Ella Kirsh: Ambrose in North Africa: the Vita Ambrosii through the eyes of Augustine

This paper will explore Paulinus of Milan’s fifth-century Vita Ambrosii through the eyes of Augustine, the work’s commissioner and dedicatee. Half a century of scholarship devoted to recovering the historical Ambrose from the Vita has obscured the primacy of Augustine as the work’s imagined audience. But Augustine was the only individual we can be absolutely confident read the Vita within the first decade after it was published, since some of his works of the mid-410s adopt and react to episodes in Paulinus’ biography. I will make the case that Augustine’s role within the text continues well beyond the opening dedication. Paulinus conspicuously tailored the Vita for Augustine’s eyes; he uses episodes, motifs and framing devices derived from the Confessions to structure his biography of Ambrose. Paulinus' Ambrose is therefore retrofitted onto an Augustinian template. The paper will outline the extent and nature of Paulinus' engagement with the Augustinian material, charting how Paulinus adapts watershed moments in Ambrose's professional and spiritual career to resemble episodes from the Confessions. But Paulinus' portrait of Ambrose abounds in vivid, familiar detail. Through his secretary Paulinus’ eyes, we see the Ambrose known only to his intimates: his moments of shame, frustration, and private despair; his idiosyncrasies, at times maddening to watch; and his favourite dinnertime anecdotes. This was an Ambrose such as Augustine never encountered. Augustine's looming presence over the Vita Ambrosii throws into sharp relief the tricks and tensions of Paulinus' presentation of Ambrose to fifth-century North African society.