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In this welcome new book Marcia L. Colish offers the only monograph-length study of the patriarch treatises of Ambrose of Milan (c. 340-397), in which he develops, for the first time in the patristic period, an ethics for the laity. Ambrose the ethicist has been viewed primarily as the author of advice to those with special callings in the church, such as priests, widows, and consecrated virgins. His views have been characterized as advocating asceticism and promoting a Platonic view of human nature, in which the body is a moral problem. Ambrose's patriarch treatises, argues Colish, are instead aimed at lay people who did not have special callings in the church, but who led active lives in the world as spouses, parents, heads of households, professionals, and citizens. These treatises reveal a different side of Ambrose and show that he developed an ethics of moderation based on an Aristotelian and Stoic anthropology, which he modified in the light of biblical ethics and St. Paul's view of human nature.

Colish's analysis sharply revises previous estimates of Ambrose the ethicist through a careful consideration of the patriarch treatises in their historical context, as Lenten sermons delivered by Ambrose to the catechumens in his Milanese church whom he was preparing during Lent for their coming Easter baptism. The pastoral context and intended audience of these treatises have largely been ignored in previous scholarship. Colish contends that when the treatises are read as Ambrose intended for them to be received, as a corpus of works aimed at the conversion of pagan Roman adults to Christianity, Ambrose's vision of a Christian ethics for the common man emerges.

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Colish (emer., history, Oberlin) offers a study of Ambrose's ethics drawn from his treatises on the biblical patriarchs--Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. What makes this monograph an interesting discussion and contribution to patristic studies is that Colish presents an untraditional picture of Ambrose. Contrary to much patristic scholarship, Colish argues that Ambrose was not a Neoplatonic ascetic clergyman who dismissed the body as sinful. Rather, Colish portrays Ambrose as advocating for moderation in bodily practices and offering practical ethical wisdom to his laity, who live active lives in various vocations in society. The book is organized around each of the four patriarchs that Ambrose wrote about, with separate chapters on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. In the final analysis, Ambrose's patriarch treatises are rendered as pastoral documents designed to help the laity live ethical lives in Roman society. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Academic libraries supporting upper-level undergraduates through faculty and researchers. V. Thompson Colorado Christian University

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Marcia L. Colish is Frederick B. Artz Professor of History, emerita, at Oberlin College and visiting fellow in history at Yale University.