Ambrose was governor of Northern Italy, with capital at Milan. When the Diocese of Milan fell vacant, it seemed likely that rioting would result, since the city was evenly divided between Arians and Athanasians. As you recall from Sean McDermott’s class, the Athanasius affirm that the Logos or Word (John 1:1) is fully God in the same sense that the Father is, while Arians believed that the Logos is a creature, the first being created by the Father. Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Anglo-Catholics are Athanasian. Ambrose went to the synod where the election was to take place, and appealed to the crowd for order and good will on both sides. He ended up being elected bishop with the support of both sides. He gave away his wealth, and lived a simple life utterly dedicated to Orthodox, Athanasian Christianity. By his preaching, he converted the diocese to the Athanasian position, except for the Goths and some members of the Imperial Household. The Arian emperor Constantius, son of Constantine the Great, had sent Arian missionaries to convert the Gothic tribes and the Goths, being the chief source of mercenary troops for the Empire, were mostly Arian. On one occasion, the Empress ordered him to turn over a church to the Arians so that her Gothic soldiers could worship in it. Ambrose refused, and he and his people occupied the church. Ambrose composed Latin hymns and taught them to the people, who sang them in the church as the soldiers surrounded it. The Goths were unwilling to attack a hymn-singing congregation, and Ambrose won that dispute. He subsequently won another dispute, when the Emperor, enraged by a crowd who defied him, ordered them all killed by his soldiers. When he next appeared at church, Ambrose met him at the door and said, “You may not come in. There is blood on your hands.” The emperor finally agreed to do public penance and to promise that thereafter he would never carry out a sentence of death without a forty-day delay after pronouncing it. Ambrose maintained that no Christian could be compelled to provide money for the building of a non-Christian house of worship, no matter what the circumstances. Ambrose was largely responsible for the conversion of St. Augustine. The Te Deum Laudamus was long thought to have been composed by Ambrose in thanksgiving for that conversion.