Valentinian turned back the Huns and Alans who were approaching Gaul through German territory. Why be annoyed with Bauto for pitting barbarian against barbarian? For while you were holding down a Roman army and he confronted you on two sides, in the very heart of the Roman empire the Juthungi were laying Rhaetia waste. It was against the Juthungi that the Huns were called in. Yet when they were overrunning Germany on your frontier and already threatening Gaul with imminent disaster, they were obliged to relinquish their triumphs to save you from alarm. Compare his actions with yours. You were responsible for the invasion of Rhaetia, Valentinian bought peace for you with his own gold.

9. Now look at the man who is standing on your right.7 When Valentinian could have avenged his own grief, he sent him back to you with honour. He had him in his own territory, and even when the news of his brother's murder came, he curbed his anger. They were the same relation, if not the same rank, yet he did not retaliate on you. Compare his actions with yours, and judge for yourself. He sent you back your brother alive. At least restore his brother dead. He did not refuse you assistance against himself. Why do you refuse him his brother's mortal remains? 8

10. You are afraid-or so you say that the return of the body may revive the grief of the troops. If they deserted him in life, will they defend him in death? You could have saved him, but you killed him. Why are you afraid of him now that he is dead? "I destroyed my enemy," you say. No, he was not your enemy; you were his. Well, no defence affects him now. Consider the case yourself. If someone thought to usurp your rule in these parts today, tell me, would you call yourself his enemy, or him yours? If I am not mistaken, a usurper makes war, an emperor defends his own rights. It was wrong of you to kill him. Must you refuse his body? Let the Emperor Valentinian have at least the remains of his brother as your hostage

6 An Alemannic tribe, which invaded Rhaetia. Bauto (or Theodosius) then invited the Huns and Alans, already approaching Gaul, to attack the territory of the Alemanni, hoping thus to induce the Juthungi to return home. Maximus protested when the Huns were thus brought to his own borders, and Valentinian, to keep peace with Maximus, had to buy them off. There is no other evidence that the raid into Rhaetia was instigated by Maximus.

7 Marcellinus, the younger brother of Maximus.

8 The request for Gratian's body was a secondary object of the mission, and probably, after so long, no more than a pretext for it.

for peace. How could you assert that you did not order his death when you deny him burial? If you grudge him even burial, will it be believed that you did not grudge him his life?

11. But I will return to myself. You complain, I hear, that the Emperor Valentinian's adherents turned rather to the Emperor Theodosius than to you. What did you expect to happen when you threatened to punish the fugitives and put those you captured to death, while Theodosius lavished gifts on them and loaded them with honours?" 9 "Who did I kill?" he said. "Vallio," I answered. "And what a man, what a soldier! Did his fidelity to his emperor justify his fate?" "I did not order his death," he said. "I heard that an order was given for him to be put to death," I answered. "No," he said, "if he had not laid hands on himself, I had ordered that he should be taken to Chalons 10 and burnt alive there." I replied: "That was why it was believed that you had put him to death. And could anyone suppose that his own life would be spared when so valiant a warrior, so faithful a soldier, so good a counsellor, had been put to death?"

Then I went away, on the understanding that he would think it over.

12. Afterwards, when he saw that I held aloof from the bishops who were in communion with him or who were demanding the infliction of the death penalty upon certain heretics, he grew angry at this and ordered me to depart without delay. Though many thought that I should walk into a trap, I was glad to begin my journey. My only regret was the discovery that the aged bishop Hyginus, now almost at his last gasp, was being taken off into exile. When I appealed to his guards not to let him be hustled off without covering or feather-bed, I was hustled off myself.11

9 Gratian was captured near Lyons and put to death by Maximus's general, Andragathius, 25th August, 383. Accounts are given in Socrates, H.E., V, 11, and Sozomen, H.E., VII, 13, and by Ambrose himself in In ps. 61 enarr., 23-25. There was no wholesale proscription of Gratian's adherents, but a few of the outstanding men lost their lives-Vallio, hanged in his own house, and Merobaudes, Gratian's generals, and Macedonius, Master of the Offices.

10 Cabillonum, Chalon-sur-Saône. Reading exuri, burned, the answer is extraordinary. Should we read exhiberi (exhri), kept alive?

