St. Josemaria And The Fourth Commandment

H/t to Kevin Clarke.

Ambrosiaster And Sola Fide

It has recently been brought to my attention that some Protestants are under the impression that the Church Father commonly called Ambrosiaster (due to his works having been mistaken for Ambrose’s up until the seventeenth century) was a proto-Lutheran in that they claim he taught the doctrine of salvation by Faith Alone (Sola Fide). 

Now, did Ambrosiaster use the phrase, Sola Fide? Sure. Did he mean by the phrase, Sola Fide, what Martin Luther and these Protestants mean by Sola Fide? I would argue in the negative.
 

I think the best place to show this would be to examine the verse in Scripture that Luther based his whole doctrine around—Romans 3:28:

“For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart

from the works of law.”

Luther took this verse and argued that what Paul is saying here is that man is justified (saved) by Faith alone and not at all by any kind of works (including good works, which includes upholding the Moral Law, i.e. the Ten Commandments, and upholding Christ’s commandments in the Sermon on the Mount. More will be said on this later).  I would argue that Ambrosiaster understands Paul correctly and Luther does not.

Ambrosiaster was a master of the Old Testament and the Jewish Laws. He had a keen insight on how the New Testament fulfills the Old, which enabled him to be an exegete of Paul that rivals the likes of Chrysostom, Augustine, and the Tyconius the Donatist. So if we want to understand how Ambrosiaster interprets Paul, we must look at the context of what Paul is saying here in and around Romans 3:28.

The Ten Commandments: An Echo Of The Creation

“The words ‘God said’ appear ten times in the creation account. In this way the creation narrative anticipates the Ten Commandments. This makes us realize that the Ten Commandments are, as it were, an echo of the creation; they are not arbitrary inventions for the purpose of erecting barriers to human freedom but signs pointing to the spirit, the language, and the meaning of creation; they are a translation of the language of the universe.”

-Joseph Ratzinger, ‘In the Beginning…’

The Ten Commandments And Free Will

In Hebrew, a negative command is not given by negating an imperative, but rather it is done by use of two constructions:

al + jussive
or:
lo + the imperfect

The lo + imperfect construction expresses a general prohibition, whereas the al + jussive construction expresses a more emphatic and immediate negative command.

Now with this knowledge of Hebrew syntax in mind, when we look at the Ten Commandments given in Exodus 20 and later in Deuteronomy 5, we see that they are given with the lo+ imperfect construction instead of the expected al+ jussive construction which carries more force. Why is this? Is God merely suggesting that we don’t do these things? “I’d really like you not to kill or steal, so if you would please not do it that would be great. Thanks.” I don’t think so. I think there is something much greater going on here which reveals the true glory and love of God. God does not bark out the command like an angry drill sergeant, forcing us by all means to obey Him. Instead, God has given us free will. He tells us that we shall not steal, kill, commit adultery, etc. as a general prohibition, but He does not force us to obey. That would deny us our freedom and it would negate love. Love is a free act of the will. We are given the free choice to reject God or to obey and thus love Him. Now, I am not by any means suggesting that there are not any repercussions for not obeying the 10 Commandments. Free will comes with responsibilities and consequences for actions. If we fail to obey the Commandments there are surely punishments for not doing so. It is the same for any child that does not do the will of his father. But God will not force us to obey. That is the key. As the Baltimore Catechism teaches, God made us so that we would “know Him,…love Him, and…serve Him in this world, and…be happy with Him for ever in heaven.” We cannot love God if we are forced to do so. That is the very antithesis of love. It is coercion. And that is why God gave us free will; so we could freely love and serve Him in this world in order to be happy with Him in the next.