According to Augustine and Paulinus, Ambrose of Milan introduced the singing of hymns to his congregation in 386 as they gathered in vigil to prevent the seizure of the Basilica Portiana by Emperor Valentinian II’s mother, the pro-Arian Justina.Footnote 1 Although these narratives are compelling, they have not provided scholars with a clear understanding of how Ambrose’s hymns related to the conflict of 386. Examination of the contents of Ambrose’s hymnody has not revealed obvious traces of polemic which would be expected for works composed during the conflict of 386; they are not ‘superficial, anti-Arian fight-songs’.Footnote 2 Moreover, many scholars have doubted that Ambrose could have spontaneously written hymns of such poetic quality while addressing his other episcopal duties at a time of crisis.Footnote 3 Certainly, the full corpus of Ambrose’s hymns, containing pieces for feasts throughout the church year, could not have been composed and introduced in the days surrounding Easter in 386. Nevertheless, Ambrose himself wrote that his hymnic compositions functioned as a ‘confessio Trinitatis’ that effectively swayed the populace to his side during the conflict of 386, thus at least some hymns must be understood in this context.Footnote 4
Given the lack of obvious polemic in the hymns, some scholars have been satisfied to regard the hymns as having provided encouragement, and not theological argument, amid Ambrose’s anti-Arian campaign. Augustine states that the hymns functioned ‘to prevent the people from succumbing to depression and exhaustion’, emphasising the music’s affective value for the congregation rather than its theological content.Footnote 5 In one recent treatment of Ambrose’s hymnody, Michael Stuart Williams develops Augustine’s view of the hymns as a means of encouragement, comparing them to other late Roman ‘acclamations and popular songs’.Footnote 6 According to Williams, the hymns were ‘a means of establishing and promoting a Milanese Christian identity and of affirming [Ambrose's] own popularity, authority and legitimacy’.Footnote 7
Although Williams convincingly demonstrates the potential of Ambrose’s hymns to function as a rallying cry during a time of conflict, he does not consider their contents and thus does not explain how Ambrose understood his works as a ‘confessio Trinitatis’. Other recent scholars have sought to harmonise the lack of obvious polemic in the hymns with Ambrose’s own understanding of his works by seeking more subtle forms of theological argument. Francesco Corsaro, for instance, argues that Ambrose’s hymns might be ‘crypto-polemical’.Footnote 8 Brian Dunkle argues that Ambrose ‘composed his hymns to respond to doctrinal rivals’, but believes that Ambrose did not do this primarily through ‘doctrinal terms’ or overt attacks on heretics.Footnote 9 Instead, Dunkle contends that the hymns functioned to create a sense of ‘enchantment’ that would ‘shape his congregation’s experience along distinctive, pro-Nicene lines’, allowing his followers to interpret both nature and scripture according to their Nicene commitments.Footnote 10
Closer examination of the hymn ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, however, suggests that the images by which Ambrose effected his ‘enchantment’ also demonstrate the bishop’s Nicene theological convictions and are themselves polemical to a greater degree than recent scholarship has recognised.Footnote 11 This hymn, composed for dawn worship, addresses Christ as the ‘splendour of the father’s glory’ and ‘true sun’, and asks him to ‘pour the radiance of the Holy Spirit into our senses’, drawing on a rich early Christian tradition of theologically significant solar metaphors. Ambrose not only adopted, but carefully reorganised traditional metaphors to present an image of the Trinity in accordance with his Nicene doctrines. Throughout ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, Ambrose’s use of solar metaphors forcefully demonstrates the divinity of both Christ and the Holy Spirit, a message which he augments by illustrating the inseparable operations of the Trinity in order to present a fully realised confessio Trinitatis.Footnote 12
I will first survey the well-developed Christian traditions of using sun and light metaphors to describe the Godhead that provide a background for ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’.Footnote 13 I will then examine how Ambrose adapts traditional metaphors and ideas to craft poetic images of the Godhead that align with his Nicene trinitarian theology. I will then consider how Ambrose depicts the inseparable operations of the Trinity within the hymn. Throughout, I seek to demonstrate that Ambrose’s careful attention to representing the Trinity reveals that he designed the hymn to function as a confession of Nicene doctrine and thus, potentially, as a challenge to anti-Nicene parties in Milan. I will conclude by considering how Ambrose’s congregation might have received the hymn’s concise theological arguments, and by reflecting on how this reading of the hymn might inform our understanding of Ambrose’s career and the origin of Ambrosian hymnody.
