Ambrose did not shun the conflict and the danger.  Never before had a priest dared to confront an emperor, except to offer up his life as a martyr.  Who could resist Caesar on his own ground?  In the approaching conflict we see the precursor of the Hildebrands and the Beckets.  One of the claims of Luther as a hero was his open defiance of the Pope, when no person in his condition had ever before ventured on such a step.  But a Roman emperor, in his own capital, was greater than a distant Pope, especially when the defiant monk was protected by a powerful prince.  Ambrose had the exalted merit of being the first to resist his emperor, not as a martyr willing to die for his cause, but as a prelate in a desperate and open fight,—­as a prelate seeking to conquer.  He was the first notable man to raise the standard of independent spiritual authority.  Consider, for a moment, what a tremendous step that was,—­how pregnant with future consequences.  He was the first of all the heroes of the Church who dared to contend with the temporal powers, not as a man uttering a protest, but as an equal adversary,—­as a warrior bent on victory.  Therefore has his name great historical importance.  I know of no man who equalled him in intrepidity, and in a far-reaching policy.  I fancy him looking down the vista of the ages, and deliberately laying the foundation of an arrogant spiritual power.  What an example did he set for the popes and bishops of the Middle Ages!  Here was a just and equal law, as we should say,—­a beneficent law of religious toleration, as it would outwardly appear,—­which Ambrose, as a subject of the emperor, was required to obey.  True, it was in reference to a spiritual matter, but emperors, from Caesar downwards, as Pontifex Maximus, had believed it their right and province to meddle in such matters.  See what a hand Constantine had in the organization of the Church, even in the discussion of religious doctrines.  He presided at the Council of Nice, where the great subject of discussion was the Trinity.  But the Archbishop of Milan dares to say, virtually, to the emperor, “This law-making about our church matters is none of your concern.  Christianity has abrogated your power as High Priest.  In spiritual things we will not obey you.  Your enactments conflict with the divine laws,—­higher than yours; and we, in this matter of conscience, defy your authority.  We will obey God rather than you.”  See in this defiance the rise of a new power,—­the power of the Middle Ages,—­the reign of the clergy.

In the first place, Ambrose refused to take part in a religious disputation held in the palace of his enemy,—­in any palace where a monarch sat as umpire.  The Church was the true place for a religious controversy, and the umpire, if such were needed, should be a priest and not a layman.  The idea of temporal lords settling a disputed point of theology seemed to him preposterous.  So, with blended indignation and haughtiness, he declared it