I.—Literature.
§1.
Editions.
All
the Editions of the works
of St. Ambrose which preceded that of the Benedictines are very
inadequate. Of these the chief are the following:
1. Venice,
a.d.
1485.
2. Cribellius,
a.d.
1490.
3. Auerbach, Basel,
a.d.
1492, reprinted in 1506, with a full Index.
These are very faulty Editions.
4. Erasmus, Basel,
a.d.
1527, reprinted and re-edited by different persons,
in various places [by Baronius amongst others,
a.d.
1549].
5. Gillot Campanus, Paris,
a.d.
1568.
6. Felix de Montalto [afterwards Pope Sixtus
V.], Rome,
a.d.
1580–1585, reprinted at
Paris,
a.d.
1603.
7. The Benedictines of St. Maur, Paris,
a.d.
1686–1690, reprinted at Venice,
a.d.
1748 and 1781, as well as with additions
by Migne, Patres Latini, Vols. XIV.–XVII.
8. A new edition by Ballerini, Milan,
a.d.
1875–1886, founded on that of the
Benedictines, but by no means superior to it.
There is still room for a critical edition of the works
of this great Father, which are unfortunately very corrupt, but in many
points it is not likely that the work of the Benedictine editors can be
improved upon.
9. There are separate editions of some of
the treatises of St. Ambrose, as of the
Hexaëmeron
and
De Officiis Clericorum
, in the Bibliotheca Patrum Eccl.
Latinæ Selecta, Leipzig, Tauchnitz. The
De Officiis
has also been edited, with considerable improvements in the text, by
Krabinger, Tübingen, 1857, and the
De Fide
and
De
Pœnitentia
, by Hurter in the Vienna selections from the
Fathers.
§2.
Translations.
There seems to have never been any attempt to translate
the works of this great Christian Father and Doctor in full.
Some few treatises,
De Officiis, De excessu
fratris Satyri, De Virginitate,
and several other short ones,
appear in German, in the select writings of the Fathers, published by
Kosel of Kempten. The Epistles have been translated into French
by Bonrecueil, Paris,
a.d.
1746; and the
De
Officiis
and Epistles into English, the former by Humfrey, London,
a.d.
1637; the latter in the Oxford
“Library of the Fathers,” revised by E. Walford, London,
1881; whilst the
De Mysteriis
appears in a little volume of
Sacramental Treatises, published by Messrs. J. Parker & Co.,
Oxford, under the supervision of the Editor of this volume. There
is a very valuable little monograph entitled
Studia Ambrosiana,
chiefly critical, and unfortunately brief, by Maximilian Ihm.
Leipzig, Teubner, 1889.
§3.
Biographies
and Authorities for the Life of St. Ambrose.
(a.) Ancient.
Many of his own writings.—Life of St.
Ambrose by Paulinus,
1
a deacon of the Church of
Milan.—St. Augustine, Confessions, V. 23, 24; VI. 1–6; IX.
13–16; and many other passages in his writings.—St. Jerome,
De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis,
c. 134.—Rufinus,
Ecclesiastical History, XI, 11, 15,
16, 18.—Socrates, Eccl. History, IV. 30; V. 11.—Sozomen,
Eccl. History, VI. 24; VII. 13, 25.
(b.) Modern.
Baronius, Annals,
a.d.
397, n. 25–35; Life of St. Ambrose in the prolegomena to the
Roman Edition of his works.—The Life of St. Ambrose gathered from
his own writings, in the Benedictine Edition
(excellent).—Hermant,
Vie de St. Ambroise,
Paris,
1678.—Tillemont,
Mémoires,
etc., Tome X. St. Ambroise
[pp. 78–386], and notes, pp. 729–770.—Ceillier,
Histoire générale des Auteurs sacrés,
Tome V. pp.
328 ff. Ed. 2, Paris, 1860.—Dupin, Tome ii. pp.
438–515. [This writer says that the text of St. Ambrose is
more corrupt than that of any other Father. See Alzog,
Patrologie,
p. 296. Ed. i.]—Cave,
Hist. Lit.
Vol.
I. 262.—Schœneman,
Biblíotheca historica PP.
Lat.
I. 388–419.—Silbert,
Leben des heiligen
Ambrosius,
Vienna, 1841—Baunard,
Histoire de St.
Ambroise,
Paris, 1872 [translated into German, Freiburg,
1873].—Life of St. Ambrose, by Archdeacon Thornton, London, and
other shorter sketches.—Fessler [Jungmann],
Institutiones
Patrologiæ
, I. 655 [also Patrologies of Mœhler, Alzog,
etc.]. Articles in the Freiburg
Kirchen-Lexikon,
the
Dictionary of Christian Biography, and other
encyclopædias.
1
Paulinus, who had been in
constant attendance on St. Ambrose, and was with him at his death,
wrote this life a few years after that event, at the request of St.
Augustine.