Sun and light imagery in previous Christian sources
Previous examinations of ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ have emphasised Ambrose’s use of natural images. Inos Biffi, for example, has described ‘the poetic transfiguration of nature’ as a central element of Ambrose’s ‘theological aesthetic’.Footnote 14 Dunkle has likewise argued that a central project of Ambrose’s hymns is to ‘enchant the congregation with a common elevated vision of nature’.Footnote 15 However, it is important to recognise that the natural images of the sun and light are not Ambrose’s original poetic innovation. Instead, this language must be understood as a development of theologically rich metaphorical traditions developed by a range of early Christian sources.
From the opening line, ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ enters a long tradition of speaking of divine hypostases as emanations of glory. Wisdom of Solomon describes the personified figure of wisdom as ‘a reflection of eternal light’ (Wis 7:26), an image which the Book of Hebrews applies to Christ, describing him as a ‘radiance of [God's] glory’ (ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης, Heb 1:3). The scriptural image of Christ as a reflection or extension of God’s glory also appears in the early Christian hymn known as ‘Phos hilaron’. This text describes Christ as the ‘happy light of the holy glory of the immortal Father’ (Φῶς ἱλαρόν ἁγίας δόξης ἀθανάτου Πατρός).Footnote 16 Ansgar Franz has observed significant similarities between ‘Phos hilaron’ and the opening line of ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’.Footnote 17 Augustine reports that Ambrose introduced hymns ‘following the custom of Eastern regions’, suggesting the influence of Greek hymnody, among which the ‘Phos hilaron’ was preeminent.Footnote 18
Later in the first verse, ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ evokes the language of the Creed of Nicaea, describing Christ as the ‘light of light’ (lux lucis, 3). This expression closely resembles the creed’s description of Christ as ‘light from light’ (φῶς ἐκ φωτός).Footnote 19 Although Ambrose’s expression here is not a direct translation of the creed, as it lacks the use of the connective preposition (‘ἐκ/ex’), it may represent his best attempt to approximate the creed’s language within the confines of his poetic meter. In any case, so close a parallel could not have gone unnoticed by those in Ambrose’s congregation familiar with the language of the creed.
The second verse opens with another traditional metaphor – that of Christ as the ‘true sun’ (uerusque sol, 5) with the ‘radiance of the Holy Spirit’ (iubarque Sancti Spiritus) radiating from him. Solar metaphors for Christ were well-established by Ambrose’s time. This tradition has biblical roots in Malachi’s reference to the ‘sun of righteousness’ (4:2), which was understood by early Christians to refer to their Messiah. Solar depictions of Christ also resonated with classical sun-god traditions, leading early Christian writers to craft depictions of Christ that absorbed or challenged Roman images of Apollo and Sol Invictus.Footnote 20
Ambrose’s image of the Holy Spirit emanating from the solar Christ is strikingly similar to solar metaphors used by Tertullian and Gregory of Nazianzus to explore Christ’s relationship to God the Father. Michel Perrin particularly emphasises the possible influence of Tertullian.Footnote 21 In his Apology, Tertullian uses such a metaphor to explain how Christ can be begotten by the Father while remaining co-eternal. He argues that Christ is one with the Father just as rays of light have their origin in the sun but are not divided from their source; thus ‘there is no division of substance, but merely an extension’.Footnote 22 In Against Praxeas, he extends this image to the Holy Spirit, arguing that the trinitarian persons are distinct yet not separated, just as rays emerge from the sun and points of illumination from the rays of the sun.Footnote 23 In Tertullian, therefore, we find a highly structured metaphor, with the members of the Godhead figured as specific aspects of the sun and its emanations.
