whilst he was preaching he was told that the imperial curtains were taken down. The emperor was worsted by the bishop, and was naturally angry. He sent a secretary to reproach Ambrose, and ask if he meant to make himself a tyrant. Soldiers continued to surround the church, and Ambrose remained there singing psalms with the faithful. The next day the soldiers were withdrawn, and the merchants who had been imprisoned were released. The struggle was over; but Ambrose heard that the emperor had said bitterly to the soldiers, "If Ambrose orders you, you will give me up in chains." He records another saying, which drew from him a retort of characteristic felicity. The court chamberlain sent him a message: "Whilst I am alive, shall you despise Valentinian? I will take off your head." Ambrose answered: "May God grant you to fulfil what you threaten; for then my fate will be that of a bishop, your act will be that of a eunuch."
In the course of the following year the attempts of the Arian party, and of the emperor as at this time governed by that party, were renewed. Ambrose was asked to hold a discussion with Auxentius, an Arian bishop, before chosen judges in the presence of the court, or else to withdraw from Milan. He consulted such bishops and presbyters as were within reach, and in their name wrote a letter to the emperor (Ep. xxi.), declining the discussion. An alarm was spread amongst the people that he was going to be taken away from Milan, and for some days, by night and by day, he was surrounded and watched by an immense concourse of his friends. He preached them a sermon (de Basilicis Tradendis), assuring them of his steadfastness, and encouraging them to confidence, and at the same time gave them hymns composed by himself to sing—hymns in honour of the Trinity—by which their fervour was greatly stimulated. Again the court party found themselves worsted, and gave way.
The singing of hymns, by which this remarkable occupation of the basilica was characterized, is described by St. Augustine as extremely moving (Conf. vi. 7), and is said by him to have been an imitation of Eastern customs, and to have been followed generally throughout the church. Paulinus also observes that at this time "antiphons, hymns, and vigils began to be performed in the church of Milan, and had spread thence amongst all the churches of the West" (Vita, 13). The reputation of St. Ambrose as a composer of hymns was such that many certainly not his have been attributed to him, and amongst them the Te Deum. The Benedictine edition gives twelve hymns, which there is some good authority for ascribing to Ambrose, the best known of which are those beginning Aeterne rerum conditor, Deus creator omnium, Veni redemptor gentium, and O lux beata Trinitas. They have a brightness and felicity which have reasonably made them favourites in the church to the present day.
We must take into account the state of mind brought about in the bishop and his flock by that protracted vigil in the basilica, when we read of the miracles into which their triumph over heresy blazed forth. We have a narrative from St. Ambrose's own pen, in a letter to Marcellina (Ep. xxii.), of the wonderful discovery of the remains of two martyrs, and of the cures wrought by them. A basilica was to be dedicated, and Ambrose was longing to find some relics of martyrs. A presage suddenly struck him. (This "presagium" is called a vision by St. Augustine, Conf. lx. 7, de Civ. Dei, xxii. 8.) He caused the ground to be opened in the church that was consecrated by the remains of St. Felix and St. Nabor. Two bodies were found, of wonderful size (ut prisca aetas ferebat), the heads severed from the shoulders, the tomb stained with blood. This discovery, so precious to a church "barren of martyrs," was welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm. Old men began to remember that they had heard formerly the names of these martyrs—Gervasius and Protasius—and had read the title on their grave. Miracles crowded thick upon one another. They were mostly cures of demoniacs, and of sickly persons; but one blind man received his sight. Ambrose himself, for once, eagerly and positively affirms the reality of the cure; and Augustine, who generally held that the age of miracles was past, also bears witness to the common acceptance of the fact at Milan. Gibbon has some excuse for his note, "I should recommend this miracle to our divines, if it did not prove the worship of relics, as well as the Nicene Creed." The Arians, as we learn from Ambrose and Paulinus, made light of the healing of demoniacs, and were sceptical about the blind man's history. The martyrs' bones were carried into the "Ambrosian" Basilica (now the church of St. Ambrogio), and deposited beneath the altar in a place which Ambrose had designed for his own remains.
The memory of this conflict did not restrain Justina and her son from asking help shortly after of Ambrose. It was evident that Maximus was preparing to invade Italy; and as Ambrose had apparently been successful in his former embassy, he was charged with another conciliatory appeal to the same ruler. The magnanimous bishop consented to go, but he was unfavourably received, and having given great offence by abstaining from communion with the bishops who were about Maximus, he was summarily ordered to return home. He reports the failure of his mission in a letter to Valentinian (Ep. xxiv.). It is worthy of remark that the punishment of heresy by death was so hateful to Ambrose that he declined communion with bishops who had been accomplices in it ("qui aliquos, devios licet a fide, ad necem petebant," ib. 12). These bishops had prevailed on Maximus to put to death Priscillian—the first time that heresy was so punished. [ Priscillianus.]
Maximus was not diverted from his project. He crossed the Alps, and Justina, with her son, fled to Theodosius. It was not long before the vigour and ability of Theodosius triumphed over Maximus, who perished in the conflict he had provoked. Ambrose, who withdrew from Milan when Maximus came to occupy it, appears to have been near Theodosius in the hour of victory, and used his influence with him in favour of moderation and clemency, which the emperor, according to his usual habit, displayed in an eminent degree (Ep. xl.
