Voices and influences
Ambrose of Milan
A Roman governor drafted into a bishop's chair before he was even baptized, who made an emperor stand outside the church door until he repented of a massacre.
Summary
This site quotes Ambrose of Milan 908 times across 50 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 397.
- Quoted here most in Luke: 271 of 908.
Ambrose of Milan
- Lived
- died 397
- Tradition
- Patristic
5 of 908 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Ambrose of Milan died in 397 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
Christ, then, is the beginning of our virtue. He is the beginning of purity, who taught maidens not to look for the embraces of humanity but to yield the purity of their bodies and minds to the service of the Holy Spirit rather than to…
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a husband. Christ is the beginning of frugality, for he became poor, though he was rich. Christ is the beginning of patience, for when he was reviled, he reviled not again. When he was struck, he did not strike back. Christ is the beginning of humility, for he took the form of a servant, though in the majesty of his power he was equal with God the Father. From him each various virtue has taken its origin.For this cause, then, that we might learn these different virtues, "a son was given us, whose beginning was upon his shoulder." That "beginning" is the Lord's cross—the beginning of strong courage, wherewith a way has been opened for the holy martyrs to enter the sufferings of the holy war.
Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. BSB
Therefore, in order to call the Gentiles to the grace of his resurrection (for it is indeed a rich and fertile land that produces eternal fruits, fruits a hundred and sixty times over), he subjected his shoulder to work, subjecting himself to the cross, in…
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order to carry our sins. And so the Prophet says: His authority is on his shoulder (Isaiah 9:6), that is, the power of divinity over the bodily passion, or the cross surpassing the body. Therefore, he placed his shoulder on the plow, enduring all insults, subjected to labor in such a way that he was wounded because of our iniquities, and weakened because of our sins.
Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. BSB
Accordingly, even at that time, the cross that was to come was prefigured in sign; and at the same time that he was stripped of his tunic, that is, of the flesh he took on, he was stripped of the handsome diversity of colors that…
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represented the virtues. Therefore his tunic, that is, his flesh, was stained with blood, but not his divinity; and his enemies were able to take from him his covering of flesh but not his immortal life.
Genesis 37:23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the robe of many colors he was wearing— BSB
Moses indeed killed the Egyptian and became a fugitive from the land of Egypt, in order to avoid the tyrant of that land.
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But he would not have killed that Egyptian man before he had first killed the Egyptian man of spiritual wickedness within himself, and had renounced the luxury of regal honors, considering the reproach of Christ a greater inheritance than the treasures of Egypt.
Exodus 2:12 After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. BSB
A wish is a request for blessings from God with a promise to fulfill a duty. And so, when you obtain what you have asked for, it is ungrateful to delay the promise.
Deuteronomy 23:21 If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to keep it, because He will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Ambrose of Milan 908 times across 50 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Ambrose was born about 339 at Trier, where his father served as praetorian prefect of Gaul — one of the four or five highest offices in the Western empire. The father died young and the family went back to Rome. Ambrose was trained in law and Greek, entered the imperial service, and by about 372 was governor of Aemilia and Liguria, with his seat at Milan. Milan was then the working capital of the West, where the emperor actually lived. In 374 the bishop of Milan died, and the city split. The Arian party and the Nicene party each packed the basilica, and it looked like a riot. The governor went in to keep order and make a speech about calm. Someone in the crowd — the tradition says a child — called out, Ambrose for bishop, and both sides took it up. He was thirty-five, a career administrator, and not baptized. He tried to get out of it. He was baptized, ordained through every clerical rank in eight days, and consecrated bishop on 7 December 374. He gave his land to the church and the rest of his money to the poor, hired a priest named Simplicianus to teach him theology, and started reading Greek Christian writers no one in the Latin West had absorbed yet — Origen, Basil, Athanasius. He learned the job in public, at speed. He turned out to be extraordinary at it. He preached every Sunday and taught the congregation to sing: antiphonal hymns, two sides of the church answering each other, an Eastern practice he planted in the West. Some of the hymns are his own and are still sung. Augustine, who heard him, says he wept at the singing and could not stop. He also decided that the church was not a department of the state, and he made it stick three times. In 385 and again in 386 the Empress Justina, an Arian, demanded that one of Milan's basilicas be handed over for Arian worship, with her son the boy-emperor Valentinian II behind the order. Ambrose refused. Imperial troops surrounded the church. He and the congregation stayed inside, day and night, and he taught them the hymns to keep their courage up through the siege. He sent back the line that made the position permanent: the emperor is within the church, not above it. The troops withdrew. He pressed the same claim in 388 over Callinicum, where a mob of Christians had burned a synagogue and Theodosius ordered the bishop to pay for rebuilding it — a just order, and Ambrose fought it until the emperor gave way. It is the ugliest episode in his record and should be named as what it is. Then came Thessalonica. In 390 a riot there killed the imperial garrison commander, and Theodosius answered by turning his soldiers loose on the crowd in the circus. Something like seven thousand people were killed in a few hours. Ambrose wrote him a private letter — it survives — telling him he could not celebrate the Eucharist in his presence until he repented publicly, and that David had been a great king and still said, I have sinned. When the emperor came to the church in Milan, the bishop met him at the door and did not let him in. Theodosius, master of the Roman world, took off his imperial robes, stood among the penitents for months, and was readmitted at Christmas. No one had seen anything like it. It set a precedent the West lived under for a thousand years: there is a bar the state does not cross, and someone will be standing at the door. His other lasting work was quieter. He wrote On the Duties of the Clergy, a Christian answer to Cicero's book on duty, and treatises on the Holy Spirit and on the sacraments that carried Greek theology into Latin. And he preached the sermons that a rhetoric professor named Augustine came to hear for the technique. Ambrose showed him how to read the Old Testament without stumbling over its surface, took his confession, and baptized him at Easter 387. He kept his door open, ate almost nothing, and worked past exhaustion. He died on Good Friday, 4 April 397, and Milan filled with people who had watched a governor become a shepherd. Sources: Paulinus of Milan, Life of Saint Ambrose; Ambrose, Letters (including Letter 51 to Theodosius); Augustine, Confessions, books 5–9; Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History; Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, vol. 10.
