The Letters of S. Ambrose, Bishop of MilanAmbrose, Saint, Bishop of Milan
Religion
The Letters of S. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan
Ambrose, Saint, Bishop of Milan
Ambrose, Saint, Bishop of Milan, -397 -- Correspondence
2. There is another subject which distresses us more, which, as we
were assembled, it was our business to discuss duly, lest it should
spread through the whole body of the Church diffused over the whole
world, and so trouble all things For though we were generally agreed
that Ursinus[45] could not have overreached your piety (though he
allows nothing to be quiet, and amid the many urgencies of war would
press upon you with his importunity) still lest your holy tranquillity
of mind, which delights in having all persons in its care, should be
swayed by the false adulation of that unreasonable person, we think it
right, if you condescendingly allow it, to offer you our prayers and
entreaties, not only to guard against what may be, but shuddering at
past things also which have been brought about by his temerity. For if
he found any vent for his audacity, where would he not spread confusion?
3. But if pity for a single person can sway you, much more let the
prayer of all the Bishops move you. For which of us will be united
to him in fellowship and communion when he has attempted to usurp a
place not due to him, and one he could not lawfully have arrived at,
and endeavours to regain in a manner most unreasonable what he was
most unreasonable in aiming at? Often as he has been found guilty of
turbulence, he still goes on, as if his past conduct should inspire
no horror. He was often, as we ascertained and saw in the present
Council, in union and combination with the Arians at the time when he
endeavoured in company with Valens[46] to disturb the Church of Milan
with their detestable assembly: holding private meetings sometimes
before the doors of the synagogue and sometimes in the houses of the
Arians, and uniting his friends to them; and, as he could not go openly
himself to their congregations, teaching and informing them in what
way the Church’s peace might be disturbed. Their madness gave him fresh
courage, so as well to earn the favour of their supporters and allies.
Sidenote: Titus iii. 10.
Sidenote: 2 S. John 10.
4. When therefore it is written; _a man that is an heretic after[47]
one admonition reject_, and when another man who spoke by the Holy
Spirit has said that beasts such as these should be spurned and not
received with greeting or welcome, how is it possible that we should
not judge the person whom we have seen united to their society to be
also a maintainer of their perfidy? What even if he were not there? We
might still have besought your Graces not to allow the Roman Church,
the Head of the whole Roman world, and the sacred faith of the Apostles
to be disturbed; for from thence flow all the rights of venerable
Communion to all persons. And therefore we pray and beseech you that
you would condescend to take from him the means of stealing advantage
from you.
Sidenote: 1 Tim. iii. 3–7.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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