Justification By Faith In Ambrosiaster’s Commentary On Romans: A Response To Dongsun Cho

By Peter J. Dubbelman

[Peter J. Dubbelman is an associate pastor at Apex Baptist Church in Apex, NC, and a PhD student in theological studies at Southeastern Theological Seminary.]

Abstract

This article defends the thesis that Ambrosiaster, in his Commentary on Romans, both grounded salvation in a baptism that established the catechumen’s union in Christ (which included justification sola fide) and recognized the descent and ascent of the Son as both a movement of reconciliation and a movement of revelation. Within this framework of soteriology, Ambrosiaster knew justification sola fide as both a forensic and a sanative event. Therefore, he did not strictly separate Paul’s presentation in Romans of justification from sanctification, though he understood the former primarily as a one-time event.

To some degree, this thesis diverges from Dongsun Cho’s last two essays on Ambrosiaster (2012 and 2014). There is much to commend in Cho’s two essays. However, I present here what Cho did not say about portions of Ambrosiaster’s doctrine of justification in Romans in emphasizing other aspects of this doctrine. I argue that Ambrosiaster’s view of justification sola fide is misunderstood if it does not also include the opportunity for dehumanized humanity to be saved, healed, and reunited to the Creator by Jesus Christ, who is the source and embodiment of the new creation, and the model for the Word becoming flesh in the redeemed, who are the body of Christ.

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Prior to Erasmus’s condemnation of him (1527), Ambrosiaster was widely quoted within Western Christianity.[1] He influenced the likes of both Augustine and Pelagius, served as a forerunner to a method of scriptural commentary that Western Christianity accepted, wrote the oldest extant Latin commentary on Romans (late 370s to early 380s), and, as I soon note, took a pro-Nicene/Constantinople Creed (315/381) and pre-Chalcedonian Creed (451) stance that influenced his understanding of justification.[2] Maurice Wiles states he may be “the most important exegete” of all the Latin Fathers.[3] Gerald Bray builds upon this thought, “Ambrosiaster must be regarded as one of the greatest of the ancient biblical commentators, whose work can often stand alongside that of modern scholars.”[4] Yet despite Ambrosiaster’s recent acclaim, David Hunter laments, “Of all the latter Latin Fathers, Ambrosiaster is perhaps the most neglected and in need of further study.”[5] This neglect includes Ambrosiaster’s doctrine of justification being discussed sporadically and inconclusively over the last century, by both Catholics and Protestants.[6]

Dongsun Cho, by way of two articles published in 2012 and 2014, has had the last word in this conversation as it concerns Ambrosiaster’s doctrine of justification.[7] By the present study I modestly hope to contribute to this discussion, primarily by dialoguing with Cho’s written thoughts on this topic.

Cho’s 2012 article concluded that “there is a significant theological consensus between Ambrosiaster and the Reformers on justification: the gratuitousness of grace, the rejection of good works as a necessary constituent of justification, and a distinction between justification and sanctification.”[8] He began his 2014 article with a crystallization and progression of this thought by stating, “Ambrosiaster already taught a Reformational doctrine of justification prior to Augustine in the fourth-century Latin Christianity.”[9] In both articles, Cho is clear that Ambrosiaster, in contrast to Augustine, did not “see the renewal of human nature as another qualification for justification.”[10]

There is much to commend in Cho’s studies. He has provided a helpful survey of scholarship to date on Ambrosiaster’s understanding of justification;[11] he has effectively connected him with the Latin patristic tradition that joins faith in Christ with the forgiveness of sin(s) and removal of guilt;[12] he has correctly surmised that for Ambrosiaster justification before God was understood as distinct from justification before the world;[13] and he has noted extensively and accurately that Ambrosiaster understood sola fide (by faith alone) as the appropriate human response to the gospel—from the beginning to the end of the Christian’s life—and something that was apart from “the works of the law” (lex factorum).[14]

My argument here is not against a Reformed perspective of justification, per se. Nor do I challenge here much of what Cho wrote in his 2012 and 2014 articles, but rather what he did not say about portions of Ambrosiaster’s doctrine of justification at the expense of emphasizing other aspects of it. As such, I do not seek here to present only examples within Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Romans that support, as per Cho, a “Reformational doctrine of justification.” Rather, in defense of the thesis presented below, I attempt to answer the question: What does Ambrosiaster fully teach about justification sola fide in his Commentary on Romans (ACR)?

Some definitions are in order, since the meaning of what Cho labels a “Reformational doctrine of justification” varies amongst scholars. If I understand him correctly, he stands within a Reformed perspective of justification sola fide: (1) This perspective knows justification as a once-and-for-all event that grants a new and permanent status, the outward situation of being in a relation of peace with God. It is therefore not a process.[15] Here, the soteriological emphasis of justification is eschatological and not sanative. It is extra nos (outside us),[16] and its atonement metaphor is primarily forensic and therefore foremost an answer to people’s guilt and condemnation rather than their state of death.[17] (2) This view recognizes a close connection between justification and sanctification but maintains a definite separation between these two separate acts of grace by way of Calvin’s duplex gratia (double grace).[18]

Does Ambrosiaster teach a “Reformational doctrine of justification” as just described? Given the above quotes by Cho, I perceive he would say, “Yes.” Quite a while ago, Protestant Alexander Souter and Catholics Robert Eno and Johannes Quasten very briefly asserted the opposite perspective.[19] We cannot here undertake an exhaustive discussion of Ambrosiaster’s entire extant literature to address this question. Perhaps this thesis will suffice: Ambrosiaster, in his Commentary on Romans, both grounded salvation in a baptism that established the catechumen’s union in Christ (which included justification sola fide) and recognized the descent and ascent of the Son as both a movement of reconciliation and a movement of revelation. Within this framework of soteriology, he knew justification sola fide as both a forensic and a sanative event. Therefore, he did not strictly separate justification from sanctification, though he understood the former primarily as a one-time event.

If this thesis is true, an aspect of Ambrosiaster’s view of justification fits within Cho’s “Reformational doctrine of justification” (i.e., justification as forensic and sola fide). Ambrosiaster’s understanding of justification as a whole, however, is more clearly identified with that held by other theologians (some of whom are Reformed and Neo-orthodox), whose theological distinctions from Cho’s “Reformational doctrine of justification” are soon noted below.

This thesis is defended in four main sections: First, in “Baptism and Justification,” I argue that in ACR baptism was understood by Ambrosiaster as the all-encompassing dynamic within which the many parts of salvation were understood, including justification. Second, in “Justification as More than Forensic,” I showcase examples in ACR where justification included a sanative aspect. Third, in “Faith as More than Forensic,” I contend that in ACR the faith that justifies included for Ambrosiaster a faith in Christ’s incarnation and divinity. Fourth, I propose an area for further study in “Excursus: What about Romans 3:24 §§1–2?” and suggest my thesis may provide a step toward solving a textual criticism dispute related to Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Rom 3:24. In a fifth section, “Conclusion,” I provide a summary of this study and briefly share the larger soteriological implications of Ambrosiaster’s view of justification presented here.

