Simplician of Milan

Saint Simplician was Bishop of Milan at the end of the fourth century, the successor of the great Ambrose in the see of what was then the capital of the Western Roman Empire. He governed the Church there from 397 to 400 or 401. The Church remembers him as a wise old man who helped others come to faith, among them the blessed Augustine.

He was probably born around 320, most likely in Rome, and as a young man gave himself to the service of the Church. He became a skilled student of Holy Scripture and a man of great learning. Around 355 he took part in the conversion of the philosopher Marius Victorinus to Christianity.

When Ambrose was chosen bishop of Milan and baptized in 374, Simplician became his teacher in the faith, and Ambrose called him "father". It was probably in those years that he settled in Milan. He had a share in the conversions of both Alypius of Thagaste and Augustine of Hippo. The meeting between Augustine and Simplician took place in Milan in 386 and is told in Augustine's Confessions. Augustine too called him "father", and in 397 dedicated to him two books on predestination, known as the questions addressed to Simplician.

On his deathbed Ambrose pointed to Simplician as his successor, saying he was "old but good". In April 397 the aged Simplician was elected bishop. The most notable event of his episcopate was the reception in Milan of the relics of the three martyrs Sisinnius, Martyrius and Alexander, sent from Trent by Bishop Vigilius. The councils of Carthage (397) and Toledo asked his judgment on points of doctrine. He consecrated Gaudentius of Novara as bishop and, according to a thirteenth-⁠century chronicler, put the texts of the Ambrosian liturgy in order.

He fell asleep between the end of 400 and the first half of 401. He was first buried in the church of Saints Nabor and Felix, and his relics were later moved to the Basilica of the Virgins, which took his name and is today the Basilica of Saint Simplician. In 1582 Cardinal Carlo Borromeo had the relics canonically examined and carried in solemn procession beneath the altar of the present church. His memory was kept from ancient times in mid-⁠August, together with the feast of the bringing of the three martyrs' relics to Milan.