Ambrose of Milan and Community Formation in Late Antiquity

Product Description

Ambrose, the first patrician bishop and a prolific writer of a broad range of works, presents numerous opportunities for interdisciplinary research. His participation in many social groups, sometimes at odds with each other, and sometimes overlapping, demanded flexibility. The result is a protean figure, whose motives are not always clear. His own works and those of the scholars who contribute to this volume are accordingly multidisciplinary. Fields such as theology (especially historical theology), history, classics, philosophy, linguistics, and aesthetics, among others, and the recent international research that belongs to them nuance the volumes investigation of Ambrose's actions and motivations. The reader will find that Ambroses efforts to create and to strengthen social cohesion included building relationships and erecting social structures set on the foundations of Nicaean Christianity against heresy and paganism. A fusion of Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian intellectual traditions reinforced the solidarity Ambrose promoted. These endeavors met with success then, and continue to do so now, as indicated by the modern community of scholars found within this book.

About the Author

Ethan Gannaway is Associate Director of the Academy for the Study of Saint Ambrose of Milan and Adjunct Associate Professor of History at St. Ambrose University, USA. His recent publications include A Viewer Walks into a Tomb: Transformation in the Cubiculum Leonis in The Ancient Art of Transformation (2019), Ambrose's Baptismal Ritual as Apocalyptic Experience in Studia Ambrosiana 9 (2016), and Ambrose the Traditional, Christian Educator in Studia Ambrosiana 7 (2013). Rev. Robert Grant is Professor of Theology at St. Ambrose University and Director of the Academy for the Study of Saint Ambrose of Milan, USA. He has published several articles on Ambrose, including The Ambrose Doctrine in Studia Ambrosiana 8 (2013) and Weapons Strong for God: The Moral Theology of Ambrose of Milan Applied to War, Torture, and Capital Punishment in Studia Ambrosiana 5 (2011).