I. Baptism And Justification

For the church fathers, baptism was indisputably connected both to the mission and message of the church as well as entrance into their communities.[20] Most of these fathers, according to Steve McKinion, knew it as “the bath of regeneration” and some as the “means of individual salvation.”[21] For Ambrosiaster, “The power of God [i.e., the gospel] is that which invites people to the faith and grants salvation to everyone who believes; it forgives sins and justifies” (Rom 1:16 §2). The reception of this gospel for him is inextricable from baptism. He elaborates on these thoughts:

The apostle proclaims that what we receive from the gift of baptism is greater [than lex factorum (the works of the law); cf. Rom 4:4 §1], because he declares not only that we receive the forgiveness of sins, but also that we are justified and made children of God, so that this blessedness possesses perfect glory and security. (Rom 4:7–8 §4)[22]

[Christ] arose from the dead in order to grant us the grace of justification [gratia nos iustificationis donaret] … so that we might be worthy of being called children of God. Those who were baptized before his passion received only the forgiveness of sins.… But after his resurrection those who were baptized before, as well as those who were baptized afterward, were all justified [omnes iustificati sunt] through the accepted formula of the Trinitarian faith (see Matt 28:19), after the Holy Spirit, who is the sign for believers that they are children of God, had also been received. (Rom 4:23–25 §§2–2a)

Ambrosiaster, it appears, not only fits squarely into the baptismal perspective expressed by the fathers but also understood baptism to grant salvation, to forgive sins, and to justify the catechumen. For he declares, “from the gift of baptism … we are justified and made children of God.” Many others within patristic theology also connected justification sola fide and baptism, for example, Hermas, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Cyprian, Methodius, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, and Basil of Caesarea.[23]

For Ambrosiaster, the terms and concepts related to Cho’s view of “a Reformational doctrine of justification” are clearly identified with Ambrosiaster’s understanding of baptism: “Sins are forgiven and covered and not reckoned without toil or any work through baptism” (Rom 4:8 §3). He additionally declares, “The old self has been renewed through baptism … so that we know what we ought to do” (Rom 13:12; cf. 9:29 §1). For by baptism, “a soul having been released from the coupling with the flesh, rises again in it” (Rom 7:5 §2); unbelievers, once “subjected to sin,” become “the baptized … [who] have been set free from sin” (Rom 8:3 §1). Here, for Ambrosiaster baptism is “the spiritual bath” of regeneration (Rom 6:2 §1); “at that point we die to all our sins, so that, having been renewed and having put off death, we may be seen to rise again to life, reborn.… This birth renews a person in the mind” (Rom 6:3) and allows the believer to transition from their “state of sin” (7:23 §1).

In ACR, baptism also identifies with cleansing and incorporeality:

We who have been baptized … may follow this life into which Christ has risen.… Now by continuing in the commands of Christ we do not revert once again to our former way of life.… This, in fact, is why baptism is celebrated with water, that just as water washes [abluit] away dirt from the body, so too we may believe that through baptism we have been spiritually cleansed from every sin and have been renewed. For what is incorporeal is cleansed [abluatur] invisibly. (Rom 6:4 §§2–3; 6:5)

Ambrosiaster, it seems, connected many of the terms typically identified within a Reformed “order of salvation” (ordo salutis) to baptism, namely, calling, regeneration, faith, repentance, and justification.[24] For him, by baptism sins are forgiven and a believer, by way of a cleansing by the Spirit, transitions from a state of death to one of life. The sixteenth-century European reformers informally valued what is known today as an ordo salutis (the term was not used until the eighteenth century); however, it appears that Ambrosiaster—perhaps as a precursor to Karl Barth’s, Gerrit Berkouwer’s, Herman Ridderbos’s and more recently Simon Gathercole’s criticism of ordo salutis—emphasized baptism as the all-encompassing dynamic within which many of the parts of salvation are understood (and maybe even overlap).[25] For him, one of these aspects of baptism included justification.

With respect to baptism one more point, already hinted at above, should be made. By way of baptism, the Christian is now able to heed the voice of “the spiritual physician [medicus spiritalis; who] says: Take my yoke upon you … my burden is light” (Rom 6:19 §2; see also Rom 9:17 §2). Here, “the Holy Spirit is given to the one who has been baptized—that is, purified [purificato]” (Rom 8:10 §3); “ill-disposed people”—like David “in the affair of Uriah”—are “no longer sinners,” because they “have been washed” (Rom 3:5 §§1–3). This sanative aspect of baptism is developed by Ambrosiaster in the next section of his commentary and identified by him as incorporated within his doctrine of justification. It also is in conflict with Cho’s view that Ambrosiaster “does not use medical process imagery in his exegesis of justification.”[26]

In summary, Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Romans presents a view of justification that is incorporated within a baptism that purifies and regenerates. In contrast to Cho’s view of Ambrosiaster’s “Reformational doctrine of justification,” Ambrosiaster also understood that by “the gift of baptism” the believer received “the forgiveness of sins.” His disregard of an ordo salutis and his incorporation of justification and purification within the act of baptism stands in contrast with Cho’s opinion that Ambrosiaster presented “between justification and sanctification … a systematic categorical division.”[27]

II. Justification As More Than Forensic

Contrary to Cho’s conclusion, Ambrosiaster’s understanding of justification included a sanative aspect. Cho states,

Ambrosiaster does not use medical process imagery in his exegesis of justification.… He describes justification as a legal liberation from two things. First, justification liberates believing sinners from their legal obligation to “pay off their debts to God” who is the divine judge. Those who believe in Christ receive mercy, not wrath, from God.… Second, justification liberates believing sinners from the penalty of eternal punishment immediately and completely when they believe in the promised Messiah.[28]

This thought by Cho is supported by a summary made by Bray with respect to Ambrosiaster’s view of justification by faith: “Where other ancient writers tend to think in intellectual terms, and regard the sinful state of fallen man as confusion and blindness, Ambrosiaster prefers to speak of guilt, of which the sinner is fully aware and for which he alone is responsible.”[29] Bray continues, “Ambrosiaster, by contrast [to Origen], eschews medical imagery.”[30] Bray wisely contrasts Ambrosiaster’s use of “medical imagery” with that of others. This is far different than saying, “Ambrosiaster does not use medical process imagery in his exegesis of justification.” With Cho, I agree that in ACR Ambrosiaster taught that justification sola fide involved mercy in place of wrath and a release “from the penalty of eternal punishment”;[31] however, beyond what was stated in the previous section and against Cho’s above insistence, Ambrosiaster also recognized a sanative aspect to justification. Four examples may sufficiently supply the necessary evidence to support Ambrosiaster’s understanding of justification as containing a sanative, purifying element.

(1) With respect to chs. 1–8 of Romans, Ambrosiaster states, “Above [Paul] seems to speak against the Jews, who think they are justified on account of the law.… Through their unbelief [they] deprive themselves of this everlasting and salutary benefit” (salutari beneficio; Rom 9:1 §§1–2). This salutari beneficio was grounded by Ambrosiaster in his view of the Son’s “extraordinary love for the human race, and the glorious stature of Christ and the unending promised reward” (Rom 9:1 §2)—“the promised reward” understood in teleological terms as conformity “to the image of the Son” (Rom 8:29 §§1–2). He later described these same Jews as those who “were blinded by their unbelief to the point that they could not be healed [ut curare non possent]” (Rom 11:11 §1; cf. 8:7 §2). Further, Christians, who “have been freely justified,” have also “been purified [purificati] by God’s gift” (Rom 12:1–2 §1b). These, then, are a few examples, among the others in this study, that identify justification with healing and purification, contra Cho’s “does not.”

(2) When commenting on Rom 7 Ambrosiaster states,

Adam built a ladder by which the plunderer climbed up to his children, had not the merciful Lord, moved by compassion, granted his grace through Christ, so that the human race, having been restored by the forgiveness of sins which it had received, may thereafter behold sin overwhelmed and condemned. That is to say it has been relieved and purified of evil [potest enim exonerates malis et purgatus], it is able to resist the adversary through the power it has received against him when it is helped by God.… One has been delivered from these [i.e., “a whole group of sins”] … by the grace of God through baptism. (Rom 7:24–25 §§1a–3)[32]

For Ambrosiaster the restoration between God and a person happens by the gift of the forgiveness of sins that relieves guilt (so also noted by Cho); however, this reconciliatory effect of “forgiveness of sins” also equates in the above quote with the purification of the soul. Here, the soul is dedicated to God, and by the power of the Spirit is able to fight against sin by the “grace of God through baptism,” which we remember also concerned for Ambrosiaster the justification of the soul. It appears, therefore, for Ambrosiaster, the baptized, justified soul—which is “purified of evil”—is now free, recalled to good habits, and able to reject evil suggestions with the help of the Holy Spirit (see also Rom 7:24–25 §5).

