Pierre Allix

“ The truth of an angel and that of man are both derived from the same fountain, that is, from one and the same eternal Truth and Wisdom. For by a pure effect of that eternal Wisdom it comes to pass, that the power of God, and that unchangeable Wisdom consubstantial and coeternal with the Father, hath vouchsafed, in order to the accomplishment of the adorable mystery of our salvation, to take our human nature upon him, that he might teach us, that we owe our adorations to him who alone deserves to be worshipped by all intelligent and rational creatures. ”

“ If he suffered with an equal mind the scourge due for the sins of others, this teaches us what a subject ought to do when under the Divine corrections; when he who is equal to the Father gave thanks to him when under his scourges: For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for you all, for the remission of sin; because he assures us, that the bread becomes his body, and that the wine doth operate and produce his blood in the flesh. The bread represents to us his mystical body, and the wine is the symbol of his blood. ”

“ Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: under the pretense of which words the stupid and ignorant common people, destitute of all spiritual knowledge betake themselves to Rome, in hopes of acquiring eternal life: for the ministry does belong to all the true superintendents and pastors of the Church, who discharge the same, as long as
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they are in this world; and when they have paid the debt of death, others succeed in their places, who enjoy the same authority and power. ”

“ But Jesus Christ having suffered in the flesh that was capable of suffering, and being raised from the dead, the time is come that hath put an end to these legal and figurative observations: all those things that were observed according to the letter, have been changed into a spiritual sense, and have been confirmed in the new testament by the grace of the Holy Ghost. Jesus Christ then going to suffer, saith, I shall drink no more of this juice of the vine, until the day that I shall drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father. ”

“ Return, O ye blind, to your light; return to him who enlightens every man that cometh into the world: all of you, as many as you be, who do not keep only to this light, you walk in darkness, and know not whither you go; for the darkness has put out your eyes. ”

“ Let them make out to us, that any such thing was found amongst his papers after his death, as Jonas seems to insinuate, and we shall believe that Jonas was not over apt to give credit to those men, whose only aim was to bespatter the reputation of Claudius, and to make it odious and detestable to posterity, because he cried down their superstition and idolatry. ”

“ The whole house of Israel shall be saved, together with all its company, which shall enter with them. After they had sung a hymn, they went to the mount of Olives. This is that which we read in the Psalmist, The poor shall eat and be filled; and they that seek the Lord shall praise him. This hymn may be also understood, according to the account St. John gives of it, to be that which Jesus Christ sang, when he gave thanks to his eternal Father, wherein he prayed for himself, for his disciples, and for all those who should believe at their preaching. ”

“ For we are not happy in beholding the angels, neither can that vision ever make us so; but we shall be happy by beholding the Truth, by means of which we love the angels, and congratulate them. Neither do we envy their happiness, because they are more active than we, and because they enjoy the vision of God, without being molested with any trouble ”

“ That then which is honoured by the highest angel must also be honoured by the lowest of men, because the nature of man is become the lowest, for not having honoured him. For an angel takes not his wisdom elsewhere than man does. ”

“ Wherefore we owe no religious worship to those who are departed this life, because they have lived religiously; we must not look upon them as persons that require our adorations and homage, but they desire that he may be worthy of our respect, by whom they being enlightened rejoice to see us made partakers of their piety. ”

“ It was worth our while to take notice of these opinions of Claudius, and of the manner of his reforming his diocese, that we might make it appear, that he laid solid principles of the Reformation in those parts, as to several points. And this was the more necessary, because the Papists, as Genebrard, in his Chronology, and Rorenco, have owned, that the valleys of Piedmont, which did belong to the bishopric of Turin, preserved the opinions of Claudius in the ninth and tenth century.
We ought to observe two things, which very well deserve an exact reflection ”

“ A man doth not become happy because another is so; but when a man imitates another, that he may become such as he is, he desires immediately to become happy by the same means he finds another is become so, that is, by the enjoyment of this universal and unchangeable Truth. ”

“ Our will fastening itself, and cleaving to this unchangeable and common good, affords the first and great good things man is capable of, because she is a certain mean good. But when the will of man separates itself from this unchangeable and common good, and seeks her own particular good, or directs herself to any outward or inferior good, she sins. ”

“ Moreover, he himself breaks the bread which he gives to his disciples, that he might represent and make it appear, that the breaking of his body would not be contrary to his inclination, or without his willingness to die: but, as he saith elsewhere, that he had power to give his life, and to deliver it up himself, as well as to take it again, and raise himself from the dead. He blessed the bread before he brake it, to assure us, that he intended to make a Sacrament of it ”

“ He therefore who had taken upon him to expiate the iniquities of others, gave thanks to his Father, without having done any thing that was worthy of death: he blesseth it with a profound humility, at the very time that he saw himself loaden with stripes; without doubt to instruct us, what every one of us ought to do when we find ourselves lashed with the whip and sting of our conscience: for, if he who was innocent endured with meekness and tranquility the stripes due to the iniquity of others ”

“ Secondly, That the Fathers of the Assembly of Paris, in the year 825, had justified most of the principles maintained by Claudius, this great man having been only engaged to carry the matter farther than they; for being nearer to the diocese of Rome, he saw the danger so much the nearer, in which his flock were, of falling into idolatry. ”

“ We may also conclude the same, from his being promoted to the episcopal dignity in a place where the superstition in reference to images obliged the Emperor to provide them with a Bishop that was both learned and vigorous; for Jonas of Orleans cannot dissemble, but that it was upon this very consideration, that the Emperor made a particular choice of Claudius to be consecrated Bishop of Turin. Moreover, this see was not an ordinary bishopric, but a very considerable metropolis in the diocese of Italy ”

“ But whether that be so or no, sure it is, that Claudius, in his illustration of the Scripture, plainly showed himself to be very free from those errors which at this day are in vogue in Romish communion.
We need only read his commentary upon the Epistle to the Galatians, to assure us, that he every where asserts the equality of all the Apostles with St. Peter, though the occasions seemed naturally to engage him to establish the primacy of St. Peter, and that of his pretended successors. This we find in ten several passages of that commentary; he only declares the primacy of St. ”

“ Et qui nihil dignum percussioni exhibuit, humiliter in percussione benedixit. Ut hinc videlicet ostendat, quid unusquisque in flagello culpae propriae facere debeat: si ipse aequanimiter flagella culpae portat alienae; ut hinc ostendat, quid in correptione faciat subditus, si in flagello positus Patri gratias agit aequalis. Hic est enim sanguis meus novi testamenti, qui pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum. Quia panis corpus confirmat, vinum vero sanguinem operatur in carne; hic ad corpus
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Christi mystice, illud refertur ad sanguinem. ”

“ Indeed, we find him giving very public marks of his zeal for the purity of religion in several points. First, he proposeth the doctrine of the Church, in reference to the Eucharist, in a manner altogether conformable to the judgment of antiquity, following therein the most illustrious doctors of the Christian Church, and showing that he was, as to that matter, at the farthest distance from the opinions which Paschasius Radbertus advanced eighteen or nineteen years after that Claudius had writ his commentary upon St. ”