On the Duty of the Clergy

One of Ambrose’s most famous works is De officiis (‘On Moral Duties’), which is essentially a treatise on Christian ethics. Based on Cicero’s work of the same name, which was itself based on the writings of the Stoic Panaetius with some further influence from Posidonius and Hecaton of Rhodes, Ambrose followed Cicero in organizing the treatise in three books. The first deals with what is ‘virtuous’ (honestum), the second with what is ‘expedient’ (utile), the third with the relationship between the two.

David G. Hunter, “Fourth-Century Latin Writers: Hilary, Victorinus, Ambrosiaster, Ambrose,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 311.