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EST Ste VIER TUI EHE bee: tip: eh mt ” Dapewt: reas ond ae ei I. ara in N Bee Ben were eg A Zs =: ih ‘apes = u ar up Ku A seh; a thy ’ ec “ ree read N N aE Hr err oe n " i reer am Fon Auf, ia aba ya ash Kine ade Are eo et mi be ty here and jüre ese neits ZT he Ned has ehe ah shotehensd ite aan iy nab pent oth bl re since Library of The Theological Seminary PRINCETON : NEW JERSEY C=) From the Library of Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, D.D. u er) RS a wept: +i fait A Ae iy eel NT REN RS irae, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic1Omeye CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL I 7, I CL fre of COMMENTARY 4 ON Pak NEW TESTAMENT. BY / W HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM MEYER, Tu.D.,, OBERCONSISTORIALRATH, HANNOVER. From the German, with the Sanction of the Author. THE TRANSLATION REVISED AND EDITED BY WEBRETIAM -P DICKSON, DE Wan EPL STEEL LO THE EPHESIANS AND iE PPT S TEE 20 PHL EE MON. EDINBURGH: I. & T. CLARK, 53 GEORGE STREET MDCCCLXXX. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB, > ‘ FOR DR Ext CLARK, EDINBURGH. y ie LONDON, . . . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND co, j ) F = DUBLIN 5 5 B » ROBERTSON AND co. ot ü i" NEWYORK... . . SCRIBNER AND WELFORD ' ww 3 Y ME ey 4 ws "u - af = y » ~ Vy ha 7 Corset ote N ur hy Y, ra / : ¥ 2 u ur “ vi as a 7 Fin Pe 2% : > a 5 a CRITICAL AND EXEGETICA SE Ur frets HANDBOOI K CC by haus TO THE EFT EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS AND THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. BY / Vv HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM MEYER, TD, OBERCONSISTORIALRATH, HANNOVER, TRANSLATED FROM THE FOURTH EDITION OF THE GERMAN BY REV. MAURICE J. EVANS, B.A. THE TRANSLATION REVISED AND EDITED BY WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D.D,, PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLXX Xs v4 ire — ek Hu _ FOOTER art 4 - Da „ eee TH BR, AN EEE ET MLULTFERE PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR. “apy, HAVE at length the pleasure of issuing the last volume of the English translation of Dr. Meyer’s own part in the great work which bears his name, and of thereby completing an undertaking on which I have expended no small amount of time and labour at intervals for the last eight years. I am aware that I have taxed considerably the patience of the subscribers and of the publishers, but I felt it due to them, as well as to Dr. Meyer who had entrusted me with the charge of seeing his work faithfully reproduced, that the work should be done with care rather than with haste. The present volume has been translated with skill and judgment by Mr. Evans from the fourth edition of the German—the last form, in which this portion of the Com- mentary had the advantage of Meyer's own revision. A fifth edition has since appeared (in 1878), under the charge of Professor Woldemar Schmidt of Leipzig, in which he has treated the book in a way similar to that adopted by Dr. Weiss with the Commentary on Mark and Luke, although not alter- ing it to an equal extent. It is difficult to see why he should have followed such a course, for he himself states that he “has never been able to approve the custom of allowing other hands to remodel the works of the departed.” I have already expressed, in the prefatory note to the volume on Mark and Luke, the grounds on which I take exception to the plan so pursued, and I content myself with here referring to them as vi PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR. equally applicable in prineiple to the less important changes made by Dr. Schmidt. I find a striking corroboration of my remark as to the work manipulated by Dr. Weiss being “to a considerable extent a new book by another author, and from a standpoint in various respects different,” in the judgment pro- nounced by Dr. Schürer, in a recent review (Theol. Literatur- zeitung, 9th October 1880), on the same editor’s treatment of the Commentary on the Gospel of John, when, after mentioning various features of “complete independence” and “ thorough remodelling,” he states that the result of the whole is “an essentially new work.” Dr. Schürer indicates approval of the course pursued; but it seems to me alike unfair to the memory of Meyer, and uncalled for under the circumstances. It is quite open to an editor to write a book of his own on the subject, or to append as much as he deems necessary to his author’s text by way of addition and correction; but it is not open to him thus to recast an epoch-making work of exegesis, and to retain for its altered shape the sanction of the authors name. At any rate, I have thought it right, so far as the English reader is concerned, to present, according to my pronise, the work of Meyer, without addition or sub- traction, in its latest and presumably best form as it left his hands. I may add, that whatever care may have been bestowed on the revision of the Commentary by Dr. Schmidt has not apparently extended to the correction of the press, for many errors, which have been discovered and corrected by Mr. Evans and myself in preparing the translation, still disfigure the new edition of the German. It is, of course, extremely difficult to avoid such errors in a work of the kind; and I have no doubt that, notwithstanding the care of the printers, to whose excellent arrangements I am much indebted, the reader may light on not a few mistakes, as concerns refer- ences, accents, and the like; but, as Dr. Meyer was not a particularly good corrector of the press, I trust that the PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR. Vil English edition may be found in that respect fully more accurate than the original. In the General Preface prefixed to the first volume issued (Romans), I stated the grounds that had induced me to under- take the superintendence of the work, and the revision of the translation, in the interests of technical accuracy and of uniformity of rendering throughout. And in order that the subscribers may be assured that the promise therein implied has been fulfilled to the best of my ability, I think it right, in conclusion, to state for myself (and I believe that the same may be said for my friends Drs. Crombie and Stewart, who lent me their aid at a time when other work was pressing heavily upon me) that I have carefully read and compared every sentence of the translation in the ten volumes which I edited—collating it for the most part in MS., as well as sub- sequently on its passage through the press; that I have not hesitated freely to make such changes on the work of the translators as seemed to me needful to meet the requirements which I had in view; and that, under these circumstances, I alone am formally and finally responsible for the shape in which the Commentary appears. All concerned in the enter- prise have much reason to be gratified by the favour with which it has been received. I have, indeed, seen some exception taken to the style, and to the frequent use of technical terms such as telic, protasis, and the like; but our object was to translate the book into intelligible English, not to recast its literary form (which, as I have formerly explained, has suffered from the mode in which the author inserted his successive alterations and additions); and it is, from its very nature, destined mainly for ministers and students, who ought to be familiar with the import of those convenient technical terms. At the close of the article by Dr. Schiirer, of which I have spoken before, he asks leave to repeat an urgent wish which he had some years ago expressed, that “there might be appended Vill PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR. to the introduction of each volume of the German Commentary a list of the exegetical literature” He does not seem to be aware that in the English edition this want has been supplied with considerable fulness. I shall be glad to.place the lists —all of which were prepared by me, except that prefixed to the Gospel of John, for which I am indebted to Dr. Crombie— at the service (a few errors apart) of .any future editors of the original. In order to complete the present series, a supplementary volume accompanies this one, containing Dr. Gloag’s translation of Liinemann’s Commentary on the Epistles to the Thessalonians. And I learn from Messrs. Clark that they have received encouragement to issue also the remaining volumes, for which Dr. Meyer called in the aid of accomplished scholars. These volumes are of much value in themselves, and as serving to supplement the work of Meyer; but as they proceed from. different authors, and my main object was to secure uni- formity in the rendering of the several portions that issued from Meyer’s own hand, I have not thought it necessary to undertake any similar revision or editorial responsibility in their case; and I can only express my best wishes for the suecess of the further enterprise in the hands of the experi- enced translators. WILLIAM P. DICKSON. GLASGOW COLLEGE, October 1880. PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. this Commentary was issued, there has appeared hardly any contribution of scientific importance to the exposition of the Epistle to the Ephesians, The Commentarius Criticus of the late Dr. Reiche contains, doubtless, many good exegetical remarks; but they are sub- servient to his main aim which is eritical, and elucidate merely detached passages or expressions; while the Lectures of Bleek are very far from having the importance which has been justly recognised as belonging to the previous series of Lectures by him on the Synoptic Gospels. But while thus, apart from various able discussions of particular passages, I was less directly stimulated by new literary apparatus to subject my work to revision, the labour itself was not thereby rendered the lighter. The dies diem docet could not but, in the case of a task so momentous, have its title fully conceded; and it will be found that I have sought to place much on a better and more complete footing, so as to do fuller justice to the great object of ascertaining thoroughly, clearly, and dispassionately the meaning of the Apostle’s discourse. By this I do not understand the discovery of those fanciful illusions [Phantasmagorieen] that people call profound. For the latter there is assuredly little need in the case of Paul, who, with the true penetration characteristic of his views and ways of unfolding them, knows how to wield his gifts of discourse so that his meaning shall be clear 9 x PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. aud palpable and apt; and least of all in the case of this very Epistle, where the Christological teaching rises of itself to the utmost height and embraces heaven and earth. This distinctive character cannot be injured by the circumstance that the apostolic writing, as a letter to the Ephesians,—such as, according to the critically-attested address, it is and will remain,—continues to be, at all events, an enigmatical pheno- menon, and its historical conceivableness in so far an open question. Its elevation above the changes and controversies of Christological formulae and modes of conception cannot be thereby affected, and its prominent position in the New Testament as at once a testimony and a test of the truth cannot, amid any such change and strife, be prejudicially endangered. HANNOVER, 10th Nov. 1866. EXEGETICAL LITERATURE OF THE EPISTLES TO THE EPHESIANS AND PHILEMON. [For commentaries and collections of notes embracing the whole New Testament, see the list prefixed to the Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew; for those which treat of the Pauline, or Apostolic, Epistles generally, see that which is prefixed to the Com- mentary on the Epistle to the Romans. The following list includes only those expositions which relate to the Epistle to the Ephesians or to the Epistle to Philemon, or in which one of these Epistles holds the first place on the title-page. Works mainly of a popular and practical character have, with a few exceptions, been excluded, as, however valuable they may be in themselves, they have but little affinity with the strictly exegetical character of the present work. Monographs on chapters or sections are generally noticed by Meyer in loc. The editions quoted are usually the earliest; al. appended denotes that the book has been more or less frequently reissued; f marks the date of the author’s death; c=circa, an approximation to it. ] ATTERSOLL (William), Minister at Infield, Sussex: A commentary upon the Epistle to Philemon. Lond. 1612. Second edition. 2°, Lond. 1633. Barrus (Bartholomaeus), t 1637, Prof. Theol. at Greifswald: Com- mentarius in Epistolam ad Ephesios. .. . 4°, Gryphisw. 1619. BAUMGARTEN (Sigmund Jakob), t 1757, Prof. Theol. at Halle. See GALATIANS. 11 xil EXEGETICAL LITERATURE, BAUMGARTEN-Orusıus (Ludwig Friedrich Otto), t 1843, Prof. Theol. at Jena: Commentar iiber den Brief Pauli an die Epheser. . Herausgegeben von Ernst Julius Kimmel... . 8°, Jena, 1847. Bayne (Paul), + 1617, Minister at Cambridge: An entire commentary upon the whole Epistle . . . to the Ephesians. ... 2°, Lond. 1643. BLEER (Friedrich), + 1859, Prof. Theol. at Berlin: Vorlesungen über die Briefe an die Kolosser, den Philemon und die Epheser. . . . 8°, Berl. 1865. Bopıus. See Boyp. Boyp (Robert) of Trochrig, t 1627, Principal at Glasgow and Edin- burgh: In Epistolam ad Ephesios praelectiones supra cc... 2°, Lond. 1652, al. Braune (Karl), Superintendent in Altenburg: Die Briefe S. Pauli an die Epheser, Kolosser, Philipper. Theologisch-homiletisch bearbeitet. [Lange’s Bibelwerk. ] 8°, Bielefeld, 1867. Translated from the German, with additions [Ephesians], by M. B. Riddle, D.D. 8°, New York, 1870. Bucer (Martin), tf 1551, Prof. Theol. at Cambridge: Praelectiones in Epistolam ad Ephesios habitae Cantabrigiae . . . in lucem editae diligentia Im. Tremellii. 2° Basil. 1562. CHANDLER (Samuel), D.D., + 1766, Presbyterian Minister in London. [See GaLatrays. ] CrameR (Johann Andreas), + 1788, Prof. Theol. at Kiel: Neue Uebersetzung des Briefs an die Epheser, nebst einer Ausle- gung desselben. 4°, Hamb. 1782. Crocius (Johann), + 1659, Prof. Theol. at Marburg: Commentarius in Epistolam ad Ephesios. 8°, Cassellis, 1642. DanaEus [Daneau] (Lambert), + 1596, Pastor at Orthes: Commen- tarius in Epistolam ad Philemonem. 8°, Genev. 1579. Davies (John Llewelyn), Rector of Christ Church, Marylebone. See PHILIPPIANS and CoLossIAns. Demme (Jakob Friedrich Ignaz): Erklärung des Briefes an den Philemon. 