13. He is a Manichee who denies the truth, who denies that Christ came in the flesh; and therefore the remission of sins is not their’s; but it is the impiety of the Manichees which both the most merciful Emperor has abhorred[215], and all who saw them have fled from as a plague. Witnesses thereof are our brethren and fellow-presbyters, Crescens, Leopardus, and Alexander, fervent in the Holy Spirit, by whose means they have been exposed to common execration, and driven as fugitives from the city of Milan. 14. Wherefore you are to know that Jovinian, Auxentius, Germinator, Felix, Plotinus, Genialis, Martianus, Januarius and Ingeniosus, whom your Holiness has condemned, have also, in accordance with your judgment, been condemned by ourselves. May our Almighty God keep you in safety and prosperity, Lord and brother most beloved. Here follows the subscription. I Eventius[216], Bishop, salute your Holiness in the Lord, and have subscribed this Epistle. MAXIMUS, Bishop. FELIX, Bishop. BASSIANUS, Bishop. THEODORUS, Bishop. CONSTANTIUS, Bishop. By command of my lord Geminianus Bishop, and in his presence, I Aper, Presbyter, have subscribed. Eustasius, Bishop, and all the Orders have subscribed. LETTER XLIII. THIS Letter is a reply to a question from Horontianus, why man, the highest work of God’s creation, was made the last. S. Ambrose brings forward various analogies to shew that the last is first, and each with an enthusiastic and poetical description of man’s greatness and of his dominion over the other works of creation. AMBROSE TO HORONTIANUS. Sidenote: Gen. i. 16. 1. YOU have intimated to me your surprise at finding in my Treatise on the Six days of Creation, that, while you found both the Sacred Narrative and the tenor of my discourse assigning greater gifts to man than to any other creature in the earth, still that the land and the waters brought forth all flying and creeping things and things in the waters before him for whose sake they were all created: and you ask me the reason of this, which Moses was silent about, and I did not venture to touch upon. 2. And perhaps that spokesman of the Divine Oracles purposely kept silence, lest he should seem to render himself the judge and counsellor of the Divine ordinances; for to give utterance to that with which he was inspired by the Spirit of God is one thing, to interpret the will of God is another. I am of opinion however that we, not as speaking in God’s Name, but as gathering up scattered principles of reason from human usage, may be able, from the way in which God has disposed other things for man’s use, to come to the conclusion that it was fitting for man to be the last work of creation. Sidenote: S. Luke xiv. 16. Sidenote: S. Matt. xxii. 12.