In this new and illuminating interpretation of Ambrose, bishop of Milan from 374 to 397, Neil McLynn thoroughly sifts the evidence surrounding this very difficult personality. The result is a richly detailed interpretation of Ambrose's actions and writings that penetrates the bishop's painstaking presentation of self. McLynn succeeds in revealing Ambrose's manipulation of events without making him too Machiavellian. Having synthesized the vast complex of scholarship available on the late fourth century, McLynn also presents an impressive study of the politics and history of the Christian church and the Roman Empire in that period.

Admirably and logically organized, the book traces the chronology of Ambrose's public activity and reconstructs important events in the fourth century. McLynn's zesty, lucid prose gives the reader a clear understanding of the complexities of Ambrose's life and career and of late Roman government.

Neil McLynn is Visiting Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Keio University, Japan. He was trained in the classics at Oxford.

“McLynn’s biography of Ambrose is built around a set of confrontations between ecclesiastical and imperial power. Each one is described in all its intricate detail; no complexity is left unturned. What emerges is a sophisticated picture of the delicate and often unreliable web of relationships which surrounded the imperial court in its western capital of Milan.”—Classical Review

“Should be required reading for students of late Roman, and of ecclesiastical, history. [This study] sets out systematically to undermine prevailing orthodoxies; these, in McLynn’s view, are based on Ambrose’s own carefully crafted version of events. . . . In presenting not the Ambrose of the record, ‘frozen in majesty,’ but a late Roman bishop, eloquent, manipulative, ruthless, a gambler of high stakes in an uncertain world, McLynn may have subverted the saint, but his reinterpretation has recovered much of the historical reality of the man.”—Journal of Hellenic Studies

“Ambrose, one of the most influential church fathers, is beautifully illustrated in this new work on the public persona of the formidable head of the Milanese church. . . . McLynn offers a new, shrewd, and sensitive portrait of Ambrose's episcopate through a careful analysis of a vast array of relevant texts.”—Hagith Sivan, History

“McLynn plunges readers into the intrigue of late fourth-century Roman imperial society. . . . [He] gives a splendid analysis of what happened at the death of the bishop of Milan, Auxentius, who was known for his Arian sympathies.”—Christian Century

“McLynn painstakingly presents the process by which Ambrose survived fourth-century political and social life through a semi-Machiavellian manipulation of events. . . . [His] prose is lively and gripping. Well researched and based on primary sources.”—Choice

“Thought-provoking. . . . McLynn tells a good story, which will be widely read and rightly applauded.”—Gerald Bonner, Catholic Historical Review

“A fine book, fresh and perceptive, on one of the great figures in Christian history.”—First Things

"This is an important book, for it deals with Ambrose's public career very thoroughly . . . something we have long been waiting for . . . a hard-headed account, keeping well clear of either hagiography or denigration, presenting many of the central episodes of Ambrose's career in an entirely new light."—Robert Markus

"Ambrose of Milan has long needed the modern biography which Neil McLynn has now written. Here is a learned and thorough work, absorbingly readable, bringing Ambrose vividly to life."—Sir Henry Chadwick, Oxford University

"McLynn has something fresh and (usually) revisionist to say about every familiar episode in this period, and he succeeds in exposing a very different Ambrose—a sweat-soaked saint who knew how to struggle and improvise."—Hal Drake, University of California, Santa Barbara

"McLynn possesses an impressive control of the general history of the period, as well as a detailed knowledge of specific events in which Ambrose was a participant, or even the 'impresario.' He gives us a critical and nuanced book about this important bishop, which will change how we read and think about Ambrose."—Carole Straw, Mount Holyoke College