¹ See, for example, Smith, J. Warren, Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue: The Theological Foundation of Ambrose's Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Colish, Marcia L., Ambrose's Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Markschies, Christoph, Ambrosius von Mailand und die Trinitätstheologie: Kirchen- und theologiegeschichtliche Studien zu Antiarianimus und Neunizänismus bei Ambrosius und im lateinischen Westen (364–381 n. Chr.) (Tübingen: Mohr, 1995)Google Scholar. Assessments of Ambrose as unoriginal and primarily motivated by political concerns appear, for example, in the works of Hans Freiherr von Campenhausen (Ambrosius von Mailand als Kirchenpolitiker [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1929]Google Scholar). In recent years, however, the work of especially Christoph Markschies has gone a long way toward rehabilitating Ambrose as an independent and influential theological thinker. Markschies thus concludes that “mir scheint . . . die theologiegeschichtliche Bedeutung des Ambrosius darin zu liegen, daß er zugleich ein guter Kirchenpolitiker und Theologe genannt werden muß und es gerade seine Bemühungen im Übersetzung und Übertragung, also eine dezidierte Nicht-Originalität, sind, die das Prädikat “guter Theologie” verdienen.” “War der Bischof Ambrosius von Mailand ein schlechter Theologe?” in Jahrbuch der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen 1994 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 63–66, 64–65Google Scholar.

² Exp. ev. Luc. thus understands the person from whom an unclean spirit has gone out (Luke 11:24–26) only to have the spirit return with seven others to once again take possession of the person as “the likeness of the whole Jewish people” (VII, 95). Indeed, even passages that speak of Jews in positive terms are used to level blows against the Jewish people: the healing of Jairus's daughter in the presence of only a handful of people, in Ambrose's reading points to the small number of Jews who would ultimately experience salvation (VI, 61–64).

Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Exp. ev. Luc. are taken from Saint Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke, trans. Tomkinson, Theodosia (Etna, Calif.: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2003)Google Scholar.

³ The question of Ambrose's attitude toward Judaism has failed to inspire scholarly consensus. Gregory Figueroa thus argues that, in spite of the “wide gulf” that exists between Church and Synagogue, Ambrose's attitude toward Jews and Judaism is not wholly negative. (Figueroa, Gregory, The Church and the Synagogue in St. Ambrose [Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1949], 38Google Scholar). Wilhelm Wilbrand, argues for an even stronger reading of Ambrose's “anti-Judaism”: “Wenn wir die Äußerungen des Kirchenvaters in ihrer Gesamtheit werten, so weden wir sagen müssen, daß die ungünstigen Urteile doch überwiegen” (Wilbrand, Wilhelm, “Ambrosius von Mailand und sein Verhältnis zum Judentum,” in Veritati: Eine Sammlung geistesgeschichtlicher, philosophischer, und theologischer Abhandlungen, als Festgabe für Johannes Hessen zu seinem 60. Geburtstag, ed. Falkenhahn, Willy [Munich: Reinhardt, 1940], 156–61, 161Google Scholar).

⁴ See, for example, F. Homes Dudden's regretful remark “how religious prejudice could so warp the judgement of a good and wise man” (Dudden, F. Homes D.D., The Life and Times of St. Ambrose 2 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1935], 376Google Scholar).

⁵ Ambrose, Epistula 74, 8, in Ambrose of Milan: Political Letters and Speeches, trans. Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), 100CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ambrose's intended meaning is unclear, although Ernst Dassmann surmises that Ambrose is referring to the synagogue's destruction by lightning (Dassmann, Ernst, Ambrosius von Mailand: Leben und Werk [Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2004], 184Google Scholar).

Shlomo Simonsohn has taken this passage to indicate “the saint's declared intention to set fire to a synagogue” in Milan (The Jews in the Duchy of Milan, 1:1387–477 [Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1982], xiiiGoogle Scholar). In context, however, it is clear that Ambrose is defending himself against charges of inconsistency—he excuses and even praises the burning of the Callinicum synagogue without taking similar action against its Milanese counterpart.

