AMBROSE, SAINT

born AD 339, , Augusta Treverorum, Belgica, Gaul died 397, Milan; feast day December 7 Latin Ambrosius bishop of Milan, biblical critic, and initiator of ideas that provided a model for medieval conceptions of churchstate relations. His literary works have been acclaimed as masterpieces of Latin eloquence, and his musical accomplishments are remembered in his hymns. Ambrose is also remembered as the teacher who converted and baptized St. Augustine of Hippo, the great Christian theologian, and as a model bishop who viewed the church as rising above the ruins of the Roman Empire. Additional reading Collected editions. The edition of the complete works given in J.P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina, vol. 1417 (1845), is gradually being superseded by that of the Corpus Christianorum Series, Sancti Ambrosii Mediolanensis Opera (1957 ). English translations of Ambrose's letters and various works are given in vol. 26, 42, and 44 (195463; reprinted with corrections, 1967), in the series The Fathers of the Church. Life. The contemporary biography, written by Ambrose's former secretary, Paulinus of Milan, was edited by Michele Pellegrino as Paolina de Milano, Vita di S. Ambrogio (1961). The most comprehensive biography is F. Homes-Dudden, The Life and Times of St. Ambrose, 2 vol. (1935). A shorter account is Angelo Paredi, S. Ambrogio e la sua et, 2nd ed. (1960; Saint Ambrose: His Life and Times, 1964). Ambrose's current position is dealt with in J.R. Palanque, Saint Ambroise et l'Empire romain (1933); his relation to Neoplatonism is considered in Pierre Courcelle, Les Lettres grecques en Occident, de Macrobe Cassiodore, rev. ed. (1948; Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources, 1969).