Ambrogio «Historiographus»: la «narratio probabilis» della Scrittura

Abstract

The study, which focuses on Ambrose’s Epistulae 57 and 62 (Zelzer) where a narrative paraphrase of two stories from Judges — the Levite and his concubine (Iud 19-21 in Epist. 57) and Sampson (Iud 13-16 in Epist. 62) — is developed, deals with the problem of narrating sacred history. On which idea did Ambrose ground and justify this particular kind of exposition of Scripture where you can find a narration of the content rather than the sequence of the words? To which literary genre and to which style did the bishop of Milan connect it? In Ambrose’s opinion, this narration was really “historical”: he was influenced by the rhetorical teaching of his time with its intrinsic idea that historia as a type of narration, as distinct from fabula and argumentum, and historia as historiography, were the same thing. Accordingly, Ambrose narrates the content of Scripture in accordance with the criterion of likelihood essential to historia-narratio which requires and employs an epic-historical style rich in expressions from the Latin historiography. He relies on Josephus Flavius’s Antiquitates Iudaicae as a source and model for this historical narration. In Ambrose, this kind of narration aims at showing that sacred history is not only true but verisimilar as well, thus, making it easier to believe the words. The study suggests that this type of exposition of Scripture had a specific function in Ambrose’s catechesis to catechumens.