The Politics of Heresy in Ambrose of Milan: Community and Consensus in Late Antique Christianity

356 Pages·2017·4.82 MB·English

by  Michael Stuart Williams

THE POLITICS OF HERESY IN AMBROSE OF MILAN
Community and Consensus in Late Antique Christianity
Ambrose of Milan is famous above all for his struggle with, and
triumph over, ‘Arian’ heresy. Yet, almost all of the evidence comes
fromAmbrose’sownwritings,andfrompioushistoriansofthenext
generation who represented him as a champion of orthodoxy. This
detailedstudyarguesinsteadthatan‘Arian’oppositioninMilanwas
largelyconjuredupbyAmbrosehimself,lumpingtogethercriticsand
outsidersinordertosecureandjustifyhisownauthority.Alongwith
newinterpretationsofAmbrose’selectionasbishop,hiscontroversies
over the faith, and his clashes with the imperial court, this book
providesanewunderstandingofthenatureandsignificanceofhere-
tical communities in late antiquity. In place of rival congregations
inflexiblycommittedtodoctrinalbeliefs,itenvisagesaworldofmore
fluid allegiances in which heresy – but also consensus – could be a
matterofdeployingtherightrhetoricalframe.
michael stuart williams isLecturerinRomanHistoryinthe
Maynooth University Department of Ancient Classics. He has
published widely on the history and culture of late-antique
Christianity and is the author of Authorised Lives in Early
Christian Biography: Between Eusebius and Augustine (Cambridge
University Press, 2008). He has edited two volumes of scholarly
essays under the title Unclassical Traditions and is the co-editor
ofPeaceandReconciliationintheClassicalWorld(Routledge,2017).

THE POLITICS OF HERESY
IN AMBROSE OF MILAN
Community and Consensus in Late-Antique Christianity
MICHAEL STUART WILLIAMS
MaynoothUniversity
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DennisArnoldWilliams
25December1943–8August2015
Dr Johnson proceeded: ‘Sir, there is a great cry about infidelity; but
thereare,inreality,veryfewinfidels.Ihaveheardaperson,originally
aQuaker,butnow,Iamafraid,aDeist,say,thathedidnotbelieve
therewere,inallEngland,abovetwohundredinfidels’.1
1 JamesBoswell,TheLifeofSamuelJohnson,LL.D(1791).
Contents
Acknowledgements pageviii
ListofAbbreviations x
Introduction:TheStrangeDeathof“Arian”Milan 1
1 MakingDistinctions:ChristianIdentityandCommunity
inLateAntiquity 13
2 ATaleofTwoBishops:AuxentiusofMilan
andtheElectionofAmbrose 58
3 FramingtheFaith:Aquileia,DefideandtheRhetoric
ofUnity 111
4 ManufacturingConsensus:Communities,Leaders
andtheFirstBasilicaCrisis 165
5 PopularAppeal:UnityandAuthorityintheSecond
BasilicaCrisis 214
Conclusion:WaitingfortheArians 287
Bibliography 312
IndexofModernAuthors 337
GeneralIndex 338
vii
Acknowledgements
Nothing I say here will suffice to repay the debts I have incurred in the
courseofworkingonthisbook.Itiseasiesttobeginwiththemostobvious:
muchofthisbookwasplannedandwrittenduringtwoperiodsofsabba-
tical leave granted to me by Maynooth University, and I should like to
thank the university for providing me with these opportunities to pursue
myresearchandmycolleaguesintheDepartmentofAncientClassicsfor
not grudging my absence. The final stages were undertaken while I was
the beneficiary of a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced
Researchers, and for this I am especially grateful to the Humboldt
Foundation and to Hartmut Leppin, my host at the J.W. Goethe-
Universität Frankfurt am Main, as well as to Sigrid Mratschek, David
Scourfield and Christopher Kelly for supporting my application and to
SteffenPatzoldforhisadviceatacrucialstage.
InthecourseofmyresearchIhavebenefitedgreatlyfromtheresources
made available to me at Maynooth University and at Trinity College,
Dublin; at the Bodleian and Sackler libraries in Oxford; at the J.C.
Senckenburg library in Frankfurt and the Bibliothek A3 in Mannheim;
andattheCentraleBibliotheekandMauritsSabbebibliotheekinLeuven.
In Oxford Iwas also encouraged and supported by David Parrott, Robin
LaneFoxandBryanWard-Perkins.
Earlyversionsofsomeofthisbook’sideasandargumentswerepresented
at conferences and seminars in Vancouver, Oxford, Glasgow, Dublin,
Maynooth, Exeter and Ghent. I wish to thank Mark Vessey, Neil
McLynn, Julia Shear, Edward Herring, David Scourfield, Richard
Flower and Koen De Temmerman for the invitations to speak and the
audiencesateacheventfortheirpositiveresponsesandvaluablediscussion
bothformalandinformal.Iamespeciallygratefulforfeedbackofferedon
these and other occasions by Lorena Atzeri, Gillian Clark, Kate Cooper,
Philip de Souza, Thomas Graumann, Peter I. Kaufman, Gavin Kelly,
Melissa Markauskas, Nicholas Mataya, Neil McLynn, Sigrid Mratschek,
viii