The Ancient Witnesses

244 • The Ancient Witnesses: A Journey to Discover Our Sacred Roots

Mentor: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ambrosiaster: So we must give thanks to God who has given us his grace to recall sinners to life even when they were not looking for the true way. 31 Marius Victorinus: The Apostle explains plainly that there ought to be faith on our part, but that we ought to believe only in Christ. For if this salvation is ours in this way alone, we have not been saved by our merit but by the grace of God. 32 Chrysostom: On the other hand, so that our free will is

not impaired, he mentions our part in the work: faith. Yet, he cancels the work again by adding “this is not from yourselves.” For faith is not of ourselves: If he had not come, if he had not called us, how would we have believed? As he says elsewhere, “how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? So even the work of faith is not our own. 33

31 Ambrosiaster, Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon , in Gerald Bray, Ambrosiaster, Ancient Christian Texts, page 40.

32 Marius Victorinus, Commentary on the Letter to the Ephesians , Book 1, 2:8. Published in Stephen Andrew Cooper, Metaphysics and Morals in Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on the Letter to the Ephesians (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), 67.

33 Rom. 10:14. Paraphrase of Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians , Homily IV (NPNF I.13, 67).