Gaius Marius Victorinus — Commentary on Scripture

1 Corinthians 2:2

It was the incarnate Word who accomplished the mystery of our salvation. It was he who freed us and redeemed us. We believe in him who is our Savior through the cross and through his resurrection from the dead.

AGAINST ARIUS 1A

1 Corinthians 15:28

Therefore God is also Being, both existing and substance, although he is above all that because he is the Father of all. We should not be afraid to use the word substance of God, because when words are lacking to describe the highest realities, it is not inappropriate for us to take terms borrowed from what we do know and understand and use them in this special sense.

AGAINST ARIUS 2.2.2

Ephesians 1:1

When Jesus Christ elected Paul and made him an apostle, he elected him through the Spirit by the will of God or the power through whom God works his will. Let us therefore understand, as I often say, that the will of God is the very power, greatness and substance of the whole divine plenitude. Christ—that is, God’s Word which was in Christ—is the will of God. Those who consider this more closely will find that God and his will are inseparable.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.1

Ephesians 1:1

In other letters when he writes to a church and its people he does not add “to the saints and the faithful.” But now, because he desires to keep them loyal to the holy Name, so that being sanctified they will not add anything superficially in excess of the Name, he calls them simply by this name: they are the faithful “in Christ.”

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.1

Ephesians 1:2

Both grace and peace remove contention. They convey the will of God. Since therefore they were in the grip of error, grace was first sought on their behalf, in order that they should know God and fully obey God and Christ, putting all trust in Christ and nothing else.… Then he also adds “peace from God.” The one who wills ungraciously creates severe discord.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.2

Ephesians 1:5

God in his love has predestined us to adoption through Christ. How could God possibly have Christ for his Son by adoption?… We speak of ourselves as heirs of God the Father and heirs through Christ, being sons through adoption. Christ is his Son, through whom it is brought about that we become sons and fellow heirs in Christ.

AGAINST THE ARIANS 1.2

Ephesians 1:6

We, being such as we are, are surrounded and held fast by vice and libidinous sin. When we are set free by him, acquitted of sin and pardoned for our sins, we are also adopted as his sons. All this is therefore to the praise of his glory and grace—his glory because he can do so much, and his grace because he offers this to us freely.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.(4) 5-6

Ephesians 1:8

The riches of God are heaped upon us in that he makes us something better than we were at the beginning of our existence.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.8

Ephesians 1:9

The whole of this wisdom and prudence consists in knowing Christ and through Christ understanding and seeing God. For whatever remaining wisdom there is in the world and whatever other wisdom of this kind there may be outside it, all wisdom and prudence is nonetheless empty, worthless and wretched without Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.8

Ephesians 1:9

Not only has God a will, but the intention of his will is expressed in Christ. Hence all things are done through him. There is nothing in the mystery that is not done through Jesus Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.9

Ephesians 1:10

It is not all things indifferently that are restored but all things that are in Christ—both those that are in heaven and those that are on the earth but only those that are in Christ. Others are strange to him. Whatever things then are in Christ, it is these that are revitalized and rise again, whether in heaven or in earth. For he is salvation, he is renewal, he is eternity.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.10

Ephesians 1:12

First the believer is enabled to hope in Christ, that is, follow Christ and believe that all Christ’s promises can be fulfilled. Only then will the consequence be that he will live for the praise of the glory of God.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.12

Ephesians 1:15

He now moves on to specific exhortations for the Ephesians, and at the same time he warns them not to entertain contrary ideas. He first expresses himself generously: “having heard,” he says, “of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” For this is the sum of things, this is virtue, this is the mystery, that there should be faith in Christ Jesus. This faith also encourages one to love all the saints, all who have faith in Christ and have been sanctified through him. Thus one who is faithful in Christ loves the saints.… “Therefore I also, having heard of your faith, love you.”

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.15

Ephesians 1:16

Every prayer that we offer up to God is made either in thanks for what we have received or in petition to receive something else. We are encouraged to pray both for ourselves and for those we love. So Paul says, “I make mention of you in my prayer.” “Therefore my chief prayer is first on my account, then on yours.”

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.16

Ephesians 1:18

Let us understand that we arrive at the full mystery of God by two routes: We ourselves by rational insight may come to understand and discern something of the knowledge of divine things. But when there is a certain divine self-disclosure God himself reveals his divinity to us. Some may directly perceive by this revelation something remarkable, majestic and close to truth.… But when we receive wisdom we apprehend what is divine both through our own rational insight and through God’s own Spirit. When we come to know what is true in the way this text intends, both these ways of knowing correspond.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.17-18

Ephesians 1:21

Because he is the fount and the origin and the principle in everything that moves, Christ was therefore set “above all authority and above all power.” Authority is one thing, power another. Authority is expressed in action. Power is expressed in the capacity to act. A potential act may exist not as present fact but as the present possibility of something. But since Christ is himself the origin of all and is in all that is possible, he is “above all power.” Since he is the source of all acts and authority is expressed in actions, he is therefore said to be “above all authority.”

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.20-23

Ephesians 1:21

All names are secondary inventions. They primarily point to that which is in the created order, whether it be angels, human beings or temporal powers. By contrast, only that is eternal in essence which has existence without dependency upon something else that exists, which lives by its own power. That which is eternal has no name in itself. Such “names” are added by us with our vocabulary and language. Christ receives these names from us (Son of God, divine, Spirit), yet he is still more than whatever these names convey.… Among names, the name that holds the chief place and that from which all names come is that which the Greeks call Being itself. But Christ is above this very being and is therefore above every name.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.20-23

Ephesians 1:23

All these statements about the magnificence and power of Christ have this purpose: To prove that nothing further is to be received, no other thought required to complete the revelation. The Ephesians are therefore in error if they add anything further and introduce anything from the teaching of the Jews or of the world.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.20-23

Ephesians 1:23

Christ is the fullness of the church. This entire fullness is in process of being filled up. At one stage everything which is being filled is made empty. So Christ was emptied or emptied himself. Having recovered all things again through the mystery of salvation and saved the full number of souls, Christ is filling all in all.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.1.20-23

Ephesians 2:1

Death is understood in two ways. The first is the familiar definition—when the soul is separated from the body at the end of life. The second is that, while abiding in that same body, the soul pursues the desires of the flesh and lives in sin.

EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 1.2.1-2