A Roman governor became bishop of Milan by popular acclamation overnight
Ambrose of Milan served as governor when the crowd shouted his name at a bishop's election in 374 AD. Within a week he was baptized, ordained, and consecrated—the first Western aristocrat to accept the office. He then spent decades fighting Arianism and shaping Augustine's conversion.
Born around 339 in Trier to a Christian family of Greek descent, Ambrose studied law and rhetoric before Governor Probus made him prefect of Liguria and Emilia with headquarters in Milan. When Bishop Auxentius died in 374, Ambrose entered the church to keep order and left as bishop. Though Nicene in belief, his charity toward Arians made him acceptable to both factions.
As bishop he gave away his wealth, adopted ascetic habits, and wrote De officiis ministrorum and the Exameron. He composed hymns including Veni redemptor gentium and influenced Augustine of Hippo's conversion. Western Christianity later named him one of four Great Latin Church Fathers alongside Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great.
Ambrose battled Arianism for over half his episcopate, presiding over a council of thirty-two bishops at Aquileia in 381 that deposed Palladius and Secundianus. He negotiated with emperors Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius I, though modern scholars question how much he truly dominated Gratian's policies. Sozomen records Ambrose intruding on Gratian's hunting party to plead for a condemned pagan senator—evidence their relationship required deliberate effort. The historian McLynn argues that the real force behind Gratian's policy was the catastrophe at Adrianople in 378, where the emperor's uncle and the best of the eastern army were destroyed. Legend crowded in early: bees were said to have settled on the infant Ambrose's face and left a drop of honey, an omen of eloquence that explains the beehives in his iconography. His mother was probably one of the Aurelii Symmachi, which would make the pagan orator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus his cousin.
Source: Ambrose
