I

Letter 24: Ambrose and Maximus

INTRODUCTION

NA.D. 383 THE ARMY IN BRITAIN REVOLTED AGAINST Gratian, under the leadership of Magnus Maximus. Gratian was murdered on the 25th August, and Maximus secured control of Britain and Gaul, which he ruled from Trier. He aspired to be acknowledged as a legitimate Augustus, and invited the boy Valentinian II to place himself under his parental care at Trier, which would have made him master of the whole of the West. Milan, now the residence of Valentinian and his mother Justina, feared an invasion of Italy; and so, while Count Bauto occupied the Alpine passes, Ambrose was asked to negotiate peace with Maximus-so far as is known, the first employment of a bishop on a secular diplomatic mission. Its story is told retrospectively in Letter 24. Up to a point it was satisfactory to both parties, for peace was secured and Maximus was acknowledged as Augustus, even-after a time-by Theodosius. But Maximus afterwards claimed that he had been deceived by ambiguous words about a promised visit of Valentinian and so cajoled out of his contemplated invasion of Italy.

In A.D. 3861 Milan once more expected invasion from Gaul, and once more Ambrose was sent to Trier to make peace. This time his mission, reported in Letter 24, was a complete failure. Indeed, so undiplomatic was his behaviour that one can only conclude that he had never seen any possibility of conciliation. It has even been suggested that Justina had planned that, if she could not have peace, she should at least be able to discredit her unsuccessful ambassador. Ambrose, for his part, took care not to compromise himself by association with Maximus, and the last words of his letter warn Valentinian to expect 1 The old date was 387 (e.g., Tillemont). Rauschen put this second embassy in 384, and was followed by Seeck and von Campenhausen. Palanque argues the case for 386 in his Saint Ambroise, pp. 516-518. Dudden follows Palanque.

war. When it came in the autumn of 387, Valentinian fled with Justina to Thessalonica, and Maximus easily secured Italy. Stirred to action at last, Theodosius marched against Maximus, who was defeated and executed near Aquileia in August, 388. Valentinian went to administer Gaul, and Theodosius took charge of Italy as well as the East, thus being brought into closer touch with Ambrose at Milan.

One passage in the letter needs further explanation. In the 370's the Spanish church was troubled, for good or ill, by an ascetic movement inspired by a certain Priscillian. Some bishops approved it, others suspected it of dualistic (Gnostic or Manichaean) errors. Though some of its irregularities were condemned by the small Council of Saragossa in A.D. 380, the movement was not expressly denounced as heretical, and soon afterwards Priscillian became Bishop of Avila. At this point Ydacius, Bishop of Merida, himself accused of misconduct by Priscillian, brought the State into the business and, as Metropolitan of Lusitania, obtained from Gratian a rescript expelling "pseudo-bishops and Manichaeans" from their sees. Though Priscillian and his friends could get no sympathy from Damasus of Rome or Ambrose, bribery enabled them to have the rescript quashed. But on the death of Gratian, Ithacius, Bishop of Ossonoba, got the ear of Maximus, who gave orders that the Priscillianists should be tried by an ecclesiastical Council at Bordeaux (A.D. 384). From this court Priscillian appealed back to the Emperor. To be brief, Martin of Tours failed to deter Maximus from taking cognizance of the case, Priscillian found himself charged by Ithacius with sorcery, a crime and a capital offence, was found guilty and executed. Subsequently, Martin refused to communicate with the "Ithacians," the bishops who had promoted the secular trial and approved the death penalty, and extended his refusal even to Felix, the new Bishop of Trier, good man though he was, because he had been consecrated by, and remained in communion with, the Ithacians. Like Martin, Ambrose was horrified at this abuse of the secular arm,2 though he did not question Priscillian's heresy, and it is these Ithacian bishops who are referred to in §12. The case of Felix was considered by a Council of Milan in 390 (Letter 51, §6), but Ambrose and his suffragans were unable to extend their communion to him. Throughout this affair, Ambrose is standing upon his fundamental dualism of Church and State.

2 On the question of whether Priscillian had yet been executed, see the note on §12 (p. 224).

Letter 24

THE TEXT

(Ambrose to the Emperor Valentinian)

1. You showed your confidence in my former mission by not calling me to account for it. Indeed, the fact that I was detained some days in Gaul made it sufficiently clear that I had not accepted anything to please Maximus or agreed to any proposals tending to suit him rather than to secure peace. Nor would you have entrusted me with a second mission if you had not approved the first. However, as on my second visit I was unable to avoid a clash with Maximus, I have thought it best to tell you in this letter how I have fared with my mission. By this means I hope to forestall the circulation of reports containing more invention than fact before my return enables me to publish the full and plain story with every mark of truth.

