Abstract

This paper moves into the mental world of late antique Milan at the end of the 4th century AD, the centre of interest is the figure of Augustine and hence the years 384 to 387. This was also the period of the dispute between Ambrose and the homoean imperial court over the Basilica Portiana and Basilica Nova, which ended in victory for Ambrose. In the Confessions, Augustine refers only once to the crisis of 385/6 in his depiction of his Milan period, and he does this only after giving an account of his baptismal ceremony in spring 387. In the narrative sequences which inelude the period 385/6, Augustine does not mention the conflict over the churches at all, even though his own mother was involved in it. This silence has been ascribed to Augustine’s lack of interest in ecclesiastical power politics at the time; the Church is said to have been of interest to him at that time only as a spiritual space, not as a social or material one. But at latest when he was writing the Confessions, as bishop of Hippo and representative of the ‘catholic’ Church, the striking importance of those events should have been o become clear to him. The question arises of why he gives them so little space in his account.