Free English Translation
Fragment of a Book on Noah's Ark
Fragmentum Libri de Arca Noe
~1 min read · by Ambrose of Milan
About Fragment of a Book on Noah's Ark
This brief fragment is all that survives of a work on Noah's Ark attributed to Ambrose of Milan, preserved among his writings though separated from the rest of the treatise it once belonged to. It argues that Christ alone stands righteous before God, since every other descendant of Adam inherits the guilt and mortality that followed the fall, while Christ, born of a Virgin, was never bound by that common condition. Citing the Psalmist's confession of being conceived and born in sin, the fragment insists that only one never subject to inherited guilt could be called truly without sin, in contrast to the more qualified praise given to earlier, faithful figures.
By Ambrose of Milan. Collected in Patrologia Latina, Volume 14.
Through the one Lord Jesus, he says, the salvation that was to come to the nations is declared; he alone could be righteous, when every generation had gone astray, since, born of a Virgin, he was in no way held by the condition of a guilty generation. Behold, he says, in iniquities was I conceived, and in sins did my mother bear me, says he who was thought just above the rest. Whom then shall I now call just, except him free of these bonds, whom the bonds of common nature do not hold? All are under sin from Adam, over all did death reign. Let him alone come just in the sight of God, of whom it is no longer said with exception: He sinned not in his lips, but: He did no sin.
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