8°, Breslau, 1844. Drnant (Petrus), ¢ 1724, Minister at Rotterdam: De Brief aan die van Efeze verklaart en toegepast. 4°, Rotterd. 1711, al. Dyxe (Daniel), f c. 1614, Minister at St. Albans: A fruitful exposi- tion upon Philemon. 4°, Lond. 1618. Eapie (John), D.D., ¢ 1876, Prof. Bibl. Lit. to the United Prasby- terian Church: A commentary on the Greek text of the Epistle to the Ephesians. 8°, Lond. and Glasg. 1854. EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. xl Erricorr (Charles John), D.D., Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol: A . eritical and grammatical commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. 8°, Lond. 1855, al. EsmarcH (Heinrich Peter Christian), f 1831, Rector at Schleswig: Brief an die Epheser übersetzt. 8°, Altona, 1785. Ewatp (Georg Heinrich August), 1876, Prof. Or. Lang. at Göttin- gen: Sieben Sendschreiben des Neuen Bundes uebersetzt und erklärt. [Sendschreiben an die Heidenchristen (die Epheser). | 8°, Götting. 1870. Ferauson (James), t c. 1670, Minister of Kilwinning. See GALATIANS, Fiatr (Johann Friedrich von), ft 1821, Prof. Theol. at Tübingen. See GALATIANS. GENTILIS (Scipione), + 1616, Prof. of Law at Altdorf: Commentarius in Epistolam ad Philemonem. 4°, Norimb. 1618. [ Crit. Sac. vii. 2. ] Gupe (Gottlob Friedrich), + 1756, Pastor at Lauban: Gründliche Erläuterung des lehrreichen Briefes an die Epheser. 8°, Lauban, 1735. Hacensacu (Karl Rudolph), t 1874, Prof. Theol. at Basel: Pauli Epistolam ad Philemonem interpretatus est ©. R. Hagenbach. 4°, Basil. 1829. Hartess (Gottlieb Christoph Adolf von), + 1879, President of the Consistory at Miinich: Commentar iiber den Brief Pauli an die Epheser. 8°, Erlang. 1834, al. Heinricus (Johann Heinrich), Superintendent at Burgdorf. See Koppe (Johann Benjamin). Hope (Charles), D.D., t 1878, Prof. Theol. at Princeton: A com- mentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians. 8°, New York, 1856, al. Hormann (Johann Christian Konrad von), + 1877, Prof. Theol. at Erlangen: Die heilige Schrift Neuen Testaments zusammen- hängend untersucht. Theil iv. 1. Der Brief Pauli an die Epheser. iv. 2. Die Briefe an die Kolosser und an Philemon. 8°, Nördlingen, 1870. HourzmMann (Heinrich Johann), Prof. Theol. in Strassburg: Kritik der Epheser- und Kolosser-Briefe. . . . 8°, Leip. 1872. HoLzHAusENn (Friedrich August): Der Brief an die Epheser übersetzt und erklärt. 8°, Hannov. 1833. Hummer. (Johann Heinrich), + 1674, Dean at Berne: Explanatio Epistolae ad Philemonem. 2°, Tiguri, 1670. X1V EXEGETICAL LITERATURE, Jones (William), D.D.: A commentary on the Epistles to Philemon and Hebrews. ... 2°, Lond. 1635. KAHLER (C. N.): Auslegung der Epistel Pauli an die Epheser. 8°, Kiel, 1854. Koch (August): Commentar über den Brief Pauli an den Philemon. 8°, Zürich, 1846. Korre (Johann Benjamin), t 1791, Superintendent at Gotha: Novum Testamentum Graece perpetua annotatione illus- tratum. Voll. i-iv. 8°, Götting. 1778-83. [Vol. vi. Epp. ad Galatas, Ephesios, Thessalonicenses. Editio tertia emendata et aucta. Curavit H. Chr. Tychsen. Vol. vii. 1. Epp. ad Timotheum, Titum, et Philemonem. Continuavit J. H. Heinrichs, 1798. Editio secunda. 8°, Götting. 1828. ] Krause (Friedrich August Wilhelm), f 1827, Private Tutor at Vienna: Der Brief an die Epheser übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen begleitet. 8°, Frankf. a. M. 1789. Kiuye (Franz Robert): Die Epistel Pauli an Philemon in Bibel- stunden... ausgelegt. 2 Bändchen. 8°, Leipz. 1856. Lagus (Daniel), t 1678, Prof. Math. at Greifswald: Commentatio quadripartita super Epistolam ad Ephesios. 4°, Gryphisw. 1664. Ligutroot (Joseph Barber), D.D., Bishop of Durham. See PnıLıp- prans and Colossians. Locke (John), + 1704. See GALATIANS. Luruer (Martin), t 1546, Reformer: Die Epistel an die Epheser ausgelegt, aus seinen Schriften herausgegeben von Chr. G. Eberle. 8°, Stuttg. 1878. Masor [Mayer] (Georg), + 1574, Prof. Theol. at Wittenberg: Enarratio Epistolae Paulli scriptae ad Ephesios. 8°, Vitemb. 1552. Matruies (Conrad Stephan), Prof. Theol. at Greifswald: Erklärung des Briefes Pauli an die Epheser. ... 8°, Greifsw. 1834. Meter (Friedrich Karl), + 1841, Prof. Theol. at Giessen: Commentar über den Brief Pauli an die Epheser. 8°, Berl. 1834. Morus (Samuel Friedrich Nathanael), t 1792, Prof. Theol. at Leipzig. See GALATIANS. MuscuLus [Meussum] (Wolfgang), + 1573, Prof. Theol. at Berne, See GALATIANS. EXEGETICAL LITERATURE, XV OoSTERZBE (Johannes Jakob van), Prof. Theol. at Utrecht: Die Pastoralbriefe und der Brief an Philemon. Theologisch- homiletisch bearbeitet. [Lange’s Bibelwerk, XI. | 8°, Bielefeld, 1861. Translated from the German, with additions, by Horatio B. Hackett, D.D. 8°, New York, 1869. PassavanT (Theophilus): Versuch einer praktischen Auslegung des Briefes Pauli an die Epheser. 8°, Basel, 1836. Popp (G. C.): Uebersetzung und Erklärung der drei ersten Kapitel des Briefs an die Epheser, nebst einer kurzen Einleitung. ... 4°, Rostock, 1799. RoerL (Herman Alexander), t 1718, Prof. Theol. at Utrecht: Com- mentarius in principium Epistolae ad Ephesios. 4°, Traj. ad Rhen. 1715. Et commentarii . . . pars altera, cum brevi Epistolae ad Colossenses exegesi. Ed. Dion. And. Roell. 4°, Traj. ad Rhen. 1731. Rorrock (Robert), + 1598, Principal of the University of Edinburgh: In Epistolam Pauli ad Ephesios commentarius. 4°, Edin. 1590, al. Et in Epistolam ad Philemonem.... 8°, Genev. 1602. RotueE (Moritz): Pauli ad Philemonem epistolae interpretatio his- torico-exegetica. 8°, Bremae, 1844. Royaarps (Albertus): ... Paullus’ Brief aan de Ephesers schrift- matig verklaart. 3 deelen. 4°, Amsterd. 1735-88. RückerT (Leopold Immanuel), t c. 1845, Prof. Theol. at Jena: Der Brief Pauli an die Epheser erläutert und vertheidigt. 8°, Leip. 1834. SCHENKEL (Daniel), Prof. Theol. at Heidelberg: Die Briefe an die Epheser, Philipper, Colosser. Theologisch-homiletisch bear- beitet. [Lange’s Bibelwerk, IX. | 8°, Bielefeld, 1862. Scumip (Leberecht Christian Gottlieb), + 1836, Pastor at Glösa: Pauli ad Philemonem Epistola, Graece et Latine illustrata. . . . 8°, Lips. 1786. Scumip (Sebastian), + 1696, Prof. Theol. at Strassburg: Paraphrasis super Epistolam ad Ephesios. 4°, Strassb. 1684, al. ScHNAPPINGER (Bonifacius Martin Wunibald), t+ c. 1825, Prof. at Heidelberg: Brief an die Epheser erklärt und erläutert von Bonifaz vom heil. Wunibald. 4°, Heidelb. 1793. Xvi EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. SchürzE (Theodor Johann Abraham), + 1830, Director of the Gymnasium at Gera: Commentarius in Epistolam Pauli ad Ephesios. 8°, Leip. 1778. SPENER (Philip Jakob), ¢t 1705, Consistorial-Rath at Berlin: Erklärung der Episteln an die Epheser und Colosser. . . . 4°, Halae, 1706, al. STEVART (Peter), t 1621, Prof. Theol. at Ingolstadt: Commentarius in Epistolam ad Ephesios. 4°, Ingolstad. 1593. Stier (Rudolph Ewald), + 1862, Superintendent in Eisleben: Die Gemeinde in Christo. Auslegung des Briefes an die Epheser. 8°, Berl. 1848-49. Taytor (Thomas), + 1632, Minister in London: Commentarius in Epistolam ad Philemonem. 2°, Lond. 1659. Trt (Salomon von), + 1713, Prof. Theol. at Leyden. See Romans. Turner (Samuel Hulbeart), D.D., + 1861, Prof. of Bibl. Interpreta- tion at New York: The Epistle to the Ephesians in Greek and English, with an analysis and exegetical commentary. 8°, New York, 1856. TycusENn (Thomas Christian), + 1854. See Korre (Johann Benjamin). VataBLus [VasTEBLED] (Francois), t 1547, Prof. Heb. at Paris: Annotationes in Novum Testamentum. [Critici Sacri. } Vincent (Jean): Explicatio familiaris in Epistolam D. Pauli ad Philemonem. . 2°, Paris, 1647. WELLER (Hieronymus), + 1572, Superintendent at Freiberg: Com- mentarius in Epistolam Pauli ad Ephesios. 8°, Noriberg, 1559. WIESINGER (J. C. August). See PHILIPPIANS. ZACHARIAE (Gotthilf Traugott), t 1777, Prof. Theol. at Kiel. See GALATIANS. Zanculus (Hieronymus), + 1590, Prof. Theol. at Heidelberg: Com- mentarius in Epistolam ad Ephesios, 2°, Neostadii, 1594. THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. INTRODUCTION. SEC. 1.READERS TO WHOM THE EPISTLE IS ADDRESSED. Reg) L Ephesus, the capital of proconsular Asia, a flourish- WS ing abode of commerce, arts, and sciences, and the seat of the world-renowned worship of Artemis, — which, formerly one of the principal settlements of the Ionian population, has, since its destruction by the Goths, had its site marked only by gloomy ruins, and now by the small village of Ajasaluk, or, according to Fellows, Asalook (see, generally, Creuzer, Symbol. II. p. 113 ff.; Pococke, Morgenl. III. p. 66 ff.; von Schubert, Reise in das Morgenl. I. p. 284 ff.; Guhl, Ephesiaca, Berol. 1842; Fellows, Journal written during an Excursion in Asia Minor, London 1838, p. 274 f.),—Paul planted Christianity (Acts xviii. 19, xix. 1, ete.); and his successful labours there, during a period of nearly three years, placed him in the close confidential relations to the church, of which his touching farewell to the elders (Acts xx. 17 ff.) is an imperishable memorial. The church was on its foundation a mixed one, composed of Jewish and Gentile Christians (Acts xix. 1-10, xx. 21); but at the later date, when our Epistle was composed, the entzle- Christian element, which already appears from Acts xix. 26 extensively diffused, so greatly preponderated, that Paul could address the church a potiori as a Gentile-Christian one ; see Per sd. 1, ba, WO sav. hy, a, 2. Hencez ib, must not be inferred from this, that the Epistle could not have MEYER—EpH. A 2 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. been addressed to the Ephesian church (Reiche, Bleek, aud others). Our Epistle is expressly addressed, in i. 1, to the Christians at Ephesus. For the words év ’Ederw are so decisively attested, that they cannot be deprived of their right to a place in the text, either by isolated counter-witnesses, or by the internal grounds of doubt as to the Ephesian destination of the Epistle. Among the manuscripts, 8 has ev "Edéow only from the hand of a later corrector; B has the words only in the margin, and (in opposition to Hug, de antig. Cod. Vat. p. 26) not from the first hand (see Tischendorf in the allg. K.-Zeit. 1843, No. 116, and m the Stud. und Krit. 1847, p. 133); while in the Cod. 67, proceeding from the twelfth century,” it was placed certainly in the text by the first hand, but was deleted by a second hand (which betrays generally an affinity with B). The evidence of the versions is unanimous for ev ’Edeow; but in the Fathers we find undeniable indications that the omission in B x*, and the deletion in Cod. 67, are founded upon older codices, and have arisen out of critical erounds. For Basil the Great, contra Eunom. ii. 19 (Opp. ed. Garnier, I. p. 254), says: tots ’Egeotoss EmioTeAAwv ws yvnoiws HvwOmEVvoLs TO OvTe (that is, to Him who is existent, in the absolute sense) 6c eEmiyvmoews, dvTas adTovs lölabovrws Wvouadev eimov' Tols dylows Tols odcıv Kal TiaTOls ev XpioTe@ ’Incod. OüÜrw yap kal oi mpo Hudv Tapaded@xact, Kal pets ev Tols Tadalos ToY avTiypapayv eüpnkauev. From this passage it is clear that Basil considered it indeed certain that the Epistle was written to the Ephesians, but looked upon the words ev ’Eg¢éow as non-genuine, to which conclusion he had been led not merely by way of tradition, but also through the old Mss. existing in his time, which he had himself looked 1 See Lünemann, de ep. ad Eph. authentid, ete., 1842; Anger, über d. Lao- dicenerbrief (Beitr. z. Einl. in’s N. T.1.), 1843. Reiche, in his Comment. crit. in N. T. 11. 1859, has the most fully and thoroughly controverted the view of the Epistle being destined for Ephesus, and the genuineness of the words iv "Egiew. Comp. also Weiss in Herzog’s Eneykl. XIX. s.v. ‘‘ Epheserbrief.” 2 According to others, including Reiche (Comm. crit. p. 102), even from the ninth or tenth century ; but not from the year,1331, as Credner, Hinl. 1. 2, p. 397, states. This year belongs to the Codex 67, which contains the Acts and Catholic Epistles. See Griesbach, II. p. xv.; Scholz, II. p. x. INTRODUCTION. 3 into, and which had not &v ’E¢éow.' It has, however, been incorrectly asserted that Jerome also did not find ev 'Ebeow in MSS., but knew it merely as a conjecture (Böttger, Beitr. 3, p. 37; Olshausen). He says, namely, on i. 1 (Opp. ed. Vallars. VII. p. 545): Quidam curiosius, quam necesse est, putant ex co, quod Moysidictum sit [Ex.ii.14]: haec dices filiis Israel: quit est misit me, etiam cos, qui Kphesi sunt sancti et fideles, essentiae vocabulo nuncupatos? . . . Alii vero simpliciter non ad eos, qui sint, sed qui Ephesi sancti et fideles sint, scriptam arbitrantur. But this “ seriptam arbitrantur” does not refer to the fact that these “ala” had thought that the readers of the Epistle were the Ephesians ; to Jerome, on the contrary, ev Edéow is quite an undoubted part of the text (sanctis omnibus, qui sunt Ephesi, is his reading), and he only adduces two different explanations of tots ovow, by which, however, ev ’Edeow is not affected. According to the one interpretation, the Christians at Ephesus were designated as existing in the metaphysical sense; accord- 1 We must candidly recognise this as the result of the words of Basil. It is a partisan and mistaken view to assert that, in making the above quotation oi the address of our Epistle, he had not included iv ’Egew, because he had pre- viously said ro "Eperins tmioriadwy, and that his appeal to tradition and the old Mss. applied only to the article rois before oda (1’ Enfant, Wolf), or to oc (Wiggers in the Stud. u. Krit. 1841, p. 423 f.). In opposition to l’Enfant, it may be urged that Basil must necessarily have written rods övras previously, because the genuineness and the stress of the article (which is still wanting in Cod. 46) would have been in question ; in opposition to Wiggers, that not the slightest critical trace of a previous omission of ote is to be found ; while, in opposition to. both, we may urge the decisive consideration, that it is in the highest degree arbitrary to assume that in the case of a verbal critical citation, such as Basil here gives with so earnest and emphatic a statement of his reason for doing so (strw yep x.7.a.), words were passed over, because they would be obvious of them- selves, and words, too, which were so far from being unimportant, that in fact it was only their absence that could warrant the metaphysical explanation of rois odowv, and did beyond doubt give rise to it. And if Basil were concerned only with rois or ota, why, then, has he not merely cited the passage as far as oda, but also added the xai wirrois iv X. ’I., so unimportant for that meta- physical conception of rs ote, and—strangest of all—omitted just the iv *Egicw which stood between? An inconceivable parsimony! No; no reader could understand the cttw yap x.