them? 'Whom,' he said, 'have I slain?' I answered him: 'Vallio.' And what a man! What a warrior! Was this a just cause of his destruction—that he kept faith with his own emperor? 'I did not,' he said, 'order him slain.' I answered: 'This we have heard—that he was ordered to be slain.' 'But,' he said, 'if he had not done violence to himself, I had ordered him to be taken to Chalon and there burned alive.' I answered: 'Then for this very reason that too was believed—that you killed him. But who would think himself to be spared, when a vigorous warrior, a faithful soldier, a useful comrade, has been slain?' And so I then departed, while he said he would consider the matter. 12.
Afterward, when he saw that I held aloof from those bishops who were in communion with him, or who were seeking the death of certain men—however straying from the faith those men were—being provoked, he ordered me to withdraw without delay. But I gladly, though most people did not believe that I would escape the ambushes, set out on my journey, stirred by this grief alone: that I learned that the aged bishop Hyginus was being led into exile—he in whom now nothing remained but his last breath. When I sought out his attendants concerning him, that they should not suffer the old man to be thrust out without clothing, without a coverlet, I myself was thrust out. 13. This is the account of my legation. Farewell, Emperor; and be more on your guard against a man who covers war under the wrapping of peace. He asks to be heard by the emperor, affirming that in a prince readiness of access is praised;
that he himself cannot keep silent without peril to both; that freedom of speech does not displease kings; that the emperor, however pious he be, can be deceived; that the decision concerning the rebuilding of the synagogue is perilous, since it exposes the bishop to martyrdom or to prevarication. On this matter, with the example of Julian set forth, the grounds of the rescript are refuted—chiefly because the Jews have burned many churches. Hence it is treated of the temple of the Valentinians (who are declared worse than the heathen), and of the votive offerings said to have been carried off; and, these being made little of, it is shown that a door is opened to the Jews for calumnies, and that a triumph over Christ is given. Concerning this matter an allegorical remonstrance of the Lord is set forth;
and after Theodosius is deterred by the example of Maximus—being admonished that he should not wish to avenge either Jews or heretics—he is once more urged to clemency. To the most clement prince and most blessed emperor THEODOSIUS Augustus, AMBROSE the bishop. 1. I am almost always exercised by constant cares, most blessed Emperor; but I was never in so great a ferment as now, when I see that I must take care lest there be anything that may be ascribed to me even from the peril of sacrilege. Therefore I beg that you hear my words patiently. For if I am unworthy to be heard by you, I am unworthy to offer on your behalf, unworthy to be one to whom you entrust your vows, to whom you entrust your prayers. Will you yourself, then, not hear him whom you would have heard on your behalf? Will you not hear him pleading for himself, whom you have heard pleading for others?
And do you not fear your own judgment—lest, when you have deemed unworthy the one whom you hear, you make unworthy the one who is heard on your behalf? 2. But it is neither imperial to deny freedom of speech, nor priestly to fail to say what one thinks. For there is nothing in you emperors so popular and so lovable as to cherish freedom even in those who are subject to you by the obedience of military service. Indeed, this is the difference between good and bad princes: that the good love freedom, the wicked love servitude. And there is nothing in a priest so perilous before God, so base before men, as not to declare freely what he thinks. For it is written: 'And I spoke of your testimonies before kings, and was not confounded' (Ps. 119:46); and elsewhere:
'Son of man, I have set you as a watchman to the house of Israel: in this,' He says, 'that if the righteous man turn away from his righteousness and commit iniquity—because you did not distinguish it for him, that is, you did not tell him what was to be avoided—the memory of his righteousness shall not be retained, and his blood I will require at your hand. But you, if you distinguish for the righteous man that he sin not, and he himself sin not, the righteous man shall surely live, because you told him; and you also will deliver your own soul' (Ezek. 3:17-19). 3. I prefer, therefore, Emperor, to have fellowship with the good with you, rather than with the bad; and therefore the silence of a priest ought to displease your Clemency, his freedom to please. For by the peril of my silence you are entangled; by the good of my freedom you are aided.