(3) Ambrosiaster’s comments on Rom 5 ground his understanding of justification as necessary for all and granted through the forgiveness available through Christ. He declares “it is impossible not to sin” and all are guilty of sin (Rom 5:14 §3; 5:20 §2e; cf. 3:23 §§1–3), but “the grace of God through Christ justified people … granting them forgiveness of sins … the gift of God’s grace not only forgives them but also justifies them” (Rom 5:16 §§1–2). These sentences need context, lest they are misunderstood.

For Ambrosiaster, the justified believers of Rom 5 also include “those who grasp the grace of God toward them. The ungrateful are those who refuse God when he calls them and reject the grace of God, so that they remain in a state of error and evil disposition [ut in proposito erroris et malignitatis permaneant]” (Rom 5:8 §2). How did Ambrosiaster understand this “state of error and evil disposition”—this inherent quality of mind and character—as removed for the justified? He explains, “The meaning above, then, is that … grace will reign all the more through the abundance of the gift of God that leads to life through the one person Jesus Christ.… Grace which justifies … grace which grants life through Christ, reigns!” (Rom 5:17 §2). This is “the life which comes from faith … the life to come” (Rom 1:17 §4). Ambrosiaster continues,

The seeds of righteousness were somehow implanted in nature itself.… Just as a newborn dies unless it has the nourishment by which, having been fostered, it matures, so too the natural capacity for righteousness does not readily develop, but becomes diseased [aegrotat] and gives in to sins that overcome it, unless it has something to be mindful of and to revere. It is overwhelmed by the habit of transgressing so that it does not develop fruit, and in this way it is extinguished. (Rom 5:20 §2b) 

Sin reigned by seeing its work lead sinners to death.… Grace, too, reigns in those who are obedient to it, when those to whom it granted mercy conduct themselves rightly, becoming heirs of eternal life through Christ. (Rom 5:21 §1–1a)

For Ambrosiaster, the nature of each person “becomes diseased,” because its natural capacity for righteousness has given in to sin. The “seeds of righteousness … implanted in nature itself … [do] not readily develop” because human nature is diseased. However, the “grace which justifies” “removes the state of error and evil disposition,” because it now “has something to be mindful of and to revere.”

We cannot fully discuss here Ambrosiater’s understanding of quasi in massa.[33] This much need only be stated toward the substantiation of the point of this section, that Ambrosiaster recognized the unsaved as diseased and given to a faulty epistemology.[34] He identified the grace that justifies and reigns through Christ with mercy, eternal life, and a diseased nature that changes. For he knew a salutari beneficio to justification that purified a person of evil by correcting a person’s wrong epistemological foundation.

(4) For Ambrosiaster, before Christ “every kind of covetousness worked in humankind” (Rom 7:8 §1). But for the person in Christ this condition of unsaved humanity (i.e., “a disordered state of nature”; 8:20 §1) changed. Why? He believes, “We are debtors of him who justified us, who were fouled by fleshly vices but then cleansed [ablutos] by the bath of the Spirit, who made [fecit] us children of God” (Rom 8:12 §1). For Ambrosiaster, “sinners … are restored through repentance, so that, no longer sinners but those who have been washed, [they] are deemed worthy to receive the promise” (Rom 3:5 §2). This promise is “of eternal life … through faith in Christ,” as noted in Rom 3:3 §1a. He elaborates,

The Spirit of God does not know how to sin; he was given for the purpose of justification, to justify by means of his assistance. Therefore, since he does not know how to sin, he is life.… The sinner will hurt himself, not the Spirit whom he received. Nor will the Spirit, who seeks to justify, be responsible [for a sinful life], he is the sign of justification in a person [iustificationis his est in homine], so that by that which dwells in him the justified person may appear [appareat] to be a child of God. (Rom 8:10 §§1–1a)

To summarize this fourth point, the justified are “cleansed” and “have been washed.” Because justification for Ambrosiaster had a sanative aspect, the Christian actually is able to serve God from within. The Spirit, who dwells in a Christian and who “seeks to justify,” is the sign of the cleansing “bath of the Spirit.” This Spirit is “the sign of justification in a person.” This indwelling Spirit makes the justified child of God actually “appear,” by way of their lifestyle, to be justified.[35]

John Behr understands that “the most important soteriological model which nourished [patristic theology] … was that of healing and salvation through sharing, solidarity, and exchange.” Neo-orthodox theologian Thomas Torrance had a similar perspective.[36] Given the thoughts of this section and the one preceding it, ACR may very well fit within this understanding of patristic soteriology and showcase Ambrosiaster’s explication of a justification that is more than forensic. The above view of Ambrosiaster’s doctrine of justification with its sanative, purifying element is left out by Cho’s explanation of it. If this view of Ambrosiaster’s doctrine of justification is true, the faith that justifies must also, as understood in ACR, be more than a faith that is defined strictly by forensic terms.

III. Faith As More Than Forensic

I argue in this section that Ambrosiaster’s understanding of a faith that justifies also included a faith in Christ’s incarnation and divinity which operated within a binding connection between his Christology and soteriology. This understanding of faith fitted squarely within the majority interpretation of both the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds. After establishing this viewpoint, I support this view in two subsequent sections, “Context Matters” and “Two Cases in Point.”

For Ambrosiaster sola fide has as its object more than a forensic aspect grounded in Christ’s penal substitution. The term sola fide was not extraordinary in either the Latin or Greek fathers. It was used by Origen, Hilary, Basil of Caesarea, Jerome, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Marius Victorinus, Augustine, Cyril of Alexander, and Bernard of Clairvaux.[37] Hans Küng correctly notes the question with respect to sola fide is not “the formula itself but the meaning of the formula.”[38]

In both of his articles about Ambrosiaster, Cho appropriately defends the view that “Ambrosiaster continuously presents the exegetical defense of sola fide in Latin Christianity.”[39] This is true. Cho has also helpfully connected an aspect of sola fide to Ambrosiaster’s willingness to take a “legal approach to justification.”[40] This is also true, but it is not the only way Ambrosiaster understands justification. Three examples from ACR illuminate an aspect of Ambrosiaster’s view of sola fide that had more than a forensic element to it.

(1) In his commentary on Rom 4 Ambrosiaster states, “After the apostle showed that no one can be justified before God through works of the law [lex factorum], he makes the point that not even Abraham could merit anything according to the flesh” (Rom 4:1). “Accordingly, there is no need for the law when an ungodly person is justified by faith alone before God [per solam fidem iustificatur apud deum]” (Rom 4:5 §2). “The apostle is not speaking against the law, but he gives faith precedence over the law because those who could not be saved through the law are saved by the grace of God through faith” (Rom 4:15 §1). “Those who had been sinners through transgression of the law have now been justified” (Rom 4:15 §2). “[Faith] conveys one common gift. We obtained it because we believe. Once we believe that Christ is the Son of God, we are adopted by God as children” (Rom 4:23–25 §1). Indeed, Ambrosiaster understood the ungodly to be justified by faith alone; however, one aspect of this faith by which this justification is obtained is a faith “that Christ is the Son of God.”