>7.a. otherwise than of the form of address just literally cited in the rois ayios Tois obow zul wierois iv X. 'I., from which the recension which was then current differed, in that it contained év "Egicw. * Probably (see the scholion from Origen in Tischendorf) this explanation proceeded from Origen, since it looks quite like him, and he wrote a commentary on the Epistle, which was used by Jerome. 4 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. ing to the other, rois odcw was taken in the usual simple sense, and consequently the Epistle was regarded as directed not to the existent Ephesian Christians, but to the Christians who were to be found at Ephesus. Thus Jerome has not men- tioned the omission of ev "Eg¢éow, and therefore probably was not aware that the opinion of those “quidam” had originated from the very reading without ev "Edéow ; on which account he looked upon this opinion as a curiosity. Hence he furnishes, almost contemporaneously with Basil, an important counter- poise to his testimony. But if Basil in his time stands alone, he has a precursor, whose testimony points back to a consider- ably greater antiquity, in Tertullian, who says, contra Mare. v. 11: “ Praeterco hic et de alia epistola, quam nos ad Ephesios praescriptam! habemus, haeretict vero ad Laodicenos;” and at v. 17: “ Ecclesiae quidem veritate epistolam istam ad Ephesios habemus emissam, non ad Laodicenos, sed Marcion ei titulum aliquando interpolare (i.e. to make it otherwise, alter it) gestiit, quasi et in isto diligentissimus explorator; nihil autem de titulis interest, cum ad omnes apostolus scripserit, dum ad quosdam.” According to this, in Tertullian’s time the Epistle was acknowledged by the orthodox church, and by Tertullian himself (comp. cont. Marc. iv. 5, de praescrip. haer. 36), as an Epistle to the Ephesians, and only heretics like Marcion regarded it as addressed to the Laodiceans; but Tertullian cannot have read or known of ev 'Edeow, i. 1, because other- wise he would not have spoken merely of a change in the superscription (praescriptam, titulum ; comp. on this last, de pudie. 20, al.), and would not have appealed to the “ veritas ecclesiae,’ but to the text. It has been objected, indeed (see especially, Harless and Wiggers, and compare also Liinemann), that this is an inference from the critical standpoint of our 1 That is, superscribed. Comp. for example, Gellius, v. 21, ‘‘epistola... cui titulus praescriptus est.” The words “ ad Ephesios” and ‘‘ ad Laodicenos” are the ‘‘ipsissima verba” of the titulus praescriptus. Hence titulus and praescri- bere are not to be referred to the address and salutation, which are, in fact, an integral part of the epistolary text itself (in opposition to Harless, Lünemann, and others, and Laurent in the Jahrb. fiir Deutsche Theol. 1866, p. 131). See also Reiche, Comment. crit. p. 109. The reading perscriptam in the above passage of Tertullian has evidently arisen from praescriptam (which is contained in the editions of Pamelius and Rigaltius) not haviug been understood. INTRODUCTION, 5 time, and that it would have been quite natural in Ter- tullian summarily to bring in the “veritas ecclesiae.” But this would only have been natural for him in the event of the question relating to a falsification of the text by Marcion. The question here concerns a falsification of the titulus, which, if the words ev "Edéow had stood in the text, would have been at variance with the text; and what would have been in that case more natural than to appeal to the apostolic ev “Edéow? The invocation of the “veritas ecclesiae” serves precisely to prove that an apostolic év "Eg¢éow was not known to Tertullian. This at the same time applies in opposition to the remark of Wiggers, I. 1, p. 429, that Marcion could not have read anything else than év "Edécw in the address, if he had discovered anything to be changed in the super- scription, which was naturally (?) of the same tenor (# mpos "Edecious EmioroAn). No, he not merely may, but must have read in the address nothing at all of the place for which the Epistle was destined ; otherwise he must have falsified the address also, and not merely the traditional superseription— which is not to be assumed, since Tertullian brings a charge against him merely as concerns the Zitulus, and, on his own part, betrays no knowledge whatever of an év ‘E¢éo@ in the address. How, then, could Tertullian dismiss the falsification of Marcion with the evasive nihil autem de titulis interest, cum ad omnes, etc., if he had before him in the apostolic text ev ’Edéow, before which the title mpos Aaodixéas would at once have broken down? Little as it fell in with Tertullian’s purpose to assail Marcion at length on account of his falsi- fication of the title, since he was occupied in confuting his dogmatic errors, surely it would have required no more words to dispose of the falsifier of the title by an appeal to the text, than to get rid of the matter with the superficial nihil autem de titulis, ete. And how could Marcion himself (evidently on the ground of Col. iv. 16) have hit upon the idea of changing the title of the Epistle, if he himself had read ev ’Edeow in i. 1? Dogmatic reasons, which at other times determined the heretic in his critical proceedings, did not exist here at all. If, in accordance with all this, the testimony of Tertullian, as well as the procedure of Marcion, to which he bears witness, 6 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. is adverse to the ev ’"Edéow; that, on the other hand, of Ignatius, ad Eph. 12, is not to be used either for or against, whether we look at his words in the shorter or the longer recension." But although, when the matter is thus cleared up, Basil on the ground of older Mss. rejected ev "Eg¢éow, and Marcion and Tertullian did not read the words, they are yet to be most decidedly retained as original, for the following external and internal reasons (in addition to the attestation, upon which we have already remarked, of all other still extant witnesses, and especially of the versions):—(1) The entire ancient church has designated our Epistle expressly as Epistle to the Ephesians (Irenaeus, Haer. v. 23; Clemens Alex. Strom. iv. 8, p. 592, ed. Potter; Tertullian, Origen, and others, even as early as the Canon Murat., and Valentinus in the Philosoph. Or. vi. 34), without even a single voice, with the exception of Marcion’s, being raised against this view. But if the words &v "Edeow had been wanting from the outsct, and the Epistle had thus borne on the face of it no place of destination, such a con- sensus would have been quite as inexplicable in itself as at variance with the analogy of the other Epistles, in which throughout the judgment of the church as to the first readers coincides with the superscription, where there is one, and beyond doubt depends upon it. (2) In all his Epistles Paul 1 According to the longer recension (in Dressel, p. 332): “Ywsis 3: Madaov cuupioras tort hyınaulvov, meuuprupnutvov.. .. ds wayrors ty weis denasoıv airod wynwovsvsı dmay (vulg. aaa»). Following the reading reev, Credner here concludes that our Epistle was not directed to the Ephesians alone. But it would apply to ‘‘the Pauline Christians in general,” so that it would not at all contain a reference to the individual Epistle. According to the shorter re- cension, the passage runs thus: IIavAov x.7.A.,05 iv radon iwıaroan wynmovedss bay. Here iv warn imıarorn does not mean, in the whole Epistle, —a linguistically erroneous interpretation which, though still defended by Harless and repeated by Dressel, would yield a quite irrelevant meaning ; for how strange to say to A, who has received a letter from B: B makes mention of you in his whole letter ! This is surely obvious of itself, and is not at all a point appropriate to be dwelt upon! On the contrary, iv w&en iwıororä means: in every Epistle; so that Ignatius does not mean our Epistle alone, nor yet by de@v specially the Ephesians as such, but the Ephesians as Pauline Christians generally (as regards category), and hence could say : he makes mention of you in every Epistle. It is not diffi- cult to see how, in the words under consideration, the longer recension is related as explanatory to the shorter. INTRODUCTION, 7 designates in the address the recipients most definitely, even when he does not write to the Christians of a single town (Cor. 1) 25:2 Cor. i 1), or to a single church (Gal.'i. 2). Accordingly our Epistle, if fairly regarded in accordance with the address, should ev "Edéow not be genuine, would be marked out as a catholic one, without any limitation what- ever of locality or nationality of the readers——a view with which the contents (i 15, ii. 11, iii, 1, iv. 17, etc.) as well as the mission of Tychicus (vi. 21) would be decidedly at variance. (3) On each occasion, when St. Paul in the address has used rois odaw, it serves to specify the locality of the readers. See Rom. i. 7: rois odaıv ev 'Poun; Phil. i. 1: tots ovow Ev Pırimmois; 1 Cor. i. 2: TH ovon Ev KopivOo, and even so 2 Cor.i. 1. Compare the addresses in the Ignatian Epistles. (4) If Paul had written tots dylows tots otow Kat ıotolis, we should have a form of address, which does not even admit of any tolerable explanation. It would yield the meaning: to the saints, who are also (not merely saints, but also) believing." But what a diffuse and inappropriate severance of the ideas “saints and believing,’ which should rather be conjoined into wnity (comp. Col. i. 2)! With the apostle there are no saints, who are not also believers. The explanation of Meier is chargeable with the same inappro- priateness: to the saints, who are also faithful (since the un- faithful have ceased to be saints); and, moreover, it is to be taken into consideration that mvorots is not defined to have the sense of faithful by the context, but rather, when used in the address, and connected with & X. ’I., most naturally presents the sense of believing, as in Col. i. 2.” Credner, Einl. I. 2, p. 400, translates: to the saints, who are in fact also believers, and this is held to mean: to the saints, who are true believers; in the mouth of Paul equivalent to 1 It is not necessary that in this case ode should stand after ırrois. Comp. John i. 49, iv. 9; Acts vii. 2; Eph. ii. 1, etc. 2 This also holds in opposition to Böttger’s views, Beiträge, 3, p. 29 ff. : to the saints, who there are also faithful, in which the odcw presents a contrast to the apostate Jewish-Christians, who had been faithful. Such a contrast would neces- sarily, from the very nature of the case, have been spoken of in the Epistle itself.—We may add that already the Gothic version has translated sireis, faithful (“ triggvaim ”). 8 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS, Pauline Christians. But, in this case, tots odaıv could not, without risk of being misapprehended, dispense with a defining addition (in fact), or Paul at least must have written rois Kal ovow motos, in which case by means of «ai the special emphasis of odow might be indicated (who are not merely called believers, but also are so). Yet even thus the expression would not be clear, and the meaning: to the Pauline Christians, would be purely imported. In a context, where Pauline and anti-Pauline Christians were spoken of, the reader might without further indication understand under true be- lievers the former ; but not in the address, where this reference is not suggested by anything, and the less so, seeing that this contrast does not come once under discussion in the Epistle itself. Schneckenburger and Matthies attach tots odcıv to Tols ayloıs. The latter (comp. Bengel) explains: tots ovcwv, who are there (namely, in Asia Minor, whither Tychicus was journeying to visit them), which imputes to Paula strange clumsiness. But Schneckenburger (Beitrage, p. 133) renders: to the saints, who are in fact such. But even thus Paul, in order to obviate misunderstanding (and in the address of an official writing at any rate people express themselves definitely and clearly), could not have dispensed with some defining adjunct (in fact) to Tots ovo. ; and, even apart from this, how unsuitable would the address be, whether we explain the true saints as standing in contrast to the nominal Christians or to the Jews! The former would yield an indefinite designation of the readers, and would contain an exclusion and separation unsuited to the apostolic spirit and working. And the latter would be quite out of place, since the Epistle has nothing at all to do with the contrast to Judaism. All explanations without ev 'Ederw are fanciful impossibilities, unless we keep to the first-given simple translation of the words. Weiss does this in Herzog’s Encykl. XIX. p. 480; rejecting év “Edéow, he makes the saints, who are believers also on Christ,‘ to be said of the New Testament saints in contrast with those of the Old Testa- ment. But this contrast would itself be quite without any motive in the contents of the Epistle ; indeed, in the «at (also) 1 So in substance also Reiche, Comm. crit. p. 122: ‘‘ sanctis, iisdemque fidem in Christum profitentibus.” INTRODUCTION, 9 there would be implied a side-glance at the wnconverted Jews, which would be out of place and unsuitable. In view of all that has been said, we must defend ev "Edéow, i. 1, as decidedly genwine. But wherefore was it omitted at so early a period (Marcion, Tertullian, the old mss. in Basil) in a portion of the codices? Certainly this omission was not a mere transcriber’s error (Lünemann); for not only is such an error in itself improbable at the very main point of the address, but it would not have obtained any considerable diffusion. Further, the possible reason, which may account at Rom. i. 7 for the absence of év “Pounm in various MSS., namely, though a transcript of the Epistle for public reading in another particular church, is here at any rate improbable, since the manuscripts not containing ev ’Edéow must have been circulated in very different regions (Asia and Africa) and in very considerable number. This latter fact might point to the hypothesis that, by omitting ev ’Edeow, it was sought to give to an Epistle so general in tenor and weighty, the impress of a Catholic one (comp. Wieseler, Chrunol. des apost. Zeitalt. p. 438). But, in point of fact, the apostolic Epistles directed ad quosdam were already of themselves regarded as written ad omnes (Jerome, c. Marc. v. 17), and hence there was no need of the procedure indicated. Equally inadmissible, more- over, is the view (see below), that from the very first in a por- tion of the manuscripts the place for the local name was left vacant, and thereby ev "Edéow was omitted." Nor yet can we accept the dogmatic reason, that the name of the place was deleted with a view to favour the metaphysical explanation of Tots ovaw, specified in Basil and Jerome, since the converse alone is natural, namely, that the metaphysical interpretation of Tois odow arose from the fact of the text being already deprived of the ev 'Edeow. The omission would rather appear due to ancient historical criticism. From the contents of the letter at a very early period 1 Schott, Jsag. p. 279, suggests that perhaps Paul himself had commissioned Tychicus to have copies for other churches made at Ephesus, and to have the names of these other churches inserted therein in place of the &v "Ege which came from himself ; and that a copyist had left a blank for the future insertion of the name, which he had forgotten thereafter to fill up. 10 TUE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. the inference had been drawn, that it was addressed to persons who were as yet personally unknown to the apostle, and still novices in Christianity.’ And how naturally did this lead to the view that the Ephesians had not been the recipients, and so to the deletion of év ’Edeow! The text written without év "Edéow was soon laid hold of to support the metaphysical explanation of tots odcıv, which had arisen out of it; and the favour and diffusion which the latter received from its accordance with the taste of the age necessarily contributed to the spread of the text which was denuded of the ev "Edéow. The omission of these words, thus originated and diffused, could not indeed do away with the correct ecclesiastical tradition of the Epistle being destined for Ephesus, or frustrate the preservation of ev ’Edeow and the triumph of that original reading (supported as it was by all the versions), which had been already achieved by the time of Jerome ; but it did make it possible for Marcion, seeing that he already found ev ’E¢éo@ no longer in the text, to alter, in opposition to tradition, the title mpos “Edeotous into mpos Aaoöıreas, regarding the Epistle on the basis of Col. iv. 16 as addressed to the Laodiceans—in the service of the same criticism, under which, only handled in a negative sense, ev Edéow had disappeared. But, it is said, the contents—quite general in tenor, without personal reminiscences and references, without salutations (not even Timotheus and Aristarchus are mentioned, as in Col. i. 1, iv. 10; Philem. 24), without any trace of that close intimacy in which Paul had stood to his Ephesian converts, as a father to his children’—are of such a character that the Epistle of itself 1 Historical traces of this ancient view are to be found in Theodoret, Praef., and on i. 15, who relates “that some had asserted that Paul ande» rads "Egecious rifsauivo» had written this Epistle to them ;” and also in Euthalius (ap. Zaccagni in Collect. mon. vet. eccl. p. 524): 4 wpös ’EQecious... Ns iv oH xpoypapn rd puorrpioy ixribsrar, wapamrncios Ti mwpös "Popmious auPoripas oF te axons yvapipnıs, xal sioly abras mwpös avrdiaoroAny üpxgal zurnxoupivay xal wırray siraywyai. Comp. also the Synops. script. sacr. in Athanasius, Opp. III. p. 194, ed. Bened. : radrny imıorirau ard "Pouns, ovrw my abrous twpaxds, axovous 3: mover wepl avtay (ray ’Edeciwy). 2 It is arbitrary and contrary to the manner of the apostle to assume, with Wurm (in the Tüb. Zeitschr. 1833, I. p. 98), that Paul, because of painful experi- ences which he had had in Ephesus, avoided mention of previous occurrences. How altogether different is his procedure, especially in the Epistle to the Galatians! INTRODUCTION. ate betrays that it was not directed to the Ephesians; and the passages, i. 15, iii. 1-4, iv. 21, point to readers who had not been in any personal connection with the apostle. Mainly based on this internal character of the Epistle, we find two hypotheses concerning the readers for whom it was destined :— I. Following Marcion, Grotius, Hammond, Mill, Pierce, du Pin, Wall, the younger Vitringa, Venema, Wetstein, Paley, et al., including, recently, Holzhausen and others (see on Col. iv. 16), as well as Räbiger, Christologia Paul. p. 48, have sup- posed’ that the Epistle was addressed to the Laodiceans, as being personally unknown to the apostle (Col. ii. 1). While this hypothesis (to which Baur, p. 457, is also inclined) falls of itself, if the genuineness of év "Edéoq is established, it may, moreover, be urged in opposition to it—(a) that from Marcion’s procedure we may not infer an Asiatic tradition. For the ecclesiastical tradition is quite unanimous in regarding the Ephesians as readers of the Epistle; there is no trace of deviation ; the heretic stands alone with his adherents, without any antici- pation or echo of his critical paradox. (0) Since, according to Col. iv. 16, the Epistle to the Laodiceans had at the very first become known in two different churches—in Laodicea and Colossae,—and without doubt was disseminated from both by copies, it is the more incomprehensible how the Ephesians could appropriate to themselves the Laodicean letter, and how universal ecclesiastical tradition could support this view with- out meeting with opposition in the church itself. The appeal to the earthquake, which, according to Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 27, in the year 60 (according to Eusebius, Chron., and Orosius, Hist. vii. 7, only at a later date; see Wieseler, p. 455) de- stroyed Laodicea (according to Eusebius and Orosius, Colossae and Hierapolis also), yields no result, since, according to 1 See, in opposition to this assumption, also Satori, über d. Laodicenerbricy, Lübeck 1853, and especially Reiche, p. 131 sqq. Reiche, however, considers our Epistle as identical with that mentioned in Col. iv. 16; in his view it was destined not merely for the Laodiceans, but also for Hierapolis and other churches of that region, and thence had no place specified in the opening address ; but Paul had orally imparted to Tychicus more particular directions as to that point. See, in opposition to the alleged encyclical destination of the Epistle, generally what is said below under II. The view of Weiss is essen- tially similar to that of Reiche. 12 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. Tacitus, 7c, Laodicea was soon restored; and the Christian church there cannot have perished (Rev. iii.), still less the knowledge of the Epistle which Paul had written to them. No doubt, in view of Col. iv. 16, there must have been an affinity of contents between the Epistle to the Laodiceans and that to the Colossians, which seems to tell in favour of the identity of our Epistle with the former; but may not Paul, besides our Epistle and that to the Colossians, have written a third kindred in its contents ? which has perished, like a letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. v. 9), one to the Philippians (see on Phil. iii. 1, Remark), and perhaps also others, which have left no traces behind. (c) If our Epistle is the Epistle to the Laodiceans, it must have been written before the Epistle to the Colossians (Col. iv. 16), which, according to § 2, is not to be assumed. Indeed, at Eph. vi. 21 and Col. iv. 7, there might possibly be not even meant one and the same journey of Tychicus (which yet forces itself on us so undeniably in pur- suance of the words and the geographical relations), seeing that Paul, in the Epistle to the Colossians (iv. 15), directs the Laodiceans, and an individual among them, to be saluted,— which, from the nature of the case, he would hardly have done, if he had been sending to them at the same time a letter, and that by so trusted a fellow-labonren! who, besides, had to travel by way of Laodicea to Colossae (see on Col. iv. 16, Remark). (d) What Holzhausen says of Col. ii. 2, that it was written with a consciousness of the Epistle to the Ephesians, is purely imaginary. See, in opposition to it, Harless, p. xxxix.— 1 This enigma would only admit of solution from the domain of conjecture. The easiest thing would be to say, that Paul, when he had the Epistle to the Colossians with his salutation to the Laodiceans already completed, had only then resolved to send further with Tychicus @ letter to the Laodiceans, in drawing up which he was aware that Tychicus would reach Laodicea before Colossae. But with all hypotheses, which are not made in the consistent follow- ing out of an ascertained fact, the ground falls away under our feet. Others have asserted that Paul wished to repeat the salutations, or that he had only, as he was writing to the Colossians, heard about Nymphas through Epaphras ; but these, after all, are nothing but suppositions, which, moreover, are invalidated by the fact that our Epistle is to be placed after that to the Colossians (see § 2). 3ertholdt considers the salutation in Col. iv. 15 merely as introduction to the subsequent commission (‘‘have the letter brought to the Laodiceans with my salutation”). But how utterly in opposition to the connection ! INTRODUCTION. 13 II. Following Beza,' and Ussher in his Annales ad ann. 64, Garnier, ad Basil. l.c., Bengel, Benson, Michaelis, Zachariae, Koppe, Ziegler (in Henke’s Magaz. IV. 2, p. 225 ff.), Justi (ver- mischte Abhandlungen, II. p. 81 ff.), Stolz, Haenlein, Schmidt, Eichhorn, Bertholdt, Hug, Flatt, Hemsen, Schott, Feilmoser, Schrader, Schneckenburger, Neander, Riickert, Credner, Matthies, Meier, Harless, Böttger, Anger, Olshausen, Thiersch (Kirche im apost. Zeitalt. p. 145 sqq.), Guericke, Lange, Bleek, and others have, though with manifold variations in detail (see Liinemann, p. 33 sqq.), regarded our Epistle as a circular letter. In that case Ephesus has mostly been included in the circle of churches concerned, but sometimes—as by Koppe, Haenlein (who has even lighted on the Peloponnesus !), Eichhorn, Ber- tholdt, and Reiche—entirely excluded ; while Laodicea and its neighbourhood have been in various ways brought in (accord- ing to Credner, e.g., one copy of the letter was sent to Hphesus to be circulated among the churches on the west coast of Asia Minor; and another copy to Laodicea, to be circulated among the churches in the interior), in fact, have even been regarded as the locality for which the Epistle was primarily and specially destined ; Bleek being withal of opinion that the Ephesians only got it to read from Tychicus on his journey to Phrygia, and retained for themselves a copy of it. But, in opposition to the | view of any sort of encyclical destination, we may decisively | again urge—(a) the universal and undivided ecclesiastical tradition, which does not exhibit the very slightest trace of such a destination. Indeed, both the orthodox and Marcion are here at one, since both name only one church as the receiver of the Epistle. And when we remember what a high honour any church could not but consider it to have received an apostolic writing, the utter disappearance of all knowledge that our Epistle had belonged to other churches, or had been claimed by them as their property, would be quite incon- ceivable. (db) Even apart from the circumstance that Paul does not in the Epistle give the slightest hint of any encyclical ' Who, on the subscription to the Epistle, expresses the conjecture that it was sent not so much ad Hphesios ipsos proprie, as rather to Ephesus, ‘‘ut ad ceteras Asiaticas ecclesias transmitteretur;” and that hence, probably, arose the partial omission of ty ’Egicg. 14 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. destination for it, the words of the address év ’Ederw, which cannot critically be dislodged, expressly testify against it. Paul could not thus address it, if he had intended it for more extended circulation, or even for other localities." How very dif- ferently he knew how to stamp on the face of the Epistles to the Corinthians the body of readers for whom they were intended ! But if the ev “Eg¢écw is held to be spurious (against this view, see above), then the address, which with ev “Ed¢ésq is too limited for a circular letter, would without these words be too wide for the purpose; for then zo local definition of the readers whatever would be indicated, and the Epistle would present itself not as an encyclical, but as a cutholic? Epistle. (c) If, with Rückert and Olshausen, we should assume that Paul, in the several copies which he gave to Tychicus, had ! This holds also in opposition to the form which Harless has given to the matter. The readers, in ‘his view, were daughter-churches of Ephesus, or Christians scattered about the country, who had first been made acquainted with the gospel from Ephesus, and of whom Paul had received intelligence through the Ephesians. To these Christians he had forwarded the Epistle through the Ephesian church. But as the Ephesian church itself might also extract benefit and edification from it, the apostle had wished that the Epistle should be publicly read to the principal church and remain with it. Harless conceives of Tychicus as giving the following message to the Ephesians : ‘‘ / bring to you here a letter which concerns you all, but specially the Gentile Christians, of whom you have spoken to the apostle. Take care that the letter, when it has been read with you, should also come into their hands, ye who know best the ways and means for that end ; and bring me to them, in order that I, in accordance with the apostle’s commission, may tell them what I have told you concerning his condition.” Thus the letter would primarily and mainly have applied to readers outside of Ephesus, and Paul would have addressed it rois ovaw “EN ’"Egiow? He would have suppressed its principal destination, and would have placed as the address only a mediate and subordinate one? No, Paul would have known how really to express in the opening address the relation which Harless has merely presupposed, if he had so conceived of it. See also Reiche, p. 127. ? Success cannot attend the attempt mentally to supply the local destination of the letter (that disappears with the rejection of iv "Egéew) from any other quarter in dealing with so singular and nameless an address. Weiss, lc. (comp. Reiche), thinks that Paul had given information to Tychicus for what circle of churches in Asia Minor the letter was intended ; but that the later tradition had appropriated it to the chief town and chief church, and had completed the address accordingly. But that premiss is arbitrarily assumed, and this bold stroke of tradition would hardly have gained universal assent, especially in view of its enigmatic relation to the contents of the Epistle. If Ephesus did not from the first stand in the text, as Marcion did not read it, the latter would have acted with more tact in having recourse to Laodicea. INTRODUCTION. 