Although underemphasised by Perrin, Gregory of Nazianzus provides an equally likely source for Ambrose’s solar image, given Ambrose’s respect for Gregory’s anti-homoian efforts.Footnote 24 Attempting to explain Christ’s status as the begotten Son of God, Gregory argues that ‘a cause is not necessarily prior to its effects – the Sun is not prior to its light’.Footnote 25 Gregory does not attempt to extend this metaphor to the Holy Spirit as Tertullian does. Instead, Gregory illustrates the shared substance of the Godhead by describing each person of the Trinity as ‘true light’, concluding: ‘here are three predicates – light and light and light. But the light is one, God is one’.Footnote 26 In De Spiritu Sancto, Ambrose states that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share in one luminous nature, using language akin to Gregory’s declaration in ‘Oration 31’, indicating his possible familiarity with Gregory’s use of light metaphors to construct trinitarian theology. In this same passage, Ambrose refers to Christ as the ‘splendour… of eternal light’ (splendor… lucis aeternae), indicating that Ambrose saw a connection between the light metaphors found in Gregory and the image of Christ as the splendour of divine glory.Footnote 27
The specific phrase, ‘true sun’ (uerus sol), had been used by both Cyprian of Carthage and Zeno of Verona.Footnote 28 Ambrose’s use of this exact appellation suggests the influence of at least one of these texts. Cyprian uses the image of the ‘true sun’ in his treatise on the Lord’s Prayer, arguing that Christians ought to make a special effort to pray at dawn and dusk because Christ is the ‘true sun and true day’ who provides light.Footnote 29 Where Cyprian invokes the solar Christ to enjoin dawn worship, Ambrose uses the phrase in a hymn composed to fulfil this very duty. In composing a hymn for the morning hours, Ambrose may well have consulted Cyprian’s instructions.
Although Zeno of Verona has received less attention than Cyprian in modern scholarship, he is an even more likely source for Ambrose’s image of Christ as the ‘true sun’. In a letter to Zeno’s successor, Bishop Syagrius of Verona, Ambrose makes clear his esteem for ‘Zeno of sacred memory’ (Zenonis sanctae memoriae).Footnote 30 Zeno employs the appellation ‘true sun’ in a comparison of Christ’s death and resurrection to the setting and rising of the sun.Footnote 31 Thus, Zeno’s use of the phrase shares with ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ a focus on the dawn. Moreover, Zeno describes the solar Christ directing the ‘twelve rays, which are the twelve apostles’ (duodecim radiorum, id est apostolorum duodecim) in their work of disseminating the illuminating truth of the Gospel. Ambrose’s ‘true sun’ is invoked to direct the ‘radiance of the Holy Spirit’ (iubar… sancti spiritus) towards Ambrose’s worshipping congregation. Both Ambrose and Zeno, therefore, connect Christ as the ‘true sun’ to the function of directing sanctifying knowledge, a picture that both writers further relate to the natural image of the dawn.
In composing ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, therefore, Ambrose drew upon a long tradition of speaking about God through the images of the sun and light. On the one hand, these natural images were well-suited to dawn worship and would have functioned to impress upon his congregation the glory of the triune God in nature, achieving the ‘enchantment’ described by Dunkle. On the other hand, the alignment of Ambrose’s images with such a rich tradition of Christian sources suggests that his compositional method, and perhaps his meaning, involved more than devotional reflection on God in nature. Indeed, borrowing and adjusting language and ideas from earlier Christian sources is a central strategy that Ambrose employs in his prose theological works.Footnote 32 The presence of language and ideas that correspond with earlier sources in his hymns suggests that hymns and prose should not be treated as distinct, monolithic categories of the bishop’s work, but rather as related elements within Ambrose’s theological career in which the bishop used similar compositional strategies. The precise way Ambrose arranged and structured his light metaphors is critical to understanding how ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ fits within Ambrose’s broader theological oeuvre.
Divine glory and Christology
Throughout the first verse of ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, Ambrose uses light imagery to focus his congregation on Christ’s role and relation to the Father. Ambrose’s concern for communicating a properly Nicene understanding of Christology in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ is clear in the opening line (‘Splendor paternae gloriae’), in which Ambrose represents Christ as an emanation of divine glory. Earlier sources, particularly the influential ‘Phos hilaron’, had adapted the biblical emanation language of Hebrews 1:3 in a manner conducive to subordinationist readings. By calling Christ the ‘happy light of the holy glory of the immortal Father’ (Φῶς ἱλαρόν ἁγίας δόξης ἀθανάτου Πατρός), the Greek hymn might be read to create distance between Christ and the Father.Footnote 33 In ‘Phos hilaron’, Christ is not the ‘splendour of the Father’s glory’, but only ‘of the holy glory of the Father’. Origen makes the subordinationist implications of such a construction clear in his commentary on the Book of Hebrews, declaring: ‘[Christ is] the radiance not of God but of his glory’ (ἀπαύγασμα οὐ τοῦ θɛοὺ ἀλλὰ της δόξης αὐτου).Footnote 34 Christ is thus understood not as a full participant in the Father’s divinity, but rather as a reflection only of the mediating attribute of God’s glory.
