Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/95

v] ETHICS 77 Utility lies in gaining piety, not money (II, 23). What is useful is also just; justum est ut serviamus Christo qui nos redemit (II, 24). This is a Christian turn of the argument, which none the less continues to accord with the stoical view in finding the utUe to be the honestum^ and vice versa. Ambrose now enters upon a practical discussion of the details of conduct according to the desirable virtues of love, charity, justice, and prudence. In the third book it is said that there can be no conflict between the honestum and the utile, since noth- ing can be honestum (morally good) that is not useful, and vice versa, wherein he follows Cicero (III, 9 ; De Off. Ill, iii, 11). And in his concluding exposition of right Christian conduct, as in the discussion contained in the second book, Ambrose is not out of accord with Cicero and the Stoics, though his rules of Christian morality may go further than any pagan ethics de- manded. In fine, although some precepts of Ambrose's trea- tise contravene pagan ethics, and although his opinions may be such as Augustine would have approved, nev- ertheless in tone and spirit the De Officiis Ministrorum is separated by great gulfs from the Christian cry, with which Augustine's Confessions open, a cry pro- phetic of the mediaeval soul : Fecisti nos ad te, et in- quietum est cor nostrum, donee requiescat in te. A man might follow the guidance of Ambrose's precepts, and still be of the company of those not yet sodubriter pro- stati et elisi a te, Dens mens} Utter humility before God, man's helplessness without His grace and love, 1 Cor^., IV, 1.