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
1. IT was not lack of affection, most Christian Prince, (for I can
give you no title more true or more illustrious than this,) it was not,
I repeat, lack of affection, but modesty which put a restraint upon
that affection, and hindered my coming to meet your Grace. But if I
did not meet you on your return in person, I did so in spirit, and with
my prayers, wherein the duties of a priest more especially lie. Meet,
did I say? Nay, when was I absent? I who followed you with an entire
affection, who clung to you in thought and heart; and surely it is by
our souls that we are present to one other most intimately. I studied
your route day by day; transported by my solicitude to your camp by
night and day, I shielded it with my watchful prayers, prayers, if not
of prevailing merit, yet of unremitting affection.
2. And in offering these for your safety we benefited ourselves. This
I say without flattery, which you require not, and I deem unbefitting
my office, but with the greatest regard to the favour you have shewn
me. Our Judge Himself, Whom you acknowledge and in Whom you devoutly
believe, knoweth that my heart is refreshed by your faith, your safety,
your glory, and that not only my public duty but my personal affection
leads me to offer these prayers. For you have restored to me quiet in
the Church, you have stopped the mouths (would that you had stopped
the hearts) of the traitors, and this you have done not less by the
authority of your faith than of your power.
Sidenote: S. Matt. xxv. 40.
3. What shall I say of your late letter? the whole is written with your
own hand, so that the very characters tell of your faith and devotion.
Thus Abraham of old, when ministering entertainment to his guests,
slew a calf with his own hand, and had not, in this sacred service, the
assistance of others. But he, a private man, ministered to the Lord and
His Angels, or to the Lord in His Angels, you, the Emperor, honour with
your royal condescension the lowest of Bishops. And yet the Lord is
served when His minister is honoured; for He hath said, _Inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me_.
4. But is it only this lofty humility which I praise in the Emperor,
and not rather that faith, which you have rightly expressed with a mind
conscious of your desert, or which He Whom you deny not hath taught
you? For who but He could have taught you not to cavil at that created
nature in Him which you see in yourself? Nothing could have been said
more pious or more accurate; for to call Christ a creature savours of a
contemptuous cavil, not of a reverent confession. Again, what could be
more unworthy, than to suppose Him to be like as we ourselves are? Thus
you have instructed me, from whom you profess your wish to learn, for I
never read nor heard anything better.
Sidenote: S. John xiv. 21.
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