Abyss & Sea 23

 22
(And finally we come to the end.)

All over the Great Realm there was devastation like that which Disan and the Sorean fleet could see, but these things we can only know from what little can be pieced together from scattered remnants who by happenstance survived. Everywhere there was destruction, but most of it is beyond all human memory. Only the Powers that govern the world saw the whole.

It is said that the great Khalad Mountains burst open and spewed out fire and molten stone across the western half of the land, and that fishing boats scattered in view of the Golden Shore saw entire mountains glowing in the distance. It is said, too, that the fountains and springs of Ezrym began to boil with a sulfurous smell, and that a great chasm tore through the land at the Great Canal as both banks suddenly splayed apart and the sea rushed into the space. It is said that the great orikhalh walls of Talamir were torn from their foundations and twisted like paper. The entire land seemed to tip itself into the sea, or else the sea somehow rose up to invade the land, and with a great turmoil of waters, the Porphyry Mountain, the greatest human palace that has ever been or that ever shall be, sank beneath the waves with only foam to mark its place. It is said that, in the months that followed, many corpses continued to wash up on the Chipou shores, tangled in the flotsam, bloated with ferment and partly eaten by the fish. Sailors have legends that ships in fog or storm sometimes by some strange enchantment come across some of the highest peaks of the Khalad mountain range, now mere rocks in the sea, and that these places are haunted by ghosts. What is known is that in clear daylight you may diligently search the seas where the Great Realm once was and find no trace of land. 

The Sorean isle, too, crumbled into the sea. Many saw it as it did so. With it went down all life on the island, except for the ravens and some other birds that were wise enough and strong enough to fly through the storm to the ships. Disan saw none of this, for he was sinking into the sea, only half-conscious, as it happened. Down he went, or rather tumbled, for he had no sense of direction, and would likely have drowned. But as he came near to death he seemed to see, or at least later vaguely remembered that he had seemed to see, an Ezryman child in the depths, one form taken by Fulné of the sea, and he seemed to hear the sea around him speak to him: "Foolish king, your people still require your service." Then he seemed to move at great speed through the depths, and broke the surface. The last thing that he later vaguely remembered, although he could never say whether it was real or just a dream concocted by the mind of a drowning man, voices all around, although very distant, and hands on his shoulders, and then all went black.

What is known is that he was pulled from the water, very near death, but only very near. He woke up briefly at some point later in an unfamiliar room. His throat and sinuses felt raw and his head throbbed with pain, sometimes hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. It was dark, but a stormy-green light came through a narrow windows, enough to see some things. It was a state room in a ship, in one of the ships in which Disan had placed some of the treasures to be sent ahead; he could see on the floor the long, narrow crate in which he had carefully placed the Black Tapestry of Maia of the Pearls. There was a cage for ship ravens along a wall. It was covered with a blanket, but the blanket had partly slipped, and Disan could see none other than Ker, hunched down and obviously unhappy to be on a ship, peering at him. He wondered how Ker had come to be there. Then he tried to sit up, but it set him to coughing, which was painful in his throat and head, so he sank back down. As he slipped back into sleep, just before all went black again, he prayed that Baia had evacuated with the ships at Mir Salal.

Outside the storm only grew louder.

******

Abyss and Sea 

The thunder shatters air and will, the rain is cold, the lightning fierce.
The world is battered, broken, upside-down; its heart is deeply pierced;
and all our hope beneath the wave is sinking now, beyond our reach.
Not wealth nor strength nor lore can move the lands to rise; they, shattered each,
are crushed beneath the heavy sea, and nevermore will they return.
Yet I recall the shining streets, the lamps that seemed like stars to burn,
and I remember meadows, fields, and mountains like a summer dream
surrounding cities bright with lights that like the snow in sunlight gleamed. 

