Thus does Saint Ambrose come down to us from antiquity,--great in his feats of heroism, great as an executive ruler of the Church, great in deeds of benevolence, rather than as orator, theologian, or student. Yet, like Chrysostom, he preached every Sunday, and often in the week besides, and his sermons had great power on his generation. When he died in 397 he left behind him even a rich legacy of theological treatises, as well as some fervid, inspiring hymns, and an influence for the better in the modes of church music, which was the beginning of the modern development of that great element in public worship. As a defender of the faith by his pen, he may have yielded to greater geniuses than he; but as the guardian of the interests of the Church, as a stalwart giant, who prostrated the kings of the earth before him and gained the first great battles of the spiritual over the temporal power, Ambrose is worthy to be ranked among the great Fathers, and will continue to receive the praises of enlightened Christendom.
Life of Ambrose, by his deacon, Paulinus; Theodoret; Tillemont's Memoires Ecclesiastique, tom. x; Baronius; Zosimus; the Epistles of Ambrose; Butler's Lives of the Saints; Biographie Universelle; Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Milman has only a very brief notice of this great bishop, the founder of sacerdotalism in the Latin Church. Neander's and the standard Church Histories. There are some popular biographical sketches in the encyclopedias, but no classical history of this prelate, in English, with which I am acquainted. The French writers are the best.
The most intellectual of all the Fathers of the Church was doubtless Saint Augustine. He is the great oracle of the Latin Church. He directed the thinking of the Christian world for a thousand years. He was not perhaps so learned as Origen, nor so critical as Jerome; but he was broader, profounder, and more original than they, or any other of the great lights who shed the radiance of genius on the crumbling fabric of the ancient civilization. He is the sainted doctor of the Church, equally an authority with both Catholics and Protestants. His penetrating genius, his comprehensive views of all systems of ancient thought, and his marvellous powers as a systematizer of Christian doctrines place him among the immortal benefactors of mankind; while his humanity, his breadth, his charity, and his piety have endeared him to the heart of the Christian world.