How Priests & Barbarians Took Over the Roman State

A History of Mankind (297)

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If the Christian takeover of the Roman Empire was an epic, Ambrose of Milan would be one of its protagonists, a scheming, smart political operator who outplayed his enemies at every turn.

As archbishop of Milan, at the time the effective capital of the Western Roman Empire, Ambrose enthusiastically persecuted Jews, atheists, pagans and heretics, and personally steered the then-Manichaean brilliant scholar Augustine of Hippo towards Christianity. He also dabbled heavily in politics, taking advantage of great personal wealth that he could trade for influence: since his elder sister was a nun and his younger brother was celibate, as himself, Ambrose didn’t have to protect his family inheritance.

Ambrose was among the first Romans to make this kind of tradeoff, in which the Church, together with selected Christian politicians as well as their rank-and-file supporters and clients, received assets and wealth in exchange for political power and positions in the Church’s hierarchy. Ambrose was sometimes refreshingly open about his ways, and the poor of Milan, his biggest constituency and the basis of his political influence, were said to receive their alms in gold coins, which sounds rather Periclean.

Over time, Ambrose’s became a popular method for elite Romans to use the Church to shelter themselves at a time when general unrest and barbarian invasions made traditional investments, like land, less secure than usual. This is because Ambrose was even more impactful than Athanasius had been in the political arena, as he took advantage of the erosion of imperial military might, the empire’s traditional axis of power – to the point that he personally corresponded with Queen Fritigil of the Marcomanni, seeking the conversion of their people to ease a Foederati deal with the Romans¹.

Ambrose, depicted in a contemporary mosaic that I believe strikes the right balance between ascetism and attention to detail. Credit: Wikipedia.