Ansgar Franz argues that Ambrose’s image of Christ’s emanation is an adaptation of this earlier, subordinationist tradition of representing Christ as the splendour of the glory of the Father. He observes, however, that Ambrose harmonises this tradition with his Nicene commitments.Footnote 35 Where ‘Phos Hilaron’ creates distance between Christ and the Father with its sequence of genitives (Φῶς ἱλαρόν ἁγίας δόξης ἀθανάτου Πατρός), Ambrose transforms the grammatical place of the Father from a genitive noun to an adjective. Although this change does not dispense with glory as a mediating element altogether, it does allow him to emphasise the connection, rather than distance, between Father and Son.Footnote 36 By representing Christ as the ‘radiance of paternal glory’, Ambrose avoids placing the term glory between the Father and the Son and instead makes them adjacent.Footnote 37
However, it does not seem appropriate to conclude that Ambrose’s purpose is ‘to preserve the contents of the tripartite formula’ (Christ as the radiance of the glory of the Father) found in Origen and ‘Phos hilaron’ as Franz argues.Footnote 38 Although Ambrose does preserve the basic elements of this formula (Christ, glory and the Father), he does so precisely by reducing the tripartite genitive sequence of ‘Phos hilaron’ into a bipartite one.Footnote 39 Moreover, Ambrose’s sustained attention to the Trinity throughout the hymn suggests that his purpose was less to preserve a traditional expression than to draw together a number of familiar images to construct a fully realised ‘confessio Trinitatis’.Footnote 40 Indeed, Ambrose’s close echo of the Creed of Nicaea (by way of the phrase lux lucis) shortly after his adaptation of the ‘Phos hilaron’ formula indicates that he was drawing from multiple sources to construct a sustained declaration of his Nicene understanding of the Trinity.
Ambrose does not only depict Christ as a luminous emanation, as in his opening line, but also as a ‘fount of light’ (fons luminis, 3). Thus, Christ is represented as an emanation from the Father’s light (splendor paternae gloriae) and as a source of light himself (fons luminis). By representing both Father and Son as sources of light, Ambrose demonstrates the close cooperation of trinitarian persons in their activity, an idea that he will develop throughout the hymn. Through the parallel images of Christ as emanation and source, Ambrose represents both Christ’s begotten origination and divine equality.
In the first verse, therefore, Ambrose carefully illustrates both Christ’s identity as the begotten Son of God and his equality with God. By carefully adjusting the formula found in ‘Phos hilaron’, Ambrose figures Christ as an emanation of God’s glory who is, nevertheless, intimately connected to the Father. Drawing on the Creed of Nicaea, Ambrose shows Christ to have the same luminous substance as the Father, and to be a source of light himself. Ambrose returns to this theme in a more direct fashion at the close of the hymn, when he declares that ‘the Son [is] wholly in the Father and the Father [is] wholly in the Word’ (in Patre totus Filius, et totus in Verbo Pater, 31–32). Thus, the first and last verses of the hymn form a chiastic structure, with Ambrose proclaiming his Nicene Christology at the opening of the hymn and again, more explicitly, at the conclusion. These strong christological declarations demonstrate that Ambrose intended ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ to serve as a unifying confession of faith for his Nicene congregation, and, potentially, as a polemical challenge to Arian and homoian theologies.
The sun and its emanations in trinitarian theology
Scholars who have sought to understand ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ as a confessio Trinitatis have largely represented it as a confessio Christi. Dunkle, Perrin and Franz focus on the first verse’s descriptions of Christ, and on the final, more obviously creedal couplet. Yet, the divinity of the Holy Spirit had also become a hotly contested subject in the 380s. It is not a surprise, then, to see Ambrose include a demonstration of the Spirit’s divinity in the second verse. Christ, as the ‘true sun’, is asked to ‘pour the radiance of the Holy Spirit into our senses’ (iubarque Sancti Spiritus infunde nostris sensibus, 7–8). Ambrose radically reorients solar metaphors used by earlier Christian writers to express the shared divinity of the Father and Son to centre the equality of the Holy Spirit more forcefully. Perrin emphasises parallels between ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ and the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage and Zeno of Verona, yet there are also strong reasons to see Gregory of Nazianzus as a source of inspiration for Ambrose.Footnote 41 These antecedents represent two distinct traditions of solar metaphors; Cyprian and Zeno, following biblical imagery, speak of Christ as the ‘true sun’, while Tertullian and Gregory use the image of the sun and its rays to explore the relationship between the Father and the Son.
