03 — Ambrose and the Emperors

The heart of the collection’s church-and-state material: the Altar of Victory and the basilica crisis of 386; and the flagship case of the West, the public penance Ambrose required of Theodosius the Great after the massacre at Thessalonica.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father / Latin)

Part of the St. Ambrose of Milan Reference Guide. This section contains two content files:

File	Summary
the-altar-of-victory.md	The Altar of Victory and the Basilica Crisis — two confrontations with the court of the boy-emperor Valentinian II. First, the contest of 384 with the pagan prefect Symmachus over the restoration of the Altar of Victory to the Senate house — Symmachus’s eloquent plea for religious pluralism and Ambrose’s two letters defeating it. Second, the basilica crisis of 385–386, when the Arian dowager empress Justina demanded a church in Milan for Homoian worship, and Ambrose, refusing, was besieged with his congregation through Holy Week — the standoff during which antiphonal hymn-singing was born.
theodosius-and-thessalonica.md	Theodosius and Thessalonica (FLAGSHIP) — after the emperor Theodosius ordered the massacre of thousands in the hippodrome of Thessalonica in 390, Ambrose required of him a public penance before readmitting him to communion — the single most famous assertion of the Church’s moral authority over a Christian emperor. The file gives the event, Ambrose’s tactful Letter 51, the penance and the Christmas reconciliation, the earlier Callinicum affair, and the central scholarly dispute: whether the dramatic scene of the bishop barring the emperor at the church door is history or Theodoret’s later embellishment, with McLynn’s revisionist reading of a negotiated settlement.

File

Summary

the-altar-of-victory.md

The Altar of Victory and the Basilica Crisis — two confrontations with the court of the boy-emperor Valentinian II. First, the contest of 384 with the pagan prefect Symmachus over the restoration of the Altar of Victory to the Senate house — Symmachus’s eloquent plea for religious pluralism and Ambrose’s two letters defeating it. Second, the basilica crisis of 385–386, when the Arian dowager empress Justina demanded a church in Milan for Homoian worship, and Ambrose, refusing, was besieged with his congregation through Holy Week — the standoff during which antiphonal hymn-singing was born.

theodosius-and-thessalonica.md

Theodosius and Thessalonica (FLAGSHIP) — after the emperor Theodosius ordered the massacre of thousands in the hippodrome of Thessalonica in 390, Ambrose required of him a public penance before readmitting him to communion — the single most famous assertion of the Church’s moral authority over a Christian emperor. The file gives the event, Ambrose’s tactful Letter 51, the penance and the Christmas reconciliation, the earlier Callinicum affair, and the central scholarly dispute: whether the dramatic scene of the bishop barring the emperor at the church door is history or Theodoret’s later embellishment, with McLynn’s revisionist reading of a negotiated settlement.

03 — Ambrose and the Emperors

See Also