The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church.
Interpretation
The authority of the Emperor is subordinate to the moral and spiritual authority of the Church.
This quote emphasizes the idea that secular authority should be guided by spiritual and moral principles. Saint Ambrose implies that no matter how powerful an emperor may be, their rule is ultimately constrained by the values and teachings of the Church, suggesting a balance between state and religion.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of ethics in leadership.
A good youth ought to have a fear of God, to be subject to his parents, to give honor to his elders, to preserve his purity; he ought not to despise humility, but should love forbearance and modesty. All these are an ornament to youthful years.
Where a man's heart is, there is his treasure also.
A kindness received should be returned with a freer hand.
Take away the contests of the martyrs, and you have taken away their crowns.
It is ingrained in all living creatures, first of all, to preserve their own safety, to guard against what is harmful, to strive for what is advantageous.
The best way to use the gold of the Redeemer is for the redemption of those in peril.
And much as Wine has played the Infidel, And robbed me of my Robe of Honor Well, I often wonder what the Vintners buy One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
...majority Patriotism is the customary Patriotism.
I am convinced that all our attempts to change the letter of the law and to reeducate people have been, and are, merely band-aid solutions for a fatal hemorrhage. The system will never change because our starting point is flawed. The secular view of man can neither give the grandeur that God alone can give, nor can it see the evil within the human heart that God alone can reveal and cure, for atheism implicitly denudes each individual of the grand image God has imprinted upon His creation.
O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.
Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.
Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a_x000D_ _x000D_ hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond_x000D_ _x000D_ himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.
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