Saint Simplician of Milan

Very little is known of Simplician before he appears in the Confessions. Giampietro Cattini, writing for santiebeati.it, says the ancient sources do not allow his origins to be reconstructed with any precision: the more authoritative tradition makes him a Roman, and later hypotheses have him from northern Italy (translated here from the Italian). ³ He gives his birth as about 320. ³ He had known the philosopher Victorinus "very intimately" at Rome. ²

Augustine had heard "that from his very youth he had lived most devoted to You," and by the time they met, "he had grown into years." ² He describes him as "the father of Ambrose (at that time a bishop) in receiving Your grace, and whom he truly loved as a father." ² Cattini and Domenico Agasso both take this to mean that Simplician completed the instruction of Ambrose, the governor acclaimed bishop of Milan while still unbaptized, before his baptism in 374. ³

In Book VIII of the Confessions, Augustine is certain of God and unwilling to change his life. "And Thou put into my mind," he writes, "to go unto Simplicianus, who appeared to me a faithful servant of Yours, and Your grace shone in him." ² He went to the old man for advice, "setting before him my griefs," to ask what way of life was best for someone in his state. ²

He told him that he had been reading the Platonists in the Latin translation of Victorinus, the former professor of rhetoric at Rome. ² Simplician was glad: those books, he said, unlike other philosophers, led in many ways toward belief in God and his Word. ² Then, "to exhort me to the humility of Christ, hidden from the wise, and revealed to little ones," he told the story of Victorinus himself. ²

Victorinus, as Augustine heard it from Simplician, was a learned old man who had taught many senators and had a statue in the Roman Forum, and who had defended the old gods of Rome for years with "thundering eloquence." ² He read the Scriptures and the Christian writers closely, and told Simplician privately, "Know that I am a Christian." ² Simplician answered, "I will not believe it, nor will I rank you among the Christians unless I see you in the Church of Christ." "Is it then the walls that make Christians?" Victorinus replied, and the exchange was repeated many times. ²

He was afraid of his proud friends. At last, Augustine writes, he feared being denied by Christ if he would not confess him before men, and "suddenly and unexpectedly" said to Simplician, "Let us go to the church; I wish to be made a Christian." ² Simplician, "not containing himself for joy," went with him. ² When the time came for the profession of faith, which at Rome was made from a raised place before the people, the presbyters offered him a private profession; he chose the public one, and the congregation, recognizing him, murmured his name: "Victorinus! Victorinus!" ²

Simplician added one more detail: when the Emperor Julian forbade Christians to teach grammar and rhetoric, Victorinus gave up his school rather than the faith. ² "When that man of Yours, Simplicianus, related this to me about Victorinus," Augustine writes, "I burned to imitate him; and it was for this end he had related it." ² The garden at Milan, and Augustine's conversion, follow later in the same book. ²

Ambrose died on April 4, 397. ³ The Martyrology says that Ambrose designated Simplician as his successor and that Augustine celebrated him with praise (translated here from the Italian). ¹ Agasso says Simplician was by then nearly eighty, and reports what Ambrose is said to have said of him as he was dying: "He is old, but good" (translated). ³ The encyclopedia's list of the bishops of Milan has "St. Simplicianus (397)" following Ambrose. ⁶

The letters that survive show the new bishop being consulted from Africa and from Rome. In 397 Augustine wrote to thank him for a letter, for reading his books and for sending him questions. ⁴ "This only I ask," Augustine wrote, "that on account of my weakness you intercede with God for me," and that Simplician would not only read whatever he wrote "but also accept the charge of reviewing and correcting them." ⁴ He greets him as a father most worthy of being cherished with respect and sincere affection. ⁴ Cattini says Augustine later dedicated some theological works to him. ³

About 400 Pope Anastasius I wrote to "his lord and brother Simplicianus" that, at the request of Theophilus of Alexandria, he too had condemned the errors of Origen, and sent the letter by the hand of a priest of Cremona. ⁵ Butler adds that when the missionaries Sisinnius, Martyrius and Alexander were killed in the Anaunia valley in 397, Saint Vigilius of Trent wrote of their deaths to "St. Simplicianus of Milan," and that the letters were still extant in his day. ⁷

His episcopate was short. santiebeati says he governed for about four years and died about 401, the exact date being unknown. ³ The encyclopedia lists his successor, Venerius, under the year 400. ⁶ Agasso says he was venerated as a saint immediately after his death, and that he was buried in the basilica of the virgins at Milan, which has carried his name ever since; it is the Basilica of San Simpliciano. ³

Agasso says that none of his own letters from these exchanges survive. ³ Cattini says the same more broadly: there are no certain works of Simplician, and his influence is known from the writings of the men he formed. ³

None of the sources used here names Saint Simplician as the patron of anything, and this page does not supply a patronage. ¹³ Agasso calls him instead "a teacher of saints," and adds, "and what saints" (translated from the Italian). ³

Saint Simplician's feast is August 15, the day the Roman Martyrology commemorates him. ¹ santiebeati says that the Ambrosian calendar used in the Archdiocese of Milan keeps him on August 14, so that he does not fall on the solemnity of the Assumption. ³

Augustine came to him with a long account of his errors and his reading, and Simplician did not argue with him. He told him a story about somebody else. ² It was chosen with care: Augustine says that Simplician told it so that he would imitate Victorinus. ²

The story is about the gap between believing and belonging. "Is it then the walls that make Christians?" Victorinus asked, and Simplician kept answering that he would not count him a Christian until he saw him in church. ² The old orator went in the end, and made his profession aloud. ²

He was old when Augustine met him and older when Ambrose died, and he was bishop for only a few years. ²³ Ambrose loved him as a father, by Augustine's account, and Augustine called him father too and asked him to correct his books. ²⁴