At a surface level, the second verse of ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ most closely parallels Zeno of Verona’s discussion of Christ as the ‘true sun’. Zeno and Ambrose both invoke the solar Christ to send salvific illumination to his worshippers. Whereas, in Zeno, Christ accomplishes this by sending the apostles to bear the gospel message, in Ambrose’s work, it is the Holy Spirit who comes to sanctify the congregation’s experience. Yet, this is not so simple as exchanging one messenger of divine knowledge for another, as Ambrose clearly did not imagine the Holy Spirit to be related to Christ in the same manner as the apostles.
Indeed, Ambrose provides a key to understanding his use of metaphors for the Godhead in De Spiritu Sancto. Discussing descriptions of Christ as the right hand of God, Ambrose argues that metaphorical descriptions of God must be read in light of the unity of the Godhead.Footnote 42 Ambrose’s approach to metaphorical descriptions of God suggests that his metaphor in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ must align with the unity of the Godhead, even as he also describes Christ and the Spirit’s shared work in sanctification. Thus, if Ambrose was appropriating the structure of Zeno’s metaphor, in which Christ as the sun distributes salvific understanding, he must have understood the metaphor to be built upon his Nicene understanding of trinitarian relations.
Here, it is useful to consider the possible influence of solar metaphors found in Tertullian and Gregory. Both authors had used sun metaphors to explain how members of the Godhead could share in divinity and eternality while recognising the Father alone as unoriginated. While this metaphor is well-suited to describe how Christ is begotten of the Father, it becomes awkward when extended to the Holy Spirit. When Tertullian attempts to incorporate the Holy Spirit into a solar metaphor, he describes the Spirit as the ‘illumination point out of the beam third from the sun’.Footnote 43 However, this seems to suggest a sequential hierarchy, with the Father first in priority, Christ second and the Holy Spirit third. Although describing the Trinity in such sequential terms was acceptable within the theological systems of second- and third-century Christianity, it would not have been within Ambrose’s understanding of Nicene Christianity.Footnote 44 Nor could Ambrose preserve the earlier structure, with the Father represented as the sun and Christ as its ray, and simply add the Spirit as another ray of the paternal sun. To construct a metaphor in which both Son and Spirit emerge identically from the Father would open the possibility that both are similarly begotten, whereas Ambrose was committed to the notion that the Son is ‘only-begotten’ and the Spirit instead ‘proceeds’ (procedit) from the Father.Footnote 45
Instead, therefore, Ambrose adopted the structure of Zeno’s solar metaphor, which figures Christ as the ‘true sun’ distributing beams of divine illumination. This structure avoids placing the Father directly within the metaphor, thus allowing Ambrose to explore the sanctifying function of the Son and Spirit within the economy. By focusing on the activity of the Son and Spirit, moreover, Ambrose could fashion his hymn as a petitionary prayer rather than a creedal declaration of the Godhead’s identity. Nevertheless, within this hymnic structure Ambrose preserves the underlying logic of the trinitarian persons’ shared substance found in the metaphors of Gregory and Tertullian.
Between the first two verses, each trinitarian person is equally represented by light: the Father by glory, the Son by splendour and the Spirit by radiance. In other words, the whole Godhead shares in one luminous nature, as Ambrose wrote in De Spiritu Sancto: ‘just as the Father is light, so, too, the Son is light, and the Holy Spirit is light’.Footnote 46 He may have received this expression from Gregory of Nazianzus, whose influence he suggests in the same text.Footnote 47 Thus, although the sun metaphor in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ adopts a similar metaphorical structure to that found in Zeno, it preserves the theological thrust of the solar metaphors used by Tertullian and Gregory. Indeed, while Ambrose alters the metaphor, he implicitly preserves the sequence of emanation found in Tertullian’s Against Praxeas, in which Christ emerges as a beam from the solar Father, in turn producing the ‘illumination point’ of the Spirit.Footnote 48 In the first verse of ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, Christ is depicted as an emanation of the Father’s paternal light. The second verse adds the image of the Spirit emanating from Christ, himself the emanation of the Father, with all three trinitarian persons sharing in divine essence through their unbroken emanation.
However, Ambrose avoids emphasising the sequential, and thus potentially hierarchical, nature of this process of emanation through his hymnic structure. Here, he takes a similar approach to editing the sequence used by Tertullian that he does to altering the structure of emanation found in ‘Phos hilaron’. In his opening line, Ambrose adapts traditional language of Christ’s emanation found in ‘Phos hilaron’ and Origen in a way that emphasises the closeness of Father and Son without ultimately removing any element from the traditional structure. That is, Ambrose retains the presence of glory within his statement but avoids placing it in an intermediate position. Christ is neither the ‘splendour of the glory of the Father’ nor simply the ‘splendour of the Father’. Instead, Ambrose figured Christ as the ‘splendour of the Father’s glory’, keeping the constitutive elements present in earlier traditions, but reducing the syntactical distance between Christ and the Father. Likewise, Ambrose breaks up Tertullian’s sequence to independently emphasise, first, the relationship between Father and Son and, second, the closeness of Son and Spirit. The thoughtful worshipper is easily able to perceive that all three members of the Trinity are placed in a sequence of luminous emanation, but Ambrose avoids employing any phrase which explicitly makes this emanation a hierarchical sequence.