At the same time however, Simonsohn's monograph offers archeological evidence for at least some level of Jewish presence in Milan at the turn of the fifth century. Simonsohn thus notes the discovery of three Jewish tombstones from the fifth and sixth centuries uncovered in the city area (Simonsohn, Jews in the Duchy of Milan, xiv). Clearly, at least a few Jews existed in Ambrose's Milan; the evidence nevertheless suggests that their numbers and the influence they exercised upon the Church were limited. Moreover, Ambrose himself mentions the existence of a synagogue—albeit once again in conjunction with the hated Homoians—in Ep. 11, when he alleges that the Arians hold “private meetings sometimes before the doors of the synagogue and sometimes in the houses of the Arians” (Ep. 11.3, PL 16.0945C).

⁶ Ambrose, De Noe et Arca 19.70, PL col. 14.0395A.

⁷ McLynn, Neil B., Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital, Transformation of the Classical Heritage, vol. 22 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994], 303–4)Google Scholar.

⁸ See, for example, Dassmann's comment that Ambrose's polemic against the Jews remains “ein wenig literarisch” or McLynn's assertion that Ambrose's Jews are “drawn from Scripture . . . a foil for the fertility of the Christian vision” (Dassmann, Ambrosius, 184; McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 304). Paula Fredriksen describes a similar phenomenon in the context of Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho. “The ‘Jews’ of [Christian apologists'] arguments are a construct: They are ‘rhetorical Jews,’ not historical Jews. The image of Jews used in these polemics did not derive from these authors' observing and then describing their Jewish contemporaries, but from their deploying literary-rhetorical techniques in disputes over sacred texts. . . . Put differently: The “Jews” of such intra-Christian writings, whether those of formative first century authors (eventually gathered in the New Testament) or those of their later theological avatars . . . are first of all a rhetorical strategy. They are conjured in order to assist their authors in positioning themselves advantageously within the agon of intra-Christian theological dispute, which for Paul and the evangelists had been an intra-Jewish dispute as well” (Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism [New York: Doubleday, 2008] 226–27Google Scholar).

⁹ Ambrose thus fails to comment on such central Lukan passages as the Magnificat.

¹⁰ Jerome, Prologus in Didymi libro de Spiritu Sancto, PL 23, coll. 99–154; see also Jerome, “Preface to Translation of Origen on St. Luke,” in NPNF2, vol. 6 (New York, 1893), 496.

¹¹ Confer Saint-Laurent, George E., “St. Ambrose of Milan and the Eastern Fathers,” Diakonia 15, no. 1 (1980), 23–31Google Scholar.

¹² Buell, Denise Kimber, Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ See, for example, Exp. ev. Luc. III, 43–49.

¹⁴ To further explore Exp. ev. Luc.'s establishment of “Arianism” as heresy par excellence this paper will further draw upon Lyman, Rebecca's “A Topography of Heresy: Mapping the Rhetorical Creation of Arianism,” in Arianism after Arius, ed. Barnes, Michel R. and Williams, Daniel H. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 45–62Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Confer Thomas Graumann's observation: “Zu klären, was denn mit dem hermeneutischen Hinweis auf Christus inhaltlich gesagt, d.h. welches Christusbild und welche Christusinterpretation in der Exegese wirksam werden soll, mußte für Ambrosius umso dringlicher werden als er sich ja mit dem ‘Arianismu’ einem konträren Christusverständnis gegenübersah, das er heftig als ein häretisches bekämpt. Die ambrosianische Hermeneutik gewinnt erst im Kontext dieser zeitgenössischen theologischen Debatte ihr wahres Profil” (Graumann, Thomas, “Die theologische Grundlage der Auslegung in der Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam des Ambrosius von Mailand,” Studia Patristica: Papers presented at the Twelfth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford, vol. 30 [Leuven: Peeters, 1997], 19–27, 20Google Scholar).

¹⁶ Williams, Daniel H., Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Arian-Nicene Conflicts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 215–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ The question presents itself how to identify the Milanese Christians addressed by Ambrose whose Christology diverged from the pro-Nicene group he represented. Ambrose, of course, refers to this group consistently as “Arians,” whereas contemporary scholarship prefers the more nuanced “Homoian” label. See, for example, Kaufman, Peter, “Diehard Homoians and the Election of Ambrose,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 5, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 421–40, 423–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For purposes of this paper, I will use the terms “Arian” and “Arianism” to reflect Ambrose's labeling of this Christian faction, without implying a direct link between the group in question and the teachings of Arius.

