Blessings And Suffering

Deinde subjunxit causam, quomodo benedictus qui nos, inquit, benedixit in omni benedictione spiritali in coelestibus. Hic hominium miserandus error attendat, benedictos nos dixit et in omni benedictione benedictos: ergo nihil mali pati debet qui benedictus est. Sed quid adjunxit? Id est in omni benedictione spiritali, non carnali. Quod si quid hic in mundo patimur malorum, si quid etiam extra, non adscribamus Dei, sed nobis magis. Tunc enim benedictionem consequimer si spiritales simus, et spiritaliter sapiamus, et spiritalia bona quaeramus. Et potest quidem fieri ut haec omnia sentiamus; nec obsit, si haec et alia sentientes, patiamur tamen aliquid adversi in mundo. Namque multi spiritaliter agentes, spiritaliter viventes, multi substinent adversa, ut Paulus, ut Petrus, ut caeteri. Verum ubi est illa benedictio, quae nos benedictos facit? Dei benedictio: non spiritali tantum benedictione, sed in coelestibus, id est cum ex hoc mundo exierimus. Ergo ferenda sunt omnia, quia quae nobis promittuntur ex Dei benedictione, et spiritalia sunt in coelestibus sunt, id est extra mundum supra caelos. Et haec tamen omnia, sicuti dicit, in Jesus Christo: ipse est enim spiritus. Et spiritalia cum promittuntur in Christo promittuntur: et nos tunc consequemur spiritalia, si Christum sequemur. Victorinus Afrus, In Epistolam Pauli ad Ephesios, Liber Primus Source: Migne PL 8.1238a-b

Then he adds the reason, how He has blessed us, saying, 'He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.' 1 Here a woeful error may attend men, that when he says He blesses us with every blessing, that therefore he who is blessed should not suffer any evil. But what does he add? That it is with every spiritual blessing, and not then carnal. That if we suffer evils here in the world, if indeed it is from without, we should not ascribe it to God but rather to ourselves. Then indeed we attain the blessing  if we are spiritual, and we think spiritually, and we seek spiritual goods. And it is possible that pondering all these things we are not harmed, if thinking of these things and other things, we suffer something adverse in the world. For many being spiritual, living spiritually, endured many adverse things; so Paul, so Peter, so others. Truly where is that blessing with which he makes us blessed? The blessing is of God. Not only a spiritual blessing, but in the heavens, that is, when we have gone from this world. Therefore we must bear everything, because those things promised to us from the blessing of God are the spiritual things in the heavenly places, that is, outside the world, and beyond the skies. And yet all these things, as he says, are in Jesus Christ, and therefore we will achieve spiritual things, if we follow Christ. Victorinus Afrus, On the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, Book One 1 Ephes 1.3