Library › St Ambrose of Milan › Hexaemeron

Hexaemeron

St Ambrose of Milan, tr. Savage, 1961

d1

THE CIRCUMSTANCES of the life of St. Ambrose up to 374, when he became bishop of Milan, are well known. The date of his birth is usually given as either 333 or 340. His father was praefectus praetorio Galliarum, with headquarters at Trier. After her husband’s early death, the widowed mother brought her three children to Rome. There, Ambrose, the youngest of the children, attended the rhetorical schools in preparation for a public career. He attained the office of consul about 370, with two northern provinces under his control. His election as bishop of Milan on the death of the Arian bishop Auxentius followed a few years later. His affability, his sense of justice, and his accessibility endeared him to everyone, emperors and commoners alike. His days were spent in administrative work. Still, by diligent application he was able to advance in learning, like many a busy priest or professor today, as he prepared himself for his frequent public appearances.¹

In the intervening period between his advancement to the office of bishop and the delivery of the nine homilies on The Six Days of Creation,² probably during Holy Week in 387,³ Ambrose devoted himself to such preliminary studies as Paradise and Cain and Abel. The precise date of the sermons on creation is still a matter of dispute. Bardenhewer⁴ because of a reference in Hexameron (3.1.3) to a complete victory over Arianism, places the work in a period not before 389.

For the homilies on the creation Ambrose is much indebted to the celebrated work on the same subject by his Greek contemporary, St. Basil, who also rose to the office of bishop. Basil’s sermons were delivered about seventeen years previous to those given by his Latin admirer and, like those of Ambrose, in the course of one week in Lent. Ambrose does not actually mention Basil’s name in the text of his work, but he refers in one passage (4.11) to the authority of one ‘who preceded him in time and in ability.’ It would be a mistake to assume that Ambrose’s work is merely a translation. It is, in fact, a free adaptation in a Latin dress, filled with reminiscences from Ambrose’s wide reading in the Latin classics which he seems to have harbored in his memory since his student days in Rome. The concluding part of his book on the work of the sixth day owed much to the author’s reading in medical writers such as Galen. Ambrose’s remarks on the symbolism of the structure of the human body have a striking pertinence even today. Ambrose’s dependence on Basil for most of his exposition should not cause us to shut our eyes to the importance of his achievement in this one of his major works. Here we are introduced to the great tradition of hexameron literature in the West. To say with Robbins that this work of St. Ambrose ‘has little independent value’ is to overlook its significance as a literary masterpiece.⁵

Following in the footsteps of his great model, Ambrose has made these sermons into a series of Christian and humanistic observations on nature and man in their relations to their Creator, who formed them out of no pre-existing material. In elaborating this thought from the manifold body of evidence presented by the Scriptures, Ambrose has in addition resorted to over a hundred reminiscences from his beloved Latin poet. Virgil’s theocentric philosophy as expressed especially in his Georgics became an object of fascination to his fellow countryman—one might almost say his fellow townsman, for Virgil spent part of his boyhood as a student in Milan. Ambrose has something of the spirit of the Roman poet who also marveled at the wonders of the created world in language that is often full of charm, ‘All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word.’ Many of these ‘lonely words’ Ambrose embedded in his mosaic on creation. Of 103 reminiscences of Virgil, about one-half are reflections of passages in the Georgics; the Aeneid supplied over forty; and there are eight passages that suggest that Ambrose held the Eclogues in some esteem.⁶

As we might suspect from his De officiis ministrorum, modeled on Cicero’s well-known work, the most popular prose author with Ambrose was Cicero. One is not surprised, therefore, that there are about twenty reflections from Cicero in Hexameron, taken largely from the commendation given to agricultural pursuits in De senectute. The Lucretian phrases which appear here and there in Hexameron seem to be part of the common stock of scientific terms to which the Roman poet gave currency. We are somewhat taken by surprise to see how Ambrose has stored in his mind some half-score of Horace’s happy phrases. Sallust, so popular in the Christian schools for his moral maxims, furnishes three clear reflections. Of course, the majority of citations or reminiscences are from the Old and New Testaments, being in Hexameron at the ratio of five or six to one of the non-Christian authors. Nevertheless, this proportion is a striking one. Here we find ourselves firmly entrenched in the great tradition of Christian humanism. We are reminded of the suavitas or charm which Augustine felt was the characteristic of the homilies of Ambrose.⁷

This and the following two minor works of St. Ambrose have never before been translated into English. There is no question that a work such as Hexameron, because of its intrinsic worth and because of its unusual influence on later literature and art, deserves to appear in an English dress.⁸ This book, with its many poetic overtones, is a challenge to any translator. The precious bits which the late E. K. Rand rendered into choice English in his Founders make us wish that he had applied his skill to the work as a whole. Some of the strikingly poetic passages in Hexameron overflowed into Ambrose’s famous hymns, especially the famous ‘Aeterne rerum Conditor.’ This hymn can be looked upon as either a prelude or a postlude to his prose work on creation.

The two minor works, the translation of which appears in this volume, reflect Ambrose’s wide reading in the allegorical interpretation of much of the Old Testament, found especially in several volumes by Philo Judaeus of Alexandria.⁹ The rhetorical style of these two works suggest that, like the homilies on creation, they were delivered orally and, perhaps, also recorded by a notarius.¹⁰

The homily Paradise is an early work of St. Ambrose. This is clear from a statement he makes in a letter addressed to Sabinus.¹¹ In this letter, which was written soon after the publication of Hexameron (c. 389), Ambrose refers to Paradise in terms that are somewhat derogatory, stating that it was written many years ago before he had acquired experience as a bishop. Since he became bishop of Milan in 374, it may be conjectured that Paradise was written a year or two later, that is, about 375. It would be difficult to determine what changes or modifications, if any, the author would have made in the treatment of this subject at a time when, presumably, his judgment was more mature. Ambrose, in the course of his letter to Sabinus, seems to emphasize what he has already discussed in his homily (3.13 and 11.57) that Paradise should not be regarded as a place, but as an aspect of the higher part of our nature. Ambrose was well acquainted with the allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament found in the works of Philo Judæus, although he mentions the name of this influential writer but once (4.25).

St. Ambrose seems to have planned Cain and Abel as a continuation of Paradise. If the date 375 is accepted for the latter work, then Cain and Abel was written soon after. Both of these minor works follow a rhetorical pattern characteristic of the ‘homily.’ St. Ambrose is committed to the allegorical mode of interpretation laid down by Philo, especially in De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini.¹² Although he is thus not the first to introduce this method of interpretation in the West, he has set upon it his imposing stamp—a stamp which is conspicuous in medieval art and literature.

The translation has been based principally on the critical edition of C. Schenkl, CSEL 32.1, for Hexameron (3-261), for the De Paradiso (267-336) and for De Cain et Abel (339-409). The valuable Benedictine edition of 1686-90 as reprinted in Migne, PL 14 (123-274; 275-314; 315-341), has been consulted. For the sake of arousing the interest of the reader the translator has ventured to break up the longer paragraphs.

The citations from Scripture conform for the most part to Challoner’s revision of the Rheims-Douay translation for the Old Testament. For the New Testament and for Genesis, except where St. Ambrose’s quotations represent a definite departure from the Vulgate, the new translations undertaken under the auspices of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine have been used. The Hexameron, since it presupposed the text and Scriptural quotation of St. Basil’s work on the same subject, presented a special problem. So many departures from the Vulgate appeared in these citations of St. Ambrose that it seemed unnecessary to refer to the Septuagint version in so many individual cases.

Contents · Next