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Life of St Ambrose
Paulinus the Deacon, tr. Kaniecka, 1928
He Finds the Bodies of the Holy Martyrs Gervase and Protase, on Which Occasion Devils are…
At this same time the holy martyrs Protase and Gervase revealed themselves to the Bishop. For they had been placed in the basilica in which today are the bodies of the martyrs Nabor and Felix; and the holy martyrs Nabor and Felix were being visited very frequently, but just as the names of the martyrs Gervase and Protase were unknown, so also were their burial places, so much so, that all walked over their graves who wished to come to the grates by which the sepulchres of the holy martyrs Nabor and Felix were protected from injury. But when the bodies of the holy martyrs were taken out and placed on biers, thereupon the diseases of many were shown to have been cured. Even a blind man, Severus by name, who to the present day devoutly serves in that same basilica which is called the Ambrosian, and into which the bodies of the martyrs were carried, as soon as he touched the clothing of the martyrs, immediately received his sight. Bodies, also, possessed by unclean spirits were cured and returned home with the greatest gratitude. And as the faith of the Catholic Church increased by these blessings effected through the martyrs, so did the heresy of the Arians diminish.
Finally, from this time, the persecution which was aroused by the fury of Justina, that the bishop might be driven from the church, began to subside. However, in the palace a great number of Arians siding with Justina scoffed at so great a grace of God which the Lord Jesus deigned to confer upon the Catholic Church through the merits of His martyrs, and they said that the venerable man, Ambrose, by means of money had procured men to say falsely that they were troubled by unclean spirits and to assert that they were tortured by him just as also by the martyrs. But the Arians uttered this with the words of the Jews—indeed being very like them—for the latter said of the Lord that He drove out devils in the name of Beelzebub, the prince of devils; the former said of the martyrs and of the bishop of the Lord, that not by the grace of God which operated through them, were the unclean spirits driven out, but that, after receiving money, they said falsely that they were tortured. For the devils called out: “We know you are martyrs,” and the Arians said: “We do not know that you are martyrs.” Now we read this in the Gospel also, when the devils spoke to the Lord Jesus: “We know You, that You are the Son of God”; and the Jews said: “But as to this man we know not whence He is.” But here is understood not the testimony of the devils, but their confession; wherefore the more wretched are the Arians and the Jews that they should deny what the devils confess.
But God who is wont to increase the grace of His Church, did not long permit His Saints to be reviled by the faithless. So one of this number, suddenly possessed by an unclean spirit, began to shout that those who denied the martyrs or who did not believe in the unity of the Trinity—which Ambrose teaches—were being tortured as he himself was. But they, disturbed by these words, who should have been converted and done penance worthy of such a confession, immersed the man in a pond and killed him, adding murder to their unbelief; for a deserving fate drove them to this end. Yet Saint Ambrose, having become a man of greater humility as bishop, preserved the grace given him by the Lord and increased daily in his faith and love before the eyes of God and men.
At this same time there was a certain man of the Arian heresy, a very keen polemicist, and hardened and inconvertible to the Catholic faith. He, being in the church while the bishop was preaching, saw, as he himself afterwards said, an angel speaking into the ears of the bishop as he preached, so that the bishop seemed to be proclaiming the words of the angel to the people. Being converted at this sight, he himself began to defend the faith which he was wont to attack.
There were also at that time two chamberlains of the emperor Gratian, members of the Arian heresy, who proposed a question for the bishop to discuss, and, to hear it discussed, promised to be present at the Portian Basilica the next day; for it was a question concerning the Incarnation of the Lord. But on the next day these miserable men filled with swollen pride and unmindful of their promise, despising God in the person of His bishop and taking no consideration of the injustice done the waiting people, unmindful also of the words of the Lord that “he that shall scandalize one of these little ones ought to have a mill stone hanged about his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea,” mounting a travelling carriage as if for a drive, they left the city while the bishop waited and the people were in the church. And I shudder as I tell what the outcome of this insolence was: for being hurled suddenly from the carriage they lost their lives and their bodies were given over for burial. But Saint Ambrose, since he did not know what had happened and was no longer able to hold the people, rising before the tribunal began a sermon on the very question which had been proposed, saying: “Brethren, I desire my debt to be paid, but I do not find my creditors of yesterday,” and so forth, as it is written in the book which is entitled: “On the Incarnation of the Lord.”