Grace And Salvation

Et vos cum essetis mortui delictis et peccatis vestris, in quibus aliquando ambulastis secundum saeculum hujus mundi... Totus hic sensus jugendus est, et de Ephesiis quod in peccatis fuerint, et de se ipso quod Paulus in desideriis carnis et in consiliis carnalibus fuerit. Illis, inquam, omnibus, jugendum est illud quod Deus, qui dives in misericordia, salvos omnes fecerit, et ipsum Paulum, et Ephesios. Sic enim concludit, cujus gratia estis salvi facti, cum ambularetis mortui delicitis; et vos cum ambulaveritis mortui delictis et peccatis vestris. Frequenter monui, mortem duplici modo accipi, illam unam notam, cum fine vivendi in mundo anima separatur a copore; aliam, cum in ipso corpore constituta, desideria carnis agit atque in peccatis vivit. Vos, inquit, cum essetis mortui: et designavit mortis genus, delictis et peccatis vestrs, in quibus aliqunado ambulastis secundum saeculum hujus mundi. Ostendit quae sunt peccata, scilicet desideria in mundo, de mundo, divitiarum, vel voluntatis vel scientiae mundanae, vel religionis de mundo, et caetera hujus mundi quae animam perdunt errantam a scientia veritatis. Quod autem dixit saeculum hujus mundi, sunt enim et superiora, et illa saecula aeterna, quae quomodo intelligantur, et quam significantiam habeant, aliis a me libris est replicatum. Saeculum hujus mundi autem omnis regio mundana, vel omnis mundus, in mundo motus rerum tempus faciens et involvens. Non eodem modo saeculum in aeternis est: esse autem aeternorum saecula, etiam Paulus declaravit, et omnes prophetae: siquidem dicitur et frequentur dicitur benedictus Deus in saecula saeculorum. Etenim saeculum finitur; saecula autem saeculorum, et de aeternis et in aeternum sunt. Victorinus Afrus, In Epistolam Pauli ad Ephesios, Liber I, Cap II Source: Migne PL 8.1252d-1253b

And you when you were dead in your errors and in your sins, in which you walked according to the age of this world... 1 One should join together all the meaning here, both regarding the Ephesians, that they were in sin, and concerning Paul who was in the desires of the flesh and the counsel of it. Then to all these one must join God, who is rich in mercy and would save everyone, 2 Paul himself and the Ephesians. So indeed it concludes that by His grace you have been saved, 3 when you were walking dead in your errors, and when you had walked dead in your errors and sins. I have frequently given the warning that death should be understood in two ways, that one is to be noted in the separation of the soul from the body at the end of this life in the world, and the other is when in the body a man works the desires of the flesh and lives in sin. 'You,' he says, 'when you were dead,' and then specifies the type of death, 'in your errors and your sins, in which you were walking according to the age of this world,' He reveals what sins are, that is, the desires of the world, and for the world, the wealth of it, either the wish for or the knowledge of worldly things, or for the cults of the world, and the rest of the things of this world which ruin the soul, which is a wandering from the knowledge of the truth. Whence he says 'the age of this world', for there are greater things, even the eternal ages, and how they should be understood, and what signficance they have, I have treated in other books. For the age of this world is every part of the world, or the whole world, in which world time makes and unmakes amid the changes of things. But in no way is it the age of eternity. And what the ages of eternity are, even Paul has declared and all the prophets, as it is said, and frequently, 'Blessed be God in the age of the ages.' Indeed the age ends, but the age of the ages speaks of eternal things which are in eternity. Victorinus Afrus, On the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, Book One, Chapter Two 1 Ephes 5.13 2 cf Ephes 1.7 3 Ephes 2.4-5