On sandy shores we once would walk and feel the salty, sea-sent breeze,
but nevermore shall footsteps grace that sand; the roaring, angry seas
have seized it all in chilling grasp and nothing free of flood remains
save fragments made of memories, their razor edges trimmed with pain.
And I recall the winter snows on little houses, trim and neat,
where children played with shouting voices, endless games, and nimble feet,
but where are they? They too are gone. The earth and sea will spare no soul.
They spared not me, for what they left to sigh and grieve is not the whole. 

 The storm is pounding; not a sound can break its roaring, rumbling wall,
but still inside I hear the songs that honeyed voices used to call
beneath the dewy apple trees in autumn days, cool, crisp, and clear.
The trees are driftwood-dead and lost; the songs are dim in yesteryear,
but I can feel the ache inside, and I can feel that they once grew,
and I can feel the loss of glories past that you and I together knew.
But harsher still the tearing pain, suspended doubting, cold as stone,
of never knowing where you are: Are you alive? Am I alone?

Abyss & Sea 22

 21
(One more installment after this, probably sometime this weekend)

After he had sent Asaia on her way, Disan turned to the work of organizing the fleet from Soromir. It was mostly numbing and tedious work, but it was punctuated by one event of extraordinary excitement; someone tried to assassinate him.

He was at the docks for a meeting with a number of captains to discuss various problems associated with the great embarkation, and he had just left it in the company of a few of his guards. The dock was quite crowded, as it would be with so much going on, and in the midst of it all, a man rushed at him with a knife. Disan, purely reflexively, dodged it and Disan's men wrestled the man to the ground very roughly. The would-be assassin was a Sorean merchant who had just come from Tavra up the Great Canal with a shipment for provisioning the fleet, but it was impossible to get any coherent story out of him; he seemed to have no motive, and, indeed, seemed not to understand himself what he had done or why he had done it. When Disan asked him about his stay in Tavra, he broke down into further incoherence, and apparently could remember nothing clearly about it.

Disan pondered all sides of this, and said to himself, "'Beware the Honey Witch, for she has power from the Court of Night to bend the mind.' We should have paid your message more attention, Envren." He selected a number of trustworthy men, carefully making sure that none of them had any connection to Tavra, or had even traveled there in any time within the past few years, and sent them on to protect Baia in Mir Salal with a letter. He spent a great deal of agonized thought on how much he should say in it, and finally, and with considerable reluctance, concluded that he should not explicitly mention anything about the assassination itself. First, he did not want to worry Baia; second, the attempt had been clumsy and apparently even haphazard, which suggested to Disan that there was no systematic plan; and third, it seemed best in general to keep knowledge of the assassination attempt to as few as possible, until further investigation turned up more information. He had misgivings, however, and not long after the guards had been sent, he considered having them called back to change the letter; but he did not do it.

Other than the considerable worry and anxiety caused by this event, much of Disan's time consisted in reviewing lists and checklists and talking with supervisors. As the embarkation day for the first fleet drew near, there were the expected stacks of messages bearing excuses, but Disan was pleased enough that anyone was arriving that the bare fact that the population of Soromir was obviously and visibly swelling made the excuses easy to dismiss. He looked forward to actually completing this stage, knowing that the later stages would be harder. And everything was proceeding on schedule, which was something of a wonder.

Soon the embarkation day for the first fleet arrived. It went without an actual hitch, but there were so many people in Soromir that it was a far slower process than Disan had hoped. He went down to the docks himself and spent an immense amount of time and energy trying to keep the process running smoothly. There are few things more effective at resolving many kinds of problems than the word of a king, but even kings cannot solve problems that pile all around them in masses, and Disan was quite overwhelmed.

He had just seen off a boat carrying elderly passengers and some cargo to a ship in the harbor, when the air grew suddenly very still. There seemed no wind at all below, but high above dark clouds began swiftly to gather. Even the sea seemed to quiet down in some hushed expectation. Then he, and everyone else in sight clutched their ears. Disan kept his feet, but more than few people collapsed to the ground. A vast and fathomless voice resounded through the air. It did not come, as voices usually do, from a direction. It came from all directions. It did not, as voices usually do, lightly touch the ears through the air. The entire ocean of air seemed to speak. You felt the force of its words with your whole body as if they were great waves in the ocean. For it was not a voice. It was The Voice.