11 Hyginus was Bishop of Cordova. He had denounced Priscillianism to Ydacius of Merida, but had afterwards communicated with Priscillian. On the circumstances of this section, see the introduction to this letter. But there is a particular problem not discussed there. Was Ambrose in Trier before or after the execution of Priscillian? Dating the mission in

13. That is the story of my mission. Farewell, Sir. Be on your guard against a man who conceals war under a cloak of peace.

387, the older scholars said that Priscillian was already dead. Rauschen emphasized ad necem petebant—Ambrose refused to communicate with the Ithacian group who were then pressing for the execution of Priscillian. So, dating the execution in 385, he put the mission in 384 (for this reason among others). Palanque accepts this reasoning, but, putting the mission in 386, places the execution late in the same year. Dudden puts the mission in 386, but the execution in 385, without arguing the point. D'Alès, Priscillien, 1936, accepts Palanque's conclusions. If they are not accepted, petebant must be used for the pluperfect to keep step with communicabant, or to mean "the sort of bishops who demanded."

15-E.L.T.

Letters 40 and 41: The Synagogue at Callinicum

I

INTRODUCTION

N THE SUMMER OF A.D. 388 THE CHRISTIANS OF Callinicum, a town and military station on the Euphrates, were stimulated by their bishop to set fire to a Jewish synagogue, and some monks destroyed the neighbouring chapel of the Valentinians, a Gnostic sect. The Count of the East reported the incidents to the Emperor Theodosius who, having defeated the usurper Maximus, reached Milan in October. Theodosius sent orders to the Count that the bishop should rebuild the synagogue and punish the monks. The Gnostics were a sect outside the law, and could have no lawful place of meeting inside a city; but this chapel seems to have been out in the country. The Jews, at any rate, were legally permitted to assemble for worship, and had every right to the protection which, in the previous decades, had too often been denied them. Five years after this incident, which may well have worsened their position for a time, a fresh law was enacted to penalize those who attacked synagogues.

Ambrose was at Aquileia when he heard what the emperor had decided. At once, apparently, he sent Letter 40 to Theodosius, arguing in it that a Christian bishop could not possibly build a synagogue, and even that it should not be rebuilt with any Christian money, including that of the Christian State. He requests an interview with the emperor, and ends his letter with a scarcely veiled threat of excommunication. In Letter 41 Ambrose tells his sister what happened. Theodosius, it seems, had not granted the interview. So when he went to church, Ambrose preached him a sermon which, based on the Lessons, worked round skilfully from the bishop's duty to speak out, through a commendation of the forgiving spirit and a comparison of the Church and the synagogue, which suggested that the Jews had no claims on the emperor's good offices, to a direct

accusation of ingratitude for the favour shown by God to Theodosius. At the end of the sermon, Ambrose refused to continue with the celebration of the eucharist until the emperor had solemnly promised not only to rescind the first order (which in fact he had already done-so that he had taken some notice of Ambrose), but even to drop the whole affair. Ambrose had applied spiritual sanctions, though short of excommunication, in an affair of State.

Both letters are of outstanding interest. Ambrose was plainly wrong. It is strange that one who had been a provincial governor should show so little regard for justice and public order. Concentration on one aspect of the matter warped his judgment to the point of bigotry. For we need not suspect him of deliberately snatching at an opportunity to try his strength against Theodosius, the authority of the Church against the power of the State. He convinced himself that it was wrong in principle for any Christian, bishop or emperor, to construct a building for non-Christian worship. Therefore this case was for him a "cause of God," not one of secular administration. The basis of Letter 40 is a dualism of the spheres of Church and State. In God's cause the bishop must decide, and cannot be constrained by the emperor. This was Ambrose's normal view; but something more is creeping in when he says that the demands of public order must yield to those of religion.

Some may find the sermon tedious. It will serve incidentally, however, as an example of his spiritual exegesis of Scripture, and what he says of the Church suits the general purpose of this volume. But if we envisage the scene, the sermon is charged with drama. Theodosius perhaps saw what was coming, as Ambrose spoke of forgiveness and disparaged the Jews, even before he repeated the parallel between David and the emperor which he had used in his letter. The congregation could only then have perceived what it all meant, and one can imagine the shock when the preacher addressed the emperor by name. Think of it happening today—a bishop confronting the head of the State in church and refusing to celebrate until the demands of the Church had been met! At least we can commend Ambrose's courage, and the self-restraint of Theodosius. Fortunately Ambrose was to use his authority in a better cause two years later.

Note on the Date of Letter 40

The chronology is not quite certain. The Valentinian chapel