¹⁸ For a fuller listing of passages pointing to particular composition dates, see Dudden, St. Ambrose, 692–93.

¹⁹ Dudden, St. Ambrose, 693.

²⁰ Lienhard, Joseph T., Origen, Homilies on Luke: Fragments on Luke (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 3Google Scholar. For a partial list of Ambrose's own writings that reference Exp. ev. Luc. see, Dudden, St. Ambrose, 693–94.

²¹ Jerome had previously anathematized the bishop's alleged plagiarism of Didymus the Blind's treatise on the Holy Spirit in (Ambrose's) De Spiritu Sancto. Whether Jerome leveled a similar charge against Ambrose in the introduction to his translation of Origen is subject to debate; Rufinus certainly accused Jerome of doing so. Furthermore, Jerome's caricaturing of his unnamed opponent as a crow is common to both texts, although it appears far less clear that the charges brought against Ambrose in the latter work involve plagiarism. Rufinus, Apol. 2.26 (CCL 20:101). For an argument that Jerome attacks Ambrose's inept exegesis rather than his plagiarism, see, for example, Adkin, Neil, “Jerome on Ambrose – The Preface to the Translation of Origen's Homilies on Luke,” Revue Benedictine 107 (1997): 5–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²² While Lienhard confidently identifies the work referenced by Jerome as the Hebrew Questions on Genesis, Jerome's mention of libros (pl.) in his preface suggests that he may have been thinking of a different, no longer extant work than the surviving Hebrew Questions, which encompasses only one volume. For an in-depth discussion of this problem, see Kamesar, Adam, Jerome, Greek Scholarship and the Hebrew Bible: A Study of the Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 74–75Google Scholar; Hayward, C. T. R., Saint Jerome's Hebrew Questions on Genesis (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 23–27Google Scholar.

²³ Nautin, Pierre, “L'activité littéraire de Jérôme de 387 à 392,” Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 115 (1983): 247–59, 252Google Scholar.

²⁴ Lienhard, Homilies on Luke, xxxiv.

²⁵ Dudden, St. Ambrose, 694.

²⁶ For an exhaustive discussion of the development of Homoian Christianity in the West, see Williams, Ambrose of Milan. Concerning the reasons underlying the Homoian Christian success vis-à-vis the Homoiousian church party at and particularly after the Council of Ariminum, see Winrich Lohr, “A Sense of Tradition: The Homoiousian Church Party,” in Arianism after Arius, ed. Barnes and Williams, 81–100.

²⁷ In his discussion of Ambrose's life, Williams treats both Rufinus's and Paulinus's portraits with healthy skepticism. Where “facts” reported by either cannot be substantiated independently, as is the case, for example, with Ambrose's alleged baptism by a pro-Nicene bishop or his participation in the ordination of Arnemius in Sirmium, Williams generally rejects their historicity. Williams thus argues that Ambrose during the initial years of his episcopate remained religiously neutral, an extension of imperial policies (Williams, Ambrose, 117–00). For an older perspective that views Ambrose as “unreservedly committed to the Symbol of Nicea [sic]” from the cradle onward, see, for example, Saint-Laurent, George E., “Saint Ambrose of Milan and the Eastern Fathers,” Diakonia 15, no. 1 (1980): 23–31Google Scholar.

²⁸ That both court and bishop managed to co-exist for twelve years, until Maximus's entry into Northern Italy forced Valentinian II's evacuation, nevertheless speaks to a level of mutual toleration, and at times even co-operation, between the two parties. On two occasions, Ambrose thus served as an envoy from Valentinian II's court to that of Gratian's successor, Maximus (McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 160–62).

²⁹ Williams, Ambrose, 169–84, esp. 175–81.

³⁰ Williams, Ambrose, 202–10.

³¹ These events are narrated in Ambrose's epistles 75 and 76, as well as his sermon Contra Auxentium (Ep. 75a). In light of the fact that Ambrose is the only source for these events and doubts concerning the reconstruction of the sequence of letters and sermon, several different chronological reconstructions have been proposed. Scholars disagree particularly whether the two attempts at basilica sequestration took place over the course of two years (385–386) or occurred during the same year (386), within a few months of one another. For a proponent of the two-year hypothesis, see McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 173–208; Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G., Ambrose of Milan: Political Letters and Speeches (Liverpool University Press, 2005), 125–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In favor of the one-year hypothesis see, Lenox-Conygham, Andrew, “The Topography of the Basilica Conflict of a.d. 385/6 in Milan,” Historia 31 (1982): 353–64Google Scholar; Williams, Ambrose, 212–17. While the author personally favors Lenox-Donygham's reconstruction of the events in question, the arguments of this paper do not turn on the reader's acceptance of one or the other chronology.