(2) While commenting on Rom 3:20 Ambrosiaster states,

The reason [Paul] maintains that people are in no way justified before God is not that they did not keep the law of righteousness according to its commandments, but that they refused to believe the revelation of the mystery of God, which is in Christ [sacramentum mysterii dei, quod in Christo est]. (Rom 3:20 §1; cf. §4)

Justification is explicitly described here by Ambrosiaster in terms of those who believe in “the mystery of God, which is in Christ.” That is, Ambrosiaster’s object of faith is not here forensic in nature nor is its emphasis rooted in penal substitution. Rather, he explicitly unites justification and a person’s belief in the revelation of God’s mystery, which is in Christ, the incarnate One, the Son of God.[41]

(3) For Ambrosiaster, the gospel revealed the “mystery of God,” which is Christ. The justified “discover the mystery of the creator” (8:20 §1a). Within this proclamation of “the gospel of God,” sola fide enabled the believer to both “receive forgiveness of sins and become a child of God” (Rom 1:1 §5a) in the manner of Jesus Christ, who “increased in age and wisdom [proficiebat aetate et sapientia] (Luke 2:52), which certainly befits a human being” (Rom 1:1 §3). How should we understand “become a child of God” in the manner of Christ? Ambrosiaster sets the base line for this answer in this pericope, “He who was Son of God according to the Holy Spirit … was made Son of God according to the flesh of Mary, as in the verse: And the Word was made flesh (John 1:14). As a result … he is true God, so also was he a true human being.… [God] made him visible and corporeal … so that by his passion he might wash people from sins, death having been vanquished in the flesh” (Rom 1:3 §2). By way of the incarnation (i.e., the Word becoming flesh) Jesus Christ was and is the “true human being.” Belief in the Son’s incarnation for Ambrosiaster, was, as we have seen, part of his understanding of justification by faith. Two subpoints further establish this view and answer how Ambrosiaster understood what it meant to become a child of God in the manner of Christ.

(a) Concerning the ungodly, Ambrosiaster says “a cloud of error has covered their heart” (Rom 1:21 §3; cf. 1:24 §2; 2:1). They are unbelievers, who “disregard the meaning of the law, which has to do with the incarnation and divinity of Christ” (Rom 2:23). In his commentary on 1 Tim 1:15–16, Ambrosiaster further states, “He, in order to wash man of his sins, came from heaven to earth and took the flesh of sin, mingled with earthly reality in order to render man heavenly.”[42] As is the case of those who understand salvation as theosis (cf. 1 Pet 1:4), Ambrosiaster appears to make here an indissoluble link between Christology and soteriology.

(b) Ambrosiaster states that for the unredeemed “there is a veil around the heart that one who has turned toward God will cut away (see 2 Cor 3:16), because faith removes the cloud of error and bestows perfect knowledge of God in the mystery of the Trinity” (Rom 2:28–29 §2). This “circumcision of the heart means castrating the festering wound of error [amputetur putredo error] so that, after the truth has been revealed, the heart may be able to acknowledge that God the creator is the Father of Christ Jesus.… In this way God’s truth could be fulfilled. For he had promised that he would grant mercy” (Rom 15:8 §2).[43] God’s gift of mercy is grounded in a Trinitarian faith that addresses the “festering wound” of a person’s heart.

From these three examples, we note an aspect of sola fide that had more than a forensic element to it. Yes, in ACR justification concerned the granting of “mercy” and the “forgiveness of sins.” Ambrosiaster’s understanding of a faith that justifies, it appears, also included a faith in Christ’s incarnation and divinity which operated within a connection between his Christology and soteriology. As such, it identified with two important creeds in his day, namely, the Nicene homoousios (of the same substance) that insists on an unbroken connection both between the immanent-Trinity and the economic-Trinity and between God’s being and action. Further, though Ambrosiaster’s concepts are not as developed as what would be formulated in the Chalcedonian Creed, he also emphasized the hypostatic union of the one Person, Jesus Christ—fully God and fully man (e.g., Rom 1:3 §2; 8:10 §3a)—such that God’s divine revelation had ontological reality in the believer’s life.[44]

A person in Adam “consequently” lived in a “state of sin,” for “all sinned in Adam as in a lump” (Rom 5:12 §3); however, those in Christ conform to the image of the Son, the “true human being.” By way of the doctrine of the incarnation, which Ambrosiaster likened in ACR in Johannine terms to the Word becoming flesh, he understood that the sinful nature of the justified could change. On this matter, Ambrosiaster stood both on the foundation established much earlier by Irenaeus and shoulder-to-shoulder with Athanasius.[45] Similarly in our times, the neo-orthodox views of Karl Barth reflect a comparable view. One of Barth’s adherents, Thomas Torrance, insisted that this view is biblical and paramount.[46]

The incarnation was universally understood by the Latin and Greek fathers during the first five centuries as God penetrating into space and time and appropriating humanity’s sinful nature that was alienated from God and turned in upon itself.[47] Ambrosiaster’s theology of ACR fits within this understanding. Here, Jesus Christ, by way of his oneness with God, embodied the very self-communication and self-giving of God to humanity such that salvation could take place in the inner depths of the justified person and reconciliation with God could involve the primary essence of the new human being that constitutes the new creation in Christ. Here, for Ambrosiaster, the redeemed believer, who “receives forgiveness of sins and becomes a child of God” (Rom 1:1 §5a), is so because “God has deigned to adopt human beings as his children in accordance with the model of the Son … [who] was born, not made, before all of creation” (Rom 8:29 §3). Thus understood, the atoning union between God and humanity is also an incarnational union, where, as noted in Rom 15:8 §2, the believer—once in a “festering wound of error” [amputetur putredo error]—is redeemed, healed, and sanctified by his or her union with Jesus Christ. And, Jesus Christ not only mediates reconciliation between God and humanity, but constitutes it. Minus this aspect of salvific faith that is rooted in the incarnation, Christ’s atonement is typically understood primarily by way of external, forensic concepts. This, however, was not the case for Ambrosiaster. For him, the faith that enabled the believer to “receive forgiveness of sins and become a child of God” included a belief in the “incarnation and divinity of Christ” that brought about real change.

Ambrosiaster, it appears, knew a non-forensic aspect of sola fide for the justified, namely, a “Trinitarian faith” (see also Rom 4:23–25 §§2–2a) that has as its object not only faith in the forgiving, merciful Judge but also faith in Christ’s incarnation and divinity. Unless I have misunderstood Cho, this latter aspect of faith is not explicitly emphasized within his understanding of Ambrosiaster’s view of justification. In fairness to Cho’s work on the topic, he mainly attempts “to show that Ambrosiaster virtually anticipated the Reformation understanding of justification by faith alone” with its forensic aspect of justification sola fide.[48] This forensic element is indeed an aspect of Ambrosiaster’s view of justification. We misunderstand his full understanding of justification sola fide, however, if it does not also include the opportunity for dehumanized humanity—a dehumanization that occurred in the fall—to be saved, healed, and reunited to their Creator by Jesus Christ, who is the source and embodiment of the new creation, and “the model” for the Word becoming flesh in the redeemed, who are the body of Christ. Both of these aspects of sola fide are important in ACR: forgiveness and real change in Christ. Toward this latter point, we remember Ambrosiaster’s recognition of the unsaved as diseased and given to a faulty epistemology; what begins a person’s rectification toward the imago Dei is the gift of God in Christ. A further explanation of the historical context in which Ambrosiaster wrote further supports this view.

