Ambrosiaster’s Second Thoughts about Eve

Ambrosiaster followed closely the controversies inside the church of Rome at the end of the fourth century. That most of his work survived in two—sometimes three—versions helps the scholar follow the evolution of his thoughts as he pondered over his teaching, adjusting it to the preoccupations of the day. We propose here to explore a change of mind that he had about the virginity of Eve in Eden by comparing texts that belong to one or the other of his compilations of Quaestiones. Texts such as Qu. u. test. 40 and Qu. n. test. 58, belonging to Ambrosiaster’s neglected collection of 150 questions are in striking contradiction with longer, better-known texts, such as Qu. test. 127 “On the Sin of Adam and Eve,” which belongs to the collection of 127 chapters. On this single topic, Ambrosiaster’s thinking underwent some significant changes.