On this, episode 79, we look at the relationship of St. Ambrose with the great Christian Emperor, Theodosius. It was under Theodosius that the empire made Christianity, that is, Nicaean Christianity, its official religion, and cut off all imperial grants, aid, bequests, and favors to paganism.
While St. Ambrose and Theodosius enjoyed a great relationship (St. Ambrose’s moving oration on the 40th day after the emperor’s death is a model of reflection and love), their offices and duties brought them into times of contention.
It’s at these moments that St. Ambrose’s view of the relation of the priesthood to the imperial power shine forth. Below are the texts from today’s episode.
St. Ambrose on the need for clemency
Show, then, your love for Christ’s body, that is, the church; pour water upon his feet, plant kisses on them, so that you might not only forgive those who have been taken in sin but also, by granting your peace, offer them harmony and tranquillity. Put perfume upon his feet, that the whole house in which Christ rests might be full of your ointment, and all who sit with him may delight in your fragrance. For such is the man who honours the wretched, over whose forgiveness the angels rejoice
as much as they do ‘over one sinner who repents’; the apostles are glad, the prophets are pleased. . . . Therefore, since all men are necessary, protect the whole body of Lord Jesus, that he might watch over your kingdom also with his heavenly regard. Ambrose, Sermon before the Emperor, 388.
St. Ambrose, arguing as a lawyer, on why Christians should not be held liable for damages to Jewish synagouges and Gnostic temples.
And certainly, if I were pleading according to the law of nations, I could tell how many of the Church’s basilicas the Jews burnt in the time of the Emperor Julian: two at Damascus, one of which is scarcely now repaired, and this at the cost of the Church, not of the Synagogue; the other basilica still is a rough mass of shapeless ruins. Basilicas were burnt at Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus, and in almost every place in those parts, and no one demanded punishment. And at Alexandria a basilica was burnt by heathen and Jews, which surpassed all the rest. The Church was not avenged, shall the Synagogue be so?
Shall, then, the burning of the temple of the Valentinians be also avenged? But what is but a temple in which is a gathering of heathen? Although the heathen invoke twelve gods, the Valentinians worship thirty-two Æons whom they call gods. And I have found out concerning these also that it is reported and ordered that some monks should be punished, who, when the Valentinians were stopping the road on which, according to custom and ancient use, they were singing psalms as they went to celebrate the festival of the Maccabees, enraged by their insolence, burnt their hurriedly-built temple in some country village.
St. Ambrose’s letter to Theodosius the Great explaining why the Emperor must demonstrate repentance and contrition within the Church for the massacre at Thessalonica. This Theodosius did for four months.
“Listen, august Emperor. I cannot deny that you have a zeal for the faith; I do confess that you have the fear of God. But you have a natural vehemence, which, if any one endeavours to soothe, you quickly turn to mercy; if any one stirs it up, you rouse it so much more that you can scarcely restrain it. Would that if no one soothe it, at least no one may inflame it! To yourself I willingly entrust it, you restrain yourself, and overcome your natural vehemence by the love of piety.
“This vehemence of yours I preferred to commend privately to your own consideration, rather than possibly raise it by any action of mine in public. And so I have preferred to be somewhat wanting in duty rather than in humility, and that other, should rather think me wanting in priestly authority than that you should find me lacking in most loving reverence, that having restrained your vehemence your power of deciding on your counsel should not be weakened. I excuse myself by bodily sickness, which was in truth severe, and scarcely to be lightened but by great care. Yet I would rather have died than not wait two or three days for your arrival. But it was not possible for me to do so.
“There was that done in the city of the Thessalonians of which no similar record exists, which I was not able to prevent happening; which, indeed, I had before said would be most atrocious when I so often petitioned against it, and that which you yourself show by revoking it too late you consider to be grave, this I could not extenuate when done. When it was first heard of, a synod had met because of the arrival of the Gallican Bishops. There was not one who did not lament it, not one who thought lightly of it; your being in fellowship with Ambrose was no excuse for your deed. Blame for what had been done would have been heaped more and more on me, had no one said that your reconciliation to our God was necessary.
“Are you ashamed, O Emperor, to do that which the royal prophet David, the forefather of Christ, according to the flesh, did? To him it was told how the rich man who had many flocks seized and killed the poor man’s one lamb, because of the arrival of his , and recognizing that he himself was being condemned in the tale, for that he himself had done it, he said: I have sinned against the Lord. Bear it, then, without impatience, O Emperor, if it be said to you: You have done that which was spoken of to King David by the prophet. For if you listen obediently to this, and say: I have sinned against the Lord, if you repeat those words of the royal prophet: O come let us worship and fall down before Him, and mourn before the Lord our God, Who made us, it shall be said to you also: Since you repent, the Lord puts away your sin, and you shall not die.
“And again, David, after he had commanded the people to be numbered, was smitten in heart, and said to the Lord: I have sinned exceedingly, because I have commanded this, and now, O Lord, take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have transgressed exceedingly. And the prophet Nathan was sent again to him, to offer him the choice of three things, that he should select the one he chose — famine in the land for three years, or that he should flee for three months before his enemies, or mortal pestilence in the land for three days. And David answered: These three things are a great strait to me, but let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for very many are His mercies, and let me not fall into the hands of man. Now his fault was that he desired to know the number of the whole of the people which was with him, which knowledge he ought to have left to God alone.
“And, we are told, when death came upon the people, on the very first day at dinner time, when David saw the angel smiting the people, he said: I have sinned, and I, the shepherd, have done wickedly, and this flock, what has it done? Let Your hand be upon me, and upon my father’s house. And so it repented the Lord, and He commanded the angel to spare the people, and David to offer a sacrifice, for sacrifices were then offered for sins; sacrifices are now those of penitence. And so by that humbling of himself he became more acceptable to God, for it is no matter of wonder that a man should sin, but this is reprehensible, if he does not recognize that he has erred, and humble himself before God.
“Holy Job, himself also powerful in this world, says: I hid not my sin, but declared it before all the people. His son Jonathan said to the fierce King Saul himself: Do not sin against your servant David; and: Why do you sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause? For, although he was a king, yet he would have sinned if he slew the innocent. And again, David also, when he was in possession of the kingdom, and had heard that innocent Abner had been slain by Joab, the leader of his host, said: I am guiltless and my kingdom is guiltless henceforth and for ever of the blood of Abner, the son of Ner, and he fasted for sorrow.
“I have written this, not in order to confound you, but that the examples of these kings may stir you up to put away this sin from your kingdom, for you will do this by humbling your soul before God. You are a man, and it has come upon you, conquer it. Sin is not done away but by tears and penitence. Neither angel can do it, nor archangel. The Lord Himself, Who alone can say, I am with you, Matthew 28:20 if we have sinned, does not forgive any but those who repent.” St. Ambrose to Theodosius, Letter 51
Lux Christi 