Library › Paulinus the Deacon › Life of St Ambrose
Life of St Ambrose
Paulinus the Deacon, tr. Kaniecka, 1928
4. The Empress Justina Persecutes the Holy Bishop
And so after a Catholic bishop was consecrated he returned to Milan and there withstood countless insidious attacks of the above mentioned woman Justina, who, by bestowing offices and honors, aroused the people against the holy man. And the weak were deceived by such promises, for she promised tribuneships and various other offices of authority to those who would drag him from the church and lead him into exile. While many tried this but through the protection of God were not strong enough to accomplish it, one more wretched than the rest, Euthymius by name, was incited to such a pitch of fury that he bought a house for himself near the church, and in it placed a wagon in order that he might the more easily seize him and, having placed him in the cart, carry him into exile. But his iniquity came down upon his own head; for a year from that very day on which he planned to seize him, he himself, placed in the same cart, was sent from the same house into exile, reflecting that this had been turned upon him by the just judgment of God, that he was being taken into exile on that very cart which he himself had prepared for the bishop. And the bishop offered him no little consolation by giving him expenses and other things which were necessary.
But this acknowledgment on the part of the man checked neither the fury of the woman nor the folly of the crazed Arians, for roused with greater madness, they endeavored to break into the Portian Basilica; even an army under arms was sent to guard the doors of the church, that no one might dare to enter the Catholic church. But the Lord, who is wont to grant triumphs to His Church over its adversaries, moved the hearts of the soldiers to the defense of his church, so that turning their shields they guarded the doors of the church and did not permit any one to go out but did not at all prevent the Catholic people from entering the church. But not even this could suffice, when the soldiers had been sent, unless they too with the people likewise acclaimed the Catholic faith. At this time antiphons, hymns, and vigils began first to be practiced in the church of Milan. The devotion to this practise continues even to this very day not only in the same church but almost through all the provinces of the West.