I read this fact last year but reading it again today (here in Gillian Clark's Christianity and Roman Society, p. 103) made me realize all over again how Saint Ambrose of Milan was a dick, even in the terms of social norms of late Antiquity:
In 388 the bishop of Callinicum, on the Euphrates, encouraged monks to burn a synagogue. Jewish religion had legal protection, and the emperor Theodosius quite properly required the bishop to pay for rebuilding the synagogue; but Ambrose preached a sermon that Theodosius recognized as a rebuke, and Theodosius backed down.
Saint Ambrose was also famous for his influence on Saint Augustine when the latter was returning to the Christianity of his mother, but he really fucked that one up.
I can't remember the detail, but after I read this factoid this past year I read another about Saint/Pope Gregory the Great's treatment of Jews, which was a heck of a lot better than Ambrose's, but I can't remember exactly what Gregory the Great did.
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2 comments:
so you don't like augustine either?
"that one" i mean the burned synagogue-restitution.
I have mixed feelings about Augustine, but like him more than not. I've also grown to like Paul a lot (though I think he would scare me).
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