15 left blank the name of the place in order that it might be subsequently filled up with the names of the churches con- cerned (Ussher first suggested this, followed by Garnier, Bengel, Eichhorn, Hug, and others), or that at least in some copies a vacant space was left to be filled up at pleasure (Moldenhauer, Michaelis, Bertholdt, Hemsen, and others), this is (a) altogether an arbitrary transplanting of a modern procedure from the counting-houses of the present day back into the apostolic age, from which we have circular letters indeed, but no trace of such a process of drawing them out, the mechanical nature of which would hardly square with the spirit of the apostolic age. And (8) would not the Epistle, even if every church concerned had received a copy provided with its own name, have yet remained a circular letter? Thus, indeed, in the individual church-names of the different copies there would have been just so many contradictions to the proper destination of the Epistle. Why, then, should not Paul—in case of his giving to Tychicus the alleged circular letter in several copies—have named in every address uniformly the recipient churches as a whole? (y) It would have been utter folly (comp. Matthaei, ed. min. III. p. 23) if Paul in a portion of the copies had left the name of the place blank to be filled up according to pleasure in a manner which had not already been fixed. Could he write i. 15 ff., vi. 22, without having quite a definite conception what churches he had in view? (6) If only the name was to be left blank, why was ev also omitted ? why did not the copies run Tots otow év... Kat mioTois x.7.d.% (e) How inexplicable, that only copies with év ’Edeow, and, in addition, those: having no name whatever, should have had the good fortune to be preserved and distributed! Each of the churches in question would have sought to pre- serve and to multiply the copy addressed ¢o i under its name ; and different traditions with regard to the readers would inevitably have been current at a very early date in the church side by side. (&) If Laodicea was in the circle of churches in question, Colossae also was so (Col. iv. 16). But Colossae did not get the alleged circular letter through the despatch of a copy intended for. the Colossians, and addressed to them, but had to procure for itself the Laodicean Epistle from 16 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. Laodicea (Col. /.c.). These arguments tell at the same time against Bleek’s hesitating conjecture, that Paul in the Epistle, which was primarily intended for Laodicea, Hierapolis, etc., had left a gap after tots odcw, because, at the time of writing the letter, he was not yet able to specify all the several churches; as likewise against Anger’s view, that the cir- cular letter, primarily destined for Ephesus, had at the same time been destined for the daughter - churches of Asia, and among these, also for Laodicea; that Tychicus had to bring it first to Ephesus, from whence it was to make its way to the other churches, and so to Laodicea, and from thence to Colossae. In opposition to this view, see Zeller, Theol. Jahrb. 1844, I. p. 199 ff. ; Wieseler, Chronol. d. ap. Zeitalt. p. 442 sq. Similarly Laurent in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. 1866, p. 131, who assumes that Paul had intended the Epistle for the two churches, Laodicea and Ephesus, but had only despatched one copy for the two, in which he left the desig- nation of the place open. Thus copies with designations of the place had arisen through transcripts, some with ev Aaodıreia, some with ev ’Ebeow, the latter of which obtained the upper hand. But from the evidence of Tertullian (see above) we cannot gather that he had seen Mss. with ev Aaodixeia. Besides, there would subsist no reason at all why Paul, if he had written to these two churches, should not also have mentioned both of them in the address. In accordance with the foregoing discussion, no other criti- cal procedure in ascertaining the readers of the Epistle rests on a historical basis but that adopted. by most of the later commentators, which arrives at the conclusion that our Epistle was directed to the Ephesians and to no further church, in pursuance of the genuine ev 'Ebeow, and in agreement with the primitive and universal tradition of the church. So among the later commentators Whitby, Wolf, Cramer, Morus, and more recently Rinck, Sendschr. der Korinther, p. 31 ff, and in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 948 ff; Wurm in the Tiib. Zeitschr. 1833, I. p. 97 £.; Wiggers’ in the Stud. u. Krit. 1841, p. 412 ff.; Wieseler, Chronol. d. apost. Zeitalt. p. 443. ' Yet he also takes up the view (already expressed by Beza in his remarks on the subscription), that the apostle has not merely regarded the word spoken to INTRODUCTION. 17 We must, however, candidly confess that, while the difficulties of the individual passages i. 15, üi. 1-4, iv. 21, may be elucidated by their exegesis, the tone and contents of so general a tenor, the absence of any reminiscences of personal connection with the readers, the want of salutations, ete., in an Epistle to the Ephesians, remain more surprising than would be the case in any other Epistle. The appeal made by Wieseler (p. 449) to the elevated and didactic character of the Epistle is not sufficient to explain this strange pheno- menon; we lack the historical information for this purpose, and scientific modesty and prudence prefer to confess in this case the non liquet, rather than to construct hypotheses which, as has been shown, fall to pieces of themselves." There must have existed historical circumstances which occasioned the Epistle to receive the strange form that it undoubtedly has, but we are not acquainted with them. It is very natural, however, to think of the phenomenon in question as, in part at least, causally connected with the mission of Tychicus. In accordance with vi. 21 f, Paul may have reserved all details to be orally communicated by the latter, who seemed specially fitted for this purpose, since he, as an inhabitant of Asia,’ as the Ephesians as spoken to them, but has desired and designed a diffusion of the Epistle among, and a knowledge of it in, wider circles, so that under the one church he is addressing the whole body of Asiatic Christians, which had Ephesus as their mother-church and centre. But against this view it must be urged— apart from the cireumstance that St. Paul says nothing whatever of this sup- posed design—that in all the other Epistles too he might presuppose their being communicated to wider circles, and yet is not thereby withheld from entering into particulars, sending salutations, and the like. 1 This holds also of those hypotheses, which do not keep to the view of the Christian church at Ephesus as such, regarded as a whole, being the readers of the Epistle. Thus Neudecker (Zinl. p. 502) holds that the Epistle is directed to that portion of the church which had been converted by the disciples of the apostle after he had left Ephesus; and Liinemann conceives that Paul has written to a church which had been founded but a short time before in the immediate neighbourhood of Ephesus, and which was so closely bound up with the Ephesian Church that it might be considered as a part of it. Such hypotheses are strikingly and decisively disposed of by the simple and definite rois ob civ iv EQéow, which does not admit of any more limited interpretation than the addresses rois odo iv 'Poun, Rom. i. 7; rois ovow iv Sirirras, Phil. i. 1, etc. 2 Perhaps even from Ephesus. In Acts xx. 4, Tychicus and Trophimus are named as ‘‘ of Asia,” but the latter at least is definitely designated in xxi. 29 as an Ephesian. MEYER. — Ep. B 18 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. a witness of Paul’s farewell to the presbyters (Acts xx. 4), and also named elsewhere as an emissary to Ephesus (2 Tim. iv. 12), was undoubtedly very accurately acquainted with the relations of Paul to the Ephesians; whilst on the part also of the apostle himself there might be special motives (based possibly on the accusation brought against him by the Jews, Acts xxi. 28, 29, and on the covetousness of the venal Felix, Acts xxiv. 26), arising from the conditions of his imprisonment and surveillance, for his deeming it advisable by way of pre- caution to compose his Epistle to Zhis particular church, with which he was on the most intimate footing, without setting forth personal relations and special circumstances. Nevertheless, this Epistle, as an apostolical letter to the Ephesians, with its so general, and, even in various particulars, surprising contents, remains an enigma awaiting further solution; and we must confess that if Ephesus had not been given as the place of destination, criticism would least of all have been likely to light upon this church among the Asiatic churches known to us. SEC. 2.—PLACE AND TIME OF COMPOSITION. St. Paul was a prisoner when he wrote the Epistle, iii. 1, iv. 1, vi. 20. It has always been the prevailing opinion that this imprisonment was the captivity at Rome, narrated in the Acts of the Apostles. But David Schulz in the Stud. «. Krit. 1829, p. 612 ff, and after him Schneckenburger, Beitr. p.144 f.; Schott; Böttger (in connection, doubtless, with his hypothesis that that Roman imprisonment only lasted a few days); Wiggers in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1841, p. 436 ff; Thiersch, d. Kirche im apost. Zeitalt. p. 176; Reuss, @esch. der heil. Schr. N. T.$ 114; Schenkel (comp. also Weiss in Herzog’s Eneykl. XIX. p. 718); and Zöckler in Vilmar’s Pastoral-theol. Blätt. 1863, p. 277f, have decided in favour of the captivity at Caesarea. And rightly so. Not, however, as if the friends of Paul, who are named in the contemporary letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Col iv. 9-14; Philem. 10 ff., 23 f.), could not have been with him at Rome, 1 Graul (Lips. 1836) wrote in opposition to Schulz and Schott. INTRODUCTION, 19 as has been sought to be inferred from the Epistle to the Philippians, which only (i. 1) mentions Timotheus ;' nor, again, on account of mpos @pav, Philem. 15, which expression as contrasted with aiwvıov by no means presupposes merely a quite short separation of the runaway Onesimus from his master; nor yet because Paul at Rome could not have obtained sufficiently accurate information concerning Colossae, for this might, in fact, have been got sufficiently by means of Epaphras (Col. iv. 12) ;—but, (1) because it is in itself more natural and probable that the slave Onesimus had run away from Colossae as far as Caesarea, than that he should have fled, at the cost of a long journey by sea, to Rome, the more especially as the fugitive was not yet a Christian. The objection (see Wieseler, p. 417), that in the great city of Rome he would have been more secure from being tracked by the fugitivariz, who were everywhere on the look-out for runaway slaves, cannot be maintained, since this police-agency was certainly most to be dreaded in the capital itself and im the company of a state- prisoner. (2) If our Epistle and the Epistle to the Colossians had been sent from Rome, then would its bearer Tychicus, who was accompanied by Onesimus (Col. iv. 8, 9), have arrived at Ephesus first, and then at Colossae ; and accordingly we might reasonably expect that Paul would have mentioned to the Ephesians along with Tychicus (Eph. vi. 21, 22) his com- panion Onesimus (as he does in Col. iv. 8, 9), in order by that means to prepare for his beloved Onesimus a good recep- tion among the Ephesians. If, on the contrary, Tychicus started with Onesimus ‚from Caesarea, he arrived by the most direct road, in keeping with the design of the journey of Onesimus, first at Colossae, where he left the slave with his master, and thence passed on to Ephesus; accordingly Paul had, in the circumstance that Onesimus did not go with Tychicus to Ephesus, a natural reason for not including a mention of Onesimus in the Epistle to the Ephesians. Comp. Wisgers, /.c. p. 440 ff. It is not enough to explain this non- mention from the general absence of individual references in 1 In any case the Epistle to the Philippians was written later. But these friends might just as well have been with the apostle at Rome as at Caesarea, as certainly was the case with Aristarchus (Col. iv. 10; Philem. 24), Acts xxvii. 2. 20 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS, our Epistle (Wieseler), since here the question concerns a single passage, which is really of an individual and personal tenor. (3) In Eph. vi. 21, iva de eiöhre Kai dpeis, this kat indicates the conception that, when Tychicus should come to the Ephesians, he would have already fulfilled the aim here expressed in the case of others. And these others are the Colossians (Col. iv. 8,9), with regard to whom, therefore, Paul knew that Tychicus would come first to them, which again tells in favour not of Rome, but of Caesarea, as the starting-point. If the messenger had been despatched from Rome, and so had proceeded from Ephesus to Colossae, we should then have expected the «ad at the corresponding passage in the Zpistle to the Colossians.” Further, (4) Paul, in Philem. 