.

the apo

at his funeral, Before his death he refused to grant CHAP.III. 'the privileges of the temples, when such men stood Year after up for them, of whom he might well be afraid. stles. Whole crowds of heathen men came about him; 'the senate petitioned. He was not afraid for the 'sake of Christ to incur the displeasure of men.' And if one may guess by circumstances, he lost the empire and his life in this quarrel; Eugenius the usurper, that prevailed against him, having all the heathen party on his side: who restored those heathen altars which Valentinian had denied, and set up temples of Jupiter P. And Argobastes had threatened, if he overcame Theodosius, to make the great church at Milan (the St. Paul's of that city) a 'stable for his horses 9;' because they would not communicate with Eugenius, nor receive his offering, as being an usurper. But better news came to town quickly, as I shewed before in the history of Valentinian ".

I bring in this to shew, that when Paulinus makes St. Ambrose's father to have been a great man at Rome; that is no argument that he was a Christian. But indeed Paulinus, or whoever wrote that life, (for Erasmus takes it to be a forgery of some late monk, as I observed before,) knew so little of his father's concerns, that he did not know his name. He makes his name to be Ambrosius, because the son's was so: but his name, if his son

• Orat. in obitum Valentiniani. [Op. tom. ii. p. 1173, &c. ed. Benedict.]

P Paulinus in vita Ambrosii, [Op. tom. ii. Append. edit. Benedict.]

q August. de Civitate Dei, lib. v. c. 26.

s Censura prefixa operibus Ambrosii.

r Sect. iii. §. 3.

474462

Year after

CHAP.III. knew bettert, was Symmachus. Though the lifewriters copying one out of another, do to this day call him Ambrosius. He seems to have died while St. Ambrose was young.

the apo

stles.

But at the time when St. Ambrose was come to man's estate, Paulinus does indeed say that his mother was a widow, and dwelt at Rome, and was then a Christian: if that would avail any thing to prove that her husband or she were so formerly, when he was born.

III. On the contrary, a strong proof that they were not, is that which he says of himself, that he was not brought up in the bosom of the church. For in his second book De Pœnitentia, cap. 8, speaking of his own unworthiness, and unfitness to be a bishop, he says it will be said of him,' Ecce 'ille, non in ecclesiæ nutritus sinu,' &c. 'Lo! this 'man that was not brought up in the bosom of the 'church,' &c.

As for what St. Ambrose's own thoughts were of the necessity of infant-baptism, it appears by his words cited before ", that he made it a great question, whether a child could be saved without it.' Sect. 10. Of St. Hierome.

6

There is no proof to the contrary, but that he was baptized in infancy.

I. St. Hierome, who wrote the lives of several persons of note that had been before him, found none of the ancients that came after him so kind as to write his: for that life which was formerly published with his works is a mere fable. Yet he having wrote a great many occasional letters, which,

t Ambros. Orat. in obitum Satyri. [Op. tom. ii. p. 1113, &c.]

u Part i. chap. 13. §. 2.

for the goodness of the style, and the learning con-CHAP III
tained in them, are preserved; many of the chiefy
passages of his life may be picked out of them.

It all that he has said of himself, or the anorv-
mos suther of the life aforesaid, or any body else
has said of him; there is no ground to question
his baptism in infancy, except an obscure passage,
mentioned twice in the same words, and those am-
higavas ones, in two letters that he wrote to pope

The occasion was this: St. Hierome being re-the
tired from Rome into Syria in order to lead a
monk's Be there, found the people of those parts
mod Eviled; bot so much in opinions of religion,
as in spating which of several that were set up
was the lawful bishop of Antioch, with whom they
marit to bold communion. Some acknowledged
Meletios: others refusing him, followed Paulius;
and ochers adhered to Vitalis.

And another diffenty was; they thereabouts ex-
pressed their faith in the Trinity by acknowledging
time irpostases. Being asked by the Latins what
they meant by hypostases; they answered, Personas
susistentes "persons subsisting St.Herome and the
ocher Latins answered, that they had the same faith,
and owned - three persons subsisting! This was not
enough: they would have them express the word

diypocaux. St. Hierme scrupled the
dung than because hypotasis among seemlar au-
sys had sized vadistance or exsence: and win"

an be, a sarmlegious mouth preach up ree scbstances And again, 'If any one br * kg pesantesh, meaning wirios, essence, or being

bit or gar

, and which
asus, whose
he probably
on him in
e that he
of a monk,
:hat letter.
: he means
but a few
think, any
expressions
lo ever use

of Christ.
ot use, for

as a badge

d by his last of his works,

་

CHAP.III.' does not confess that there is but one hypostasis in three persons; he is estranged from Christ.'

6

Year after the apo

stles.

About these things he writes to Damasus, who 272. had in the mean time been made bishop of Rome*, desiring to know whether he and the church of Rome (for he is resolved to go by their example) do allow of this word hypostasis for person. And also which of the foresaid parties, viz. of Meletius, Paulinus, or Vitalis, they would communicate with: for he would do the same. And this I do,' says

he, 'inde nunc meæ animæ postulans cibum, unde 'olim Christi vestimenta suscepi. "Desiring now 'food [or instruction] for my soul, from that place where I formerly took upon me the garments of 'Christ."

This letter not procuring, as it seems, an answer so soon as he expected, he writes another, Epist. 58, [16 ed. Bened.] to the same purpose; desiring him with greater importunity to give him his answer. In which he uses the same motive: but expressed in words so just the same, that one gives no light to the other. Ego igitur, ut ante jam scripsi, Christi vestem in Romana urbe suscipiens,' &c. 'I therefore, who, as I wrote before, took on me 'the garment of Christ in the city of Rome,' &c. From this place Erasmus raised a conjecture

1412. that he was baptized at Rome.

And if so, he could

for he was born at

not be baptized in infancy:
Stridon in Dalmatia; and did not come to Rome
till he was big enough to go to the grammar
school.

And what Erasmus spoke doubtfully, other fol

lowing writers of this Father's life, Baronius, Du CHAP.III. Pin, Dr. Cave, &c. have (as it happens in relating year after matters) told as an absolute unquestioned thing. the apoThat which Erasmus says is this; He means

his baptism by that taking on him Christ's garments: for, I think, he does not mean it of his receiving priest's orders; but in baptism there 'was a white garment given them.'

stles.

He might have been sure enough that he did not mean it of the habit of a priest; for St. Hierome was not as yet ordained priest, when the letter was writ: and when he was ordained, it was not at 278. Rome, but at Antioch by Paulinus, to whose communion Damasus had it seems advised him.

II. But there was another sort of habit or garment, which he had then already put on, and which he knew to be very much valued by Damasus, whose acquaintance he now sought, and which he probably took upon him at Rome, (for he took it on him in his younger years, and it was at Rome that he spent those,) and that was the habit of a monk, which he then wore when he wrote that letter. And it is a great deal more likely that he means that, than the albes which were worn but a few days. Especially since neither he, nor, I think, any other author, among all that variety of expressions which they use for denoting baptism, do ever use that phrase of receiving the garments of Christ. Because the ordinary Christians did not use, for constant wearing, any particular garment as a badge

* [See likewise the same asserted and defended by his last editor Vallarsius, in the life prefixed to vol. xi, of his works, chap. 3. p. 17-19.]

• See §- 5