AUTHOR’S COPY | AUTORENEXEMPLAR Ambrose and Augustine Two Bishops on Baptism and Christian Identity Reidar Aasgaard 1. Introitus in Milan In the middle of the night before 25 April 387, a group of people were present in one of the many churches in Milan, the city which at that time was the adminis- trative and political capital of the Roman Empire. The church may have been the cathedral, the huge Basilica Nova, just a minute’s walk away from the city centre, or one of the very recently erected churches along the main roads leading into the city.1 The people were gathered in the baptistery, the section of the church of- ten called the Holy of Holies, taking its name from the place which was thought to prefigure it, the inner sanctuary of Israel’s Temple in Jerusalem.2 Before this night, each person had gone through an individual and com- munal process. They had – some for a short while, others for several years – been catechumens, awaiting baptism, through which they would become mem- bers of Christ and his church. Now, during the last months, since Epiphany, they had been competentes – “askers” who after having handed in a petition to be baptized had been preparing for the event in an introductory course on Christian faith and living. And now on the most holy night, the Easter vigil, they were – young and old, women and men – taking part in the sacred rite of baptism. Through this sacramental mystery they would becomeneophytes , newborn Christians, but still – as infantes – in need of protection and further maturing in their faith and lives.3 1 See N. B. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, 226–237. W. Harmless, “Baptism,” 85 holds that it prob- ably was the Basilica Nova. 2 See Myst. 5; Sacr. 4.1–4. 3 For an introduction to Ambrose’s liturgical praxis and theology of baptism, see E. Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 634–647 (ch. 40); also Th. M. Finn, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate, 57–76. For a detailed presentation, see H. M. Riley, Christian Initiation. Riley’s work is a comparative study of baptism in Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Theo- dore of Mopsuestia, and Ambrose. The book has a number of helpful synoptic charts of their pre-baptismal, baptismal, and post-baptismal practices, highlighting both similarities and dif- ferences. For an interesting discussion of the praxis of baptism at Easter, see P. F. Bradshaw, “Diem baptismo sollemniorem”. He argues that the idea in liturgical scholarship of an early Christian (3rd–4th century) preference for paschal baptism is untenable, and that it was prima- AUTHOR’S COPY | AUTORENEXEMPLAR AUTHOR’S COPY | AUTORENEXEMPLAR 1254 Reidar Aasgaard Of the people present this night, four are known to posterity. One was the person responsible for performing the baptism, the bishop Ambrose (ca. 340– 397), who was then at the height of his fame and power as church leader. The three others were among the petitioners: the life-long friends Alypius and Au- gustine (354–430), and the son of the latter, the fifteen-year-old Adeodatus. The youngster died only two years later, but both Alypius and Augustine were to end up as bishops in their North African homeland. Augustine was unwillingly elected priest in Hippo already four years after his baptism. And four years later, in 395, he became the city’s bishop. From then on and for more than thirty Easter vigils, he would himself guide ever new petitioners through the sacred rite of baptism.4 In a sixteen-line poem, Ambrose, who wrote several hymns, has given a condensed description of central features in his understanding of baptism. The poem was clearly intended as an inscription in a baptistery. It is known to have been placed around the font in San Giovanni alle Fonti in the church of St. Thecla when it was rebuilt at the end of the fifth century, but may also have had a similar place when Ambrose during his years as bishop ordered the building of this church in Milan. The latter half of the text has this to say about what happens in the font:5 Here, whoever wants the sins of a shameful life to lay aside, may bathe the heart strings and have a pure soul. To this place may they eagerly come: however dark he may be who has the courage to approach, he departs whiter than snow. To this place may they hurry to be holy: without these waters no one is holy, in them is the kingdom and counsel of God, the glory of righteousness. What is more divine than this, that in a brief moment the guilt of the people perishes. In his famous autobiography, Confessiones, written about twelve years after his baptism, Augustine recaptures the effect the event had on him, and the impor- tance he ascribed to it looking back on his former life:6 rily a local custom in the Roman and North African churches in the latter half of the 4th century. If so, it can be seen as an (unsuccessful) attempt on the part of Ambrose, Augustine, and some of their colleagues to establish a tradition of Easter baptism in the West. See also M. E. Johnson, “Christian Initiation,” esp. 702–704, 706–707 for a discussion of these matters. 