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Life of St Ambrose
Paulinus the Deacon, tr. Kaniecka, 1928
His Legation to Maximus the Usurper, and the Episcopal Zeal Against Him. He is a Terror…
And so after the emperor Gratian had been killed, for the sake of recovering his body he undertook a second embassy to Maximus. He who wishes to learn how firmly he dealt with him will determine when he has read the letter of this embassy sent to Valentinian the younger; for it has seemed to us inconsistent with our promise to insert it, lest the prolixity of the letter when added cause irritation to the reader. And Maximus himself he kept from partaking of Communion, admonishing him to do penance for having shed the blood of his master, and—what is worse—an innocent man, if he wished to receive consideration for himself before God. But when he with a haughty spirit refused to do penance, he not only lost salvation for the future but also for the present, and the imperial power which he had wickedly seized, in the manner of a woman, he laid down through fear, thereby confessing that he had been the procurator of the state not the emperor.
Now when, after the death of Justina, a certain sooth-sayer Innocent by name, though not in deed, during a trial for his misdeeds was being put to torture by the judge, he began to confess something different from what he was being asked; for he cried out that greater torments were being applied to him by that angel who was protecting Ambrose, because in the time of Justina, ascending the top of the roof of the church, he had offered sacrifices in the middle of the night to arouse the hatred of the people against the bishop. But the more insistently and assiduously he practiced his malignant work, the greater grew the love of the people for the Catholic faith and the bishop of the Lord. He confessed that he had also sent demons to kill him but that the demons had reported that they were not only entirely unable to go near him but even could not go near the doors of the house in which the bishop abode, because an insurmountable fire completely protected that building so that even though being far off they were burned; and that he thus had given up his artifices by which he thought that he might do something against the bishop of the Lord. Another person also came even to his bedchamber, carrying a sword to kill the bishop; but when he had raised his hand he remained there with drawn sword in his stiffened right hand. Then after he had confessed that he had sent by Justina, the arm, which had become stiff as it was being stretched in wickedness, was cured by the confession.
At the same time when a certain Probus, a man of high rank, had sent to the bishop his servant, a secretary, who was being seriously troubled by an unclean spirit, the devil left him as he departed from the city, fearing to be brought to the holy man. And so as long as the boy was with the bishop in Milan, no power of the devil appeared in him; but when he left Milan and came near the city, the same spirit which had possessed him before began to torment him. And when the devil was questioned by the exorcists, why he had not appeared in him as long as he had been in Milan, he confessed that he had feared Ambrose, and therefore had withdrawn for a time and had awaited in that place, where he had withdrawn from the boy, until he should return, and when he did return he had sought again the vessel which he had deserted.