§ 159. Св. Амвросий Медиоланский. Жизнь его.

After St. Hilary, none of the pastors of the West had as much influence on the modern state of the West as St. Ambrose Bishop of Milan (Milan). The son of the prefect of Gaul and Spain, even in childhood he showed his father great hopes for himself 766. But the father soon died. A widow - a mother with two young sons and a daughter - moved from Trier to Rome - where there were means to provide a better education for the children; Ambrose and Satyr received an excellent education in literature and jurisprudence; Sister Marcellina, after the death of her mother, tenderly cared for the young brothers. Both brothers became lawyers; in Mediolan, Ambrose’s education and talents were soon noticed and the prefect Probus brought Ambrose closer to him; the position of prefect of the Italian regions of Liguria and Probus was opened, giving (in 370) this place to Ambrose, he said: “go - act not as a judge, but as a bishop.” Prefect Ambrose acted according to the desire of his heart. At the end of 374, Bishop Auxentius of Milan died and disputes opened about the election of a successor to the one who was the support of the Arians (see about Hilary). Ambrose, with the rank of prefect, came to the church to keep order, and suddenly heard the voice of a baby: “Ambrose is a bishop.” The people confirmed the review of innocence. In vain did Ambrose refer to the fact that he had not prepared at all for the clergy and had not even been baptized; in vain he wanted to frighten those who were worried with cruelty; At night he disappeared from the city, but by morning, against his will, he found himself at the gates of Mediolan, and the people surrounded him like a prisoner with guards. Ambrose was forced to yield to the love of the people and the calling of God; was baptized, passed through the clergy degrees in seven days, and was ordained bishop on the eighth (Dec. 1, 374) 767. He was then 34 years old. Bishop Ambrose distributed money to the poor and left his brother to manage the inheritance; and he set himself up as a student of Christian teachers, read the works of Origen, the Great Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus. 768, listened to the oral instructions of the presbyter Simplician. The speaker of the civil pulpit appeared as a speaker in the church pulpit, and the people, who loved Prefect Ambrose, listened even more to the words of Bishop Ambrose, who was zealous about cleansing the Church from the Arian chaff. As a monument of pure faith, Ambrose asked to return from Cappadocia the remains of the Milanese bishop Dionysius, imprisoned by the Arians, and the Great Basil, rejoicing at the election of such a shepherd of the Church, wrote to Ambrose: “since you are a man of God did not accept and did not study the Gospel of Christ from man, but the Lord himself, from among the judges of the earth, elevated you to the throne of the Apostles: then fight the good fight, heal your infirmities people, if any of those entrusted to you have been affected by the illness of Arianism” 769. Ambrose needed a lot of firmness and love in order to heal the long-standing illness of Arianism; Empress Justina, an Arian, lived in Mediolan; under her protection, the Arians summoned one deposed Arian bishop to openly fight against Ambrose 770: but Emperor Gratian fell in love with St. pastor and issued a decree that heretics should not gather for worship outside the church 771. Nevertheless, the Arians managed, to the grief of the shepherd, to obtain for themselves one of the few churches of Milan 772. In return, St. the shepherd was consoled by the abundant fruits of his sermons on virginity, which he spoke in the second year of his ministry, and then, at the request of his pious sister, he published it for general edification in the form of a book 773. “Virgins come from Piacenza to be consecrated, from Bologna they come, from Mauritania they come to receive the veil here,” this is what the humble shepherd said in denunciation of those who condemned the virgin life 774 . The worries of the empire tilted the affairs of the Church for a time in favor of the Arians. Gratian (in 378), going to the aid of Valens against the Goths, declared freedom of religion 775 and summoned Ambrose to write for him a refutation of Arianism; Ambrose wrote two books about faith and soon continued his work in other three books 776. The emperor, returning from the campaign (in 379), appreciated the zeal and enlightenment of the shepherd and issued a decree to cancel the previous one, with strict threats against heretics 777; He also returned to the Orthodox the church, which had been taken over by the Arians 778. “God alone knows,” Ambrose wrote to the emperor then, how much joy your piety brings to my soul... You gave me what I so earnestly craved—peace of the Church; You have stopped the mouths of the apostates of the truth. ABOUT! If only it had a successful effect on their hearts” 779. At the same