Ambrose

Life

Ambrose was born around 339 in Trier, in the Roman province of Gaul. Some place his birth around 340. His father was a high-ranking official in Gaul. After his father's death, Ambrose studied law and rhetoric in Rome, and around 370 he became governor of the northern Italian region centered on Milan.

When the bishop of Milan died in 374, the Arians and the adherents of the Nicene faith clashed over the choice of a successor. According to tradition, when Ambrose, as governor, came to restore order, the crowd acclaimed him as bishop. At the time he was still a catechumen preparing for baptism, but within a short time he was baptized, ordained, and consecrated bishop. He remained bishop until his death in 397.

Ministry and Achievements

• Defense of orthodoxy: He upheld the Trinitarian faith confessed by the Council of Nicaea and opposed the Arians. In 386 the empress dowager Justina demanded that a church be handed over to the Arians. Ambrose refused, remaining inside the church with his congregation.
• Hymns: During this standoff, he is said to have composed hymns for the congregation to sing antiphonally and to have promoted their use. For this reason he is called the father of Latin hymnody. His Advent hymn "Veni, Redemptor gentium" ("Come, Redeemer of the Nations") was rendered into German by Martin Luther.
• Baptism of Augustine: At Easter in 387 he baptized Augustine. In his Confessions, Augustine wrote that Ambrose's preaching had greatly influenced his conversion.
• Demand for the emperor's repentance: In 390 Theodosius I ordered a massacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica. Ambrose declared that the emperor could not receive Communion until he had performed public penance, and the emperor complied.
• Writings: His works include On the Duties of the Clergy, expositions of the sacraments, and the Hexameron, an interpretation of the creation account in Genesis. In On Naboth, he drew on the story of Naboth in 1 Kings 21 to rebuke the greed of the rich who seize what belongs to the poor.

Influence on the Korean Church

Ambrose left few direct marks on the Korean church. He is, however, widely known through the story of Augustine's conversion. Church history courses at Protestant seminaries treat him as a representative Father of the Western Church. Reformers such as John Calvin also quoted his writings. His demand that Emperor Theodosius repent is often cited in discussions of church and politics as an example of the church speaking truth to power.

Assessment

In Korean, the Catholic Church renders his name as "Ambrosio." It counts him, together with Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory I, among the four great Doctors of the Western Church and observes his feast day on December 7. The Orthodox Church also venerates him as a saint. Although Protestants do not practice the veneration of saints, they hold him in high regard as a Church Father who defended the Trinitarian faith and the independence of the church.

Ambrose has also been criticized. In 388, after Christians in Callinicum burned a Jewish synagogue, Theodosius ordered the local bishop to rebuild it. Ambrose pressured the emperor into rescinding the order, an episode that has been criticized as condoning violence against Jews. Interpretations also differ regarding his demand that the emperor do penance. Some regard it as a defense of the church's independence, while others see it as a precedent for the medieval tendency of ecclesiastical power to place itself above secular power.