The following are taken from Stephen Andrew Cooper, Marius Victorinus' Commentary on Galatians (Oxford Early Christian Studies; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005):
Gal 3:27 and Baptismal Regeneration
For whosoever of you
has been baptized in Christ has put on Christ (3: 27). This means you are sons of God
in Christ. What is the sense of the phrase in Christ? That whosoever is
baptized in Christ is now a son of God. For whosoever is baptized, is baptized
into Christ; and one who has been baptized in Christ has put on Christ. For
whosoever is baptized has Christ and is now in Christ, in so far as he has
Christ. In so far as he has Christ, he is a son of God, because Christ is Son
of God. (p. 299)
Gal 5:4 and True Believers Losing their
Salvation
You
have been evicted from Christ, you who are justified in the Law; you have been
cut off from grace (5:4). For the whole power of
anyone believing in Christ rests in the grace of God. Grace, however, is based
not on one’s merits, but on God’s mercy. Therefore, you are not cut off from
grace, if you set your justification in the Law, as seems to be the case,
since you are labouring at works, since you are observing the sabbath and
getting circumcised. If you believe yourselves to be justified from that, you
have been cut off from grace, and you have been evicted from Christ. For
if you believe that justification comes from the Law, you no longer have any
hope from Christ; you are not hoping there would be grace for you in accordance
with his passion and resurrection. (p. 329)
Evacuati
estis a Christo, qui in lege iustificamini; a gratia excidistis. Omnis enim cirtus in Christum credentis in
gratia est dei. Gratia autem non ex meritis, sed ex dei pietate est. Ergo iam a
gratia excidistis, si in lege iustificationem vestram ponitis, ut quia operibus
servitis, quia sabbatum observatis, quoniam circumcisi estis. Si exinde
iustificari vos creditis, excidistis a gratia et evacuati estis a Christo. Iam
enim non a Christo spem habetis neque secundum eius passionem et resurrectionem
speratis gratiam vobis, si a lege iustificationem creditis advenire. (Marii
Victorini Opera, Pars II: Opera Exegetica [Corpus Scriptorum
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Editum Consilio Et Impensis Academiae Scientiarum
Austricae LXXXIII, Pars 2; Vindobonae: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1986], 159)
On ex dei pietas, Cooper noted the following:
ex dei pietas. Whereas pietas in classical Latin bespeaks the reverential attitude and actions of a son toward a father, of a people toward the gods, of citizens toward the state, in Christian Latin the term came to be used for God’s loving kindness toward humanity. See Cyprian’s reference to the story of the prodigal son in Ep. 35, 23: ‘how much more is that one true father good, compassionate, and merciful (pius)—or rather, is himself goodness, compassion, and mercy (pietas).’ Augustine notes in the City of God that one encounters this improper use of the word among the common people: (more . . . vulgi) to refer to works of mercy, and that this usage is to be traced to the fact that God has commanded such works (10. 1; CCSL 47, 273, 77-82). Victorinus used such language on Eph. 1:18, speaking of the pietas dei, the ‘mercy of God’ which ‘receives us in adoption’ (Gori, 22, 57). His remarks on Phil. 4:6 contain a similar usage: ‘what we would give thinks because we have obtained so great a gift by God’s mercy’ (tantum donum dei pietate; Gori, 220, 17). (Cooper, Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians, 329 n. 131) (cf. Can a Believer Ever Fall from the (Salvific) Love of God?)
Gal 5:6 and “faith working through love”
For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but faith which works
through love counts (5: 6). Everywhere Paul states that when it comes to faith, all else
ceases to count. This means social status, gender, or anything done that
concerns the body, whether about, on, or for the sake of the body:
circumcision, works, and other practices of this sort. None of these, he says,
counts as anything in Christ. Therefore, circumcision is useless, although it
is not as if we count as anything in Christ on the basis of our uncircumcision.
Because we have taken up faith in him, because we believe his promises, and
because we ourselves rise up on the basis of his resurrection, and as we have
suffered all things with him, we also rise with him—though through him—to life,
our faith is sure. Through this faith comes our working for salvation; and it
behooves us to take it on through the love which we have for Christ, for God,
and hence toward every person. For these two have the greatest corrective
effect on every life, fulfil the whole force of the Law, and contain all those
things which are precepts in the Decalogue—if it follows of necessity that
those who keep faith would uphold love. These two fulfil all that the law of
Christ teaches. I have dealt very often with these matters: that faith
liberates and love builds up. (pp. 330-31)
On the phrase, "Through this faith
comes our working for salvation; and it behooves us to take it on," we
have the following footnote:
per quam fidem operatio fit ad
salutem et per caritatem accipere nos oportere. The object of the verb accipere (‘to
take [it] on’) is unspecified. Gori (CorPat, 287) judges it to be the
‘salvation’ just mentioned, with the sense that we ‘receive salvation’ (at the
judgement) through our works of love but not because of them. (This would fit
Victorinus’ insistence in his comment on the previous verse that the eternal
life attained is not based on works or merit, which at any rate must be
understood as the presupposition behind the whole discussion.) However, the
unspecified object of accipere could also be ‘our working’ (operatio),
which I think renders a better sense along the lines clarified in his
discussion of Phil. 2: 12–13 (KJV: ‘Therefore, he says, work out your
salvation, but this very working is none the less from God. For God works in
you, and works that you would will thus [sc. as in the lemma, pro bona
voluntate]; and the will is ours, as it were (et velle quasi nostrum est),
whence we work out salvation for ourselves. None the less, because this very
will from God works in us, it happens that we have both working and will on the
basis of God’s activity (fit ut ex deo et operationem et voluntatem habeamus)’
(Gori, 195, 26–31). In line with this, his point on Gal. 5: 6 is that the faith
inspired by God produces love for God, Christ, and the neighbour. Thus faith
and love fulfil the law of Christ, as he states in the conclusion of this
comment. (Ibid., 330 n. 155; on Phil 2:12-13, see Another
Refutation of Mike Thomas on Soteriology)