HEAR NOW THE VOICE OF FATH, THE HERALD OF THE POWERS THAT GOVERN THE WORLD!

THE HANDS OF THE POWERS ARE HELD BACK IN MERCY NO LONGER. FOR THREE TRANSGRESSIONS AND FOR FOUR, YOU ARE ALL CALLED TO JUDGMENT. YOU HAVE BEEN WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING.

YOU HAVE VAUNTED YOURSELVES GREAT AMONG THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD, AND WITH ARROGANT AND GREEDY HAND YOU HAVE BEGUN TO STRETCH FORTH TO SEIZE WHAT WAS NEVER GIVEN TO YOU. YOU HAVE EXALTED YOURSELF AGAINST THE VERY POWERS OF THE WORLD AS IF YOU WERE THEIR EQUALS. THEREFORE THE POWERS DECREE THAT ALL YOUR MIGHT AND SPLENDOR SHALL FALL IN ONE DAY.

At this, the earth began to make a strange groaning sound. The wind began to pick up. Lightning flashed in the sky.

IN A THOUSAND WAYS, YOU HAVE DEFIED BOTH THE COUNSEL AND THE COMMAND OF THE POWERS, AND IN TEN THOUSAND WAYS YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW SET IN INVIOLABLE ORIKHALH. FAITHLESS IN YOUR VOWS, WICKED IN YOUR WAYS, YOU HAVE MISUSED THE PACTS AND COVENANTS THAT DEPEND ON THAT LAW. THEREFORE THE PACTS AND THE COVENANTS ARE OVERTURNED AND MADE NULL.

GREAT GIFTS YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN BY THE POWERS, INCLUDING THE VERY LAND THAT IS YOUR HOME, BUT YOU HAVE USED YOUR GIFTS TO DO EVIL AND HAVE STAINED THE LAND WITH UNHOLY BLOOD. THEREFORE THE GIFTS AND THE LAND WE TAKE BACK.

There was a great cracking noise from the earth. Rain began to fall, first slowly and then heavily, and finally in torrents, soaking them all, but nobody in the rain could run to shelter due to the overwhelming power of the Voice.

YOU HAVE SOUGHT EVILS UNSPEAKABLE FROM DARKEST ABOMINATION. THEREFORE YOU SHALL WITHOUT DELAY RECEIVE THE DESOLATION THAT IS YOUR DESERVED END.

YOUR JUDGMENT IS PROCLAIMED. THE VOICE OF FATH HAS SPOKEN ON BEHALF OF ALL OF THE POWERS. LET IT BE DONE.

And with those final words, it seemed like the entire world went mad. If you ever stood on a boat when suddenly it lurched to the side, knocking you down, this is what everybody felt, but it was the very land itself that lurched. Anyone who had been standing, like Disan, was knocked flat. The earth began to shake heavily. Disan attempted to invoke the pacts and covenants to calm the earth, as he had done before, but he knew as he did so that it would not succeed, and it did not. There were no pacts and there were no covenants. The rain fell in sheets and began to be mixed with hail. The people at the docks began to stampede toward shelter.

"No! No!" shouted Disan as loud as he could. "To the ships! To the ships!"

Most still drove inland, never to be seen again. Some heard him and he began to get them on ships at the docks and on boats to take them out to the ships anchored farther out.