22, asks Philemon to prepare a lodging for him, and that, too, for speedy use. (See on Philem. l.e.) This, on the one hand, presupposes the fact that his present place of imprisonment was much nearer to Colossae than the far distant Rome, especially considering the slowness of navi- gation in those days; on the other hand,—and this is withal the main point,—we must assume, in the light of this request, that Paul thought of coming from his place of imprisonment, after the speedy release which he hoped for, direct to Phrygia, and in particular to Colossae unto Philemon, without making any intermediate journeys, since otherwise there would be no motive for the request as to the immediate preparation of a lodging for him at the house of Philemon simultaneously with the taking back of Onesimus. But now it is plain from Phil. ii, 24 that Paul, when he was lying a prisoner at Rome and was there hoping for his liberation, intended to journey to Macedonia 1 Wiggers appeals to ver. 22, holding, namely, that Paul could not legiti- mately have written ov true apis tues sis abro rovro x.7.a., if Tychicus must, in the very nature of the case from his being destined for Colossae, have come to Ephesus. But wrongly. For even if Tychicus, in virtue of the direction of his journey (from Rome to Colossae), would necessarily have been brought by way of Ephesus, he might nevertheless have merely passed through it, if St. Paul had not expressly given him orders for the definite object of Eph. vi. 22, and entrusted him with commissions to the church. The fact that Tychicus must necessarily have travelled by way of Ephesus would not therefore exclude the truth of the tru Wa wpis tuzs x.7.2. We may add, that from Rome the travellers might have reached Colossae, without even touching at Ephesus,—by way of Miletus possibly,—so that Paul, ii Rome be presupposed as the starting- point, might the more fitly write these words. INTRODUCTION. zu (not to Spain, to which his views had been directed earlier, Rom. xv. 24),— which, after what has been said above, is not in keeping with the bespeaking of a lodging with Philemon. This bespeaking, on the other hand, is quite appropriate, if Paul was at Caesarea. From that place, after the speedy release which he hoped for, he intended to journey through Phrygia and Asia generally, and next to carry out his old plan, which was directed to Rome (Rom. i. 10 ff; Acts xix. 21). Whether at this time he still entertained his earlier plan of a journey to Spain (Rom. xv. 24; at Phil. ii, 24 he had given it up), is a matter of indifference for our question. But it is certain that Paul at Caesarea, considering his gentle treatment and the lax prosecution of his trial under Felix, might hope for speedy liberation (Acts xxiv. 23, 26). It has been maintained (see Wieseler, p. 420, Guericke, and others) that neither the freedom to preach (vi. 19; Col. iv. 3f is not here relevant), nor the conversion of Onesimus (Philem. 10), suit his condition at Caesarea, but that they suit only his position at Rome according to Acts xxviii. 30 f.; but this is to assert too much, for the notice at Acts xxiv. 23 leaves sufficfent scope for our recognising such activity on the part of the captive Paul even in Caesarea. Comp. Introd. to Col. § 2. If, accordingly, Paul composed the Epistle in Caesarea, the date of its composition is either A.D. 60 or A.D. 61. Finally, the question whether this Epistle or that to the Colossians was first written, is not to be answered on a psycho- logical basis* by considering their inner relationship and peculiar character, because in that case there is too much scope left for 1 As, e.g., by Credner, § 157, who holds that the Epistle to the Ephesians was written earlier—(1) Because its aim is the more general, and that of the Epistle to the Colossians, as the special, is subordinate. (2) Because the former, as directed (according to Credner’s view) to unknown Pauline Christians in Asia, would have required the most mature consideration, whereas the Epistle to the Colossians would be much more easily drawn up, since Paul had Epaphras and Onesimus with him—and so it could not fail but that a portion of the ideas laid down in the former Epistle would be transferred also to the latter, in such wise that what was there general in tenor would assume a special form. (3) Because in our Epistle the expression is more abstract, ete.—It would not be difficult, with equal plausibility, to invert the relation, and to represent the more special, the easier, and more concrete as psychologically antecedent to the more general, more difficult, and more abstract shape. 22 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. subjectivity,—as, indeed, on such grounds some have found the Epistle to the Ephesians the earlier (Cornelius a Lapide, 3öhmer, Credner, Schneckenburger, Matthies, Anger, Guericke, Reuss), and others that to the Colossians (Schleiermacher, Harless, Neander, Meier, Wiggers, de Wette, Bleek, Weiss) ; nor yet by inferring, with Hug, from the non-mention of Timothy in the Epistle to the Ephesians, that this Epistle - was written earlier than the letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, because in the latter Timothy shares in the salutation, and must thus have joined Paul later." But that the Epistle to the Colossians was written before that to the Ephesians, is to be assumed for the following reasons: (1) As Colossae was the first and nearest goal which Tychicus, in company with the Colossian Onesimus, would reach from Caesarea (see above), it could not but be the most natural and obvious course for the apostle to write the letter to the Colossians sooner than the letter which was to be delivered only at a further stage of his friend’s journey ; (2) Kai üueis, vi. 21, refers to the passage Col. iv. 7, and presupposes that Paul had already written and had in his recollection this latter Epistle. If, indeed, the Epistle to the Laodiceans were identical with the Epistle to the Ephesians, then, according to Col. iv. 16, the Epistle to the Colossians would necessarily be the later. But see § 1, and on Col, iv. 16. SEC. 3. GENUINENESS OF THE EPISTLE, After previous expressions of doubt on the part of Schleier- macher (Vorl. üb. Einl. I. N. T. p. 165 f., 194) and Usteri, de Wette has come forward more decidedly than before, assail- ing the genuineness of the Epistle (exeget. Handbuch, zweite Aufl. 1847, and Einl., fünfte Aufl. 1848); and the critics of Baur’s school (Schwegler, krit. Miscellen zum Epheserbr., in Zeller’s theol. Jahrb. 1844, 2, p. 378 ff.; nachapostol. Zeitalt. 1 We might, in fact, with equal right infer the converse, viz. that Timothy had, at the writing of the Epistle to the Ephesians, already left Paul again and had journeyed to some other quarter, so that this Epistle would be the later—as Schott really judges it to be. INTRODUCTION. 23 TI. p. 330 ff, 375 ff.; Baur, Paulus, p. 418 ff, comp. also his Christenth. d. drei ersten Jahrh. p. 104 ff.) relegate the Epistle to the age of Gnosticism and Montanism, whereas de Wette (comp. Schleiermacher) still allows it to belong to the apostolic age, and to a gifted disciple of the apostle as its author. So too Ewald (Sendschr. d. P. p. xii.; Geschichte d. apost. Zeit. p. 243 ff); he denies that it was written by Paul, but yet places it much nearer to the great apostle than the Pastoral Epistles; while Weisse (Dogmat. I. p. 146) lightly characterizes it as an unapostolic paraphrase of the Epistle to the Colossians, and Hausrath (d. Ap. Paulus, 1865, p. 2, 138) speaks of it as an Epistle to the Laodiceans retouched by another hand. De Wette’s reasons, in addition to his finding the destina- tion for Ephesus unsuitable, are as follow: that the Epistle, which is devoid of all specially distinctive character in its aim and references, is so dependent on the Epistle to the Colossians, which is almost a mere verbose amplification of it, as to be out of keeping, when divested of the reference to the false teachers. Such a copying from himself is unworthy of the apostle; the style, too, is un-Pauline, overladen as it is with parentheses and accessory clauses, involving a want of connec- tion (ii. 1, 5, iii. 1, 13), copious in words but poor in thoughts; so, too, are the divergences in particular expressions,’ as well as in the thoughts, doctrinal opinions, and mode of teaching? 1 «6 ey cois troupavios, 1. 8, 20, ii. 6, iii. 10, vi. 125 re rvevmarina, vi. 12 5 Bud Boros, iv. 27, vi. 11 (elsewhere only in 1 and 2 Tim.) ; xocpoxparwp, vi. 12; cwrnpioy, vi. 16. Words differently used: oixovouiz, i, 10, iii, 2, 9; guornpov, v. 32 (as in Rev. i. 20, xvii. 5, 7); wrarpwye, i. 23 (comp. Col. i. 19, ii. 9); edaoyia, i. 3; alas, 11. 2; wepiwoinais, 1.143 apbupoia, vi. 243 pavbavev, iv. 20; Bworikew, iii. 9; wAnpovobas tv, v. 18; An. eis, iii. 19; the combinations Bacircia cov Ocod zul Xpiorov, v.5; 70 bAnwa rov xupiov, v.17. Interruption and resumption of the con- struction, iii. 2-14; the constructions ters ywaoxovees, V. 5 3 iva Gobaras, V. 33; ive with the optative, i. 17, iii. 26. Frequent omission of the article before defin- ing additions, i. 3, 15, ii. 7, 11, 15, 21f., and other passages; diffuseness and pleonasm, i. 19, vi. 10, iii. 18; ii. 6 f., 21 (tv Xpor@ "Incov), and various other points.” 2 * Unbecoming appeal of the apostle to his insight, iii. 4; putting together of the apostles and prophets, ii. 20, iii. 5; arbitrary use of the passage in the Psalms at iv. 8; quotation of a non-biblical passage, v. 14; the conceptions of demon- ology, ii. 2, vi. 12; the characteristics of God, i. 17, iii. 9, 15; the laying stress on Old Testament promise, v. 2f.; the dissuasion from theft, iv. 28; the un-Pauline salutation, vi. 23 f.” 2 4. THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. But (a) while the absence of any concrete and direct peculi- arity of character in its aim and references is surprising, it is altogether unfavourable to any doubts as to its genuineness, partly because the bringing out at all of a writing under an apostle’s name and authority makes us presuppose more definite tendencies and more readily recognisable conditions as aimed at in it; partly because, in particular, the circumstances of the Ephesian church, and the close relationship of the apostle to them, must have been so generally known, that a non-apostolic author would either have deliberately taken account of and employed them, or else, if the design of his undertaking per- mitted it, would have made another and happier selection of an address than this very ev "E¢éow. He who could prepare under the name of the apostle an Epistle of so thoroughly Pauline a tenor, must have been quite able to imitate him in the men- tion and handling of concrete circumstances, and would, by such an omission of those matters as is apparent in our Epistle, neither have satisfied himself nor have answered his design of personating Paul—so much would he have failed in acting his part. The very fact that the Epistle, as an Epistle to the Ephesians, had its genuineness so generally recognised by the ancient church, is, when we consider the general nature of its contents, which always remains mysterious, a doubly valid evidence that this recognition has historically arisen out of immediate and objective certainty. Further, (0) as regards the relation of the Epistle to that to the Colossians, there appear, as is well known, many resemblances in matter and form— some even literal—between the two Epistles... This may, how- ever, be sufficiently explained, in part subjectively from the fact that Paul had just written the Epistle to the Colossians 1 Eph.. 1.7, comp. Col. i. 14. | Eph. iii. 2, comp. Col. i. 25. RR N me: rae ws) thee eee MERE Toy cs). gi Md, Vene, | ane ” 1.18; = 92T, Foie Sch; 7 2 ene „ i. 21, ” „» 1 16 ” iv 1, ” Pe 10 7 12, 55 Fe ney alia VE . 211, 121g jot EZ, sr Legal ce LiwiSB, ae yo HE ALASR so. SMI AD 3, Lee ss LndvarlonE > 11209) ro 5 ale! i) vee: 7 3 Isl, ok >,.6..1821:03 Pr cate ell, ei r 3.2110 850 - > fen =I =I „m “ w Ir - ~ bo ~ “ = a aA bo © - - “ bs = - =] = r oo Lael INTRODUCTION. 25 before writing to the Ephesians, so that his mind was still full of and pervaded by the ideas, warnings, and exhortations which he had expressed in the former; in part objectively from the fact that the state of affairs at Ephesus must have been well enough known to the apostle to induce him to repeat various portions of the writing which he had just composed for another Asiatic church, and that to such a degree that he considered it fitting even to reproduce various things word for word from the Epistle to the Colossians, which lay before him. To declare this a course unworthy of the apostle is rash, since we have no other pair of letters from his hand issued so contemporaneously and under the influence of so similar a train of thought. But while certainly several elements from the Epistle to the Colossians have been amplified as to verbal expression in ours, there are also several that are reproduced in a more concise form (eg. i. 15-17 compared with Col. i. 3,4; Eph. ii. 16 with Col. i. 20; Eph. iv. 32 with Col. ui, 12 f., and others); and those amplifications admit of natural explanation from renewed dwelling on the same thoughts, in which Paul did not proceed mechanically, and a mind such as his easily had recourse to more words rather than fewer in setting forth the subject afresh. At any rate, de Wette’s judgment of it as almost nothing but a verbose ampli- jication, is exaggerated, seeing that the two Epistles present in their course of thought, tenor, and mode of treatment very essential differences (see Harless, p. Ixix. ff.; Lünemann, de Ey. ad Eph. authentid, etc., p. 10 ff.), and the conclusion that a pseudo-Paul was at work would, at all events, be too hasty, so long as it was not from other sufficient grounds clear that Paul could not have been himself the amplifier. On the other Eph. iv. 29, comp. Col. iii. 8, iv. 6. | Eph. v. 21, comp. Col. iii. 18. a he Ble Preeti koe je RV255 9 ss ra, 19% 18 3 ZT, re, nr 1120: ap) Geer So he, bas Ev A, a Pano Palle ee ave 2 se gn Tales 5a Vie DELS 45 55 11220, a nV Ds Fr nad: Se evden Oy 3 Fee ule Fa avin Gs Pie ery tilly as Seka Gute. a, yo vena oy ple Sauk Hvar‘ sevis2ll 5; van? vaton, San) | ayy All lG fe See the table in de Wette, p. 286 ff. Comp. Bemmelen, Diss. de epp. ad Eph. et Col. inter se collat., Lugd. Bat. 1503. 