This approach works, in part, due to Ambrose’s tendency to describe the Spirit as proceeding from both the Father and the Son, and even from the Son individually.Footnote 49 Based upon Jesus’ promises to send the Spirit, several early Christian writers spoke of the Spirit proceeding through the Son.Footnote 50 Although ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ may be read in this light, Ambrose displays a greater flexibility in his language for the Spirit’s procession, speaking of the Spirit not only proceeding through but also from the Son.Footnote 51 Ambrose’s sun metaphor in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ represents precisely this idea, with the Spirit’s luminous substance emanating through and from Christ, the sun.
Ambrose supports his goal of demonstrating trinitarian unity by replacing the term radius, used by Tertullian and Zeno to indicate the sun’s emanation, with iubar. While the term’s specific connotation of the light of dawn makes it a vivid choice for use in a dawn hymn, the term also strengthens Ambrose’s trinitarian argument.Footnote 52 Although both radius and iubar are used to refer to the gleaming rays of the sun, the former regularly refers to the (potentially multiple) rays which extend from the sun, whereas the latter was more commonly used for the undivided, and thus singular, light, splendour or radiance of a heavenly body.Footnote 53 By referring to the Spirit as the iubar of the Christ–sun, Ambrose made clear that he imagined the Spirit as the single emanation of divine light.
Ambrose’s approach to constructing metaphors for trinitarian theology in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ closely resembles his exegesis of Ps 36:9 – ‘in your light we see light’. Gregory of Nazianzus had interpreted this passage as a ‘prophetic vision’ indicating the Trinity, declaring that ‘we receive the Son’s light from the Father’s light in the light of the Spirit’.Footnote 54 Ambrose provides a similar trinitarian interpretation of this passage in De Spiritu Sancto, yet his passage instead reads: ‘God Omnipotent Father, who are the Fount of Life, in thy light the Son, we shall see the light of the Holy Spirit.’Footnote 55 Here, Ambrose avoids figuring the Father as light in the same sense as the Son and Spirit, making him the ultimate source for the light of Son and Spirit instead. This emphasises both the Father’s role as the source of the Godhead and the Son and Spirit’s shared nature and activity of providing spiritual illumination.
Thus far, I have argued that Ambrose inherited a tradition of sun metaphors from Tertullian and Gregory of Nazianzus that emphasised the common divine essence of the Godhead, while also structuring his own metaphor in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ according to Zeno of Verona’s paradigm of Christ as the sun directing beams of divine illumination. Ambrose’s poetic reorientation of these past traditions illustrates the shared divine essence of the divine persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yet he does not demonstrate this unity all at once, focusing on Christ’s relationship to the Father in the first verse and the Spirit’s procession from the Son in the second. Given the lack of previous attention to the role of the Holy Spirit in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, it is worth considering how Ambrose’s depiction of the Spirit in the hymn fits within his wider pneumatology.
Throughout his theological oeuvre, Ambrose sought to emphasise the equality of the trinitarian persons while also recognising that the Father is alone unoriginated. He also emphasised the complementary, and indeed inseparable, work of the Son and Spirit in revealing God in creation, with each person illuminating the other members of the Godhead. Thus, in De Spiritu Sancto, Ambrose can argue that ‘in thy light the Son, we shall see the light of the Holy Spirit’. Yet in a later passage, he reverses this order, stating ‘From one Spirit, through one Son into one Father does our knowledge proceed.’Footnote 56 For Ambrose, therefore, the Son reveals the Spirit, the Spirit reveals the Son and both reveal the Father.
‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ captures this logic of the Son and Spirit’s mutual inflowing in both its directions. The Son sends the Spirit, and the Spirit, in turn, provides spiritual illumination to the congregation. However, the image of the sun and its rays suggests more than mere illumination. As is evident from images used by Tertullian and Gregory of Nazianzus, the sun is an apt metaphor for illustrating the shared substance of the trinitarian persons. Throughout the hymn, Ambrose imagines each member of the Trinity as some form of light, with each flowing into each other and sharing a common nature. As I have argued, Ambrose follows the same logic in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ as he does in De Spiritu Sancto, with the Father identified as the ultimate source who stands beyond full inclusion in material metaphor. In ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, the Father is identified with glorious light, but is not the sun or one of its rays. The Son and Spirit are more concretely figured, while still being understood to share in the luminous essence of the Father.
Inseparable operations in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’
Though significant, the intricacies of Ambrose’s sun metaphor are abstract. Therefore, Ambrose strengthens his argument in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ with an illustration of the inseparable operations of the Trinity. This notion is key to Ambrose’s pro-Nicene argumentation, taking a central role in On the Holy Spirit.Footnote 57 In the latter portion of the hymn, Ambrose demonstrates that all three members of the Trinity participate in the work of sanctification and in the Eucharist, uniting roles often associated with a single member of the Godhead to demonstrate their inseparable operation and nature.
Within the sun metaphor of the second verse of ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, the singing congregation asks Christ to ‘pour the radiance of the Holy Spirit into our senses’ (iubarque Sancti Spiritus infunde nostris sensibus, 7–8), evoking the Holy Spirit’s role as sanctifier of the Christian’s inner consciousness. Yet, later in the hymn, Ambrose prays to the Father to ‘govern [our] mind’ (mentem gubernet, 17). Thus, the Father and Holy Spirit both work to purify the believer’s inner self and maintain their faith. Although Christ is not directly implored to fulfil this sanctifying work, his involvement in it is implied, insofar as it is he who directs the Holy Spirit’s work in the earlier sun metaphor. The hymn also asks Christ to descend towards the congregation before pouring out the Spirit, bringing both Son and Holy Spirit into proximity with the community.Footnote 58 All three members of the Trinity are shown participating in the work of transforming the minds and experiences of believers.
Throughout the hymn, Ambrose associates the shared substance of the Godhead with the mutual work of the Trinity, depicted through the metaphorical language of heat and light. Lest the congregation miss the connection between the Father’s governing of the Christian’s mind and the work of the Spirit discussed in verse two, Ambrose adds: ‘may faith be kindled with [the Father's] heat’ (fides calore ferueat, 19). The Father’s ‘heat’ recalls the heat of Christ, the sun and the Holy Spirit as the sun’s emanation in the second verse. Heat also suggests manifestations of the Holy Spirit as fire, connected by Ambrose to the illuminating power of the Spirit in De Spiritu Sancto.Footnote 59 Thus, Ambrose employs the image of light and fire to describe all three members of the Trinity in connection with their equal participation in sanctification. Pro-Nicene arguments about the inseparable operations of the Trinity attempted to establish that the common operation of divine persons is predicated on their common nature.Footnote 60 Ambrose illustrates this point by associating the Godhead’s sanctifying work with the shared attribute of light.
If scholars are correct in imagining that Ambrose’s ‘daytime hymns’ were sung cyclically in a liturgy of the hours, the common work of the Godhead in effecting sanctification would have been even clearer to Ambrose’s congregation.Footnote 61 In another hymn associated with the morning hours, ‘Aeterne rerum conditor’, Ambrose imagines Christ as ‘light’, asking him to ‘shine on [our] senses’ (tu lux refulge sensibus, 29). If these hymns were sung in sequence, as many scholars suppose, it would be hard to miss the similarity between the image of Christ, illuminating the worshippers’ ‘senses’ (sensibus) in ‘Aeterne rerum conditor’, and the Spirit doing the same in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’. Ambrose’s congregation would, thus, be reminded of each trinitarian person’s role in sanctification before the end of morning.
