SAINT AMBROSE

LETTERS

Translated by

SISTER MARY MELCHIOR BEYENKA, O.P.

Edgewood College of the Sacred Heart Madison, Wisconsin

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

Nihil Obstat:

JOHN M. A. FEARNS, S.T.D.

Censor Librorum

Imprimatur:

X FRANCIS CARDINAL SPELLMAN

Archbishop of New York

November 13, 1954

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 67-28583

Copyright © 1954 by

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS, INC.

All rights reserved

Reprinted with corrections 1967

Reprinted 1987

First short-run reprint 2001

THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

A NEW TRANSLATION

VOLUME 26

Founded by

LUDWIG SCHOPP

EDITORIAL BOARD

Roy Joseph Deferrari

The Catholic University of America

Editorial Director

Sister M. Josephine Brennan, I.H.M.

Marywood College

INTRODUCTION*

St. Ambrose governed the Church at Milan for twenty-three years, from December 1, 373, until his death on April 4, 397. Of his correspondence, preserved in ninety-one letters, Letters 1–63 of the Benedictine edition (reprinted in Migne, PL 16.849–1286), can be dated with exact or approximate certitude; Letters 64–91, however, are impossible to date from either external or internal evidence. Even within the chronological limits of the traditional dates,—the years 379 to 396—scholars find discrepancies, many of which can have no definite solution. For the dates of the letters and other historical events touching their contents, J. R. Palanque, ‘Essai de chronologie Ambrosienne,’ Saint Ambroise et l’empire romain (Paris 1933) 480–556, has been followed unless otherwise noted.

Because of the wide variety of the subject matter of the letters and the unsatisfactory chronological arrangement of earlier editions and translations, the present volume offers the letters in a new order, which is an adaptation of the classification employed by Palanque.1 The letters have been grouped according to the classes of persons addressed; namely: (1) emperors, (2) bishops, (3) priests, (4) his sister, Marcellina, and (5) laymen. Seven synodal letters, written to emperors or bishops in the name of Ambrose and other members of Church councils, are placed after the letters to bishops. Letters to entire congregations follow the letters to individuals within each section. Each group of letters presents the addressees in alphabetical order.

As a result of this arrangement, the letters on related subjects or those written in the same spirit to an individual are frequently found together. They range from affairs of state, problems of Church government, doctrinal disputes, exegesis, and pastoral ...