time, Ambrose was greatly upset by the death of his dearly beloved brother and poured out his grief in his funeral homily to Satyr 780. In 380, Justina, unsuccessful in Mediolan, appointed an Arian to the See of Sirmium; Ambrose appeared in Sirmium and an Orthodox bishop was elected. Following this, two bishops of Moisia and Dacia, deposed for Arianism, demanded a conciliar trial from Gratian, and at the Council of Aquileia (in 381), Ambrose managed, despite strong obstacles, to confirm the previous decision on bishops 781. the Arians (in 381) asked the emperor for permission to have an open dispute with Ambrose; On the appointed day, Ambrose appeared for debate, but the Arians did not appear, and Ambrose spoke in a word about the mystery of the incarnation: “True faith is unfamiliar with timidity.” At the same time, when Ambrose acted so successfully against Arianism, he convinced the pious Gratian to take measures to weaken paganism. In 382, ​​a decree ordered that the statue of victory be removed from the Roman Senate, and the priests and maidens of Vesta were deprived of public support 782, while there were several pagan senators in the Senate. The defenders of paganism decided to send an embassy to the emperor to ask for the return of the rights of the ancient religion of Rome; At the head of the embassy was the famous speaker, Senator Symmachus. Ambrose came to the emperor with a petition for the faith of Christ and the faithful senators - and the embassy of pagan senators was denied access to the emperor, for the reason that they did not represent the entire Senate 783. They appealed to the emperor’s ambition and offered him “the clothes of the supreme high priest.” The emperor replied: “pagan decoration is indecent for a Christian.” The hope of the pagans crumbled and anger began to boil. Si Princeps non vult appellari Pontifex maximus, admodum brevi Maximus Pontifex fiet, said malice and did so. In 383, the military leader Maximus was proclaimed emperor and the defender of the name of Christ was killed by Maximus' soldiers. Great was the sorrow of the holy shepherd for the pious emperor; but at the same time, disaster was still threatening all of Italy. Proud Justina asked Ambrose to go to Maxim and ask him not to steal power from the hands of her young son Valentinian 2. And Ambrose stopped the ambitious tyrant 784. The hopes of the pagans for Maxim were not realized, but hopes were not lost at the court of Valentinian. All power was now in the hands of Justina, and all that was needed for her was that Arianism be in force. Thus, Ambrose had to fight two strong enemies. In 384, an embassy of pagan senators again appeared in Milan, and Symmachus, admitted to the emperor, made a strong speech in defense of paganism 785. Ambrose sent a letter to the emperor, where he described the duty of a Christian emperor, the persecution of paganism against Christians, the rights of Christian senators, and finally said to the emperor: “We bishops cannot remain indifferent if you agree to the demands of the pagans; you, as emperor, always have the power to enter the church; but when you ascend, you will either not find a bishop in it, or you will meet a strict accuser instead” 786. Not trusting the success of the letter, Ambrose asked the emperor for a copy of Symmachus's speech in order to write a response to the pagan speaker. In his answer, he pursued his speech at all points, with the triumphant power of truth; refuted all his sophisms and submitted an answer to the emperor. Paganism has fallen. Another enemy remains. Before Easter 385, Justina demanded a suburban church for the Arians; Ambrose refused; They demanded from him two churches in the name of the emperor, Ambrose refused. On the very week of Vay, the prefect and after that a detachment of soldiers appeared at the church in order to either demand the churches or seize the bishop: but the Gothic warriors, at the word of the shepherd about the judgment of God against the oppressors of the Church, did not want to do injustice. The emperor abandoned his intention 787. But Justina turned to other and more brutal violence. In 386, in her opinion, a decree was promulgated, which canceled the decrees of Gratian and declared complete freedom for the Arians 788. Ambrose decided to sacrifice his life, but not to give up the rights of truth; he sent a letter to the emperor in 789. The faithful, in deep sorrow, surrounded their shepherd with the determination to protect him from violence. Ambrose then wrote hymns to the glory of the Holy Trinity, and their singing softened the sorrow of the faithful and affirmed Orthodoxy 790. At the same time, an essay on the Mysteries was written. Arianism triumphed, but not for long. Maximus again declared war on the Milanese court and again turned to Ambrose for help; the shepherd went to the tyrant and boldly accused him of regicide. But this time I couldn’t stop his plans. Valentinian and Justina left Mediolanus to ask Theodosius