26 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS, hand, it is scarcely conceivable of an amplifying imitator, that one so intimately acquainted with the apostle’s ideas and diction, should have chosen a single Pauline Epistle for the sole and often literal basis of his work; for thereby he would merely have imposed an unnecessary restriction on himself, and have increased the probability of his fiction, made up though it might be in the best sense, being recognised as such. A man, who could think and write in so Pauline a manner as that wherein the portions not parallel to the Colossian Epistle are thought and written, might with ease have given to his pretended apostolic treatise a shape quite different and not so palpably exhibiting any single source. (c) With respect to the objections taken to the style of the Epistle as too diffuse, loaded with parentheses and accessory clauses, carrying with it a want of connection (ii. 1, 5, iii. 1, 13), verbose, and poor in new ideas, it is to be observed, first, and generally, that this verdict is an unfavourable judgment resting on taste and subjec- tive in character ; and, secondly, that in its individual concrete references it relates to a certain peculiarity of the Epistle, which yet is not un-Pauline, seeing that, in fact, the unity of mould and flow, the pectus atque indoles Paulinae mentis (Erasmus), which pervades it from beginning to end,’ leads us more fairly and justly to set down the greater diffuseness, and what is called overloading, to the aecount of the apostle himself, deeply moved as he was by his subject. There is greater diffuseness certainly, but how natural is this, when we consider the general character of the grand subject-matter and of its evolution, and the absence of casual contents! There are a number of parentheses and accessory clauses certainly, but not after an un-Pauline fashion, and natural enough to a writer so full of the ideas concerned and the collateral thoughts sug- gested by them. Nowhere is there in reality want of connection, as it is the province of the exposition to show. A poverty of new ideas is merely apparent in proportion to the standard of the expectation cherished a priori; the letter abounds in many- sided modifications and expanded statements of thoughts which were vividly present to the writer’s mind, in part from the 1“ Tdem in hac epistola Pauli fervor, eadem profunditas, idem omnino spiritus ac pectus,” Erasmus, INTRODUCTION. 27 Epistle to the Colossians, but a rich accession of new ideas was neither withal intended nor called forth by dialectic con- troversy (as to the copiousness of diction, see above). As respects (d) the particular divergences of style, ära& Neyöueva are found in every Epistle of Paul, as well as other peculiar modes of expression, as may readily be conceived in the case of a letter-writer having so delicate and comprehensive a mastery of the Greek language; but no one of the proofs brought for- ward by de Wette (which are in part inappropriately selected, and, on the other hand, misht have had their number increased) is at variance with the idiosyncrasy of the apostle. And, further, (e) dma& voovpeva are not appropriate grounds for doubting the genuineness of a writing in dealing with one whose mind was so inexhaustibly rich, and whose conception moved with such admirable freedom and many-sidedness in the Christian sphere, as was the case with St. Paul. Everything which is adduced as surprising in conception and doctrine may be psychologically and historically explained as standing in full accord with the pure Pauline Gospel (see the exposition), and the objections which are taken to the mode of teaching find analogies in other Pauline Epistles, and rest upon aesthetic presuppositions, which in a historico-critical examination of the New Testament writings supply us with but very uncertain criteria, seeing that in such a case modern taste is much too easily called in as an extraneous ground influencing the judgment. The more candidly de Wette speaks out as to the Epistle not having been composed in the apostolic age, and makes a gifted disciple of Paul to be its author, the more insoluble he makes the riddle, that such an one should have left his treatise without trace of individual historical relations of the apostle to the Ephesians, which it would have been so easy for him to interweave. Lastly, the reasons urged by the school of Baur, according to which this Epistle and the com- panion Epistle to the Colossians, forming a spurious pair, are held to be a product of Gnosis in opposition to Ebionitism (comp. on Col. Introd. § 3), are disposed of, when the exposition, dealing in a strictly objective manner, demonstrates in the very places which have been called in question simply Pauline con- tents. See, in opposition to Baur’s contrast, specially Klöpper, de 28 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. orig. epp. ad Eph. et Col., Gryph. 1853 ; and with regard to the Christology of our letter and that to the Colossians, Räbiger, de Christologia Paulina, p. 42 ff.; Lange, apost. Zeitalt. I. 1, p. 119 ff." The more decisive in that case becomes the weight, which the external attestation by uninterrupted church-tradition throws into the scale. This attestation has been even dated back to the Apostolic Fathers; but in Ignatius, Eph. 12, the Epistle is not at all directly mentioned (see above, § 1), and in Polycarp, Phil. 12, where it is said: “ut in his seripturis dictum est: Lrascimini et nolite peccare, et: Sol non oceidat super wracundiam vestram,” there is no quotation of Eph. iv. 26, but rather, as in his seripturis (comp. immediately before : in sacris literis) and the intervening et prove, the citation of two Old Testament sayings, namely, Ps. iv. 5 and Deut. xxiv. 13, 15, though the connecting of these two passages may be based on a reminiscence of our Epistle? Apart from the cita- tions in the interpolated Ignatian letters, the undoubted and express ecclesiastical attestation begins with Irenaeus, Haer. v. 2,3,andv. 14. 3, and is not interrupted by any contradiction (Marcion held it as Pauline, but as addressed to the Laodiceans). Even the Valentinians already in Irenaeus, i. 8. 5, cite Eph. v. 13 expressly as a saying of Paul, and in the Philosoph. of Origen, vi. 34, as ypadn. REMARK. — The apparent resemblances to the first Epistle of Peter of expressions and thoughts in the Epistle to the Ephesians (see Weiss, Petrin. Lehrbegr. p. 426 ff, who has, however, adduced under this head far too much) are too little charac- teristic adequately to justify us in presupposing a dependence of our Epistle on that of Peter (Weiss, who considers both 1 Lange, however, wrongly defines the Christological distinction of the two Epistles, p. 117, to the effect, that in the Ephesian letter Christ is the Omega, in the Colossian the Alpha, of all things. In both letters He is the A and the 2, but in the Colossian letter the Christological theme stands in the foreground, and is treated more sedulously and more comprehensively. . 2 The general question, whether at this date Apostolic Fathers adduce New Testament sayings With ds yiyparrzı, ypagn, and the like, does not therefore pertain to us here. Specially important in this relation is the citation in Barnabas 4, in regard to which Credner, Beitr. I. p. 28, has been mistaken in answering that question in the negative, as the Codex Sinaiticus showed, The citation from Barnabas is certainly not to be referred to a written source generally (Weizsäcker), nor even to 4 Esdr. viii. 3, which passage is held to be confounded with Matt. xix. 30 (Volkmar). INTRODUCTION, 29 genuine ; Schwegler, who regards both as spurious). We should rather assume the converse, when we remember how strictly Paul preserved and acutely vindicated his apostolic indepen- dence; but it is quite sufficient to take our stand on the creative power of the church-language formed by Paul, from which Peter was neither able nor willing to hold himself aloof, while it remains an open question whether he had read Zpistles of Paul. 2 Pet. (a. 15 £.) is not genuine. SEC. 4.—OCCASION, OBJECT, AND CONTENTS. We are unable to perceive from the letter itself any special occasion given for it on the part of the Ephesians; hence it seems to have been called forth by mere accident through the mission of Tychicus and Onesimus to Colossae—an opportunity, which Paul made use of to send Tychicus also to Ephesus, in order not only to supply the Christians there with (oral) news of him, and to obtain news of them, but also to address to them a written discourse, partly on the glory of redemption and of their state as Christians, partly on the conduct in keeping with it, in order to strengthen and further them in stedfastness and unity of faith and Christian morality; yet not so, that the proper aim of the Epistle (de Wette) is to be discerned in the irenic section iv. 1-16. There are no traces of Ephesian false teachers, similar to those at Colossae (this in opposition to Michaelis, Haenlein, Flatt, Schott, Neudecker, and others), in the Epistle (for iv. 14 f. may be explained from the general experience of the apostle, and v. 6 relates to moral seductions) ; neither is a precautionary regard to such theosophy and asceti- cism (see Schneckenburger, Beitr. p. 135 ff.; Olshausen; comp. also Meier and Weiss) at any rate capable of proof, since in the Epistle itself it is not at all hinted at. Bengel well says: “ Singulare haec epistola specimen praebet tractationis evan- gelicae in thesi... inde nullum speciatim errorem aut vitium refutat aut redarguit, sed generatim incedit.” Paul may, how- ever, have had in the background the thought of the possible approach of that Gnostic danger, though he did not consider it necessary or suitable at this time to furnish an express reference or warning to that effect. 30 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. As regards contents, the Epistle divides itself into a pre- dominantly dogmatic and a predominantly hortatory portion. The dogmatic portion is a lofty’ effusion over the glory and blessedness of the redemption effected through Christ, to which also the readers, formerly Gentiles, had attained, and thereafter over the relation of the apostle to this saving dispensation, and to the share of the readers therein (chap. i—iii.). The hortatory portion summons them to a conduct worthy of their calling, and, first of all, to Christian unity (iv. 1-16); and then to a moral walk opposed to their previous Gentile life—which is illustrated in detail as concerns very diversified conditions and relations (iv. 17-vi. 20). By way of conclusion, Paul refers, as regards his personal relations, to Tychicus, of whose mission he specifies the object (vi. 21 f.), and ends with a double bene- diction (vi. 23 f.)—Luther (in his editions of the N. T. down to 1537) reckons the Epistle among “ the genuine and noblest books of the New Testament, which show to thee Christ, and teach everything which it is necessary and good for thee to know, even though thou shouldest never see or hear any other book or doctrine.” 1 §pnray opolpa yiuss ray vonudrwy nal Umspoyrwv' & yup undamoy 0,x:00v EDbeyzaro, cavra tyra dnro, Chrysostom. CHAP, oo ITavrov Emiotorn mpös Edecious. ABDEFGKS,min. have the shorter and older super- scription: wpös “Egesious. I, min.: rod ayiov dmooror.ou Tlavacu éxioroAy Tpos Epeo. CHAP TE Re; L Ver. 1. 2’ Egéow] See Introd. $1. Tisch. has put it in brackets. — Ver. 3. & before Xpior® is wanting only in some min.,—an omission, which, although followed in the editions of Erasmus, Steph. 3, and Beza, and approved of by Mill, is not at all deserving of notice as a various reading.— Ver. 6. & 7] A B s* min. Chrys. (alic.) have 7. Recommended by Griesb., adopted by Lachm. and Riick., and rightly so. The attraction was resolved partly by the simple 5 (so Theophyl. Ambrosiast.), partly, in keeping with the prevalence of & in the context, by & 7, which latter is defended by Reiche on insufficient grounds. — Ver. 10. ra év rors odpavors] The rz read in Elz. after ré is, on decisive evidence, deleted by the later editors (except Harless). But in place of , BD E L&* min. Theodoret, Dam. Oecum. Tert. have és, which Lachm. and Rück. have rightly received. The usual form of conception, &v +073 otpavors (comp. i. 15), superseded the apparently unsuitable &. At Col. i. 20, many min. Chrys. and Theodoret have likewise é/ roi odpavo7z, where 2/, indeed, is too weakly attested, but has most probably come from our passage. — Ver. 11. éxanpwdnue] A D EF G, It. have é«A7jdyuev. Recommended by Griesb., adopted by Lachm. and Rück. But Matth. Harless, Tisch. Reiche have rightly defended the still more considerably attested Zecepta as the more difficult reading, glossed by éxA7énuev. The gloss is to be derived from Rom. viii. 13: ods 62 spodipsoe, robrovg zul Erareos. — Ver. 12. rs before ö6&n5 is, following Griesb., deleted by the more recent editors (except Harless) on preponderating evidence. An addition easily suggested; comp. ver. 14.— Ver. 14. é¢] AB F GL, min. Athan. Cyr. Euthal. Chrys. (in the text) have 6. So Lachm. and Rück. But ö was, on account of the preceding mveöwo, the more easily introduced and retained, since by that 32 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. means the old opinion, that é; applies to Christ, was met. — Ver. 15. ra» &yaarny rqv] Lachm. has only rv, following A B s* 17, Cyr. (alic.) Jer. Aug. (alic.). A copyist’s error, and how easily caused by the repetition of the rjv!_ If the addition had been made from Col. i. 4, qv ®xer: would have been inserted instead of the second r7,.— Ver. 16. The second ivéy is wanting in ABDNS, min. Cant. Goth. Hil.; F and G have it after rordmevoc. Deleted by Lachm. and Rück. A defining addition, which was first written in the margin, and then inserted, sometimes before, sometimes after sosmdmevos.— Ver. 18. xupösas] Elz. has d:avoras, against decisive testimony. An interpretation. — zei] is want- ing in A B D* FG s*59, It. Goth. Ambrosiast. Victorin., and is deleted by Lachm. and Riick., but came to be more readily left out than added, because the concluding ze’ only comes in after- wards. — Ver. 20. zvjpynoev] Lachm. reads !vapynzev, after A B, Cyr. Procop.; and rightly so. The aorist, in itself more in current use, was suggested by the aorists following. And the attestation is strong enough, since the vss. and Latin Fathers cannot be taken into account.—ézé:o2v] Lachm. and Rück. read zaé/ous, following AB s,min. Slav. Vulg. Cyr. utr. Euseb. Procop. Tert. Jer. Ambr. Pel. An attempt to help out the construction. — odpav7z, instead of érovpavios, though adopted by Lachm., is too feebly attested by B, Victorin. Hilar. — Ver. 23. r«] is wanting in Elz., but has been, upon decisive evidence, restored by Bengel, Griesb. and the later editors; comp. ver. 22. ConTEents.