Resultados25 letters/passages
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.02
Ambrose, Bishop, to the most blessed Emperor Valentinian. Since the illustrious Symmachus, Prefect of the City [Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, the leading pagan senator and orator of his generation], has sent a memorial to your Clemency requesting that the Altar of Victory [a golden altar and statue of the goddess Victory …
ambrose_milan · c. 380 · score 0.02
I believed that gods of wood and metal could protect me. Experience has taught me otherwise. Hannibal came to my gates despite all the rites I performed. The Gauls seized the Capitol while the geese screamed and the priests chanted. My gods did not save me then. It was Roman courage that saved me — not Roman religion." …
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.02
Ambrose explains to the Emperor Eugenius [a Western usurper emperor, 392-394, a former rhetoric teacher elevated by the Frankish general Arbogast] why he was absent from Milan. He then reproaches him for his concessions to pagan worship. This, he says, was why he did not write sooner, and he promises to treat him with …
ambrose_milan · c. 383 · score 0.02
I turned my temples red with the blood of animals, I bowed before dead stones, I honored gods who were demons. Now I have been taught better. I am ashamed of my past, not proud of it. I do not beg for my old errors to be restored. I beg you to leave them buried." If length of custom were an argument for truth, then the …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.02
Ambrose, Bishop, to Eugenius. You have written to me requesting that I meet with you. I must decline, and I owe you an explanation for the refusal. I do not question that you hold power in the West. Power is a fact, and I am not so naive as to pretend that facts do not exist. But the manner in which you acquired that p …
ambrose_milan · c. 380 · score 0.02
But Rome's greatness was built by her soldiers, not her priests. Regulus did not consult the augurs before marching to Carthage. Scipio did not sacrifice to Victory before destroying it. The battles that made Rome were won by Roman arms, not Roman altars. And the rites that Symmachus defends — the very rites he claims …
ambrose_milan · c. 380 · score 0.01
Ambrose, Bishop, to the most blessed prince and most gracious Emperor Valentinian. Since the illustrious Symmachus, Prefect of the City, has petitioned your Grace to restore the altar removed from the Roman Senate house, and since you, Emperor — young in years but a veteran in faith — rejected the prayer of the pagans, …
ambrose_milan · c. 383 · score 0.01
Ambrose, Bishop, to the most blessed prince and most merciful Emperor Valentinian. When the illustrious Symmachus, Prefect of the City, submitted his memorial to your Clemency requesting that the altar removed from the Roman Senate house be restored to its place, you, Emperor — though still young in years — proved your …
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.01
Lastly, I said that if he did this, he should either not come to the church, or if he came, he would either find no priest there or find one standing against him. Nor could the excuse be offered that he was a catechumen [a person preparing for baptism], since catechumens are not allowed to contribute to idol worship. 3 …
ambrose_milan · c. 394 · score 0.01
Ambrose, Bishop, to the Emperor Theodosius. You supposed, most blessed Emperor — as I gathered from your letter — that I had gone far from Milan because I believed God had abandoned your cause. But I am neither so imprudent nor so forgetful of your virtues and your merits as to have doubted that heaven's help would att …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Shall I expose men either to betrayal of the faith or to punishment? Ambrose is not so important as to degrade the priesthood on his own account. The life of one man is not worth as much as the dignity of all priests -- on whose advice I have composed this document. They warned me that perhaps some pagan or Jew might b …
ambrose_milan · c. 382 · score 0.01
Taking my text from Psalm 19 — "The heavens declare the glory of God" — I explained that the "heavens" are the martyrs and apostles, and "the day" is their confession. These men were humbled by God and then raised up. Their blood, shed centuries ago, still speaks. The earth that held them could not contain their testim …
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.01
For when in the city of Tyre the quinquennial games were being held and the extremely wicked king of Antioch [Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid persecutor of the Jews] had come to attend, Jason appointed agents to carry three hundred silver didrachms from Jerusalem and give them for the sacrifice to Hercules. But th …
ambrose_milan · c. 397 · score 0.01
Ambrose, a servant of Christ, called to be a bishop, to the church of Vercellae and to all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: grace be fulfilled in you from God the Father and his only-begotten Son, in the Holy Spirit. I am spent with grief that the church of God among you is still without a bishop, and tha …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
The bishops, however, immediately recalled their deflected opinion. And certainly the greater number at Rimini approved the faith of the Nicene Council and condemned the Arian decrees. If Auxentius appeals to a synod to dispute about the faith -- although it is hardly necessary to fatigue so many bishops on account of …
ambrose_milan · c. 382 · score 0.01
To the lady my sister, dearer to me than my eyes and life — Ambrose, Bishop. Since I want nothing that happens here in your absence to escape your knowledge, you must know that we have discovered the bodies of holy martyrs. After I dedicated the basilica, many people, as if with one voice, said: "Consecrate it as you d …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
But surely if we consult the sequence of divine Scripture or the records of past ages, who can deny that in a matter of faith -- I repeat, in a matter of faith -- it is bishops who have been accustomed to judge Christian emperors, not emperors to judge bishops? You will come of age, God willing, and then you will judge …
ambrose_milan · c. 397 · score 0.01
The clerical life and the monastic life are not the same, though they share much. A good monk is not automatically a good bishop, any more than a good soldier is automatically a good general. The skills are different. But the foundation — discipline, prayer, self-denial, obedience — must be the same. Do not choose a ma …
ambrose_milan · c. 395 · score 0.01
But you know that we must constantly stand up for the cause of God — as is often done for the cause of liberty — not only by priests but also by those in your armies or among the provincials. When you became Emperor, envoys requested that you restore funds to the temples, and you refused. Others came a second time and …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Ambrose to Sabinus — greetings. You have asked what I think of Jerome's new translation [Jerome was in the process of producing what would become the Vulgate, the standard Latin Bible of the Western Church, translating the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew rather than from the Greek Septuagint]. The honest answer: …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
I neither recognize him as a bishop nor know where he comes from. Where do we stand, Emperor, when you yourself have already declared your judgment -- indeed, when you have enacted laws forbidding anyone to judge otherwise? When you have laid this down for others, you have laid it down for yourself as well. For the emp …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
To the most gracious Emperor and most blessed Augustus, Gratian — Ambrose, Bishop, sends greetings. Since your Clemency has asked me to write something on the faith — not because you doubt, but because you desire to know more fully — I have composed this work at your command. It would have been more fitting for others, …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Ambrose to Bellicius — greetings. I understand your hesitation. The step you are considering is not a small one, and I would be a poor pastor if I pretended otherwise. You will lose friends — some of them. The circle of educated, cultivated men in which you move does not look kindly on conversion. They will call you cr …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Ambrose to his dear friend Simplicianus — greetings. Your conversation last week stayed with me, and I want to set down in writing what I could not say adequately in person. You told me the story of Victorinus again — how the great Roman rhetor and philosopher, translator of Plotinus, the man whose mind was the most po …
ambrose_milan · c. 385 · score 0.01
Ambrose, Bishop, to the most merciful Emperor and most blessed Augustus Valentinian. Dalmatius, the tribune and notary, came to me on what he described as your Clemency's orders, demanding that I choose judges for a debate, since Auxentius the Arian bishop had already chosen his. He did not specify who had been nominat …