For The Benefit Of Souls

Ita ut elegit nos in ipso ane constitiutionem mundi, ut essemus sancti.. Ergo mysterio quod hic implevit, et carne, et cruce, et morte, et resurrectione, subventum est animis: etsi in Christo fides sumatur, ille suscipit hujusmodi animas et adjuvat et liberat. Christum enim credere, et in Christum fidem sumere, jam spiritaliter sentire, et jam tolli a desideriis carnalibus et materialibus: et ex hoc veluti cognatio intelligendi nos jungit et sociat Christo: et dum Christo sociaverit, inquit, et Deo. Per Christum enim Deo jungimur, neque spes ulla salutis nostrae nisi Christum credere. Hoc est spiritaliter jam sentire, et capere sensum, et mundi et materiae motibus non exagitari: quibus omnibus homo totus in spiritu vero est, et ex hoc jam in Christo est vita: cum autem in Christo vita est; jam mysterio acto a Christo recipimur, et per Christum in numerum filiorum suscipimur a Deo, spiritales facti, ut nos quoque de mundo resurgamus et de morte per Dei voluntatem, sed in Christo tamen. Hoc enim et nunc, et saepe et ubique praecipitur, ut in Christo tota sit vita nostra, tota spes, totus intelligendi labor. Omnis enim ratio aeternitatis nostrae et gloriae et salvationis, et Christus est, et in Christo est, si projicientes omnia spiritaliterque sentientes, separemus a nobis mundanas cogitationes, mundanos affectus, carnalia quodammodo desideria, carnales dignitates, carnales potestates, et mundi etiam velle potentias vel dignitates. Omne enim quidquid mundanum est, licet coeleste sit in mundo etiam vel aetherium vel quodlibet aliud divinum nominatur secundum mundum et aeternum, sed secundum mundum tamen, neque divinum est neque aeternum est; etenim materiale: et quicquid materiale est, et temporale est et caducum et corruptibile. Victorinus Afrus, In Epistolam Pauli ad Ephesios, Liber Primus, Caput I Source: Migne PL 8.1240c-1241a

Thus He chose us before the establishment of the world, so that we would be holy... 1 Therefore in a mystery He fulfills it, and the flesh and the cross and the death and the resurrection were for the benefit of souls. Even if we have taken up faith in Christ, He is the one who takes up souls and helps and frees them. For to believe in Christ and to take up faith in Christ is to understand spiritually, and so to be taken from carnal desires and things. And from this, with a certain likeness of understanding, we are joined and associated with Christ, and while we associate with Christ, he says, it is also with God. For it is through Christ that we are joined to God, and there is no hope of salvation unless to believe in Christ. This is to understand spiritually, and to grasp the sense, and not to be troubled by the changes of the world and matter, because of which the whole man becomes truly spiritual, and through this there is now life in Christ, and when there is life in Christ we are received by Christ in mystery, and through Him we are taken up into the number of the sons of God, having been made spiritual, so that we also rise up from the earth and from death by the will of God, but in Christ. Indeed here and now, and often and everywhere, it is exhorted that our whole life, our whole hope, the whole work of our understanding, should be in Christ. For every cause of our eternity and glory and salvation is Christ, and is in Christ, if advancing in all spiritual understanding we separate ourselves from worldly thought, and from worldly loves, and from every carnal desire and honour and power, and every office and dignity of the world. For everything worldly, even if named celestial, ethereal, or divine, is named according to the world and eternity, but according to the world there is nothing divine nor anything eternal, for matter, and whatever is of matter, is transient, and passes away and is corruptible. Victorinus Afrus, On the Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, Book One, Chapter One 1 Ephes 1.4