St. Ambrose: Select Works and Letters (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2)

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Summary: "Ambrose: Statesman, Saint and Church Doctor"
Review: This volume of the "Nicene and P-Nicene Fathers" series contains the principle works of St Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, who was an able statesman and a vigorous defender of the Catholic faith during the late 4th century. The works contained here are divided into six categories: dogmatic, exegetic, moral, sermons, letters, and hymns. Since there are so many works, both minor and major, it is only necessary that Ambrose's most significant ones should be listed. His "On the Duties of the Clergy" represents, in a way, that of Cicero's work four and a half centuries earlier. Also, "On the Holy Spirit" and "The Catholic Faith" are preserved here, and they were apparently written, at the behest of the emperor Gratian, to the general public in order to define, defend, and justify the Divinity of Christ in the face of the swelling Arian party in Northern Italy. Of his moral works, "Concerning Virgins and Widows" and "On Repentance," will be found here as well. In a word, St Ambrose's letters reveal some of his famous conflicts with the pagan Prefect of Rome, Symmachus, who wished to install the Altar of Victory back into the senate-house of Rome, after it had been taken out under the command of Gratian. And again, his letters reveal the conflict between the bishop of Milan and the emperor Theodosius over the massacre at Thessalonica, which, after the Emperor was excommunicated for this deed, ended up prostrate at the Bishop's feet, ultimately depicting the first triumph of Church over State. All in all this volume is great for the study of the Early Church both historically and dogmatically.