Southern Baptist Theology in the Late Twentieth Century
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 54, No. 2 – Spring 2012
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Ambrosiaster. Edited and Translated by Gerald L. Bray. Ancient Christian Texts. IVP Academic, 2009. 270 pages. Hardcover, $60.00.
Gerald L. Bray, Research Professor of Divinity History and Doctrine at Beeson Divinity School, provides the first English translation of Ambrosiaster’s commentaries on Romans and 1–2 Corinthians. Ambrosiaster was the earliest Latin exegete who produced commentaries on the entire Pauline corpus. Unlike Ambrose, his Latin contemporary, Ambrosiaster does not have any interest in an allegorical reading of Romans and 1–2 Corinthians.
To read Ambrosiaster’s Commentary on Romans may be a big surprise to many contemporary evangelicals who might have believed that the doctrine of justification by faith alone was completely lost during the patristic era but restored later during the Protestant Reformation. This work is replete with Ambrosiaster’s frequent appeal to justification by faith alone without the works of the law (Rom 3:24 [29]; 4:5[32]; 9:28[80]; 11:32[93]). He uses not only the concept but also the actual term sola fide more frequently than does any patristic writer. Ambrosiaster’s sola fide could be clear evidence of the continuity between Paul and fourth century Latin Christianity on justification by faith alone apart from works. On the other hand, Catholic readers would reject such an evangelical reading of Ambrosiaster, since he sometimes uses the term ‘the works of the law’ as a reference to the ritual observation of the Mosaic law, such as circumcision and the Sabbath (Rom 4:4[31]; 9:28[80]). Therefore, Catholics could argue that Ambrosiaster’s sola fide sine operibus legis is not his rejection of good works as a necessary ingredient of justification but simply his condemnation of the social and religious exclusivism of first century Judaism. However, does Ambrosiaster’s reference to the Jewish ceremonial law as the works of the law necessarily mean that he admits good works are an essential condition to justification? The critical question we have to ask is not about whether Ambrosiaster’s sola fide intends to exclude the Jewish ritual regulations as a necessary channel by which man is justified. Instead, the question must concern whether Ambrosiaster ever argues that the exclusion of the ceremonial laws is all that Paul meant regarding the lack of salvation by the works of the law. Abraham’s sola fide shows not only ceremonial law but also that the moral sanctity to avoid evil does not contribute anything to his justification (Rom 3:24[29]; 4:31[37]) Not only pre- but also post- justification merits cannot cause believers to be justified (Rom 4:4[31]). Another interesting aspect of Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Romans is a striking theological agreement between Ambrosiaster and Augustine who attributed Ambrosiaster’s commentary to Hilary and honored this work. Ambrosiaster teaches the doctrine of original sin and guilt inherited from Adam by interpreting Romans 5:12. Everyone already sinned “in Adam as though in a lump” (Rom 5:12[40]). Evil is “the perversion of what is good” (Rom 7:18[58]).
In Commentary on 1–2 Corinthians, Ambrosiaster holds the Roman church’s tradition on rebaptism and rejects Novatianists and the Donatists who practiced rebaptism. Like Ignatius, he strongly advocates the monarchy of a bishop as the “head” of the church (1 Cor 1:17[123]). Those who will be “saved only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:15[134]) are not heretics but some Christians who simply followed false teachings. These Christians will be purified through the punishment of fire, although they will not be reproved eternally in hell. Ambrosiaster’s exegesis of 1 Corinthians 3:15 anticipates the later Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Ambrosiaster has a concept of congregational discipline based on 1 Corinthians 5:4 but also maintains the administrative leadership of a bishop in that congregational discipline. Modern readers of Ambrosiaster will be disappointed concerning his discrimination of women in the matter of divorce. He does not allow a woman to remarry even though she divorces her husband because of his fornication and even apostasy. However, a man can remarry if he divorces a sinful wife because “the headband [the superior party in the law] is not restricted by the law as a woman [the inferior party] is, for the head of the woman is her husband” (1 Cor 7:11[151]). Ambrosiaster could be called an ancient complementarian: “He is greater than she is by cause and order, not by substance” (1 Cor 11:5[172]). Unlike modern paedobaptists, Ambrosiaster interprets the holiness of the children born from a Christian parent as meaning the legitimacy of their birth from a lawful marriage, not any theological ground for infant baptism. It is historically worth noticing that 1 Corinthians 7:14 had not been a universal exegetical basis for the legitimacy of infant baptism until the mid-fourth century in Latin Christianity although infant baptism was being practiced. Despite Bray’s argument that Ambrosiaster is “not a ‘cessationist’ in a modern sense” (xvi), Ambrosiaster seems not to differ from modern cessationists in understanding the nature of tongues in 1 Corinthians 14. He does not teach or even imply that tongues could be incomprehensible utterances or the languages of angels. Ambrosiaster is the first orthodox patristic writer in the history of Christianity who believed that some Christians in the day of Paul were really baptized on behalf of the dead because of their fear that “someone who was not baptized would either not rise at all or else rise merely in order to be condemned” (1 Cor 15:29[196]). Paul did not endorse that erroneous practice but used it as an illustration of “a firm faith in the resurrection” (1 Cor 15: 29[196]).
Ambrosiaster’s commentary on 2 Corinthians is relatively short, and the length of this commentary would be only half of his commentary on 1 Corinthians. He is not aware of limited atonement or double predestination. For him God never wanted anyone to be excluded from his gift of redemption. If there are some unbelievers, it is because they did not receive the gospel. In his exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5:18–21, Ambrosiaster explained the incarnation well, as Christ’s assumption of the nature which was not previously his but now added to his divine nature. The incarnation was necessary in a sense because our human nature became sinful and needed to be redeemed by his death. Interestingly, Ambrosiaster followed Athanasius and other Greek fathers in interpreting the incarnation in the context of deification. Christ humiliated his almighty status “so that he might obtain for men the riches of divinity and thus share in the divine nature, as Peter says [in 2 Pet 1:4]. He was made man in order to take man into the Godhead. As it is written: I have said, you are gods [Ps 82:6]” (2 Cor 8:9[237–38]). Both biblical verses are well-known proof-texts for the Greek fathers’ understanding of salvation as deification. This shows us not to exaggerate the theological gap between Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. In addition, we can infer that Augustine could have learned the doctrine of deification primarily from his own Latin tradition rather than the Latin translations of the Eastern patristic writings.
