AMBROSIANS, the name given to several religious brotherhoods
which at various times since the 14th century have sprung
up in and around Milan; they have about as much connexion
with St Ambrose as the "Jeromites" who were found chiefly
in upper
Italy and
Spain have with their patron saint. Only
the oldest of them, the Pratres S. Ambrosii ad Nemus, had
anything more than a very local significance. This order
is known from a bull of Gregory XI. addressed to the monks
of the church of St Ambrose outside Milan. These monks, it
would appear, though under the authority of a prior, had no
rule. In response to the request of the archbishop, the
pope had commanded them to follow the rule of
Augustine and
to be known by the above name. They were further to recite
the Ambrosian office. Subsequently the order had a number of
independent establishments in
Italy which were united into
one congregation by Eugenius IV., their headquarters being at
Milan. Their discipline afterwards became so slack that an
appeal was made to Cardinal Borromeo asking him to reform their
houses. By Sixtus V. the order was amalgamated with the
congregation of St Barnabas, but Innocent X. dissolved it in 1650.
The name Ambrosians is also given to a 16th-century Anabaptist
sect, which laid claim to immediate communication with God
through the Holy Ghost. Basing their theology upon the
words of the Gospel of St John i. 9 -- "There was the true
light which lighteth every man, coming into the world" --
they denied the necessity of any priests or ministers to
interpret the Bible. Their leader Ambrose went so far as
to hold further that the revelation which was vouchsafed
to him was a higher authority than the Scriptures. The
doctrine of the Ambrosians, who belonged probably to that
section of the Anabaptists known as Pneumatici, may be
compared with the "Inner Light" doctrine of the Quakers.
See Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklopadie, i. 439.
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed
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