Ambrose of Alexandria

Ambrose of Alexandria (died about 250) was a deacon of the Church of Alexandria, a confessor of the faith and a close friend of Origen. To him we owe in great measure that many of the works of the great scholar were written and preserved. The Catholic Church commemorates him on 17 March, and Saint Jerome gives him chapter 56 of his book "On Illustrious Men".

His place and year of birth are not known. He was a wealthy nobleman and an official at the court in Alexandria. Drawn by Origen's fame as a teacher, he came to the Catechetical School of Alexandria. At first he belonged to a heresy: according to the sources he was a follower of Valentinus, of Marcion or of Sabellius. Through Origen's teaching he abandoned the heresy and joined the Church, becoming Origen's constant companion.

Ambrose was a man of letters, with excellent taste in writing and study. He urged Origen to write commentaries on the books of Scripture, plying him with questions, and Origen in his Commentary on John calls him in effect a taskmaster, because he pressed him to work. As a wealthy man, he provided books and secretaries: seven stenographers who wrote at dictation, taking turns, as many copyists and some girls who wrote a fine hand. When Origen was preparing to work on the Hexapla, the comparison of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament with the various Greek translations, Ambrose spared no expense. All Origen's writings after 218, among them Against Celsus, the Commentary on the Gospel of John and On Prayer, are dedicated to Ambrose. His letters to Origen, praised by Jerome, are lost, except for a fragment of one.

When Origen was forced to leave Alexandria in 232, Ambrose accompanied him to Caesarea, where he was ordained deacon. In 235, in the persecution of Emperor Maximinus Thrax, he was arrested and imprisoned. For him and for the priest Protoctetus of Caesarea, Origen wrote the Exhortation to Martyrdom. Ambrose was released later and died as a confessor, before Origen. His last mention in the sources is in Against Celsus, written by Origen at his urging.