I do not, therefore, importunately thrust myself into undue matters, or intrude into others' affairs; but I obey my own duties, I obey the commands of our God. This I do first out of love for you, for your sake, in zeal for preserving your salvation. If this is either not believed of me, or forbidden me, I speak indeed from fear of offending God. For if my peril would set you free, I would patiently offer myself for you, though not gladly; for I prefer that you be accepted by God and glorious without peril to me. But if the fault of my silence and dissembling both burdens me and does not free you, I prefer that you judge me too importunate rather than too useless or too base. For it is written, the holy apostle Paul saying—whose teaching you cannot refute: 'Be instant in season, out of season;
reprove, beseech, rebuke with all longsuffering and doctrine' (2 Tim. 4:2). 4. We too, therefore, have One whom to displease is of greater peril—especially since it does not displease even emperors that each should perform his own office, and that you should hear patiently each one suggesting according to his duty; nay, that you should rebuke him if he does not use the order of his own service. What therefore you gladly accept in those who serve you in arms—can this seem troublesome in priests, when we speak not what we wish, but what we are commanded? For you know it is read: 'When you shall stand before kings and governors, take no thought what you shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak:
for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you' (Matt. 10:19-20). And yet, if I should speak in matters of the commonwealth—although there too justice must be observed—I am not bound by so great a fear if I am not heard; but in the cause of God, whom will you hear, if you do not hear the priest, by whose silence sin is committed with greater peril? Who will dare to tell you the truth, if the priest dares not? 5. I know you to be pious, clement, gentle, and tranquil, having faith and the fear of the Lord at heart; but for the most part certain things deceive us. Some have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2). Lest, therefore, this also creep upon faithful souls, I judge it must be guarded against. I know your piety toward God, your mildness toward men;
I am bound by the benefits of your indulgences. And therefore I fear the more, I am the more anxious, lest you yourself afterward condemn me by your own judgment, because by my dissembling or flattery you did not avoid a fall. If I saw that sin was being committed against me, I ought not to be silent; for it is written: 'If your brother sin against you, rebuke him first, then chide him before two or three witnesses (Matt. 18:15ff.). If he will not hear you, tell the Church.' Shall I then keep silent in the cause of God? Let us consider, therefore, what it is that I fear. 6. It has been reported by the Count of the military forces of the East that a synagogue was burned, and that this was done with the bishop as author. You have ordered that vengeance be taken on the rest, and that the synagogue be rebuilt by the bishop himself.
I do not contend that the bishop's assertion should have been awaited; for priests are moderators of the crowds, zealous for peace, except when they themselves too are moved by a wrong done to God, or by an insult to the Church. But let this bishop be, granted, too fervent in the burning of the synagogue, too timid in judgment: do you not fear, Emperor, lest he yield to your sentence? Do you not fear lest he prevaricate? 7. And do you not also fear what is going to happen—lest he resist your Count with words? It will be necessary, then, that he make either a prevaricator or a martyr: both alien to your times, both after the manner of persecution, if he is either compelled to prevaricate, or to undergo martyrdom. You see whither the issue of the case inclines. If you think the bishop brave, beware the martyrdom of the braver;
if you think him inconstant, avoid the fall of the more frail: for he is the more bound who has compelled the weak to fall. 8. With this condition set forth, I think the bishop will say that he himself scattered the fires, stirred up the crowds, gathered the people—lest he lose the occasion of martyrdom, and put forward the stronger in place of the weak. O blessed lie, by which is acquired for oneself the absolution of others, by one's own favor! This, Emperor, is what I too have asked: that you take vengeance rather on me; and if you reckon this a crime, ascribe it to me. Why do you command judgment against the absent? You have one present, you have a confessing defendant. I proclaim that I burned the synagogue—or certainly that I commanded those men to do it—lest there should be a place in which Christ was denied.