But the boats and ships were themselves beginning to have great difficulty. The semblance of life in the ships, even without the pacts and covenants, was friendly, but without the pacts and the covenants they could not seamlessly and easily respond to their crews as they once would have. This would not in itself have been devastating, as all sailors begin their experiences with ordinary boats like fishing boats, rather than the great ships of the Sorean fleet, and they knew their trade as no sailors in the world have known since. But no experience, no skill, was adequate to the occasion. The sea itself began to go mad. The waves had no pattern and went as they would. They rose out of nothing and collapsed into nothing. They waved this way and that, north south, east, west, even some in spirals around and around. They collided into each other in a confusion no sailor could navigate.

Those who followed Disan crowded on the slippery docks to fill the last embarkation boats that were there. Disan at one point stepped in, his boots sloshing in the rainwater that was filling the boat, to help people get on board. He had hardly done so when the dock itself violently twisted and tore away. Those who were in the process of embarking collapsed on to Disan and those who were still on the dock were thrown into the sea and swept away. When Disan managed to untangle himself, he looked with horror at the chaos that he could see in Soromir even through the wind-gusting rain. So many were the lightning strikes that fires were springing up in the city despite the torrential downpour. The land itself seemed like a sea, waving slowly up and down with rumble and roar. Buildings collapsed like sand. No people could be seen anywhere anymore.

On the sea-side, in the harbor, one of the great ships laden with Sorean treasures was caught in a sudden whirlpool that formed beneath it. Around and around it went, its anchor-chain snapping like twine, down and down; but then suddenly the whirlpool collapsed, spitting out the ship with a force that drove it toward the cliffs overlooking the city. A great groaning and rumbling resounded even through the tumultuous roar. As Disan watched, still as stone, he saw the great cliffs on which Neyat Sor stood begin to crumble. One moment, one could still make out the shining, glittering spires of Neyat Sor. The next moment it was gone forever. The ship that had been driven toward the cliffs was caught in a cataract of rock. Sorean ships were built to be unsinkable. They could withstand any ordinary storm. Many had survived collisions with other ships. Ramming them would not harm them; reefs could not hurt them. But no human ship that has ever been made that can withstand an avalanche of boulders. They tore through its untearable sails as if they were wet paper. They splintered its invulnerable hull as if it were balsam. They poured through its frame as if it were not even there and the unsinkable ship sank like a stone.

The rain intensified as if the very heavens were falling on their heads. The sailors in Disan's boat attempted to navigate through the rabidly foaming, anarchical waves as they set the passengers to bailing out the rainwater. Slowly they made their way to the ships. But the seas were growing perilous with flotsam as well as wave, and the boat suddenly hit something. Disan, who had been watching all the devastation and had, without thinking loosened his grip from the terror of the sight, was thrown overboard into the shocking cold of the sea.

It was difficult to keep a head above the water, but he managed to do so.

"Overboard!" he heard someone call. But it was the last thing he definitely heard above the surface of the ocean, because his head was driven by a wave into something hard. He saw lightning in his head, and all went red. He was still conscious, but it seemed like his body would no longer obey; he was disoriented and knew not up or down. He hit something again and sank beneath the water.

Humanity Is the Love of Man

 Sincere love for men is the greatest result of love for the Lord of Heaven. This is what is meant by the expression "Humanity is the love of man." If a man does not love his fellowmen, how can one tell that he sincerely respects the Lord on High? The love of man is no feigned love since it must result in the feeding of the hungry, in the giving of drink to the thirsty, in the clothing of those without clothes, and in the provision of places to live for the homeless. Love has compassion for and comforts those who experience troubles; it instructs the ignorant, corrects the wrongdoers, forgives those who humiliate me, buries the dead, and dares not to forget to pray to the Sovereign on High for all men, living or dead. Therefore, in former times in the West, there was a certain man who went to inquire of a sage what he must do to be good. The answer was: "Love the Lord of Heaven and do as you wish." What the sage meant was that if a man chose to follow this wise advice, he would, as a matter of course, be unable to take the wrong path.

[Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, Lancashire and Hu Kuo-chen, trs., Menard, ed., Institute of Jesuit Sources (Boston: 2016), Chapter 7, section 477, p. 313.]

