c. A.D. 339 – 397

Ambrose of Milan

Worth knowing

He was the Roman governor in Milan when the crowd demanded him as their bishop in 374. He was not yet baptised.
His preaching helped bring Augustine to faith, and he baptised Augustine at Easter 387.
In 390 he refused communion to the emperor Theodosius until the emperor did public penance for a massacre at Thessalonica.
He wrote hymns for his congregation to sing, some of which are still sung.

In Scholar’s Dream, Ambrose of Milan has one book

Ambrose’s SermonsAmbrose of Milan, Hexaemeron and SermonsExegesisAllegory

Ambrose of Milan’s quotes in the game

Every quotation from Ambrose of Milan that a player meets in Scholar’s Dream, attached to the move that says it. Or see them as a plain list →

In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other, and each thing a book can do in a debate is called a move. Every quote below is spoken by one of those moves. Open “How it works in the game” under a quote to see the move, which books learn it, and which arguments it answers best.

“I have been warned, not by man, nor through man, but plainly by Himself that this is forbidden me. For when I was anxious, in the very night in which I was preparing to set out, you appeared to me in a dream to have come into the Church, and I was not permitted to offer the sacrifice.”
Ambrose of Milan, Letter 51, to the Emperor Theodosius after the massacre at Thessalonica, 390 (trans. H. de Romestin, NPNF² 10, public domain).public domain

How it works in the game: the move Preached at Milan

EcclesiologyArgument · power 64 · 100% accurate

In the gameA bishop who would not be moved by an emperor is not going to be moved by you. The foe loses its footing.

Learned byAmbrose’s Sermons (Lv 28)

Passages you can read in the game

Longer excerpts the Scriptorium holds on screen for a player to sit and read, word for word.

“You must not trust, then, wholly to your bodily eyes; that which is not seen is more really seen, for the object of sight is temporal, but that other eternal, which is not apprehended by the eye, but is discerned by the mind and spirit.”
Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries 3 (trans. de Romestin & Duckworth, NPNF² 10, public domain, lightly modernized).

from Ambrose’s Sermons

“For that sacrament which you receive is made what it is by the word of Christ.”
Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries 9 (trans. de Romestin & Duckworth, NPNF² 10, public domain).

from Ambrose’s Sermons

“For it is not less to give a new nature to things than to change them.”
Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries 9 (trans. de Romestin & Duckworth, NPNF² 10, public domain).

from Ambrose’s Sermons

“I have been warned, not by man, nor through man, but plainly by Himself that this is forbidden me… And prayer by itself is a sacrifice, it obtains pardon, when the oblation would bring offence.”
Ambrose of Milan, Letter 51, to the Emperor Theodosius after the massacre at Thessalonica, 390 (trans. de Romestin, NPNF² 10, public domain).

from Ambrose’s Sermons

Words Ambrose of Milan’s books borrow from others

Moves these books can learn whose quotation comes from somebody else. The citation on each one names who actually said it.

“The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
2 Corinthians 3:6 (WEB) — the text Ambrose preached from, and the one Augustine says unlocked the Scriptures for him (Confessions 6.4).

How it works in the game: the move The Letter Kills

AllegoryArgument · power 66 · 100% accurate

In the gameAmbrose read the Old Testament figurally in the pulpit at Milan, and a clever young sceptic in the back row discovered the book he had dismissed was not the book he had been reading.

Learned byAmbrose’s Sermons (Lv 25)

Who else was alive

Ambrose of Milan against everyone else in the game.

A.D. 1A.D. 50A.D. 100A.D. 150A.D. 200A.D. 250A.D. 300A.D. 350A.D. 400A.D. 450

Matthew Paul John Mark Pliny the Elder Clement of Rome Ignatius An early Christian community Polycarp Claudius Ptolemy Hermas Justin Martyr Aristides Quadratus Melito Unknown authors writing under borrowed names Irenaeus The author of the Epistle to Diognetus Athenagoras Clement of Alexandria Tertullian Marcus Minucius Felix Origen Cyprian Plotinus Lactantius Eusebius Athanasius Eustathius of Sebaste Apollinaris of Laodicea Cyril of Jerusalem Epiphanius of Salamis Gregory of Nazianzus Basil of Caesarea Eunomius of Cyzicus Gregory of Nyssa Ambrose of Milan Jovinian Augustine The Macedonians Helvidius

Solid bar = firm dates · faded = approximate61 authors sit outside this window