47. [XLI.]—Sentences from Ambrose in Favour of Original Sin.

And now that we are about to bring this book to a conclusion, we think it proper to do on this subject of Original Sin what we did before in our treatise On Grace,256    See above, De Gratiâ Christi, 49–51 (xlv., xlvi.).—adduce in evidence against the injurious talk of these persons that servant of God, the Archbishop Ambrose, whose faith is proclaimed by Pelagius to be the most perfect among the writers of the Latin Church; for grace is more especially honoured in doing away with original sin. In the work which the saintly Ambrose wrote, Concerning the Resurrection, he says: “I fell in Adam, in Adam was I expelled from Paradise, in Adam I died; and He does not recall me unless He has found me in Adam,—so as that, as I am obnoxious to the guilt of sin in him, and subject to death, I may be also justified in Christ.”257    Ambrose’s De Exc. Sal. ii. 6. Then, again, writing against the Novatians, he says: “We men are all of us born in sin; our very origin is in sin; as you may read when David says, ‘Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.’258    Ps. li. 5. Hence it is that Paul’s flesh is ‘a body of death;’259    Rom. vii. 24. even as he says himself, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ Christ’s flesh, however, has condemned sin, which He experienced not by being born, and which by dying He crucified, that in our flesh there might be justification through grace, where previously there was impurity through sin.”260    Ambrose’s De Pœnitentia, i. 2, 3. The same holy man also, in his Exposition of Isaiah, speaking of Christ, says: “Therefore as man He was tried in all things, and in the likeness of men He endured all things; but as born of the Spirit, He was free from sin. For every man is a liar, and no one but God alone is without sin. It is therefore an observed and settled fact, that no man born of a man and a woman, that is, by means of their bodily union, is seen to be free from sin. Whosoever, indeed, is free from sin, is free also from a conception and birth of this kind.”261    Quoted from a work by St. Ambrose, On Isaiah, not now extant. Moreover, when expounding the Gospel according to Luke, he says: “It was no cohabitation with a husband which opened the secrets of the Virgin’s womb; rather was it the Holy Ghost which infused immaculate seed into her unviolated womb. For the Lord Jesus alone of those who are born of woman is holy, inasmuch as He experienced not the contact of earthly corruption, by reason of the novelty of His immaculate birth; nay, He repelled it by His heavenly majesty.” 262    See Book ii. 56. of this Commentary on St. Luke, ch. ii.

CAPUT XLI.

47. Sed jam etiam istum conclusuri librum, oportere arbitramur, ut Ambrosium antistitem Dei, cujus inter latinae linguae scriptores ecclesiasticos praecipue Pelagius integerrimam fidem praedicat, sicut de gratia fecimus , ita et de peccato originali, in quo delendo ipsa gratia evidentius commendatur, calumniosae istorum loquacitati respondere faciamus. In eo opere quod scripsit de Resurrectione sanctus Ambrosius: «Lapsus sum,» inquit, «in Adam, de paradiso ejectus in Adam, mortuus in Adam: quem non revocat nisi me in Adam invenerit, ut in illo culpae obnoxium, morti debitum, ita in Christo justificatum» (Lib. de Fide Resurrectionis). Item scribens contra Novatianos ait: «Omnes homines sub peccato nascimur, quorum ipse ortus in vitio est, sicut habes lectum, dicente David, Ecce in iniquitatibus conceptus sum, et in delictis peperit me mater mea (Psal. L, 7). Ideo Pauli caro corpus mortis erat, sicut ipse ait: Quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus (Rom. VII, 24)? Christi autem caro damnavit peccatum, quod nascendo non sensit, quod moriendo crucifixit; ut in carne nostra esset justificatio per gratiam, ubi erat ante colluvio per culpam» (Lib. 1 de Poenitentia, cap. 2, vel 3). Item idem 0410 ipse cum exponeret Isaiam prophetam loquens de Christo: «Ideo,» inquit, «et quasi homo per universa tentatus est, et in similitudine hominum cuncta sustinuit: sed quasi de Spiritu natus abstinuit a peccato (Hebr. IV, 15). Omnis enim homo mendax (Psal. CXV, 2); et nemo sine peccato, nisi unus Deus. Servatum est igitur, ut ex viro et muliere, id est, per illam corporum commixtionem, nemo videatur expers esse delicti. Qui autem expers est delicti, expers est etiam hujusmodi conceptionis» . Item cum exponeret Evangelium secundum Lucam: «Non enim virilis coitus,» inquit, «vulvae virginalis secreta reseravit, sed immaculatum semen inviolabili utero Spiritus sanctus infudit. Solus enim per omnia ex natis de femina sanctus Dominus Jesus, qui terrenae contagia corruptelae immaculati partus novitate non senserit, et coelesti majestate depulerit» (Lib. 2, n. 56, ad cap. 2).