4 In Hippo, Augustine developed his own baptismal liturgy; on this, see Ferguson, Baptism, 778–789. 5 See the translation and comments in Ferguson, Baptism, 638; Latin text in G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae (Vol. 2/1), 161. 6 Conf. 9.6.14. Translation is from Augustine, The Confessions (The Works of St. Augustine), 219–220. Augustine does not say in The Confessions that he was baptized by Ambrose, but he mentions this in a letter (Ep. 147.52). AUTHOR’S COPY | AUTORENEXEMPLAR AUTHOR’S COPY | AUTORENEXEMPLAR Ambrose and Augustine 1255 And so we were baptized, and all our dread about our earlier lives dropped away from us. During the days that followed I could not get enough of the wonderful sweetness that filled me as I meditated upon your deep design for the salvation of the human race. How copiously I wept at your hymns and canticles, how intensely was I moved by the lovely harmonies of your singing Church! Those voices flood- ed my ears, and the truth was distilled into my heart until it overflowed in loving devotion; my tears ran down, and I was the better for them. The texts of the two bishops are very different, not least due to their disparate genres, but also since they reflect characteristics of each author. Still, the texts have important features in common. The most salient is their emphasis on bap- tism as an existential turning point. Their descriptions of the consequences of baptism make it clear that both Ambrose and Augustine consider it an event in which a drastic re-orientation of life takes place, a crisis which brings about a fundamental shift of self-perception and status for those involved. Ambrose, for his part, states this most pointedly in the formulation, “how- ever dark he may be who has the courage to approach, he departs whiter than snow”. But he also visualized the change in the Milan baptismal rite itself, in which the baptizands first stood facing west while renouncing the devil and their old ways, and then turned to the east confessing Christ and their new life.7 Augustine, on the other hand, in his description works out in considerable detail the impact baptism made on him. He tells us nothing about the event itself, however, but all the more about the strong psychological effect it had on him, particularly during the following days: in his own words, “all our dread about our earlier lives dropped away” and he was filled with “wonderful sweet- ness”. Thus, amidst all the dissimilarities, both Ambrose and Augustine each in his own way here testify to baptism as an event that in fundamental ways affects a person’s identity as a human and as a Christian believer. 2. Baptism and Identity in Ambrose and Augustine This article will focus on baptism as a vital phase of transition, and how this phase is depicted by Ambrose and Augustine. Important questions will be: what do the two bishops communicate to their audiences about the meaning and im- plications of baptism for faith and life? In what ways can they be seen as trying to construct a new identity in the neophytes? What means do they make use of in order to shape such an identity? And what does this Christian identity look like? My intention here is not to give an exhaustive answer to these questions, but rather to indicate how the issues of baptism and identity belong together, and how this finds expression in these two central early Christian figures. 7 Cf. Myst. 7, and below. AUTHOR’S COPY | AUTORENEXEMPLAR AUTHOR’S COPY | AUTORENEXEMPLAR 1256 Reidar Aasgaard Both Ambrose and Augustine, especially the latter, have much to say about baptism in their writings. To survey this is impossible within this article, and several scholars have already dealt with it at length.8 Here, my focus will be much narrower: I shall limit myself to a few texts, namely sources that are im- mediately linked to the event of baptism. With Ambrose, this will be his The Sacraments and The Mysteries; with Augustine, it will be sermons preached at the Easter vigil and during the following days. In both cases, the material closely reflects the message that was mediated to the neophytes at this central juncture in their lives.