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Life of St Ambrose
Paulinus the Deacon, tr. Kaniecka, 1928
He is Seized with Sickness and, Refreshed with the Holy Viaticum, Dies. The Funeral Rites…
But after these days, when a bishop was ordained for the church of Ticinum, he fell ill and, while he was being confined to his bed for many days by this illness, Count Stilicho is reported to have said that with the departure of so great a man from this life ruin would threaten Italy. Therefore after calling together into his presence the nobles of the city whom he knew were beloved by the bishop, partly with threats and partly with soft words persuaded them to go to the holy bishop and induce him to seek of the Lord the privilege of a longer period of life for himself. When he heard this from them he answered: “I have not so lived among you that I am ashamed to live nor do I fear to die, because we have a good Lord!”
At the same time when Castus, Polemius, Venerius, and Felix, then deacons, were together in the farthest part of the portico in which he lay, and were conversing among themselves in such a low tone that they could scarcely hear each other, as to who should be consecrated bishop after his death, and when they spoke of the name of Saint Simplicianus, he as if taking part in the conversation—although he lay placed far from them—exclaimed thrice in approbation: “Old but good.” For Simplicianus was ripe in years. When they heard this voice, they fled greatly terrified; but when he died, no other succeeded him in the episcopacy than he whom he had designated three times as good but old. And to this Simplicianus, Venerius was the successor, whom we have mentioned above, while Felix to this day rules the Church of Bonona. And Castus and Polemius, however, nourished by Ambrose, the good fruits of a good tree, are performing the duties of the diaconate in the church of Milan.
In the same place, however, in which he lay, as we have learned from the report of St. Bassianus, the Bishop of the Church of Lodi, who had heard it from the Saint himself, when he was praying together with the above mentioned bishop he saw the Lord Jesus advance to him and smiling upon him. And not many days after he was taken from us. But at the very time when he departed from us to the Lord, from about the eleventh hour of the day until the hour in which he breathed forth his spirit, he prayed with his arms extended in the form of a cross. We indeed saw his lips move but his voice we did not hear. Honoratus also, the bishop of the Church of Vercelli, when he had lain down to rest in the upper part of the house, heard a voice calling him three times and saying to him: “Arise, hasten, because now he is about to depart.” And he going down offered the Saint the Body of the Lord and when he took and swallowed it he breathed forth his spirit, bearing with him a good viaticum so that his soul refreshed by virtue of this food now rejoices in the company of the angels, according to whose life he had lived on earth, and in the society of Elias, because just as Elias never feared to speak to kings or any powers, so neither did he for fear of God.
And then at the hour before daybreak in which he died, his body was carried to the greater church and it was there on the same night in which we kept the vigil of Easter; and many baptized infants as they were coming from the font saw him, so that some said he was sitting on the throne in the sanctuary, while others pointed him out with their fingers to their parents as walking, but the latter, on looking, were unable to see him, because they did not possess clean eyes; and many related, moreover, that they had seen a star over his body. But on Sunday at daybreak when, after the sacred rites had been performed, his body was being taken away from the church to be carried to the Ambrosian Basilica, in which it was placed, thereupon a crowd of demons so cried out that they were being tormented by him that their wailing could not be endured. And this grace of the bishop remains even to the present day not only in that place, but also in great many provinces. Crowds of men and women also threw their handkerchiefs or girdles that the body of the Saint might in some way be touched by them. For the crowd at the obsequies was numberless, of every rank and of every sex and almost all ages, not only of Christians but also of Jews and pagans; yet the ranks of those who had been baptized led the way because of their greater favor.
But on the very day on which he died (as the text of the letter says, which was received by his successor, the venerable man Simplicianus, sent from the East to Ambrose himself as if still living with us, which letter even to this day is preserved in a monastery at Milan), he appeared to certain holy men, praying with them and placing his hands upon them; for the letter which was sent has the date, and when we read this letter we found that it was the day on which he died.
In Tuscia also, in the district of Florence, where now the holy man Zenobius is bishop, we have learned on the report of the holy bishop Zenobius himself that Ambrose, because he had promised those who besought him that he would visit them often, was frequently seen praying at the altar, that is in the Ambrosian basilica which was built there by himself. In the same house also in which he abode when avoiding Eugenius at the time when Radagaisus was besieging the above mentioned city, when already the men of this city utterly despaired of themselves, he appeared in a vision to a certain man and promised that deliverance would come to them on the next day. When the man reported this, the courage of the citizens was raised; for on the next day, on the arrival of Stilicho, then Count, with an army, a victory over the enemy was gained. These things we know on the authority of Pansophia, a religious woman, the mother of the boy Pansophius.
To Mascezel also, when in despair of his own safety and that of his army, which he was leading against Gildo, he appeared in a vision at night holding a staff in his hand; and when Mascezel threw himself at the feet of the holy man, striking the earth with the staff by which he was wont to rule, the old man—for in this guise he had appeared to him—said three times: “Here, here, here” marking a place and gave intelligence to the man, whom he had thought worthy of his visitation so that he should know, that in the very spot in which he has seen the holy bishop of the Lord, he would obtain victory on the third day; and so he confidently began the war and brought it to a close. We, however, while at Milan, learned this on the report of Mascezel himself; for in this province also, in which we now live and write, he recounted this very thing to many bishops on whose authority also we thought it safer to add to this book what had been learned by ourself.
Also, when at Milan we were receiving with the highest devotion the remains of the Martyrs Sisinius and Alexander, who within our own time, that is after the death of Saint Ambrose, obtained the crown of martyrdom during the pagan persecutions in the regions of Anauni, we learned, on the report of a certain blind man who on the same day by touching the casket in which the remains of the saints were carried received sight, that in a vision at night he had seen a ship approaching a shore in which there was a multitude of men clothed in white, and that, when as they were disembarking on the shore he begged one of the crowd to know who these men were, he learned that they were Ambrose and his companions. And when at the sound of his name he prayed that he might receive light, he heard from him: “Go to Milan, and meet my brothers, who are about to go there, (naming the day), and you will receive light.” For the man was, as he himself asserted, from the shore of Dalmatia, and that he had not come previously to the city, before he met the relics of the saints on the main highway, not yet being able to see; but when he touched the bier, he began to see.