2. The day after I reached Trier, I made my way to the palace. The Grand Chamberlain Gallicanus, one of the emperor's eunuchs, came out to meet me. I requested an audience, he asked whether I brought any reply from your Grace.1 I said yes. He replied that the interview could only take place in the Consistory. I said this was not usual for a bishop, and that in any case there were matters of importance which I ought to talk over with his master. To be brief, he went off to consult him, but came back with the same answer. It was plain that his first statement had been prompted by Maximus himself. I said that although this was inconsistent with my office, I would not abandon the duty I had undertaken, and that I was glad to humble myself in your service in particular, and, of course, in the service of brotherly piety.

3. When he had taken his seat in the Consistory, I went in.

1 That is, to Maximus's invitation to Valentinian to come and live with him, cf. § 7.

He rose to kiss me. I stood still among the councillors. Some urged me to go up to the throne, and he called to me. I replied: "Why kiss one whom you do not recognize. If you had recognized me, you would not be receiving me in this place." "You are upset, bishop," he said. "It is not that I am angry at the insult," I said, "but I am ashamed to find myself standing in a strange place." 2 "On your first mission you came into the Consistory," he said. "That was not my fault," I said. "The blame lay with the one who summoned me, not with me for coming." "Why did you come?" he said. "Because at that time," I said, "I was asking for peace on behalf of one who was in an inferior position, whereas now I am asking for it on behalf of an equal." "Equal!" he said. "Who made him that?" "Almighty God," I said, "who has upheld Valentinian in the kingdom which he had given him."

4. When I said that, he burst out: "You tricked me, you and that Bauto who wanted to claim the kingdom for himself, though he pretended it was for the boy. Yes, and he let barbarians loose against me. As if I had none of my own to bring! There are thousands of barbarians in my service and my pay. If I had not been held back at the time you came, no one could have resisted me and my power."

5. I said mildly: "You need not get so angry, there is no reason for that. Please listen patiently while I answer your charges. I have come here precisely because of your allegation that on my first mission you trusted me and I deceived you. I am proud to have done even that for the sake of an orphan emperor. Whom should we bishops protect more than orphans? For Scripture says: "Give judgment for the fatherless, do right for the widow, and relieve the oppressed," and in another place: "A judge of widows and a father of the fatherless."3

6. But I shall not reproach Valentinian with my services. 4 2 Verecundia quod alieno consisto loco. If verecundia means "shyness" here, Ambrose is being ironical. More probably he means that, though he will refrain from anger, it remains true that he is being humiliated qua bishop. Alieno means "the wrong place for a bishop," rather than "strange to me personally." But there is some play on words all through this section. Consisto (stand) is chosen to go with consistorium, but adds to the note of humiliation-the bishop is kept standing in a public audience. 3 Isa. 1:17, Ps. 68 (67):5.

4 Reading exprobrabo. "I do not want to suggest that the charges you bring against me are true and that my troubles arise out of my services to Valentinian, for your charges are false." The Library of the Fathers translates "make a boast of," either reducing the sense or, possibly, reading (ex) probabo.

To speak the truth, when did I oppose your legions and prevent you from entering Italy? What rocks did I use, what forces, what units? Did I close the Alps to you with my body? If only I could! I should not be afraid of your reproaches and accusations then. By what promises did I trick you into consenting to peace? When Count Victor met me in Gaul, near the city of Mainz, had you not sent him to ask for peace? 5 How then did Valentinian deceive you, seeing that you asked him for peace before he asked you? How did Bauto's devotion to his own emperor deceive you? Because he did not betray his master?

7. And how did I circumvent you? Was it that, when I first arrived and you said that Valentinian should come to you as a son to a father, I replied that it was not reasonable for the boy and his widowed mother to cross the Alps in the depths of winter, or to commit himself, in delicate circumstances, to so long a journey without his mother, that I had been entrusted with a mission about peace, not with a promise that he would come? It is clear that I had no power to pledge myself to anything beyond my instructions, and that in fact I gave no such pledge. For you said yourself: "Let us wait to see what answer Victor brings back." It is well known that, while I was detained, he reached Milan and was refused what he asked. Our agreement went no further than peace; we were not agreed about the emperor coming, which should never have been suggested. I was present when Victor arrived back. How then could I have dissuaded Valentinian from coming? The envoys sent to Gaul subsequently, to say that he would not come, found me still in Gaul, at Valence. On my way back I came across soldiers of both sides, set to guard the mountain passes. What armies of yours did I send back? What eagles did I turn back from Italy? What barbarians did Bauto let loose?

8. It would not have been surprising if Bauto had done so, Frank as he is by birth, when you threaten the Roman empire with barbarian auxiliaries and troops from across the frontier, whose maintenance was paid for by the taxes of the provincials. Mark the difference between your menaces and the conciliatory behaviour of the young Emperor Valentinian. You were demanding entrance to Italy with hordes of barbarians round you,

5 Victor was the son of Maximus, and was sent to Milan to invite Valentinian to Trier, offering peace-Maximus would say, on that condition. His mission crossed with Ambrose's near Mainz. Ambrose adduces this as proof that he had not himself inveigled Maximus into offering peace.