ninth. St. Ambrose, the illustrious Bishop of Milan, who died A.D. 397, was styled, amongst other titles,[1] "the Rock of the Church," and well deserved the appellation from the sound divinity of his writings, his intense reverence for Scripture, and his steady opposition to idolatrous innovation. Many more names of faithful prelates (among their number that of Philastrius, Bishop of Brescia, and of his successor, Guadentius), with a succession of protesting witnesses, are preserved in the pages of the learned, and in the time-worn MSS. of the continental libraries; but we can only transfer into our little work a short biographical notice of one, in some respects, the most eminent amongst them - the justly celebrated Claude, Archbishop of Turin.
It is the general opinion of the Vaudois historians, that the connection of their Church with the Episcopal Church of Italy ceased soon after the death of this distinguished man. "It was not," writes one of the latest, "the Vaudois who separated from Catholicism, but Catholicism which separated from them, by modifying the primitive faith."[2]
Angilbert, Bishop of Milan, writing of the terrible and growing corruptions of the Church to the Emperor Louis I., remarks with exultation, that "in his diocese the goodness of God had raised up a true Christian champion," referring to the excellent Claude. This truly apostolic overseer of the flock of Christ was born in Spain towards the end of the eighth century. Though early exposed to the temptations of a court, yet, by God's blessing on the excellent
