{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/203/2030668.htm","path":"chr/ecf/203/2030668.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030668.htm","text":"30. But let us proceed in our study of these Commentaries; otherwise, in dwelling too long upon a few special points, we may be prevented from taking notice of the greater number. In the same book and the same passage 2874 are the words \u201cTo the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ.\u201d His comment is:\n\u201cIf it had been simply said \u2018We have trusted in Christ,\u2019 and there had not been the prefix \u2018before,\u2019 which stands in the Greek \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b7\u03bb\u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2, the sense would be quite clear, namely, that those who have hoped in Christ have been chosen in due order 2875 and have been predestinated according to the purpose of him who orders all things according to the counsel of his own will. But, as it stands, the addition of the preposition \u2018before,\u2019 compels us to explain it according to the same ideas which we argued in a former place to be necessary for the explanation of the passage, \u201cWho hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him:\u201d namely, that God had blessed us before in heaven with all spiritual blessing, and had chosen us before the world was framed; and that thus we are said to have hoped in Christ \u2018before,\u2019 that is, in the time when we were elected and predestinated and blessed in heaven.\u201d\nReading \u2018sorte\u2019 as in the Comm. itself.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. III: Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus.: \u201cHopers\u201d and \u201cfore-hopers.\u201d","type":"page"}