Sententia Ex Epistola Beati Pauli Ad Romanos

Sentences From the Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul to the Romans, set forth by the holy and most illustrious doctor of the Church, Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, and arranged in order from his works. I. Who was born to him from the seed of David according to the flesh. II. That he may be the father of circumcision and the father of believers through the foreskin. III. Therefore, just as through one man condemnation comes to all men, so also through one man justification comes to all men. IV. For what do we pray as we ought, the world. V. Who did not even spare his own Son. VI. Likewise concerning the same. VII. I myself wished to be an anathema from Christ for the sake of my brothers. VIII. Whose fathers, and from whom Christ according to the flesh, etc. IX. The depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! A. Everything that is not from faith is sin. XI. So that through patience and the consolation of the Scriptures we may have hope.

(From the books Against the Phantasms.) Therefore, at the head of the Lord's generation, Scripture so often commemorates David, so that when the truth about the author is manifest, no doubt can remain about the offspring. For, to say nothing of that which in the Gospels two blind men cried out with one voice of consonant faith: "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David" (Matt. 15:22), knowing that one born from the patriarch was rightly believed to be a man, and nevertheless fruitfully beseeching the merciful God for the health of their eyes: who explains this more clearly than the blessed Paul? "Set apart in the Gospel," he says, "of God, as he had before promised in the holy Scriptures through his prophets concerning his Son, who was made for him from the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:1-2). He asserted a twofold nature with a full description: one in which, according to divinity, he is the maker of all things, and another in which he was made from the seed of David according to the flesh. In neither of these substances can any suspicion of a phantasm be found; because just as the divinity which was bending down from heaven was invisible in itself, so the truth of Christ's flesh, descending from the stock of David, could have nothing deceptive: which flesh is traced back not only through his ancestors to David, but through David himself all the way to Adam, with the express naming of parents.

And therefore the Apostle says that he is from the seed of David according to the flesh, so that when he set forth that he was consubstantial with his mother, from whom he certainly also took death; since a phantasm can neither be born nor die, but its beginning is to be excluded, and its end to have vanished. II. (From the books Against the Phantasm.) Abraham is the author of both Testaments, etc., as in letter 2, column, up to father of many nations. III. (From the books Against the Arians.) I declare that Abraham, Moses, and the prophets are not only saved, but also most blessed, and I prove that they were saved only through Christ, with the Lord Himself saying in the Gospel: "Your father Abraham desired to see my day; he saw it and rejoiced" (John 8:56). Concerning Moses: "If you believed Moses, you would certainly also believe me. For he wrote about me" (John 5:46). Likewise concerning the prophets: "How many prophets yearned to see what you see, and to hear what you hear" (Matthew 13:17)! And in another place in the Gospel, the Lord Himself, touching upon all these things which I have recounted individually, says: "That all things written in the law, and the prophets, and the psalms about me might be fulfilled" (Luke 24:42). You, moreover, consider whether those who so manifestly are known to have written about Christ believed in Christ. For the Apostle Paul, setting forth that those who were saved before the birth of Christ were redeemed in Christ, defines the whole matter thus: "Just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are brought to life" (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Just as no one perishes except through the old Adam, so no one is acquired except through the new. IV. (From the books Against the Arians.) Because we do not know how to pray as we ought (Rom. 8:26), it must be held firm and fixed among us that whatever the Omnipotent has not done, remains that he does not will. (From a sermon on the sixth day of Easter.) After the flashing of the bright cloud, the sweet and terrible voice of the eternal Father thunders over the Son: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him" (Luke 17:5). Indeed, all of us, as the Apostle says, are sons of God (Gal. 3:26), and in prayer we presume to cry out, "Our Father, who art in heaven." But it is one thing to be a son of whom it is proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son." For him to have a father as a son, will did not precede generation; but we, through whom we are made sons, receive birth in the font. And therefore any man can be a son of God, and can also not be. Hence the evangelist John says that "He gave them the power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name" (John 1:12); so that he may either remain a son by living well, or certainly reject paternity through carnal living. But Christ, whom the Father's grace did not make a Son, but nature, can in no way not be what he was begotten: so much so that not even that which was born from man would prejudice that substance which proceeds from God.

