Complete Extant Works of Saint Ambrose, Vol. I

saw Rufinus, said: You imitate the impudence of dogs, Rufinus; for although you were the counselor of such a great slaughter, you have cast shame from your brow; and you neither blush, nor fear, when you have raged with such madness against the image of God. And when Rufinus pleaded, and said that the Emperor would arrive shortly, the admirable Ambrose, inflamed with divine zeal, said: I, indeed, warn and foretell to you, Rufinus, that I will repulse him from entering the sacred vestibule; if, however, he turns his power into tyranny, I also will accept death with a willing mind.

"Upon hearing these things, Rufinus signaled the bishop's decision to the Emperor by a messenger, and persuaded him to remain within the palace. But the Emperor, when he had learned these things in the middle of the forum: I will go, he said, and I will suffer the just humiliations. And when he had reached the precincts of the Church, he did not enter the basilica itself; but approaching the bishop, who was then sitting in the hall of greeting, he asked that he might be loosed from his bonds. But Ambrose called such an arrival tyrannical, and said that Theodosius was raging against God, and trampling upon His laws. Then the Emperor: I do not rise up, he said, against the laws that have been laid down, nor do I desire to enter the sacred vestibules against what is right; but I ask of you that you absolve me from my bonds, and consider the clemency of the common Lord, and do not shut to me