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 8 of the Epistle; the verse numbers are the Benedictine editors’.
(Verses 1–2.) There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh. It is true that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and who serve the law of God with care. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and of death. He asserts security for man through the grace of God, so that he need not be anxious about the suggestions of the devil, provided he spurns them; for they will do man no harm in respect of the second death, because the law of faith, that is, of the spirit, has set man free from the second death, sin having been condemned. Nor does it harm man any longer that sin is in the flesh, provided he fights against it, mindful of God’s help; indeed, he who crushes the designs of the sin that abides in the flesh is to be crowned, for it takes great skill to avoid the snares of an enemy within one’s own house. The law of the spirit of life, then, is the law of faith itself. For the law of Moses too is spiritual, because it forbids sin; yet it is not of life, because it cannot forgive sins to those guilty of death so as to give life to those who are to die. But this law, because it both refuses sin and calls back from death, is called the law of the spirit of life, standing not by the letter but by the spirit; for it is believed with the heart, and what is believed is spirit. This Law, then, in Christ Jesus — that is, through faith in Christ — sets the believer free from the law of sin and death. The law of sin is the one which he says dwells in the members, which strives to urge what is contrary; while the law of death is the law of Moses, because it puts sinners to death. For in another epistle too he says, among other things, of the authority of the law: If the ministration of death, engraven in stones, was glorious (2 Corinthians 3:7). It is no wonder, then, if the law is called both spiritual and a law of death, when the same is true of the Gospel. For he says in another place, among other things: To some a savour of life unto life, to others a savour of death unto death (2 Corinthians 2:16). For to those whom the fame of the mighty works, or the sight or hearing of what was done, drew to the faith, the Gospel was a savour of life; but to those whose minds the work of power inflamed to contradiction, the preaching of the faith was a savour of death. So although faith is one, it produces different effects in men; just as the sun, though it is one, melts wax but hardens clay. As each man takes in the savour of the faith, then, so will it profit him. But perhaps it will be said: If faith does the same as the Law, why should it not also be called in part a law of death, since it puts unbelievers to death? But it is not so. For faith was given to justify those who take refuge in it, to forgive those whom the Law holds guilty, so that, living under faith, they may be free from sin; whereas those who live under the law are liable. Those, then, who do not obey the faith are put to death not by the faith but by the Law; for, not coming to the faith, they are held guilty by the Law. And so all who take in the words of the faith with an evil mind remain in death. Let us now see what difference there is between saying “the spiritual law” and “the law of the spirit”. The difference is this: the law is called spiritual because it gives precepts by which one may not sin, for he who does not sin is called spiritual, as an imitator of those above, that is, of the heavenly beings. But the other is called the law of the spirit because God, whose faith it is, is spirit. There, then, are words; here, the reality: there, the things of God; here, God Himself.
(Verse 3.) For what was impossible to the Law, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, by sin condemned sin in the flesh. He says this to make the baptized secure, because they have been set free from sin. “For what was impossible to the Law,” he says. To whom was it impossible? To us, clearly, it was impossible to fulfil the commandment of the Law, because we were subject to sin. For this reason God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. This is the likeness of flesh: that although it is the same flesh as ours, it was not formed in the womb and born in the same way as our flesh. For it was sanctified in the womb and born without sin, and neither did He Himself sin in it. For the virgin womb was chosen for the Lord’s birth for this very purpose, that the Lord’s flesh might differ from ours in holiness; for it is like ours in its condition, not in the quality of a sinful substance. He called it “like”, therefore, because, though of the same substance of flesh, it did not have the same birth; for the Lord’s body was not subject to sin. For the Lord’s flesh was purified by the Holy Spirit, so that He might be born in such a body as Adam’s was before sin — save only for the sentence given in Adam. So God, having sent Christ, by sin condemned sin; that is, He condemned sin by its own sin. For when Christ is crucified by sin, which is Satan, sin committed sin in the flesh of the Saviour’s body; and by this God condemned sin in the flesh — in the very place, that is, where it sinned — as he says in another epistle too: Triumphing over them in Him (Colossians 2:15), that is, in Christ. For it is usual to ask of anyone who has been condemned, “In what was he condemned?” and the answer is, say, “In a murder.” So too sin was condemned in the flesh, that is, in the sin which it committed in the flesh. Satan, then, made guilty by this sin, lost his dominion over the souls he had been holding, so that he dare not hold in the second death those who are now sealed with the sign of the cross, by which he was overcome. It is for our security, then, that the Apostle treats of these things.