Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity. Claudia Rapp

composition of On the Priesthood, Ambrose of Milan wrote his On the Duties of the Clergy in 388 or 389, one and a half decades into his own episcopate. Its explicit intention was to provide the clergy with a guideline of the character traits and practical skills that are advantageous in gaining and maintaining the confidence of their congregation. ¹¹³ The work is inspired in form and content by Cicero’s De officiis. The first book deals with that which is virtuous, the second with that which is useful, and the third with a combination of both. Ambrose does not delineate the tasks and functions of the clergy in a systematic way, although he often refers to them. His focus is rather on providing ethical guidance on the acquisition and practice of those virtues that are particularly befitting to the clergy. He illustrates these virtues with extensive reference to biblical examples and, whenever he can, also to examples from classical literature. His concluding words emphasize that this method was the intention of his work:

      These things I have left with you, my children, that you may guard them in your minds—you yourselves will prove whether they will be of any advantage. Meanwhile they offer you a large number of examples, for almost all the examples drawn from our forefathers, and also many a word of theirs, are included within these three books; so that, although the language may not be graceful, yet a succession of old-time examples set down in such small compass may offer much instruction.¹¹⁴

      In his outline of the ideal character of priests and bishops, Ambrose borrows heavily from Paul’s catalog of episcopal virtues in 1 Timothy 3. Bishops ought to be hospitable, kind, just, without desire for the belongings of others, and they ought to avoid litigation at all costs, even to the point of suffering injustice.¹¹⁵ Earlier in the same treatise, he adds a further argument for the importance of sacerdotal virtues. Priests and bishops must be publicly perceived to be adorned with virtue so that those who observe them in the performance of their ministry at the altar will worship God who adorned them in this way and whose glory is reflected in his servants.¹¹⁶ Ambrose recognizes the bishop’s sacerdotal function and insists that it receives its justification from the bishop’s personal conduct. But where Chrysostom had called attention to the priest’s celebration of the eucharist to emphasize the importance of a pure life of the celebrant as its minister and mediator, Ambrose takes a step away from the altar, as it were, and acknowledges that the bishop has stepped into the public limelight. No longer an internal officer of an exclusive religious group, the bishop now performs his many tasks on behalf of an expanding Christian community under the scrutiny of pagan neighbors. He has become distinct from the community and is distinguishable to outsiders. The virtues that some theologians two centuries previously demanded of all Christians are now expected primarily of the bishop. He is perceived by insiders and outsiders alike as the representative of Christianity. It depends on his conduct whether the church is credited or discredited. Indeed, he may attract converts through his example. Augustine’s well-known story of his conversion under the impression of Ambrose’s preaching is testimony to the crucial role that individual bishops could play in this regard.

      Next in chronological sequence comes Julianus Pomerius’s treatise On the Contemplative Life. The author was a well-respected professor of rhetoric in late fifth-century Gaul. The only other details known about his life are that he hailed from the province of Mauretania in North Africa, that in 497 he was the teacher of Caesarius of Arles, and that he maintained a friendly correspondence with Ennodius of Pavia and Ruricius of Limoges. He was known to have written three further works, all dealing with the practice of Christian virtues: On the Soul and Its Quality, On the Formation of Dedicated Virgins, and On Contempt for the World and for the Things That Will Perish.¹¹⁷ Pomerius composed On the Contemplative Life at the behest of a certain Julianus whom he respectfully addresses throughout the volume. This Julianus is perhaps identical with the bishop of Carpentras, near Arles, of the same name. Pomerius explains the origin of his work in the preface: “You bid me, then, to discuss in a few words the nature of the contemplative life and to explain as briefly as I can the difference between it and the active life; whether one charged with ruling a church can become a sharer in the contemplative virtue.”¹¹⁸ The book may be characterized as a call to internal reform, as it combines outspoken criticism of clerical indignities with a systematic treatment of virtues and vices that borrows as much from ancient philosophy as it does from Augustine.

      Pomerius begins by reminiscing about how Julianus had toyed with the idea of abandoning his episcopal see and retreating to solitude, “from despair of fulfilling your charge.”¹¹⁹ Julianus, as Pomerius recalls, was “deeply moved and grieved” because “you could neither discharge your office with any zeal nor abandon it without sin.”¹²⁰ Pomerius wrote his treatise roughly a century after John Chrysostom’s work, at a time when the church had established its presence in all the major cities throughout the empire, and his approach is more pragmatic than Chrysostom’s. Where John invoked the awesome dignity of the ecclesiastical ministry and the great demands it places on the spiritual abilities of its bearer to the extent of being too overwhelming for some (including himself), Pomerius simply takes it for granted that men of good upbringing and suitable social class will be ordained to the clergy. His concern is how they can discharge their office for the benefit of the church. How can they resist the temptation of enriching themselves, of basking in the respect that their office commands, or of relishing the applause for their carefully crafted sermons?

      Instead of weighing priesthood against monasticism, Pomerius shifts the terms and distinguishes between active virtue and contemplative virtue. He considers the latter superior: “The active life is the journeying; the contemplative is the summit. The former makes a man holy; the latter makes him perfect.”¹²¹ Nevertheless, it is possible for a priest to partake of the contemplative virtue, if he discharges his office properly and according to “the apostolic teaching”:

      Therefore, if holy priests—not such as the divine threat declares are to be sentenced and condemned, but such as the apostolic teaching commends—convert many to God by their holy living and preaching; if they display no imperiousness, but do everything humbly and show themselves through love of holy charity affable to those over whom they have been placed; if they in some cases cure the weaknesses of their carnally living brethren by the medicine of healing words and in others bear patiently with those whom they judge to be incurable; if in the lives they live and in their preaching they seek not their own glory but Christ’s; if they do not woefully waste either their words or their deeds as the price of courting favor, but always ascribe to God whatever honor is paid them as they live and teach in a priestly manner; if the dutiful greetings of those they meet do not make them proud but weigh them down; if they consider themselves not honored but burdened by the praises of those who compliment them; if they console the afflicted, feed the needy, clothe the naked, redeem the captives, harbor strangers; if they show wanderers the way of salvation and promise hope to those who despair of gaining pardon; if they spur on those who make progress, and arouse those who are delaying, and are constantly occupied with whatever pertains to their office: who will be such a stranger to faith as to doubt that such men are sharers in the contemplative virtue, by whose words as well as example many become coheirs of the kingdom of heaven?¹²²

      This passage stands at the conclusion of book 1, which deals with the contemplative life. A large part of the discussion in this book revolves around the limitations of teaching by example. Pomerius is less confident than earlier authors about the impact of a priest’s upright conduct. He maintains that it is unlikely that a priest merely by his exemplary lifestyle can bring obstinate sinners to mend their ways. He must also admonish them through his preaching.¹²³ Also, certain truths of the Christian faith, such as the life of Christ or the nature of the Trinity, cannot be imparted through the exemplary living of the priest, but have to be taught by preaching.¹²⁴ In this regard, Pomerius agrees with John Chrysostom on the importance of preaching and instruction for combating heresy.

      Book 2 is devoted to a detailed and concrete discussion of the active life. Pomerius begins by expressing his apprehension that many clerics who read this will bristle at the implicit criticism of their unworthy behavior.¹²⁵ In a long, poetic passage that is reminiscent of Origen’s definition of priests “before God,” Pomerius describes the qualities of “the true priests who are the heads of churches,” and who are priests “by divine approbation”:

      They