Handing Over To Desire

Propter quod tradidit illos Deus in desideria cordis illorum, in immunditiam, ut contumeliis afficiant corpora sua in semetipsis. Quoniam, inquit, ad injuriam creatoris Dei figmenta et similitudines rerum deificaverunt, traditi sunt illudendi; et traditi non ut illa agerent quae nolebant, sed ut illa perficerent, quae desiderabant. Et hic bonitas Dei est, cum enim dignum fuisset subjici illos, ut facerent quae nolebant et cruciarentur; quia licet bonum, si contra voluntatem fiat, amarum et malum est. Isti autem avertentes se a Deo, traditi sunt diabolo. Tradere autem est permittere, non incitare aut immittere; ut ea quae in desideriis conceperent, adjuti a diabolo explerent in opere: nec enim possent hujusmodi bonum cogitatum habere. Ambrosiaster, In Epistolam Ad Romanos, Caput Primum Source: Migne PL 17 59b-c

'On account of which God handed them over to the desires of their hearts, into uncleanliness, that they treat their bodies disgracefully among themselves.' 1   Because, he says, to the injury of God the creator they deified figures and the likenesses of things, they were handed over to foolishness, and handed over not that they do what they do not wish, but that they do what they desire. And here is the benevolence of God, who could have subjected them that they do what they do not wish to do and be grieved, because a good, if it is done against the will, is an evil and bitter. These, then, turning themselves away from God are handed over to the devil. And to hand over is to permit, not to incite or drive into, that these things which they have conceived in desire, joined to the devil, they fulfill in works, for they are not able to have one good thought. Ambrosiaster, On The Epistle To The Romans, Chapter 1 1 Rom 1.24