Introduction to This Volume

How this book is arranged

This is the thirty-second volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth century. This volume holds Ambrose of Milan, On the Duties of the Clergy and the Letters, from the period about AD 378 – 397.

Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section numbers.

The translations

The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation. In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released. All the works in this volume are printed in older public-domain translations.

In this volume

Ambrose was a Roman governor who was chosen bishop of Milan in AD 374 while he was still unbaptised. He was a preacher, a statesman and a writer of hymns, and the teacher through whom Augustine came to the faith. He died in AD 397.

Dates and authorship

Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is uncertain.