VI (From the books Against the Phantasm.) If all these things are accepted as true, etc., as in the letter (col. 216, c), up to: how did he not spare, if pain prevented? VII (From the sermon on the Birthday of the Chalice.) In the affection for any things whatsoever, not deeds but vows are to be considered; and thanks are to be given more to God, who most readily uses the pious man for good even among the wicked, than to the abominable one who unwillingly benefits the good. For although our Joseph’s mere exile made him a prince, piety does not praise the seller. The holy apostle Paul (Rom. 9:3), simply content to be an anathema from Christ for the sake of his brothers, is crowned even for the brothers he had won, besides his own labors; Judas, on the contrary, because he persecuted Christ not out of love for his brothers, became an anathema from Christ. VIII (From the book on the Divinity of Christ.) Isaiah, the most clear-voiced of the prophets, etc., as in the letter (col. 245, b), up to: which I had with you, before the world was made.

IX. (From the books Against the Arians.) "O," he says, "the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who was his counselor? Or who gave to him first, that he might be repaid? Since from him, and through him, and in him are all things: to him glory for ever and ever" (Rom. 11:35). Therefore, the depth of wisdom and knowledge belongs not to the Father alone, but to God, in whom you acknowledge the person of the Son also to be; of whom there was no counselor, nor did any investigator know his mind: how much less does he who, to the highest who admits no increase, also directs the reproach of diminishment? since the Apostle himself sighs for the unsearchable depth of God on account of bodily weakness. But who gives to God first, that he might be repaid, except he who gives a beginning to the Creator, (so that he himself might seem to have recovered his own beginning from a kind of commenced substance of God?) Here, indeed, one is named, one God is set forth. Certainly, if otherwise, since from him, and through him, and in him are all things, if these, as you wish, belong to three, say now to whom "to him glory for ever and ever." If to three, why not "to them"? If "to him," to which of the three? Certainly, let it be as you wish, the substance of majesty is tripartite: why did he not say "from him through another in a third," except insofar as the one named is himself in three? concerning whom the Apostle in another place: "And he himself," he says, "is before all things, and all things in him" (Col. 1:17).

Moreover, if, as you have said, all things consist in the Holy Spirit, and He Himself is before all things, lest He begin to be after many things, He will not be a creature, and since He was not a creature, He will owe no service, and it remains that He be God, if He is not a servant: and He who is not understood to be subject to service by reason, let it be believed that He rules in truth. (From the letter Against Faustus.) That faith is the foundation of all spiritual goods, etc., as in letter A (col. 221, c), up to "our spirit, not nature, is the witness." XI. (From the books Against the Arians.) With a free response I profess that, with God inspiring the minds of His own, the brightness of truth shines far and wide. For that apostolic saying, which you often repeat, suffices to be known in the Redeemer: because if you confess the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom. 10:9). Yet in such a way that His divinity is understood to have restored life to the crucified man together with the Father. As He Himself testifies in the evangelist John: "I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again" (John 10:18). Moreover, it is by no means sufficient to believe rightly concerning the man Christ alone, unless you also join a Catholic understanding concerning the Divinity. For the Photinians also assert that Christ died and was resurrected.

And since the most wicked blasphemy of theirs in this matter is also detested by the judgment of your law as well as ours; if you say that the assumed man perished and was revived only by the power of the Father, I ask what you then condemn in the professions of the aforementioned plague, when our Lord Himself, as is read, by His own will raises the temple dissolved by adversaries? Which temple this is said of is certainly evident, since the restoration of the temple, returning to its former state within two days, clearly sets forth the resurrection of the Lord’s flesh, which His divinity had inhabited as a temple. Therefore the same Son of God, God, who could not die, revived the dead man, and restored the temple dissolved by hostile hands to the divinity which had assumed it, consolidated again into the unity of the person. XII. (From a sermon on the Rogation Days.) The most blessed Paul says that through patience and the consolation of the Scriptures we ought to have firm hope (Rom. 15:4); since all Christians, then especially those to whom it is given in this world either to suffer persecution for God, or to be troubled for love of the truth, or to be pricked by the pilgrimage of this life.