The inseparable operation of the Trinity can also be seen in the hymn’s description of the Eucharist. Ambrose references the bread of the Eucharist in the sixth verse, praying ‘may Christ be food to us’ (Christusque nobis sit cibus, 21).Footnote 62 Yet instead of moving on to describe the blood of Christ in eucharistic wine, Ambrose exhorts his congregation to ‘joyfully drink the sober intoxication of the Spirit’ (laeti bibamus sobriam ebrietatem Spiritus, 23–24), drawing on the language of Ephesians 5:18. Although the Eucharist is associated primarily with Christ in scripture and liturgy, Ambrose portrays the sacrament as a moment in which the worshipper encounters both Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Throughout ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are shown to be engaging in the same work, even when specific operations are generally associated with a particular person. God the Father, Son and Spirit are all shown to be involved in the work of transforming the minds and experiences of believers. Both Christ and the Spirit descend upon the senses of their worshippers, and both are seen at work in Eucharistic feasting. Throughout his trinitarian works, Ambrose uses the inseparable operations of the Trinity to demonstrate the united presence and shared nature of the divine persons. Ambrose was not alone in arguing that the common operation of the Godhead illustrated their common nature. By the late fourth century, these arguments had become a central pro-Nicene strategy.Footnote 63
Conclusion
‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ is full of resonances with other theologically rich Christian texts and images, the significance of which has not been adequately appreciated in recent scholarship. Taken together, these elements suggest a reading of the hymn as a strongly pro-Nicene – and thus anti-Arian – work. One may object, however, that the pro-Nicene contours of the hymn are incredibly subtle, and their possible relation to other Christian texts even more so. Thus, one might consider it unlikely that Ambrose’s congregation would have understood the trinitarian arguments latent in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’. Despite these potential objections, several conclusions can be drawn from this study.
The presence of strong resonances between ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, Ambrose’s theological and dogmatic works, and several other early Christian writers suggests something of Ambrose’s method of hymnic composition. Ambrose’s hymns are regularly treated as separate, public-facing projects largely unrelated to the bishop’s more intellectual, theologically complex prose works. Verbal parallels and theological similarities between Ambrose’s prose works and ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, however, indicate that this hymn participates in the same theological project as Ambrose’s other works, albeit in condensed, poetic form. It has also long been recognised that selection, translation and adaptation of language and ideas from other Christian writers is a central strategy in Ambrose’s theological argumentation.Footnote 64 Close parallels between the images and metaphors found in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ and other Christian works suggest that Ambrose employed this same strategy in his composition of this hymn.
It is precisely in these parallels, moreover, that we catch a deeper glimpse of Ambrose’s theological vision in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’. The image of Christ’s emanation in ‘Phos hilaron’ as well as the sun metaphors found in Tertullian and Gregory of Nazianzus represent significant articulations of trinitarian theology expressing clear views of how Christ and the Father relate. Ambrose chose images from other writers which he knew to be useful for exploring and explaining the Trinity. Indeed, he did not merely adopt these images, but carefully adapted them to adequately convey his own Nicene views. That Ambrose may have looked to such texts for inspiration suggests that trinitarian theology was among his central concerns in the composition of ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’, lending credence to the idea that the hymn was composed or adapted amid the controversy in 386. However, Ambrose was engaged in defending Nicene doctrines against proponents of homoian theology throughout his career, thus one need not conclude that ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ was necessarily composed in 386.Footnote 65
It is more difficult to discern how Ambrose’s audiences would have understood the Nicene ideas in ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’. Yet if, as I have argued, Ambrose’s focus was largely on trinitarian theology in his process of composing the hymn, it may well be assumed that he would have provided his congregation with the necessary means for understanding the hymn through his preaching. Moreover, verbal and ideological links between Ambrose’s prose treatises and his hymnody suggest that the bishop’s public-facing works ought to be considered in relation to his theological writings. It should not be assumed that Ambrose conveyed one set of lofty theological ideals to his educated readers while leaving his more educationally diverse congregation ignorant. Instead, it seems evident that the Milanese bishop strove to convey a proper understanding of Nicene theology in all his works, translating concepts, images and metaphors to fit various audiences and formats. If Ambrose’s prose treatises and hymns were engaged in similar theological argumentation, then it is likely that his preaching also functioned within this one theological agenda.
In his examination of Augustine’s sermons, Stanley Rosenberg has argued that Late Antiquity was dominated by an ‘oral-aural culture’, in which spoken rhetoric was both more significant and more widely engaged than has previously been imagined. In such a culture, illiteracy should not be equated with a lack of education and intelligence, nor should modern scholars underestimate the quantity and quality of information conveyed through the spoken (or sung) word.Footnote 66 As Brian Dunkle has suggested, repetitive singing of a dawn hymn like ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ would have afforded the congregation ample time to develop their understanding of the hymn.Footnote 67 At this stage, one can do little more than speculate about how precisely Ambrose’s congregation would have received and understood ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’. Nevertheless, the text operates through multiple images and registers, allowing Ambrose’s diverse audiences to appreciate several levels of meaning. In its clear illustration of trinitarian unity, ‘Splendor paternae gloriae’ functions as a declaration of Nicene theology, allowing it to serve as a rallying cry for Ambrose’s congregation, an illustration of his trinitarian beliefs and a polemic against anti-Nicene parties in Milan.