1. Context Matters

Both the early fathers’ and the sixteenth-century European reformers’ concepts of faith were shaped by the different battles they fought. Additionally, their understandings of sola fide are best known from the creeds they birthed and their commentaries that surrounded the creeds. Like the fathers, the European reformers equally asked what God did in Christ, albeit within the context of the Roman Catholic Church’s emphasis at that time on indulgences. For these reformers, the ontological questions concerning Christ had already been decided, and with respect to the larger issues at hand this discussion was not paramount.[49] Justification sola fide, for them, did not primarily concern a faith in Christ’s incarnation, the taking upon himself the likeness of flesh to redeem humanity from within. Luther’s view of justification provided peace with God and remedied his quandary, namely, a God he could not please, a system of poenitentia (remorse, penance) he could not master. It also arguably birthed a catechetical, agonizing-euphoric, law-gospel dialectic of iustitia Dei (righteousness of God) that is first wrath then forgiveness, a Christian who is simul iustus et peccator (at the same time righteous and a sinner), and a justification metaphor that is primarily forensic.[50]

Ambrosiaster’s comments on Romans are not without evidence of an objective reading of iustitia Dei, that is, a reading of iustitia Dei as “the imputed righteousness of Christ,” as so understood by Cho. But there is more to Ambrosiaster’s view of this term. McGrath understands that Ambrosiaster knew this term subjectively, that is, as related to God’s faithfulness to keep his New Covenant promise.[51] Ambrosiaster comments, “The righteousness of God pardoned those whom the law held fast as guilty.… The law … had said long ago that this would happen, that the one who would save humankind was going to come.… What appears to be mercy is called the righteousness of God because it originates from a promise, and when a promise of God is fulfilled, it is called the righteousness of God.… This righteousness of God consists in the manifestation of Christ” (3:21 §1–3:22 §1a; so also similarly with respect to Rom 1:17 §§1–3; 10:3). Ambrosiaster, it appears, understood iustitia Dei as a plenary genitive.

For Luther, the Christian is simul iustus et peccator.[52] With respect to justification he shifted, as Volker Leppin states, “the frame of reference from ontology to eschatology,” for “he no longer viewed matter and form as essential foundations of all reality, as Aristotle had, but presented humankind, understood in future eschatological form.”[53] Calvin followed him in this perspective of justification.[54] This view of justification now represents the majority opinion within Reformed theology as the fundamental truth of the gospel.[55]

Like the reformers, Ambrosiaster’s theology exemplified both the orthodoxy and the arguments of his day; however, in contrast to the reformers, his theology was contextualized by recent encounters with Arianism and Gnosticism. Further, he wrote when Apollinarianism was raging in Eastern Europe.[56] In summary, his thoughts were infused with the concepts crystalized in the Nicene Creed and his opposition to those who resisted its theology.[57]

Yes, for Ambrosiaster and his peers, as for the sixteenth-century European reformers, the key theological issue concerned what God did in Christ. But at this juncture of the development of Christian theology, the crucial dispute for Ambrosiaster—unlike for the European reformers—was Christ’s divinity and humanity. Today’s interpreters of Ambrosiaster’s thoughts must incorporate his context, as compared to the context of the reformers, into their explication of Ambrosiaster’s view of justification. Ambrosiaster’s historical, theological context provided for him two key aspects of theology within one event: the descent and ascent of the Son as both a movement of reconciliation—where evil is defeated by the atonement of guilt and the forgiveness of sins—and a movement of revelation—where the Son’s humility reveals and makes available to the justified person the path of obedience that redeems humanity. The Christian is called to join his or herself to this Christ event—one marked by death and resurrection, self-denial and exaltation. Here for Ambrosiaster, justification is still always sola fide and not by works, but the soteriological image of a vicarious, forensic sacrifice (though not absent) is also not pitted against an incarnational, Christus Victor one. Ambrosiaster had both elements in his understanding of justification. For justification sola fide involved for him a “Trinitarian faith” and a view of soteriology that was grounded foremost in the believer’s union with Christ by way of baptism. In like manner, though minus the association of justification with baptism, Reformed theologians John Murray and Michael Horton root the ground of the “great exchange” not in justification but in union with Christ “as an umbrella motif covering all the elements in the application of redemption.”[58]

If we say with Cho, “Ambrosiaster already taught a Reformational doctrine of justification prior to Augustine,” then the thoughts of contemporary Reformed theologians, whether they represent an orthodox or neo-orthodox view of the sixteenth-century Reformation (such as Murray and Horton or Barth and Torrance), should be part of this conversation. For Murray and Horton’s “union with Christ” is akin to Ambrosiaster’s understanding of water baptism, and Barth and Torrance’s challenge of Calvin’s “as if” righteousness is akin to Ambrosiaster’s justification by faith that concerns the start of the restoration of fallen humanity to the imago Dei.[59] Cho, however, defends his view of Ambrosiaster’s “Reformational doctrine of justification” minus the evidence in ACR that would support the viewpoints of these four twentieth- and twenty-first century theologians.

Cho correctly states that for Ambrosiaster, “‘Faith alone’ in Christ brought to an end the mandate to keep both the ritual and moral law as a way of justification. All this legal liberation and justification occur only by faith.”[60] His very next sentences read,

Although Ambrosiaster does not explicitly expound the role of faith in the union between Christ and believers, all his arguments presuppose it. In his comment on Gal 1:4 Ambrosiaster refers to union with Christ by faith in an indirect way: “But Christ not only made us alive again but also united us to himself by forgiving our sins so that we would be called the sons of God by faith.”[61]

The above aspect of Ambrosiaster’s understanding of justification sola fide (i.e., as an event that is more than forensic) could explain what Cho believes Ambrosiaster “presupposes” but does not explicate, namely, the “role of faith in the union between Christ and believers.” However, this view of faith by Ambrosiaster was not strictly extra nos nor only forensic and therefore not exactly representative of Cho’s argument that “Ambrosiaster already taught a Reformational doctrine of justification.”

2. Two Cases In Point

In this third main section, I have highlighted areas within ACR that portray justification sola fide to include also as its object of faith a belief in Christ’s incarnation and divinity. I have also explained how the contextual setting of Ambrosiaster, as compared to that of the sixteenth-century European reformers, caused him to frame differently his view of the faith that justifies. Here, in conclusion of this third main section, I demonstrate that Ambrosiaster’s explication of Rom 8:1–4 and 2:14–15 supports a view that he understood justification by faith as more than forensic.

If one knows the condition of humanity before Christ as “sick,” as did Ambrosiaster, then the tendency is to know atonement through therapeutic terminology. If one knows it only in terms of “guilt” or a “violation of God’s laws,” then the tendency is to know atonement by way of language that is forensic. Ambrosiaster’s understanding of justification had both elements in it. It was driven by anthropology, the “violation of God’s laws,” and Trinitarian theology, as was the case with other fathers, for example, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine. With these fathers, Ambrosiaster additionally championed a “soteriological model … of healing and salvation through sharing, solidarity, and exchange,” where a person’s justification was recognizable!

Only through this “soteriological model,” brought about by the Christian’s union with Christ in baptism, can we understand what Ambrosiaster meant in saying, “There will be no condemnation for those who are Christians, who keep the law of God with a devout soul [devotione animi]” (Rom 8:1).[62] Who is this devout soul? Ambrosiaster continues his explication of Rom 8:1–4,

Having been discharged from the terms of the law, we have become friends of that same law. For the justified are friends of the law. But how is righteousness fulfilled in us, if not when forgiveness is granted for our sins, so that, after sins have been removed, one may appear justified [iustificatus appareat] serving the law of God with his mind?… The devout soul, which is spirit, does not consent to the wish of sin. (Rom 8:4 §§1a–2)

Perhaps Ambrosiaster could have been clearer about the law in ACR and especially so with respect to justification sola fide. Nonetheless, as in the case of his comments on Rom 8:4, he consistently understood that the Christian “in fact fulfills the law” (Rom 9:31§1; cf. 6:17–18 §§1–2). This is true, because like Christ, who shows and makes the way for the Christian to descend and ascend, believers can also now love even their enemies. When “forgiveness is granted,” a Christian’s life is such that “one may appear justified” and this “devout soul” is known as “the justified,” who is a “friend of the law.” How is this possible?

