Exhortatio virginitatis
· Ambrose of Milan
· c. 393-394
· homily
Latin · domain: latin-patristic-fourth-century · researched 2026-11-14
no English translation located. No published English translation of this text was located in the catalogues and series checked. Where only a non-English rendering or a translation of a daughter version exists, it is recorded below and does not close the gap. Treat this as a gap candidate, not as proof that no translation exists; the evidence names every source checked.
Why this is in the register
HOLLIS Primo for 'Ambrose Exhortation to virginity' (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Ambrose%20Exhortation%20to%20virginity&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 returns a single record, the Italian 'Verginità e vedovanza' volume that contains the work in Latin with Italian translation; a second query, 'Ambrose virginitate' (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Ambrose%20virginitate&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 returns the same Italian volume, the 1952/1954 Paravia Latin text of De virginitate, and the Peregrina 'On virginity' (1989), which is De virginitate and not the Exhortatio. No English version of the Exhortatio as such appears anywhere in the catalogue, and the NPNF Ambrose volume lists 'Concerning Virgins' and 'Concerning Widows' but not this homily.
A preached exhortation rather than a treatise: Ambrose addressing a congregation on the occasion of a consecration, which makes it one of the few places where his ascetic teaching can be heard in its liturgical setting rather than in literary form. It is also the Ambrose text that shows the rhetoric of virginity being used to address a mixed audience of parents and ascetics. Its absence means English readers have no example of Ambrose preaching on virginity, only his polished treatises.
Ambrose, Saint, Bishop of Milan, -397 · 1989 · ita, lat
Ambrose, Saint, Bishop of Milan, -397. "Verginità, e, Vedovanza." Milano : Biblioteca Ambrosiana ; Roma : Città nuova, 1989. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990018620150203941