³² Williams, Ambrose, 216; confer McLynn, Ambrose, 160–64.

³³ Williams, Ambrose, 228.

³⁴ McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 336. See also Croke, Brian, “Arbogast and the Death of Valentinian II,” Historia 25 (1976): 235–44Google Scholar. For a more skeptical reading of Valentinian II's supposed suicide, see Williams, Ambrose, 229–00.

³⁵ In his letter to Theodosius after Valentinian II's death, Ambrose thus portrays the latter as one who “was so tenderly attached to myself, as to love one whom he had before persecuted, and to esteem as his father the man whom he had before repulsed as his enemy” (Ep. LIII, 2). While ulterior motives surely colored Ambrose's presentation of his relationship with Valentinian to Theodosius, the fact that Ambrose was on a—long-delayed—journey to Vienne where he planned to baptize Valentinian II speaks to an ongoing relationship between the bishop and the young Augustus.

³⁶ Ep. 42.

³⁷ See, for example, McLynn, Neil, “From Palladius to Maximinus: Passing the Arian Torch,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 477–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁸ Graumann, “Theologische Grundlage,” 19–27.

³⁹ McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 304.

⁴⁰ Clark, Elizabeth A.'s assertion that “for ancient commentators, all Scripture was revealed truth relevant to present Christian experience, not merely historical narration, and was to be aligned with their endorsement of asceticism's superiority” applies as fully to the Ambrose's anti-heretical writings as to the ascetic treatises of desert monastics (Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999], 9)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ Clark's account of Christian ascetic appropriation of ritual texts from the Hebrew Scriptures provides an apt parallel (Clark, Reading Renunciation, 204–32).

⁴² See, for example, Boyarin's conclusion that “at least one major impetus for the formation of a discourse of heresiology, on my reading, is the construction of a Christianity that would not be Judaism” (Boyarin, Daniel, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004], 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Similarly, Buell observes that contemporary readers “should not envision Justin [Martyr] drawing on an established Jewish framework or social formation as a foil for his own process of Christian self-definition. Rather, contemporaneous with Justin's own construction of Christianness . . . Jewishness is also being constructed” (Buell, Why This New Race, 97).

⁴³ Ambrose even goes so far as to argue that Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden for plucking the leaves of the fig tree, withdrawing from God, “covered as regards their shameful deeds by veils of smooth words like leaves” (Exp. ev. Luc. VII, 164–65).

⁴⁴ Ambrose explores a similar theme in his discussion of the casting-out of the money-changers from the temple (Matthew 21:12–17). Comparing Arian Christians to deceitful money hangers, Ambrose exhorts his listeners to not “mingle the image of your Prince, diminished by the deceit of Arian treachery, with your treasure nor tempt the ear of the Faithful with the sound of money, so that the ring of brass prevents the hearing of pious writings, or the desire for possession is mixed with pious feelings” (Exp. ev. Luc. IX, 18).

⁴⁵ Ambrose likewise describes “true Christians” as high on simplicity and low on ambition: “The Lord searched not for colleges filled with crowds of the wise, but a simple people which would not know to embellish hand distort what they heard; for simplicity is sought and ambition is not desired” (Exp. ev. Luc. II, 53).

⁴⁶ “The emphasis on the verbs for searching [bs'], seeking [bc'], and investigating [cqb] in Ephrem's rhetoric is frequently an attack against Arian Christians who, Ephrem argues, inappropriately seek to know God trough reasoned inquiry rather than simply believing through faith.” Shepardson, Christine, “Exchanging Reed for Reed: Mapping Contemporary Heretics onto Biblical Jews in Ephrem's Hymns on Faith,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 5, no. 1 (2002): 4Google Scholar. For a fuller development of Shepardson's argument, see Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem's Hymns in Fourth Century Syria (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Clement, Stromateis 2.3.1., quoted in Buell, Why This New Race, 120 (as Strom. 2.10.2.).