Ambrosiaster wrote, “The law of the spirit [Rom 8:2] was written spiritually on tablets of the heart … so that it may make the entire person spiritual” (Rom 7:6 §5; cf. 3:31 §3; 7:5 §2; 15:8 §1). Similarly, by way of the lex fidei (law characterized by faith) “faith in Christ [is not] inimical to the law,” but for him is foretold when “the prophet Jeremiah prophesied saying … I will accomplish a new covenant” (Rom 3:31 §§1–3). This perspective allowed for Ambrosiaster to conceive of the Gentiles of Rom 2:12–16, who “do the law,” as “Christians who are uncircumcised,” “believing Gentiles.” By their belief in Christ, they have the law transferred to their “conscience,” “mind” (conscientia, mens; Rom 2:13–14; 2:15–16 §1). For Ambrosiaster, Jesus both “demonstrated” by the cross and “taught” during his life (Rom 13:10 §2a) this “overflowing and perfect righteousness” of not hating but loving an enemy (abundans et perfecta iustitia; Rom 13:10 §1–2). He states, “This is heavenly justice” (Rom 13:10 §2a).

This interpretation of Rom 2:12–15 and Rom 8:1–4 is not typically held by those who hold to the “Reformational doctrine of justification” as described above.[63] Ambrosiaster’s forensic and sanative view of justification sola fide undergirded his understanding of Rom 2:12–16 and 8:1–4. It may also challenge a textual choice by Cho.

IV. Excursus: What About Romans 3:24 §§1–2?

Ambrosiaster writes with respect to Rom 3:24,

They are justified through his grace. (1) They are justified freely [iustificati sunt gratis], because they do nothing nor render anything in return, but they are sanctified by faith alone [sola fide sanctificati] as a gift of God. 

Through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. (2) The apostle bears witness that the grace of God is in Christ because by the will of God we have been redeemed by Christ so that we, having been set free, might be justified, as the apostle also says to the Galatians: Christ has redeemed us by offering himself for us. (Rom 3:24 §§1–2)[64]

Arguably Ambrosiaster presented here justification as the complete course of grace for a Christian and as a subsequent stage consequent to redemption.[65] However, Cho’s translation of Rom 3:24 §1 varies significantly from my above translation of it because of a variance in the text he has accepted for the first sentence of Rom 3:24 §1. He used for his text recensions α and β, which in this case are identical to recension γ except for one major distinction: in place of γ’s sanctificati, α and β have iustificati.[66] By this choice, Cho eliminated a possible conflict between his translation of Rom 3:24 §1 and his view that Ambrosiaster held a “Reformational doctrine of justification.” He translated Rom 3:24 §1 as, “They [i.e., believers] are justified freely, neither because they have labored nor because they have made a repayment, but by faith alone they are justified by the gift of God.”[67]

Cho acknowledges a “general theological unity of all three versions [i.e., recensions],” but in this instance confesses to “arbitrarily” choosing which recension he uses.[68] With respect to choosing between textual variations, the accepted wisdom is that as a rule the harder reading is preferred, the chosen recension should match the style and vocabulary of the author throughout the work, and the choice of text should best explain the origin of the other(s).[69] For those who choose recension γ of Rom 3:24 §1 (contra Cho), there is cause to substantiate all three of these reasons. If the rules are true ones, perhaps “arbitrarily” choosing between recensions is not necessary.

With respect to the first general rule of governance for the choice of a text, recension γ represents for Protestants the harder reading of the two; nonetheless, Protestants Bray and de Bruyn chose recension γ for Rom 3:24 §1. Why they did so is not specifically explained by them beyond perhaps my assumption that they have included themselves within the majority opinion that γ typically represents revisions done by Ambrosiaster.[70]

With respect to the second general rule, I have argued above that Ambrosiaster (a) presented in his commentary on Romans a sanative aspect to justification; (b) explained both justification and sanctification to have occurred freely by the Spirit; (c) did not maintain a strict division between justification and sanctification. Further, Ambrosiaster states,

To complete our justification [nobis iustificationis proficeret], when the Savior arose, he invested his commandments with authority (see Matt 28:20) so that by following them we might grow in the qualities through which we, having attained glory, may shine radiantly in the kingdom of God based on the pledge that we who have been justified cannot be held by death [qua iustificati a morte teneri non possumus]. (Rom 4:23–25 §§2a–3)

One notes here that iustificati is a perfect passive participle. That is, an understanding here of iustificati as a past event with ongoing ramifications is within reason. This is especially so if Ambrosiaster’s phrase “to complete our justification” indicates how the reader is to interpret this participle. Cho is correct, Ambrosiaster rejects “good works as a causative element to justification.”[71] In the above quote of Rom 4:23–25 §§2a–3 Ambrosiaster’s use of the perfect passive participle iustificati in tandem with his mention of what is necessary “to complete our justification” does not violate this perspective on good works, for his understanding of the entire salvific event is sola fide. Conceivably Ambrosiaster understood his use of sola fide sanctificati in Rom 3:24 §§1–2 as parallel to his thought of Rom 4:23–25 §§2a–3. If this is true, the phrase sola fide sanctificati of Rom 3:24 §1 γ may represent the initial purification of the heart (i.e., regeneration) where the truth of what is accomplished for those justified becomes a full reality sola fide as the Christian pilgrimages to that day. Keeping in mind the viewpoints presented in this point and the above three main sections of this study, we see that Rom 3:24 §1 γ does conceptually match the style and vocabulary of Ambrosiaster. Therefore, with Metzger’s second rule in mind, it is possible to consider γ as a textual option for Rom 3:24 §1.

With respect to the third general rule of governance for the choice of a text, Ambrosiaster’s tendency to revise his commentary on Romans toward the thoughts of the Nicene Creed may support a change of iustificati to sanctificati in Rom 3:24 §1. Theodore de Bruyn completes his thirty-four-page section, “The Transmission and Editions of the Commentary,” with this conclusion:

Unless there are strong reasons to suspect an interpolation, it is best to proceed conservatively and begin by assuming that additional comments introduced into a later version are from Ambrosiaster. It is to be expected that the process of revisions would not be seamless, particularly if Ambrosiaster is emphasizing a difficult or disputed point or if he is reacting to the view of others.[72]

De Bruyn has further wisdom to share: He admonishes the exegete to “proceed conservatively” when making textual choices, which is very different from Cho’s “arbitrarily.” Elsewhere de Bruyn also states, “Ambrosiaster was aware of contemporary developments in trinitarian theology, to the point of introducing new terminology [in his recensions] to express the coeternal and consubstantial divinity of the Holy Spirit.”[73] The change of iustificati in Rom 3:24 §1 recensions α and β to sanctificati in recension γ is not unjustifiable within this view of Ambrosiaster’s editorial process, for this possible revision by Ambrosiaster emphasizes the Spirit’s place within the economic Trinity. It is additionally justifiable when this possible revision by Ambrosiaster factors in his theological, Nicene context as described especially in the third full section of the present study.

In sum, Metzger’s advice on which recension to use bolsters Bray’s and de Bruyn’s choice of text for Rom 3:24 §1 γ over Cho’s Rom 3:24 §1 α and β. It may also clear up Nick Needham’s confusion about Bray’s translation of Rom 3:24 §1.[74]

V. Conclusion

Like most church fathers, Ambrosiaster linked Christology and soteriology to provide pastoral and practical advice. To that end, he understood the descent and ascent of the Son, which provided salvation by way of a “Trinitarian faith,” as both a movement of reconciliation and a movement of revelation. He knew this salvific event—which included a forensic, sanative aspect to justification—as grounded in the sacrament (sacramentum) of baptism that established the catechumen’s union in Christ and began new creation life. For Ambrosiaster, this sacramentum outwardly displayed an inward reality: the seed of Christ is planted in the believer’s heart sola fide in the sacramentum mysterii dei quod in Christo est; the Christian, who is dead in Christ and has the law written on his heart, now rises to walk in newness of life.

