The circumstances and events of the life of Ambrose (339–397), Bishop of Milan, are so well known as not to need extensive repetition here.¹ It was mostly in the last decade of the saint’s life that the sermons contained in this volume were composed and, for the most part, preached, from 386, or perhaps 383, to as late as 394. This was a period in which Ambrose was much involved in the affairs of the imperial court at Milan, first in 383 as legate of the boy-emperor Valentinian (383–392) to the usurper Maximus,² and later in the famous...

Whether ambrose ever delivered Isaac, or the Soul as a sermon is uncertain, although the weight of scholarship is in favor of considering it solely a written work.¹ Likewise uncertain is its date, which can only be set between 386 and 391.² The influence of Plotinus on the work is very extensive,³ although Origen, Hippolytus, and Porphyry must also be considered as principal sources. Apparently Isaac, as well as its companion work Death as a Good, was read by Augustine’s mother, Monica,⁴ and their influence on Augustine himself is now established.⁵

Isaac, while presenting such doctrines of Plotinus as the...

The work Death as a Good was composed at some point between 387 and 391¹ and was certainly intended as a supplement to Isaac.² Probably intended as two sermons, perhaps for the catechumens awaiting baptism at Easter,³ the work has been described as “pervasively Neoplatonic.”⁴ It is undoubtedly influenced heavily by Plotinus,⁵ and reliance on Origen and Porphyry must be admitted as well.⁶ The tone throughout is as much philosophical as exegetical, although there is heavy reliance toward the end on the Fourth (Second) Book of Esdras, which Ambrose considered canonical.

There is another translation in English, dating from 1607;⁷...

While we can have no absolute assurance of the date of this sermon, the extensive treatment given to Eleazar as an example of endurance under persecution suggests a very possible date of 386,¹ when Ambrose and the Church at Milan were offering resistance to the reestablishment of Arianism there.² Internal evidence suggests that the two books were originally given as sermons.³

The principal sources of the work, apart from the Bible, are the apocryphal Fourth Book of Machabees, which contains the story of Eleazar and that of the seven brothers,⁴ and the Enneads of Plotinus;⁵ references to classical authors are...

Composed as a sermon, Joseph has been variously dated from 387 to 389-390; a date in the autumn of 388 seems probable.¹ Ambrose refers in the text to his encounter with Calligonus, grand chamberlain of the Emperor Valentinian II, when the chamberlain attempted to seize a basilica in Milan for use of the Arians.² If this event took place in 386, granting Ambrose’s allusion to the execution of Calligonus, which took place two years later, a date no later than 388 would seem necessary.

“The work fairly teems with scriptural allusions and hence there is a considerable diminution of Vergilian...

Ambrose composed The Patriarchs as a written commentary rather than a sermon or a treatise developed from a sermon. It has often been joined in the manuscript tradition with Joseph, but existence of an intrinsic relationship between the two works is very doubtful.¹ Since there is reference in the present work to Ambrose’s Explanation of the Gospel According to Luke, itself dated ca. 390, The Patriarchs must be placed in the same period, most likely in 390 or 391.²

Exegesis of the scriptural blessings of the patriarchs and the symbolic or typological interpretation of them has a long history in...

The work Flight tram the World,¹ delivered as a sermon,² may be dated, from a passing reference involving a phrase book of the grammarian Arusianus Messius, to ca. 391–394 A.D.³

The work itself is almost as much moral-ascetical as exegetical. As its title indicates, it sounds the theme of the necessity of flight from the world for the Christian. The various changes are rung on this central theme with numerous examples, mostly from the Old Testament—Jacob, Moses, David, Lot, among others—but a few from the New—Paul and, in a minor references, John the Baptist. Throughout, there...

Ambrose’s series of sermons The Prayer of Job and David¹ exhibits considerable uncertainty both as to date and internal arrangement. References to the destruction of the statues of an emperor² and to an unidentified heretic³ are too general to aid in the dating, but the period 387-389 seems probable.⁴ The problem of determining the proper order of the four individual books is still more complex.⁵ Manuscripts are in disagreement; many editions print that part of the work designated here as Book IV in the second position, and place Books II and III in third and fourth place, respectively. The arrangement...