The first quotation is from Mencius, the second a slight paraphrase of Augustine. In the works of mercy, Ricci doesn't here mention visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, counseling the doubtful, and bearing wrongs patiently; but it's possible that visiting the sick and counseling the doubtful may be taken to be directly implied. The other two are much more closely related to problems that the Chinese scholar interlocutor is having with this aspect of Christian doctrine; they will go on next to discuss what it could possibly mean to love a bad person.

Abyss & Sea 21

 20

After some discussion with Baia, the two monarchs immediately called a council of all the peers and, since Soreans regard master shipwrights as a sort of nobility, master shipwrights of the realm. This, while done with speed and even haste, took a week to organize. In the meantime, Disan ordered all the ships that had been built to be fully stocked and provisioned and Baia oversaw the sorting and, toward the end of the week, the beginning of the packing of items in Neyat Sor to be transported to the dock warehouses and, ultimately, the ships. It was busy work, and by the time the council came, they were both tired.

As to the council, it was not exactly a success, but it was also not the disaster Disan feared it would be. He began from the beginning, with the experience of the cavern and the message he had received; then he gave, more succinctly and without dwelling on details, the messages received from the Seven Sisters and in the inn that was not an inn. Disan had continually worried that everyone would think he had gone mad, so he called the guards he had had with him to testify of their experience to the council while under formal oath, since it was the only one to which he had any kind of witness whatsoever. Of course, the guards each could only testify that they had stopped at an inn that had seemed perfectly normal until it suddenly went completely dark and they had found them in a barn. But everyone listened attentively. Then Baia spoke of the occasional strange things that had happened, and particularly the earthquake, suggesting that these were omens. Finally, Disan gave, for their consideration, his proposed plan for evacuating the entire kingdom within the month, and the council broke for refreshment and reflection.

When they returned, there was considerable argument over what should be done. While Disan had feared that they would dismiss his plan completely, his fears were not fully justified; both Baia and Disan were well respected, and Baia's point about the earthquake did carry some weight with some of those at the council. Responses were baffled or troubled, but never dismissive. However, in the course of argument it became clear that there was wide agreement that his timetable was impossible. To leave so quickly would require them to leave almost everything behind, and haste was dangerous, and properly preparing for a journey took time, et cetera, et cetera. The council began to coalesce around an alternative plan to begin the evacuation in six months. Baia was able to argue them into agreement that there should be some advance ships sent out well before then to prepare the Axen and Wisan repair stations abroad to receive an influx of people, and Disan, seizing on a suggestion that had been made to leave in stages (they had meant, beginning in six months' time, but Disan ignored this), managed with difficulty to talk them into agreeing that the first major stage should set sail in two months. That nobody was satisfied with this was clear, but they did agree.

"Of course," Baia said drily when the council had been dismissed, "while you are hoping somehow to be able to talk them into moving faster, most of them are hoping to find ways to further delay it, and perhaps are hoping that something will prevent it altogether."

"Yes," said Disan, sadly. "I suppose we are all inclined to temporize. To leave all things behind and journey who-knows-whither on nothing more than a warning or a promise -- I doubt anyone can easily have so much trust. I sometimes wonder what they would do if we just left and told them to follow. Perhaps there are a few who would."

"Perhaps," said Baia. "But as we would then be breaking the law in the Orikhalh Tablets that for any anointed ruler to leave the borders of their kingdom, an anointed ruler must remain, perhaps they would simply use that as an excuse to dismiss us entirely."

"We have permission from the Powers."

"Yes, but nobody could make them believe that if they did not wish to believe it."