Ambrosiaster further believed that by “the incarnation of the Son of God for the salvation of humankind” (Rom 1:2 §3) Jesus Christ became the “true human being” (Rom 1:3 §2). The Son became a man in order to reconstitute humanity’s infirm condition and provide a pathway of grace sola fide into a radical new way of living for the justified by way of the new creation that reunited God and a person. As noted, Cho correctly highlighted several aspects of Ambrosiaster’s understanding of justification; however, this above summarized view of Ambrosiaster’s understanding of justification appears by this author to be absent in Cho’s rendering of it.

Notes

1. Joshua Papsdorf, “Ambrosiaster’s Theological Anthropology” (PhD diss., Fordham University, 2008), 3–23.
2. Ambrosiaster, Ambrosiaster’s Commentary on the Pauline Epistles: Romans, translated with notes by Theodore S. de Bruyn, with an introduction by Theodore S. de Bruyn, Stephen A. Cooper, and David G. Hunter, Writings from the Greco-Roman World 41 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017), xxxi. Henceforth ACR. Unless otherwise noted, references from Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Romans are quoted from ACR. The same format used in this book to note paragraph divisions is adopted in this article. On rare occasions very slight modifications from ACR are made to accommodate placement in a sentence. Italicized words within these quotes from Ambrosiaster’s commentary are original. In this article, the Latin behind these English translations is given for two reasons: (1) to enhance the reader’s comprehension of what is translated in ACR; (2) because I have slightly altered the English translation found in ACR.
3. Maurice Wiles, The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles in the Early Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 11.
4. Gerald Bray, introduction to Commentaries on Romans and 1–2 Corinthians, by Ambrosiaster, ed. and trans. Gerald Bray, Ancient Christian Texts (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), xix.
5. David Hunter, “Fourth Century Latin Writers: Hillary, Victorinus, Ambrosiaster, Ambrose,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. Frances Young and Lewis Ayres (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 309. So also noted by Gerald Bray, “Ambrosiaster,” in Reading Romans Through the Centuries: From the Early Church to Karl Barth, ed. Jeffrey P. Greenman and Timothy Larsen (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005), 21.
6. Within Protestantism, see Alexander Souter, A Study of Ambrosiaster, Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905); Thomas Oden, The Justification Reader, Classic Christian Readers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); Bray, “Ambrosiaster”; Daniel Williams, “Justification by Faith: A Patristic Doctrine,” JEH 57 (2006): 649–67. Within Catholicism, see Robert Eno, “Some Patristic Views on the Relationship of Faith and Works in Justification,” in Justification by Faith, ed. George Anderson, Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue 7 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985), 111–30; Johannes Quasten, “Ambrosiaster,” in The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature, vol. 4 of Patrology (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1986), 180–89; Desmond Foley, “The Christology of Ambrosiaster, Part 1,” MilS 39 (1997): 27–47; Desmond Foley, “The Christology of Ambrosiaster, Part 2,” MilS 40 (1997): 31–52.
7. Dongsun Cho, “Ambrosiaster on Justification by Faith Alone in His Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles,” WTJ 74 (2012): 277–90; Dongsun Cho, “Divine Acceptance of Sinners: Augustine’s Doctrine of Justification,” Perichoresis 12 (2014): 163–84.
8. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 290.
9. Cho, “Divine Acceptance of Sinners,” 163.
10. Cho, “Divine Acceptance of Sinners,” 167; cf. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 281.
11. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 277–81.
12. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 278, 283–84.
13. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 281.
14. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 281. See, for example, ACRRom 1:11 §2; 1:16–17; 3:24 §1; 4:5 §§2–3 (3x); 2:12 §1a; 3:24 §1; 9:28; 10:8 §2; 11:32 §1.
15. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 290. See also Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 298–99; Michael Horton, “Traditional Reformed View,” in Justification: Five Views, ed. James Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011), 83–111.
16. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 284. So also Cho, “Divine Acceptance of Sinners,” 167. For John Calvin, righteousness “is not in us” but rather by way of a forensic understanding of justification imputed to us “as if it were our own” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960], 3.11.23 [p. 753]).
17. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 284–85; Cho, “Divine Acceptance of Sinners,” 164–67.
18. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 285, 290; see also Horton, “Traditional Reformed View,” 105–11; John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 152–53. With respect to Calvin’s duplex gratia, see Calvin, Institutes, 3.16.1 (p. 798); also John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947), 277 (comment on 8:2).
19. Alexander Souter, The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul (Oxford: Clarendon, 1927), 80; Eno, “Some Patristic Views,” 115–17; Quasten, “Ambrosiaster,” 187–89.
20. Steven A. McKinion, ed., Life and Practice in the Early Church: A Documentary Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 5–7.
21. McKinion, Life and Practice, 6.
22. Latin excerpts are taken from Ambrosiaster, Commentarius in epistulas Paulinas (ad Romanos), ed. Heinrich J. Vogels (CSEL 81/1). In Rom 4:8 §4, ACR does not have the word “because”; however, by way of “quia” in all three recensions of this text (α, β, and γ), my insertion of “because” is not unreasonable in this sentence: “… quae ex dono baptismatis consequimur, quia non solum remissionem peccatorum accipere nos, sed et iustificari et filios dei fieri profitetur …”
23. Joseph Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, eds., The Apostolic Fathers, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 203, 257–58, 276; John Behr, The Way to Nicaea, vol. 1 of Formation of Christian Theology (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 34–35; Nick Needham, “Justification in the Early Church Fathers,” in Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges, ed. Bruce McCormack (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 34–35.
24. For variations of a typical Reformational understanding of ordo salutis, which includes regeneration, faith, repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, see A. T. McGowan, “Justification and the ordo salutis,” in Justification in Perspective, 147–63.
25. Sinclair Ferguson, “Ordo salutis” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. David F. Wright, Sinclair Ferguson, and J. I. Packer (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1988), 480; Bruce Demarest, The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 36–40; Simon Gathercole, “The Doctrine of Justification in Paul and Beyond: Some Proposals,” in Justification in Perspective, 219–41.
26. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 284.
27. Cho, “Divine Acceptance of Sinners,” 180.
28. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 284; italics added.
29. Bray, “Ambrosiaster,” 26.
30. Bray, “Ambrosiaster,” 28.
31. See, for example, Rom 1:29–32 §3a; 5:21 §§1–1a; 6:15 §§1–2; 8:15 §1.
32. I have translated enim in this quote as “that is to say” instead of de Bruyn’s “once.”
33. Ambrosiaster states, “All sinned in Adam as in a lump [quasi in massa] … corrupted by sin … all sinners derive from him, because we are all from him” (5:12 §3); see also Rom 7:14 §2–4; 8:3 §2; 9:21 §1; 11:16. Ambrosiaster’s understanding of anthropology is most recently discussed in Papsdorf, “Ambrosiaster’s Anthropology.”
34. How Ambrosiaster believed this faulty epistemology was corrected is further expounded by what follows.
35. For similar thoughts associated with abluō (wash, purify), see Rom 1:3 §2; 1:7 §2; 4:13 §1; 6:4 §§2–3; 6:5; 12:1–2 §1a.
36. Behr, Way to Nicaea, 75; Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 62.
37. Hans Küng, Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection, trans. Thomas Collins (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1964), 281; Needham, “Justification,” 29–30, 40–41.
38. Küng, Justification, 281.
39. See, for example, Cho, “Divine Acceptance of Sinners,” 165.
40. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 284.
41. For more on Ambrosiaster’s perspective of “the mystery of God, which is the mystery of Christ,” see Rom 1:1 §§1–5a; 1:16 §§1–4; 10:9–10 §1; and Cooper, introduction to ACR, lxxxi–xcvi.
42. CSEL 81/3:256–57, as quoted in Foley, “Christology of Ambrosiaster, Part 1,” 30.
43. With one minor exception, this quote is from Ambrosiaster, Romans and Corinthians, 109. I have translated amputetur putredo error as noted, replacing ACR’s “cloud” with “wound”—a translation more consistent with the use of nebus (cloud) elsewhere in Ambrosiaster’s comments on Romans (e.g., Rom 1:21 §3; 2:28 §2); putredo is used only here in ACR.
44. See also Foley, “Christology of Ambrosiaster, Part 1”; Foley, “Christology of Ambrosiaster, Part 2.”
45. Irenaeus states, “The word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, through his transcendent love, became what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is himself” (Irenaeus, preface to Against Heresies, Book 5 [ANF 1:526]). Athanasius, On the Incarnation, ed. John Behr, Popular Patristics 44a (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 19–25, 69–73, 167.
46. Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1992), 113. See also Torrance, Incarnation, 56–82, 105–81. Barth’s and Ambrosiaster’s views of natural law differ (cf. Rom 3:20 §4).
47. Torrance, Mediation, 10, 39–40.
48. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 281, 282–90.
49. For both Luther and Calvin, righteousness “is not in us” (i.e., it is extra nos), but rather by way of a forensic understanding of justification it is imputed to us; see Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 1535: Chapters 1–4, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Luther’s Works 26 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1963), 234; Calvin, Institutes, 753. See also Volker Leppin, Martin Luther: A Late Medieval Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 122–23; and Dennis Biefeldt, “Ontology” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Martin Luther, ed. Derek Nelson and Paul Hinlicky (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 1–21, which suggest further development of this idea, given the recent research by the Finnish School on Luther.
50. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 280.
51. Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 72.
52. This phrase has been interpreted differently over the last 500 years. For a current, well-researched discussion of simul iustitia et peccator in light of the Joint Declaration between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation on the doctrine of justification (JDDJ), see Timo Laato, “Simul Iustus et Peccator Through the Lenses of Paul,” JETS 61, no. 4 (2018): 735–66 (cf. Carl Trueman, “Simul peccator et justus: Martin Luther and Justification,” in Justification in Perspective, 73–98). Laato states, “The notion of simul iustus et peccator genuinely renders the core of the Pauline soteriology and anthropology”; for Laato, it means “Christians are ‘sinners (on account of evil desires) and righteous (for the sake of Christ) at the same time’” (pp. 764, 766). As argued here, this view of simul iustus et peccator as understood by Laato is not contrary to the statements found in ACR; neither Luther nor Calvin, however, would consistently define justification in sanative terms nor ever as related to a work of Christ in nobis (in us).
53. Leppin, Martin Luther, 122–23; also Phillip Cary, “Luther and the Legacy of Augustine,” in Remembering the Reformation: Martin Luther and Catholic Theology, ed. Declan Marmion, Salvador Ryan, and Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 37–54. This view is clearly annunciated in Martin Luther, “The Disputation Concerning Justification, 1536,” in Career of the Reformer 4, ed. H. T. Lehman, trans. Lewis Spitz, Luther’s Works 34 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960), 145–96.
54. Karla Wübbenhorst, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Justification: Variations on a Lutheran Theme,” in Justification in Perspective, 99–118; Joel Edward Kok, “The Influence of Martin Bucer on John Calvin’s Interpretation of Romans: A Comparative Case Study” (PhD diss., Duke University, 1993), 1–4, 169–74.
55. McGowan, “Justification,” 163.
56. Bray, “Ambrosiaster,” 24.
57. Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti 97, 122 (CSEL 50:171–87, 369), as referenced by de Bruyn, introduction, lxxvii n. 2, lxxxiv n. 31. Unmarked phrases and concepts from this creed are scattered prolifically throughout ACR, for example, in Rom 1:1 §§2–3; 1:3 §2; 7:5 §1; 8: 3 §1; 8:7 §2; 8:29 §3; 9:33 §2–3; 10:9–10; 14:11 (so also understood by de Bruyn, introduction, lxxxii–xxxiii; lxxxvii n. 40).
58. Michael Horton, Justification, New Studies in Dogmatics 1 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 40; cf. John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 170; for a list of others, see Horton, Justification, 37. So also Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), xxix–xxxiii.
59. For example, Barth understood Rom 8:4a to include the creation of the “existential new man (Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans, 6th ed. [New York: Oxford University Press, 1968], 282). Further, Barth states, “There is no room for any fears that in the justification of man we are dealing only with a verbal action, with a kind of bracketed ‘as if,’ as though what is pronounced were not the whole truth about man. Certainly we have to do with a declaring righteous, but it is a declaration about man which is fulfilled and therefore effective in this event, which corresponds to actuality because it creates and therefore reveals the actuality. It is a declaring righteous which without any reserve can be called a making righteous” (Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Part 1, ed. G. W. Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley, CD IV/1 [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010], 95 [4.1.58.2]).
60. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 285.
61. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 285.
62. Recension α translates Rom 8:1 as “keep the law of God from the heart [animo],” recension β as “keep the law of God conscientiously [sollicite].” All three of these recensions (recension γ is quoted above) conditionally identify the state of “no condemnation” with the inner being of a person. Arguably Ambrosiaster’s Latin version of Romans was the Vetus Latina (Old Latin) referred to as I-type (de Bruyn, introduction, lvii n.1). In the case of Rom 8:1 the Vetus Latina mirrors the NA28, which in most English translations reads, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” The Vulgate added the phrase “qui non secundum carnem ambulant” (who do not walk after the flesh).
63. For example, for Douglas Moo these Gentiles are “very unlikely” Christians, and the “man” in Rom 2:27 is an “allusion” (Moo, Romans, 150, 174); so also Stephen Westerholm, Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 41. For Thomas Schreiner, Rom 2:15 references non-Christian Gentiles, but 2:27 denotes a reference to actual Gentile Christians, who have a “new heart” (Thomas Schreiner, Romans, BECNT 6 [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998], 137–45).
64. This translation is my own but is almost identical to that of de Bruyn and Bray. It is based on recension γ for 3:24 §1 (ACR, 69; Ambrosiaster, Romans and Corinthians, 29).
65. So also understood by de Bruyn, Cooper, and Hunter, introduction to ACR, xcvii–cxiv.
66. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 281n21. The first sentence of recension γ for 3:24 §1 reads, “Iustificati sunt gratis, quia nihil operantes neque vicem reddentes sola fide sanctificati sunt dono dei.”
67. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 281.
68. Cho states, “I follow Papsdorf’s position on the general theological unity of all three versions even when I have to choose one of the three arbitrarily” (“Ambrosiaster,” 282n21).
69. Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 207–10.
70. Recension γ (early to mid 380s) represents a later recension than α and β (late 370s to early 380s).
71. Cho, “Ambrosiaster,” 288.
72. de Bruyn, introduction to ACR, lv.
73. Theodore de Bruyn, “Ambrosiaster’s Revisions of His Commentary on Romans and Roman Synodal Statements about the Holy Spirit,” REAug 56 (2010): 45–68.
74. Needham states, “For some reason, in Bray, 101, the first occurrence of the phrase justificati sunt in this passage has been translated ‘justified’ whereas the second has been translated ‘made holy.’ This obscured Ambrosiaster’s meaning. Perhaps the translator was working from a variant text” (Needham, “Justification,” 40n44).