Who also has made us able ministers of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 3:6 Go To 2 Corinthians 3
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Rightly, then, does Paul say that “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” The letter circumcised a small part of the body, but the understanding spirit keeps the circumcision of the entire soul and body so that chastity might be preserved, frugality loved and the unnecessary parts cut off (for nothing is so unnecessary as the vices of greed, the sins of lust, which did not belong to nature but which sin has caused). Bodily circumcision is the symbol, but the reality is the spiritual circumcision; the one cuts off a member, the other sin. Letter , To Clementianus.