If it be objected to me, why did I not burn one here? It has already begun to be consumed by divine judgment: my work has ceased. And if the truth be sought, I was the more slothful for this reason: because I did not think this was to be avenged. What should I do—a thing that, with no avenger, would be without reward? These words touch upon modesty, but they recall grace—lest that come to pass whereby the offense of the Most High God is incurred. 9. Yet be it so; let no one bring the bishop to this duty—for I have entreated your Clemency; and although I myself have not yet read that this has been revoked, let us nevertheless suppose it revoked. What if others, more timid, while they dread death, should offer that the synagogue be rebuilt out of their own resources; or the Count, when he learns this was first decreed, should himself order it to be rebuilt out of the property of Christians?
You will have, Emperor, a prevaricating Count, and to him you will entrust victorious standards, to him the labarum—that is, the standard hallowed with the name of Christ—that he may set up a synagogue which knows not Christ? Order the labarum to be carried into the synagogue; let us see whether they do not resist. 10. There will then be a place for the perfidy of the Jews made out of the spoils of the Church; and the patrimony which by the favor of Christ was acquired for Christians—shall this be transferred to the votive offerings of the perfidious? We read of temples founded for idols in antiquity out of the booty of the Cimbri, out of the spoils of the other enemies. This title the Jews will write on the front of their synagogue: 'The temple of impiety, made out of the spoils of Christians.' 11. But the consideration of discipline, Emperor, moves you. Which then is the greater?
the appearance of discipline, or the cause of religion? Censure ought to yield to devotion. 12. Have you not heard, Emperor, that when Julian had ordered the temple at Jerusalem to be rebuilt, those who were doing the clearing away were consumed by divine fire? Do you not take heed lest it happen even now? Indeed, it was so far from your part to have commanded it, that Julian commanded this! 13. Yet what moves you? Whether it is because any public building has been burned, or because it was the place of a synagogue? If you are moved by the burning of a most worthless building (for what could there be in so ignoble a fort?), do you not recall, Emperor, how many houses of prefects at Rome have been burned, and no one avenged it?
Nay, if any emperor wished to rebuke too severely such a deed, he rather aggravated the cause of the very one who had been smitten with so great a loss. Which then would be more worthy—that the burning of buildings in some part of the fort of Callinicum, or that of the city of Rome, should be deemed deserving of vengeance, if indeed it ought to be at all? At Constantinople some time ago a bishop's house was burned, and your Clemency's son interceded with his father, that you should not avenge both his own—that is, the imperial son's—injury, and the burning of the priestly house. Do you not consider, Emperor, lest in this too, when you have ordered vengeance to be taken, he himself should again intervene that it not be avenged? But that was well obtained by the father from the son; for it was fitting that he should first remit his own injury.
Well was that divided with a distinction of grace, that both the son should be entreated for his own injury, and the father for the son's. Hence there is nothing that you should reserve for the son; and see that you derogate nothing from God. 14. There is therefore no cause adequate for so great an agitation—that on account of the burning of a building such severe vengeance should be taken upon the people: much less because a synagogue has been burned, a place of perfidy, a house of impiety, a receptacle of madness, which God Himself has condemned. For thus we read, through the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord our God saying: 'And I will do to the house upon which My name is invoked, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh:
and I will cast you out from before My face, as I cast out your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim. And as for you, do not pray for this people, and do not ask mercy for them, and do not approach Me on their behalf; for I will not hear you. Or do you not see what these do in the cities of Judah?' (Jer. 7:14ff.) God forbids Himself to be entreated on behalf of those whom you think ought to be avenged. 15. But certainly, if I were to act by the law of nations, I would say how many basilicas of the Church the Jews burned in the time of Julian's reign. Two at Damascus, of which one has scarcely been repaired—and that at the expense of the Church, not of the synagogue; the other basilica bristles with shapeless ruins.
Basilicas were burned at Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus, and in almost all those places, and no one sought vengeance. A basilica was burned even at Alexandria by heathen and Jews, which alone surpassed the rest. The Church was not avenged—shall the synagogue be avenged? 16. Shall the burned temple of the Valentinians also be avenged? For what is it but a temple, in which there is an assembly of the heathen? Although the heathen call upon twelve gods, these men worship thirty-two Aeons, whom they call gods.