Such a large and public endeavor could hardly go unnoticed, and even if the other courts in the Great Realm had not had informants in the Sorean court, rumor, swifter than any Sorean ship, soon spread the news throughout the kingdoms. Rumor is not a kind or even an evenhanded reporter. Strange plans and bizarre motivations were attributed to Disan, and it would perhaps not have been uncommon to hear it said that he had gone even more mad than Canthan. A few letters even arrived from other courts with questions that, while very circumspect and indirect, were clearly attempting to gather further information. After some discussion, they agreed to send a letter to all the other courts explaining their intent and reasons and urging the other kingdoms to do something similar; Baia wrote the letter. In the next few weeks, the number of non-Soreans around Soromir and Neyat Sor increased noticeably, and some of them did not even try to keep secret that they had been commissioned to discover what was really happening in Sorea. Asaia was recalled to Tavra, ostensibly due to the severe illness of a family member, but, Baia suspected, probably also to be questioned for information.

Nonetheless, the plans proceeded. The ships were all provisioned. Places were set in Soromir and the other port cities of the kingdom to register for berth and sections of cargo hold. The population of Soromir slowly swelled, and many did register, mostly the very old and loyal or the young and adventurous. The more experienced of the former and the more responsible-seeming of the latter were given berth on the advance ships, which set out as planned. Of course, that was the easy part; Soreans send out ships all the time. The rest would be much more difficult.

A week into the second month, Baia set out of Mir Salal. Disan had been reluctant to agree to any plan splitting them up, but as Baia noted, if this were to succeed, they would have to ensure that everything was properly organized in ports besides just Soromir. And as it would give her the ability to see to her father's evacuation, Disan agreed, as long as Baia promised to return to Soromir as soon as organizing the first stage of evacuation in Mir Salal was done.

"No later!" he said when they parted. "I love you greatly. Return to me soon."

"As soon as I can," said Baia, and she was off.

A few days after she left, Asaia returned from Tavra. Disan, surprised, asked her politely how her family was, to which she glumly gave a vague answer, and then he sent her on to Baia in Mir Salal. What a strangely spiritless and moody girl, he thought as she left. But the endless lists of things to be done soon chased it all from his mind and he thought about it no more.

In Mir Salal, Baia found that she had her work cut out for her; very little had been done, and that in a piecemeal fashion. To meet the expected deadlines, she had to work very long days, and always fell into her bed at night, exhausted. This occupied almost all her time, but she did have two surprises that broke the monotony. The first was the arrival of Asaia, whom she greeted warmly and happily. Asaia was more moody and taciturn than ever, but always put off Baia's worried queries about her health aside, insisting that her place was by Baia's side.

The second was the arrival of an additional guard from Neyat Sor. Disan's message with them was vague, saying little more that there had been trouble, which he would talk about more fully when they met again, and asking her to be wary. This worried Baia, particularly the vagueness, which suggested to her that perhaps something very serious indeed had happened; but no matter how she pored over the letter, it was impossible to squeeze more information from it, and she was soon caught up in the organizing again. And, in any case, although Baia was more careful, there seemed no signs of any unusual trouble in Mir Salal.

As the day for the ships of the first stage to set sail approached, Baia began to receive letters from various nobles whom she had originally scheduled to go. Their letters held an endless number of apologies, but there was death, so funerals needed to be done, and there was illness, so they would have to postpone to the next stage, and various accidents had befallen that prevented them from getting to Mir Salal on time. It was a veritable epidemic of deaths, sickness, and accidents, and that was not even counting all the people who simply wrote to say that they could not make the deadline. Baia at first tried answering the letters, an action that did occasionally result in the nobles sending small groups, mostly a mix of people of infirm body or dubious character, but soon the letters were too many for response. Nonetheless, a handful followed through, not necessarily enthusiastic, but unwilling to break a promise given or to refuse to support their queen, and among the common folk in and around Mir Salal there was more willingness than Baia had expected. She was relieved. To be sure, the support and cooperation was mostly from people who were not well settled, for one reason or another, and therefore had less to lose in setting sail, but it looked very much like the first fleet of ships from Mir Salal would be, if not exactly full, nonetheless far from empty. Sometimes, however, Baia reflected that it would only get harder, and whenever she thought this, she felt deflated.

The day at last arrived. The whole endeavor in Mir Salal was behind schedule, but Baia was relieved that it was not by much. The very first ships could be loaded immediately and hold anchor at sea until the rest were finished, and it would not be more than a few days before she could return to Neyat Sor and see Disan again. She saw personally to her father's embarkation, then, having set people in charge of finishing, she returned to her father's now empty house with Asaia and her guards to prepare for the next day's loading. It was long, tedious work, and she soon had Asaia bring her bread and wine for a meal. Baia ate and drank as she went through list after list to makes sure that nothing had been overlooked. 

It grew warm and humid, then grew warmer and more humid; she found herself sweating and breathing heavily. Soon she recognized that the weather was not the reason; she felt ill. Moment by moment she felt more and more ill and it grew harder and harder to breathe. She stood up to call to Asaia for help, but the young woman was sitting on the floor, eyes glazed but weeping, staring into the distance, hugging her knees to her chest, and rocking back and forth slowly. Baia looked at the cup of wine and knew then that she had been poisoned. Honey Witch, she thought, but she said nothing out loud because she could say nothing through the constriction at her throat and her heavy gasping, growing heavier and heavier. She collapsed to the floor, writhing, still gasping.

She had a dim sense of some shouting and other people in the room, but she could not pay attention to that. Her vision went red, then black. As it did so, she seemed to hear a voice, a powerful voice, a voice that shook the air around her and reverberated through her bones, and yet somehow seemed very distant and far away, and slowly getting farther and farther away:

HEAR NOW THE VOICE OF FATH, THE HERALD OF THE POWERS THAT GOVERN THE WORLD....

Music on My Mind

 

Sissel Kyrkjebø, "Ave Maris Stella".

Aurelius Ambrosianus

 Today is the feast of St. Ambrose of Milan, Doctor of the Church. From his work On the Holy Spirit (Book II, Chapter 12):

Consider meanwhile whether you can say that the Spirit effects all things which the Father effects; for you cannot deny that the Father effects those things which the Holy Spirit effects; otherwise the Father does not effect all things, if He effects not those things which the Spirit also effects. But if the Father also effects those things which the Spirit effects, since the Spirit divides His operations, according to His own will, you must of necessity say, either that what the Spirit divides He divides according to His own will, against the will of God the Father; or if you say that the Father wills the same that the Holy Spirit wills, you must of necessity confess the oneness of the divine will and operation, even if you do it unwillingly, and, if not with the heart, at least with the mouth. 

But if the Holy Spirit is of one will and operation with God the Father, He is also of one substance, since the Creator is known by His works. So, then, it is the same Spirit, he says, the same Lord, the same God. And if you say Spirit, He is the same; and if you say Lord, He is the same; and if you say God, He is the same. Not the same, so that Himself is Father, Himself Son, Himself Spirit...; but because both the Father and the Son are the same Power. He is, then, the same in substance and in power, for there is not in the Godhead either the confusion of Sabellius nor the division of Arius, nor any earthly and bodily change.

The Roman governor of Aemilia-Liguria, whose capital was Mediolanum or Milan, he was only a catechumen when he was forcibly made bishop by the people. Ambrose tried to get out of it, but the Emperor thought he made a great choice for bishop, and he was baptized, confirmed, ordained, and elevated to bishop all in the same week. 

Inexhaustible Truth and Unlimited Goodness

 ...man's wish is to know inexhaustible truth and to enjoy unlimited goodness. But truth in this world is exhaustible, and goodness is limited; neither, then, can satisfy the desires of man's nature. Man's nature is bestowed on him by the Lord of Heaven, and he would hardly have bestowed it on him to no purpose. He is bound to cause it to be satisfied, and he is bound to satisfy it completely in the next life.

Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, Lancashire and Hu Kuo-chen, trs., Menard, ed., Institute of Jesuit Sources (Boston: 2016), Chapter 6, section 383, p. 265.