Ambrosiaster 1 Corinthians

Christian Alexander

The first comprehensive Latin commentary on Paul's thirteen epistles was written by an unidentified person known only as Ambrosiaster ("Star of Ambrose"). I am aware that he passed away in 397 AD. I would need further information on his analysis on 1 Corinthians. Commentaries on Romans and 1-2 Corinthians (Ancient Christian Texts) is a book that I considered purchasing. If someone has this book and could quote any of his commentary on 1 Corinthians, that would be great. 

MJ. Smith

I would need further information on his analysis on 1 Corinthians. Commentaries on Romans and 1-2 Corinthians (Ancient Christian Texts) is a book that I considered purchasing.

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1When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Earlier in the letter, Paul gradually showed us the shape of our faith, but now he demonstrates that he preaches it to others in no other way than the one he has just used with the Corinthians, because he has spoken to them about the mystery of Christ in speech that was humble and in preaching that was “foolish” in the world’s terms. What Paul calls the mystery here is that which was incarnate, what had been hidden from all ages with God, is God the Word. Heretics played fast and loose with these things and preached their wicked doctrine with great eloquence. Following the wisdom of the world they emptied Christ’s cross of its power. They did not preach that Christ was born of a virgin, nor that he was truly crucified, because it seemed foolish to say such things. The apostle John also refers to such people when he says: Whoever denies that Christ has come in the flesh is antichrist, and whoever denies the Son, denies the Father also. These heretics claimed that the Father was himself called the Son as well, and Marcion got his error from them. He preached secret doctrines, not revealing what they really meant, but wanting them to be understood according to the wisdom of the world, which is hostile to true faith. Paul wants us to figure out the things he was attacking from the judgment he passes on them. He shows that everything the world laughs at as foolish in our faith could be found in the Corinthian church. He refers to the body because the function of each of its members can be worked out by considering the whole. These things were clear enough to the Corinthians, of course, because they were not unaware of what they were being censured for.

3And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling;

By preaching Christ in what appeared to be folly to human wisdom, Paul provoked hatred and persecution against himself, because he appeared to be proclaiming something which was nonsensical and hostile to Jews and Gentiles alike.

4and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

Paul shows that he had no desire to flatter human wisdom or cultivate the art of rhetoric merely to gain the approval of men. Rather he has been faithful to his Master, who wanted his teaching to gain acceptance, not by the appeal of human tradition or by the clamor of words, but by the deeds themselves, because deeds speak louder than words. The deeds may be phrased in words which seem weak when put alongside power, and perhaps they seem foolish to the wise of this world, but God did not want his gospel to be preached by the witness of mere words. He wanted it to go out in power, so that what people think is the foolishness of the Word may show by its actions that it is wisdom founded on the reasoning of the Spirit.

Ambrosiaster, Commentaries on Romans and 1-2 Corinthians, ed. Thomas C. Oden and Gerald L. Bray, trans. Gerald L. Bray, Ancient Christian Texts (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2009), 126–127.

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12“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything.

By all things Paul presumably meant those things which are contained in the natural law and which were also lawful for his fellow apostles. It would not refer to the law of Moses, because Moses forbade many things owing to the hardness of heart of an unbelieving and stiff-necked people. But if you look more closely, you will see that there was something else in the apostle’s mind which caused him to say these things. He is really introducing the matter before dealing with it in detail, just as he introduced the case of the man committing incest with a preliminary remark indicating what he was going to treat later on. Then he gets right back to his earlier train of thought, once he has brought the matter up. The reason he said this was because he was permitted to receive payment from them, but because he knew that the false apostles were looking for any excuse to be paid, he did not accept anything for fear that, out of a desire to satisfy the stomach, the power of the truth of the gospel would become slack. If Paul were to receive payment from the people whom he was rebuking for such serious sins, he would undermine the magisterial authority which the Lord had granted him. You cannot go on rebuking people who are paying you, especially if they pay up quickly in order to shut you up. This is why Paul adds that he will not be enslaved by anything.
Some people think that it was on the basis of the freedom to take decisions which had been given to him that the apostle Paul said this. In other words, it might be all right for him to indulge in sexual immorality, but it was not helpful for him to do so! But how can what is forbidden ever be lawful? Of course, if everything is lawful, nothing can be called unlawful in principle. But it is lawful without being helpful—they whisper this rather than assert it openly, because they are either forgetful [of the law] or negligent [in complying with it]. As John the Baptist said to Herod: It is forbidden for you to take your brother’s wife. Can it be that John, inspired though he was in the womb, lacked human eloquence, because if this line of reasoning is correct, what he should have said was: You can do it but it is not helpful. Similarly, the Lord said to the Canaanite woman: It is not lawful to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs. And he also said to the Jews: Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, how he went into the house of God and took the loaves of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to take?4 Everything therefore, which is forbidden, is unlawful, and everything which is not forbidden is permitted, but there are times when, for some other reason, it is not helpful.

Ambrosiaster, Commentaries on Romans and 1-2 Corinthians, ed. Thomas C. Oden and Gerald L. Bray, trans. Gerald L. Bray, Ancient Christian Texts (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2009), 146.