Confessor Ambrose

Saint Ambrose of Milan (Aurelius Ambrosius), commonly styled bishop and confessor in the Latin liturgical tradition, was a fourth-century pastor, theologian, and one of the four original Doctors of the Latin Church. He was born about the year 340 at Trier (Augusta Treverorum) in Roman Gaul, into a Christian senatorial family. His father, also named Ambrosius, held the office of praetorian prefect of Gaul. After the father's death the household, including Ambrose's sister Marcellina, later a consecrated virgin, and his brother Satyrus, settled in Rome. There Ambrose received the standard elite education in law, rhetoric, and classical letters and entered the imperial civil service. He practiced as an advocate and, still a young man, was appointed consular governor of Aemilia and Liguria, residing at Milan, then the principal imperial seat in the West.

In 374 the death of the Arian bishop Auxentius left the Milanese see contested between Nicene and Arian factions. Ambrose, still only a catechumen, went to the basilica to keep public order and was unexpectedly acclaimed bishop by the crowd. After initial resistance he accepted, was baptized, and was consecrated within a short interval. He disposed of his property for the poor, adopted an austere personal rule, and, with the guidance of the priest Simplicianus, undertook intensive study of Scripture and of Greek theology. As bishop he became the leading Western champion of Nicene orthodoxy, preaching and writing against Arianism and refusing to yield basilicas in Milan to Arian worship when the court of the empress Justina demanded them.

Ambrose also shaped the relation of church and imperial power. He opposed restoration of the Altar of Victory in the Roman Senate. After the massacre ordered by Theodosius I at Thessalonica in 390, he excluded the emperor from communion until Theodosius performed public penance, an episode later taken as a classic assertion of episcopal moral authority. In 387 he baptized Augustine of Hippo at Milan, an event of lasting consequence for Latin Christianity. Ambrose composed dogmatic works including De fide and De Spiritu Sancto, the ethical handbook De officiis ministrorum, scriptural commentaries, funeral orations, and Latin hymns; the Ambrosian rite and Ambrosian chant of Milan preserve his liturgical imprint. Tradition associated his infant mouth with a swarm of bees, a figure of eloquence that later underpinned his patronage of beekeepers and related crafts.

He died at Milan on 4 April 397 and was buried in the basilica that came to bear his name, Sant'Ambrogio. Veneration began at once, without a later formal process of canonization. The Latin Church keeps his principal feast on 7 December, the date of his episcopal consecration; some Eastern calendars also note the day of his death. He is invoked as patron of Milan, of students and learning, and of beekeepers, bees, candlemakers, and wax workers.