Primary source · Latin
The Letters · The Sermon Against Auxentius
Ambrose of Milan · AD 379–397
What this text is
The bishop who made emperors wait: the basilica crisis of 386 — 'the emperor is within the church, not above it' — the Symmachus debate, and the letters to Theodosius after Thessalonica.
Interlinear passages
Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.
Against Auxentius 36 — the axiom
ImperatorThe emperorenimforintrawithinecclesiam,the churchnonnotsupraaboveecclesiamthe churchestis
Public-domain translations
H. de Romestin (NPNF, 1896)
We pay to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Tribute is due to Caesar, we do not deny it. The Church belongs to God, therefore it ought not to be assigned to Caesar. For the emperor is within the Church, not above the Church.
Manuscript witnesses
Milanese and Carolingian tradition (ten books + extra collectionem)
9th c. onwardThe letters as Ambrose edited them, plus the unpublished dossier — Aquileia's acta and the basilica-crisis letters among them.
Patrologia Latina, vol. 16 (Migne)
1845Standard pre-critical text of the corpus.
Provenance
Milan, AD 379–397 — the bishop's file, arranged by his own hand
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Sancti Ambrosii opera: Epistulae et acta (CSEL 82.1–4)Otto Faller & Michaela Zelzer, 1968–1996The critical edition.
- Ambrose of Milan: Political Letters and Speeches (TTH 43)J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, 2005Annotated translation of the public dossier.