Ambrosiaster

In his own words on Wisdom of Solomon

• Wisdom of Solomon 1:4

  "The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness." The apostle declares that the bodies of those who have been abandoned by the Holy Spirit are dead because of sin, yet their experience of death does not touch him, that is, the Spirit. In fact, the Spirit of God does not know how to sin: he is given for justification and to justify by his help. Because he does not know how to sin, he is life, and he certainly cannot die, given that death is a result of sin. It is for this reason that the sinner harms himself, but not the Spirit whom he has received. The Spirit certainly cannot be affected—he whose purpose it is to justify. Thus, the sign of a person's justification consists in this: that through the one who lives in him, the justified one shows himself to be a child of God. In fact "not in a false person or in a body enslaved to sin" can the Holy Spirit live, as Solomon says. Certainly, if one returns to a carnal life, abandoned by the Holy Spirit, he will die in his unrighteousness.

  ON THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS 8:10

• Wisdom of Solomon 1:13

  How then does the same Solomon say, "God did not make death," when in another place he says, "Good and evil, life and death, poverty and honor are from God"? (Wis. 1:13; Eccles. 11:14) There is no doubt that all good things are from God, but the evils which He has said are only evils, since vengeance is taken upon us. For punishment, although justly inflicted, still seems evil to the one who suffers it. For God also speaks to sinners through the prophet, saying, "I will bring evils upon you," (Jer. 11:11) that is, "I will subject you to punishments." But life and death are therefore from God, because He gave the law, which promises life to those who keep it, but death to those who despise, though that which is called the second death. For in judging each one what he deserves, from Him is either absolution unto life or guilt unto death. Therefore, He is not the inventor of death, but the judge, because the author of death is sin. How then could God, who knows not how to sin, make death? But when He repays sins, death is said to be from Him, though it is not from Him, but from the one who sinned. By the same reasoning, poverty and riches are from God. For some, having the fear of God, despise luxury, flee wasteful living, and do not turn away their eyes from the needy and the poor: such persons increase good things. For it is written in Proverbs, "Discipline takes away poverty and dishonor" (Prov. 13:18). But those who do not have the fear of God, living more carelessly and despising the needy, as it is written, "in need He shall deliver"; (Ps. 72:12) are not only negligent and foolish toward themselves, but also despise of the law given them. In this way God made the poor and the rich: because while the violation of the law produces want, He is said to do it as the author of the law; and when some, through fear, keep the discipline of the law, they are made rich by God, the author of the law.

  Questions on the Old and New Testaments, PL 35

• Wisdom of Solomon 11:17

  In Wisdom, it says, He who created the world from formless matter: and on the other hand, because we were made from nothing (Wis. 11:18, and Gen. 1:2). That God created confused substances at once, the sense of the Scriptures declares, with darkness, indeed, mingled. He called this confusion of things, that is, air, fire, water, earth, darkness, formless matter, as it is read in Genesis: But the earth was, he says, invisible and unformed (Gen. 1:2). From this confusion therefore He created the world by the established firmament, so that within it, with the waters gathered together into one, there might be a dwelling place for the human race. For the substances having been distinguished and separated, He made in the hollow a habitable home.

  Questions on the Old and New Testaments, PL 35

• Wisdom of Solomon 15:17

  "And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of the image of corruptible human beings." Their heart was darkened to such a degree that they transferred the majesty of the invisible God, whom they knew from these works, not to human beings but, a worse and unpardonable crime, to the likeness of human beings. They thus call the image of the corruptible human being—the likeness of a person—god. In this way they attribute the glory that belongs to God to images of dead people, to whom they would not dare to give this name while they were alive. What dullness, what foolishness, calling themselves wise to their own condemnation. In their eyes, the image is more powerful than truth, and the dead are better than the living! Indeed, separating themselves from the living God, they serve the dead. In this category are those of whom it is written in the Wisdom of Solomon, "The dead person forms a dead work with his wicked hands." The Wisdom of Solomon says this about this kind of person.

  COMMENTARY ON THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS 1:22-23