⁴⁸ Basil, On the Holy Spirit, VI.13 (NPNF2, vol. 8), 1–50, 8.

⁴⁹ In commenting on the “little apocalypse” of Luke, Ambrose thus compares the fleeing princes mentioned in Luke to the leaders of various Christian groups: “Sabellius is wounded, Valentinus is wounded, Arius is wounded, for they were found in empty houses” (Exp. ev. Luc. XI, 41).

⁵⁰ Buell, Why This New Race, 93.

⁵¹ Figueroa, Church and Synagogue in St. Ambrose, 29–36.

⁵² See, for example, De Abraham I, 7, 61 (CSEL 32, Sch. 542–43); Exameron II, 4, 16 (CSEL 32, Sch. 55); Explan. Ps. 35, 20 (CSEL 64, Pet. 64); Epistle 31, 5 (PL 16, 915); Epistle 70, 10 (PL 16, 1064); Expos. Ps. 118. 2. 10 (CSEL 62, Pet. 25).

⁵³ Confer Figueroa's claim that Ambrose “places the raison d'être of fertility in Christ” (Figueroa, Church and Synagogue, 29).

⁵⁴ Exp. ev. Luc. IV, 10. Ambrose further suggests that this involvement may be, in fact, of a generative nature. Drawing upon the Johannine saying, according to which Jesus calls the devil the father of the Jews (John 8:44), Ambrose argues that such a relationship is not based on biology or, it appears, ethnic identity, but upon the shared patrimony of vices (Exp. ev. Luc. IV, 54). Interestingly, a “counter-genealogy” is found in Athanasius's writings against the Arians, where Athanasius classifies the devil as the father of all heresies who has previously brought forth other false teachings as the “elder sisters” of the ultimate heresy (Contra Arianos 1.1; confer Lyman, “Rhetorical Creation of Arianism,” 54).

⁵⁵ Ambrose there discusses the passage, or perhaps its synoptic parallel, Matthew 11:27, in the context of an argument for the equal status of all three persons of the Trinity (De Fide V, 200). Daniel Williams has argued that Ambrose's strategy of “guilt by association” appears already in the first two volumes of this work, particularly in his linking of “Arians” and “Pagans” (Williams, Daniel H., “Necessary Alliance or Polemical Portrayal? Tracing the Historical Alignment of Arians and Pagans in the Later Fourth Century,” Studia Patristica. xxix, Papers presented at the Twelfth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 1995, ed. Livingstone, Elizabeth A. [Leuven: Peeters, 1997], 178–94, 189Google Scholar).

⁵⁶ Confer Exp. ev. Luc. IV, 10: “Another hears that there is One God, from Whom are all things, adores and worships; the Devil lies in ambush for him and closes his ears, lest he hear that there is One Lord by Whom are all things; thus he compels him to be impious with excess piety, so that while he separates Father from the Son, he confuses the Father and the Son, and thinks the Person, not the power, to be one. Therefore, whereas he does not know the measure of faith, he falls into the hardship of unbelief.”

⁵⁷ Contra Arianos 1.1. Confer Lyman, “Rhetorical Creation of Arianism,” 54–55.

⁵⁸ See, for example, Exp. ev. Luc. IX, 32.

⁵⁹ Compare, for example, Ambrose's portrayal of Heresy as the rich man, who “has composed many gospels, but Faith, the pauper, has retained only the Gospel which she received; philosophy, the rich man, created many gods for herself, but the Church, the pauper, knows but One” (Exp. ev. Luc. VIII, 17).

⁶⁰ Cameron, Averil, “Jews and Heretics – A Category Error?” in The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Becker, Adam H. and Reed, Annette Yoshiko (Minneanapolis: Fortress, 2007), 345–60, 350Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Daniel Williams has argued similarly that anti-Arian polemic in the late fourth century rested, in part, upon the association of Arianism and Paganism with one another by virtue of a number of supposedly shared qualities (Williams, “Necessary Alliance or Polemical Portrayal?” 194).

⁶² Cameron, “Jews and Heretics – A Category Error?” 350.

⁶³ Sermo 62, 18 (PL xxxviii, 425), cited in Williams, “Necessary Alliance or Polemical Portrayal?” 194.