for help; The fate of the war took away both the throne and life from Maxim in 388, but the frenzied Arian never returned to Mediolan. Valentinian issued a decree against all heretics 791, and St. Ambrose, then explaining the Gospel of St. Luke, conveyed to his flock his joy about the victory over Arianism 792. The period of Theodosius the Great's stay in the West was the time when Theodosius and the Church saw the greatness of Ambrose in new experiences. Theodosius was great both for the Church and for the empire and respected Ambrose: but the great emperor had one weakness - irritability. In 388, Ambrose forced the irritated Theodosius to stop the decree, which ordered one bishop to rebuild the synagogue, destroyed in the heat of contention by the faithful 793. The indignation in Thessalonica again irritated the emperor: several of the emperor's officials were killed there. By the will of Theodosius, the Thessalonians gathered in the circus were mercilessly put to death. In deep sorrow, Ambrose wrote a letter to Theodosius, urging him to sincere repentance 794. Repentance awoke in Feodosia; he went to the cathedral church, and at the door of the church he heard the voice of Ambrose: “You imitated David in crime, imitate him in repentance.” What does God require of me? asked the great emperor humbly. “The same,” the shepherd answered, “is what every murderer must do; God has no partiality.” Theodosius, in the form of an excommunicated man, imprisoned himself in his palace - humble and repentant. At times, his irritability awoke at the thought that he, the emperor, was excommunicated from the Church, and more than once he tried to ask for the decree to be cancelled. Ambrose replied that the emperor had the power to take his life, but did not have the power to change the definition of the Church. Before the feast of the Nativity of Christ, sad and humble Theodosius went to ask permission from the shepherd and - the wise shepherd first forced the emperor, in order to prevent the consequences of irritability, to issue a decree according to which each death sentence was to be carried out no closer than after 30 days; and after that, in the clothes of a repentant, Theodosius was introduced into the church 795. In 391 Theodosius returned to the East, and in 392 the pagan Arbogast took the life of Valentinian and clothed Eugenius in purple. Ambrose mourned the death of Valentinian in a funeral oration, and Eugenius declared the decrees against pagan religion 796 null and void. Ambrose wrote in a letter a strict rebuke to Eugene named Christian 797. Theodosius, strong with the help of the Lord Jesus, defeated the rebels: and the good shepherd was now concerned with asking for forgiveness for those who participated in the war of Eugene, and forgiveness was declared to all 798. At the beginning of 395, the Great Theodosius died, and Ambrose honored his memory with the Word; after that he reminded the flock of the cruelty of the rich in the book about Naboth, on Holy Saturday 397, “The great priest of God, who shone like a precious stone” 799, died. Life of St. Ambrose was described by the deacon and his secretary Peacock, and he writes the following: “one day, when the baby was sleeping in the yard, a swarm of bees surrounded the baby and the bees, without harm to the baby, crawled into his mouth and crawled out; the father, amazed at this, said: if the child lives, something great will come out of him.” On the election of a bishop, except for Peacock, Theodoret N.E. 41. Basil the Great Er. 197. Synodicon. Vetus ap. Fabr. in Bible graec. T. 12. p. 385. Jerome adv. Rufinum lib. 1. Ambr. Epist. 29 Irenica. Cod. Theodos. Lex 9 de haeretecis. Ambrose de Spiritu S. lib. 1. p. 1. T. 2. Thus, from the sermons, the following were compiled: a) three books about virgins, compiled, at the request of the sister, in 377 (Nondum triennalis sacerdos, lib. 3. § 39); b) a book about widows, compiled after the books about virgins, at the request of one widow, at the end of 377; c) a book about virginity - a continuation of the book about widows, compiled at the beginning of 378. Lib. de virg. With. 10. § 57. Cod. Theod. Lex 4 de haeret. Sozom. 7, 1. Juice. 5, 2. A. Svida de Gratiano. Cod. Theod. lex 5 de haeret. Cod. Theod. lib. 46.tit. 10. p. 20. Relatio Symmachi ad Valentinianum 2 inter Ambrosii op. T. 2. r. 828. Epist. 20 ad Marcellinum. Cod. Theodos. lib. 4. de fide. Sermo de basiliis non tradendis. § 34. Epist. 20. ad sororem; Mabillon. iter chair. p. 47. Rufin H. E. 2. 45. Cod. Theodos. 1. 5. de haeret. Theodoret 5, 17. 18. Augustine de civit. Dei 5, 29. Ambrose Ep. 15 Peacock. Sozomen 7, 22. Rufin 2. 33. Epist. 61. 62. Theodoret 5, 24. Sozomen 7. 22. Evagrius 1. 25. Augustine de civ. Dei 1. 26. Even the pagan Claudian in Panegyr. Cons. Honor. wrote about Theodosius: O nimium dilecte Deo, cui militat aër Et fortunati veniunt ad classica venti. Cassian de incarnat. lib. 7. Memory of St. Ambrose December 7. You might be interested in: