While almost all of the works in this vault use Victorian translations, due to the English translations of this commentary being in copyright, it was machine-translated (by Claude, 2026) from the public-domain Latin. It has not been checked by a human translator.
Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, long printed among the works of Ambrose. Its author, whom Erasmus first called “Ambrosiaster”, wrote at Rome while Damasus was bishop there (366–384). Chapter 6 of the Epistle; the verse numbers are the Benedictine editors’.
(Verse 1.) What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. That is: must we sin for ever, so that the gift of God may abound in covering our sins, and so that, always hoping for the remission of sins because God is kind, we may make a show of the grace of Christ? Certainly not. For God had mercy on us through Christ for this very purpose: that, sinning no more from now on, we might cause both merit to be ours and the grace of God to reign in us. For whoever goes back again to the old man, that is, to the ways of his former life, takes the kingdom away from the grace of God and hands it over to sin. For we received mercy for two reasons: that the kingdom of the devil might be shut out, and that the rule of God might be proclaimed to those who did not know it — dignity being won for us by that very means.
(Verse 2.) For how shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? He says this because, while we lived to sin, we were dead in God’s sight; for he who sins lives to sin, just as he who does not sin lives to God. But when the grace of God came through Christ, regenerating us through faith by the spiritual washing, we began to live to God and to be dead to sin, which is the devil. Yet to die to sin is this: to be set free from sin and to become the servant of God. So, being now dead to sin, let us not go back to our former evils, lest we live again to sin and, dying to God, lose our dignity and incur the punishment we have escaped.
(Verse 3.) Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in His death? He says this so that we may know that, being baptized, we ought no longer to sin; because when we are baptized we die together with Christ. This is what it is to be baptized in His death; for there all our sins die, so that, renewed and having laid death aside, we may be seen to rise again, reborn, to life: that just as Christ died to sin and rose again, so we too through baptism may have the hope of resurrection. Baptism, then, is the death of sin, so that another birth may follow, which, while the frame of the body remains, renews the man in his mind, the oldness of all evil deeds being buried.
(Verse 4.) For we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the power of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. In saying this he also points to what comes first: that Christ raised His own body from the dead, for He Himself is the power of God the Father, as He says: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But He spake, it says, of the temple of His body (John 2:19, 21); and that He rose into a new life, which can no longer die. It is called new because it was given by Christ; it is the Christian discipline. And we, being baptized, have been buried with Christ (Colossians 2:12), so that from now on we may follow this life in which Christ rose again. Baptism, then, is the pledge and the image of the resurrection, so that, abiding now in the commandments of Christ, we may not slide back again into what is past. For he who dies sins no more; for death is the end of sin. And it is celebrated with water for this reason, that just as water washes away the dirt of the body, so we may believe that we too are spiritually cleansed from all sin and renewed through baptism, so that what is incorporeal may be washed invisibly.
(Verse 5.) For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. He says that we can rise happily if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death: that is, if, putting off all vices in baptism and being carried over into a new life, we sin no more from then on. By this we shall also be like Him in His resurrection; for likeness in death will bring about likeness in resurrection. The apostle John recalls this in his epistle, saying: We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2), that is, that we shall rise immortal and glorious. Yet the likeness will not be such that there is no difference at all; for it will be likeness in the glory of the body, not in the nature of the Godhead.
(Verses 6–7.) Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. He weaves together and repeats many things to teach the baptized that they ought no longer to sin, and above all that they should not return to idolatry — for that is the gravest crime and the head of all error — lest they lose the grace they have received from God through Christ. By the old man, then, he means our past deeds; for as the new man is so called by reason of faith and a pure life, so the old man is so called by reason of unbelief and evil deeds. He says that these deeds have been crucified, that is, are dead, so that the body of sin, which is all crimes together, may be destroyed. For he calls all sins together a body, which he says is destroyed by a good life and the catholic faith.