908 quotations across 50 books
Where this voice is quoted
Then Jesus declared, “How can it be said that the Christ is the Son of David?
“They are not blamed here because they acknowledge Him to be David's Son, for the blind man for so doing was thought worthy to be healed. (Luke 18:42.) And the children saying, Hosanna to the Son of David, (Matt. 21:9.)”
until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’ Thus David calls Him ‘Lord.’ So how can He be David’s son?”
“We must believe then that Christ is both God and man, and that His enemies are made subject to Him by the Father, not through the weakness of His power, but through the unity of their nature, since in the one the other works.”
Then Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.
“While [Jesus] stood in the temple, he also gave the verdict of which we are speaking. In the following verses, you have: "Jesus spoke these words in the treasury while teaching in the temple. And no one seized him." What is the treasury?”
“Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
“Matthew adds a third question, that both the time of the destruction of the temple, and the sign of His coming, and the end of the world, might be inquired into by the disciples.”
When you hear of wars and rebellions, do not be alarmed. These things must happen first, but the end is not imminent.”
“But of the heavenly words none are greater witnesses than we, upon whom the ends of the world have come. What wars and what rumours of wars have we received!”
There will be great earthquakes, famines, and pestilences in various places, along with fearful sights and great signs from heaven.
“The ruin of the world then is preceded by certain of the world's calamities, such as famine, pestilence, and persecution.”
For I will give you speech and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.
“Now in one place Christ speaks in His disciples, as here; in another, the Father; (Mat. 16:17) in another the Spirit of the Father speaketh. (Mat. 10:20.)”
But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that her desolation is near.
“For the Jews thought that the abomination of desolation took place when the Romans, in mockery of a Jewish observance, cast a pig's head into the temple.”
How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.
“Woe to those pregnant women, because they are heavy in body; they are too slow to escape danger. Woe to those for whom the yet unfelt pangs of future birth, by which every body is shaken, are the signs of future judgment, the beginnings of…”
At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
“You see him in the clouds. I certainly do not think that Christ will come in the darkness of mist and the chill of rain. The clouds are visible and surely cover the heaven in foggy cold.”
Then Jesus told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees.
“The fig tree therefore has a double meaning: when the wild is tamed or when sins abound. Like the believer's faith that shriveled up before it will flower, so also sinners will glory through the grace of their transgressions.”
He answered, “When you enter the city, a man carrying a jug of water will meet you. Follow him to the house he enters,
“First observe the greatness of His divine power. He is talking with His disciples, yet knows what will happen in another place.”
So Jesus declared, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them call themselves benefactors. But you shall not be like them.
“But it must be observed, that not every kind of respect and deference to others betokens humility, for you may defer to a person for the world's sake, for fear of his power, or regard to your own interest.”
Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail.
“Peter, though ready in spirit, was still weak in the body and was being prepared emotionally to deny the Lord; for he could not match the steadfastness of divine intention. The passion of the Lord has imitators, but not equals.”
But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
“Beware then of boasting, beware of the world; he is commanded to strengthen his own brethren, who said, Master, we have left all, and followed thee. (Matt. 19:27.)”
Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you out without purse or bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” “Nothing,” they answered.
“O Lord, why do you command me to buy a sword, which you forbid me to strike with? Why do you tell me to have what you forbid me to draw?”
And in His anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.
“Many are shocked at this place who turn the sorrows of the Saviour to an argument of inherent weakness from the beginning, rather than taken upon Him for the time.”
While He was still speaking, a crowd arrived, led by the man called Judas, one of the Twelve. He approached Jesus to kiss Him.
“The great significance of divine power, the great discipline of virtue. And the plan of betrayal is revealed, and yet patience is not denied. You have shown, Lord, who would betray, while you reveal hidden things.”
And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!”
“For Peter being well versed in the law, and full of ardent affection, knowing that it was counted righteousness in Phineas that he had killed the sacrilegious persons, struck the High Priest's servant.”
But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And He touched the man’s ear and healed him.
“Understand, if you can, how the pain of a healthy right hand escaping touch flees, and wounds are healed not by ointment but by touch.”
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, temple officers, and elders who had come for Him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs as you would against an outlaw?
“So they came and arrested him, who were about to perish with a more severe loss of their pursuit: neither did they understand the unhappy mystery, nor did they worship such a compassionate affection of piety, which even allowed their enemies not to be wounded.”
Then they seized Jesus, led Him away, and took Him into the house of the high priest. And Peter followed at a distance.
“The wretched men understood not the mystery, nor had reverence unto an outpouring of compassion so merciful, that even His enemies He suffered not to be wounded. For it is said, Then look they him, &c.”
When those present had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them.
“And by this time there was a fire burning in the house of the High Priest; as it follows, And when they had kindled a fire, &c.”
A servant girl saw him seated in the firelight and looked intently at him. “This man also was with Him,” she said.
“What does it mean that the first witness proclaims him, when men could certainly recognize him more; unless it seemed that this sex had sinned unto the death of the Lord, so that this sex might be redeemed through the passion of the Lord?”
But Peter denied it. “Woman, I do not know Him,” he said. A short time later, someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.”
“Peter denied, because he promised rashly. He does not deny on the mount, nor in the temple, nor in his own house, but in the judgment-hall of the Jews. There he denies where Jesus was bound, where truth is not.”