—After the usual address and apostolic saluta- tion (vv. 1, 2), St. Paul begins with an ascription of praise to God for the salvation in Christ (ver. 3), which he sets forth (a) as already lovingly predestined by God in eternity to the praise of His grace (vv. 4, 5); (0) as brought about by the death of Christ (vv. 6, 7); then (c) as made known according to the purpose of the divine kindness, to unite all in Christ (vv. 8-10); and lastly, (d) as really appropriated according to the predestination of God (ver. 11); this latter in respect as well to those who had been Jews (ver. 12) as to those who had been Gentiles (vv. 13, 14), both of whom were destined to the praise of the divine glory—Wherefore, since the Gentiles also had attained to such happiness, he too, after having heard of their faith and love, ceases not to give thanks for his readers, when making mention of them in his prayers, in order that God might enlighten them by His Spirit concerning the hope to which their calling exalted them, concerning the glory of the CHAP. I. 1-3, oa future salvation, and concerning the greatness of the divine power in the believers (vv. 15-19), which power they were to recognise by what God had wrought in the case of Christ, whom He had raised from the dead and exalted above all, and had given Him as Lord over all to be Head to the church, which is His body—that which is filled by Him, who filleth all with all (vv. 20-23). Vv. 1, 2. Ava Heryu. Oeod] See on 1 Cor. i. 1. — tots ayioıs] See on Rom. i. 7. — kat miorois év X.°I.] furnishes, with Tois aylous, the completeness of the conception, hence it is not epexe- gesis (Beza, Vorstius, Calovius, and others), but an appended element, and «av is the closely copulative and. Comp. Col. i. 2. It is not, however, the conception of jidelity and perseverance which is appended (Grotius, Locke, Baumgarten, Rosenmiiller, Meier ; see, on the other hand, already Calovius), but the notion of faith in Christ, since in the address, where the persons are to be designated very distinctly, tots dylous alone would not yet characterize the readers expressly as Christians. Comp. Phil. i. 1.— ev Xpiot@ *Inoovd] does not belong to dyious and muotois, so that it would denote the sphere, within which the Christians are saints and believing (Harless; comp. Boyd, Storr, Opuse. II. p. 121, Meier, Schenkel), for otherwise (comp. on Col. i. 2) kat mıicrois would be quite superfluous and a tame and heavy addition, inasmuch as the notion of üyıos ev Xpict@ presupposes the notion of motos ev Xptot@; but merely to mıcross: fidem in Christo reponentibus. Comp. 1. 15, and see on Mark i. 15; Gal. iii. 26. — Ver. 2. See on Rom. i. 7. Ver. 3. EiXoynrös] praised (2), sc. ein. Comp. Rom. 127 Ope 2. Cor. 185 Lukes, 68 ;1- Bet, 1,3561: Kings xy. 39 It is prefixed here, since, as in most doxologies (see on Rom. ix. 5), in keeping with the emotion of the heart which breaks forth in songs of praise, the emphasis lies on it. Where the stress in conformity with the context rests upon the person, this is prefixed, as at 1 Kings x. 9; 2 Chron. ix. 8; Jobi. 21; Ps. Ixviii. 20, exii. 1, 2; Rom. ix. 5. The second Epistle to the Corinthians begins also with an ascription of praise to God, and the general character of that now before us cannot, in view of the general contents of the Epistle (comp. 1 Pet. Meryer.—Epu. Cc 34 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. i. 3 ff.), appear un-Pauline (in opposition to de Wette), especially as the thanksgiving which has reference to the readers comes in afterwards in ver. 15 f.—o Oeös Kal marıp tod Kupiov K.T.r.] God, who at the same time is the Father of Jesus Christ. See on Rom. xv. 6; 1 Cor. xv. 24; 2 Cor. xi. 31; Theodore of Mopsuestia in Cramer’s Catena. Jerome, Theodoret, Theo- phylact, and others, including Michaelis, Koppe, Riickert, Olshausen, Schenkel, Bleek, have incorrectly attached tod kupiov nav also to 0 Oeds. It is true, indeed, that there is no objection to the idea “the God of Christ” in itself, and re before «ai would not be at all necessary, as Harless thinks (see iv. 6; 1 Pet. ii. 25, al.); but against it stands the fact that o Ocos kal marnp, even without a genitive, was a stated Christian designation of God (comp. on Rom. xv. 6), in which case marnp only, and not ©eös, requires a complementary genitive (v. 20; 1 Cor. xv. 24; Jas, i. 27, iii. 9). Moreover, the expression the God of Christ stands so isolated in the N. T. (see on ver. 17), that we may not attribute to it any such currency, as it must have had, if it were contained in the formula 6 ©eös Kat MAaTıp TOD Kuplov K.T.N. — 0 eiAoynoas Has] Aorist: by the work of redemption. Observe the ingenious correlation of the passive evAoynTos and the active evAoyijcas, as well as the dilogia, by which the former denotes the blessing in word, and the latter the blessing in deed (comp. Rom. xv. 29; 2 Cor. ix. 5 f.; Gal. iii. 8, 9, 14; Acts iii. 26). auds applies to the Christians generally, not to Paul (Koppe), against which view the unsuitableness of such a thanksgiving of the apostle for himself at the head of the Epistle, as well as the actual plurality of persons in the whole context (vv. 4, 11, 12), and Kayo, ver. 15, are decisive. — Ev mdon evroyla tvevpaTiKh | instrumental: by His imparting to us every spiritual blessing (comp. Test. XII. Patr. p. 722: evroy. ev ayaois) ; none has He withheld from us. This, however, is not to be explained as blessing, which concerns our spirit (Erasmus, Michaelis, Morus, tosenmüller; Koppe and Rückert are undecided), but: pro- ceeding from the Holy Spirit, because the distinctively Christian benefits are meant, and these are yapiowata. Comp. Rom,, i. 11,xv. 29; 1 Cor. xii. 1 ff. This blessing is wrought by God from heaven through the communication of the Spirit (ver. 13 35 CHAP. I. 3. oD Gal. iii. 5; 1 Cor. xi. 6, and elsewhere), hence God is praised for it. We may add that a contrast to the earthly benefits promised to the Jews in the Old Testament (Grotius and others, including recently Holzhausen), or to the typical bless- ings of the Jews and the empty possessions of the Gentiles (Schottgen), is foreign to the context. Paul denotes the mat- ter in a purely positive form as it is, according to its charac- teristic nature ; hence there is not in mdon any contrast to merely sporadic blessings in the O. T. The evAoyia consists in the most varied expressions, as in grace, truth, peace, joy, love, hope, consolation, patience, and all Christian virtues as the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. v.22; Rom. v. 1 ff.). Compare av ayabov TO Ev piv, Philem. 6. — Ev tots Erovpavioıs] local : in the heavenly regions, in heaven. Comp. ver. 20, ii. 6, iii. 10, vi. 12. Against the instrumental rendering, according to which it is understood, as a more precise definition of the spiritual blessing, of the heavenly possessions! (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Luther, Castalio, Piscator, Vorstius, Homberg, Michaelis, Zachariae, Morus, Flatt, Bleek, and others), we may urge, not the article (in opposition to Rickert, Har- less, Olshausen), —which would very appropriately denote the category —but the fact, that Paul has not added aya@ois or yvapicpact, just because in our Epistle Ev trols Emovpavioıs is constantly a designation of place? The local Ev tots ézrov- pavioıs is referred, either to God, so that heaven appears as the scat where the divine blessing issbeing prepared (Beza, Boyd), — but how idle and self-evident that would be! or to nueis, so that heaven, as the seat of our woA/revya (Phil. iii. 20), would be the scene of the divine blessing. So Pelagius, Beza (who 1 These would not be possessions, which have reference to the heavenly life, but possessions which are to be found in heaven and are imparted to us. For txoupdévios always means ‘‘to be found in heaven.” See Wetstein, I. p. 447; Bleek on Heb. iii. 1, p. 375. Comp. ca imi rois oüpavois, ver. 10. * The expression ty vos txoupavios, which occurs five times in this Epistle and nowhere else in the N. T., is surprising. In the case of any writer, no doubt, a phrase not in current use with him at other times may be accidentally and tem- porarily suggested to him, the use of which he involuntarily appropriates and soon again as involuntarily abandons ; yet it remains a surprising fact that the expres- sion éy ois txrovpavias is not also used in the Epistle to the Colossians written at the same time, where there was no lack of opportunity (i. 5, 16, 20) for the use of the expression, although the two Epistles exhibit so much verbal affinity. o 36 THE EPISTLE TO TIE EPHESIANS. leaves a choice between the two views), Grotius (who says that the blessings place us ef spe et jure in coelo), Baumgarten, Koppe, Riickert, and others. The aorist would not be at variance with this view, since the matter might be set forth proleptically in accordance with an ideal mode of looking at it (comp. ii. 6). But the whole explanation is far-fetched and opposed to the context; for vevuarırn shows that Paul has not thought of our having received this blessing in the heavenly woAitevna, seeing that the Holy Spirit is received on earth as the present earnest of the heavenly heritage (vv. 13, 14). Accordingly, the third reference remains the only correct one, under which ev tots ézrov- pavioıs is attached as a local definition to evAoyig mvevuarırn : with every spiritual benefit in heaven, so that, because the Holy Spirit is in heaven, as is God Himself 6 ryv karoıklav Erovpavıov Exwv (2 Mace. iii. 39), the blessings also of the Spirit are regarded as to be found in heaven and brought down from thence to us. See Heb. vi. 4. — ev Xpıioro] for in Christ lay the ground of that evAoyeiv accomplished in our case; not out of Christ, but in Him lay the cause that God blessed us with every spiritual blessing, since His act of redemption is the causa meritoria of this divine bestowal of blessing. Comp. ver. 4. Ver. 4. Further amplification of 0 evAoyjocas x.7.A. on to ver. 14. See the contents. — xadws] even as, denotes that that evrAoyetv has taken place in conformity with the fact that, ete., and is consequently argumentative ; see on 1 Cor. 1. 6; John xiii. 34. — éferéEato npäs] He has chosen us (from the collective mass of men) for Himself (sibi). Comp. 1 Cor. i. 27; Rom iz, .11, xi. 5, 7, 28; John xv. 19; 1 Pers Entirely without reason does Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, I. p. 225, deny that exAeyeodaı here has reference to others not chosen, and assert that it applies only to that which we, in the absence of election, should not have become. This is according to the very notion of the word quite impossible. “Exdéyeo@ar always has, and must of logical necessity have, a reference to others, to whom the chosen would, without the éxAoyy, still belong. Even in Acts vi 5, xiii. 17;°1 Tim. v, 21; Ex yın BE Deut. iv. 37, it sets forth the distinctive separation from the CHAP. I. 4. 37 remaining mass, just as also Christ, as one who is chosen out from all that is man, is called the EexXexros of God (Luke ix. 35, xxiil. 35). — €v avdt@] for in nothing else and in no one else than in Christ, whose future work of redemption God has foreknown and decreed from eternity (Acts xv. 18; Rom. xvi. 25; 2 Tim.i.9; 1 Pet. i. 20, al.), lay the ground, that the electing grace (Rom. xi. 5) chose us (comp. ii. 11) ; hence God had, as respected the subjects to be affected by the elec- tion, to deal, not in any arbitrary manner, but according to His mpoyvwaıs of the same (praecognovit credituros). See on Rom. viii. 29. Christ is not, however, here conceived of as Himself chosen of God, and we as included in Him (ev auto), as Hof- mann, p. 229, thinks; but, as the more precise explanation in ver. 5 shows, the divine act of our election has in Christ its determining ground, so that to us by this act there is assigned and allotted no other than the salvation to be gained through Christ (who in the fulness of the times was out of His pre- existence to be sent as Incarnate and was to accomplish the work of saivation). Apart from this connection of the divine election with Christ we should not be chosen; but in Christ lay for God the causa meritoria of our election." The reference of ev av7@ to God (Al. Morus, Holzhausen: with Himself, in His heart) is to be rejected on account of the utter superfluousness of this definition, and on account of the preceding &v Xpict@. — mpo xataBorjs xoopov] thus before all time, already in eternity. Comp. Col. i. 15 ff.; 2 Thess. ie bo: Matt.xxv. 34; also’ loCor un. 73 2-Tim.1,.9.: The expression is nowhere else found in Paul; but see Matt. mit oo uke 215.50; Johnezwil::24-sHeb.ı3'3;:1 Pet; i. 20; Rev. xiii. 8. — elvaı spas ayious «.r.X.] Infinitive of the design: in order that we should be, etc. See Winer, p. 298 f. [E. T. 399 f.]. The predicates äyıos and dumpos (blame- 1 Beyschlag (Christol. d. N. T. p. 141) finds in iv aira the thought, ‘‘ that the divinely conceived prototypes of perfected believers are from eternity posited by God in the One Prototype of humanity acceptable unto Him, as the countless multiplications of the same, to be thereupon brought through the historically realized One Prototype to their realization and perfection.” In opposition to this view we may simply urge the context, according to which !v aör# denotes Christ as the personal ground of the éxaoy made before all time, in so far as Ife, as Reconciler, is the bearer of the divine grace, vv. 6, 7. 38 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. less, Herod. ii. 177; Theoc. xviii. 25) exhaust the conception positively and negatively. Comp. Plut. Pericl. p. 173 D: Bus... KaOapos Kal auiavtos, and see on Col. i. 22; Eph. v. 27. It is not, however, to be explained of the holiness conditioned by morality and virtue (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Calvin, Piscator, Grotius, Calixtus, and many others. includ- ing Flatt, Riickert, Matthies, Meier, Schenkel), in which case reservations on account of human imperfection are often arbitrarily inserted, or it is referred, as by Riickert, to the ideal point of view of the apostle; but rather of the holiness and blamelessness brought about through the atoning death of Christ by means of the dvcacocdvn ©eod thereby attained (Rom. ii. 21 ff, v.14, vi 1, 33 ff. ;)1 Cor. vi. 11; Heb. x 10, 220255 in favour of which the very eivaı (not yiver@ar) and the whole context are decisive (vv. 5, 6, 7). We may add that, if the emphasis with which our Epistle brings into prominence the holiness of the church (comp. v. 27) is to be held as betraying the standpoint of the second century (see Schwegler in Zeller’s Jahrb. 1844, p. 382), for which especial reference is made to iii. 10, 31, with equal reason the like suspicion may be thrown even on the most fully acknowledged Epistles (such as the Epistles to the Corinthians). — catevémrov avtod] before God's eyes, judice Deo (Col. ii. 14; Rom. iii. 20, iv. 5). It is God’s judgment, which has posited the reconciled as holy and blame- less, and that by imputation of faith unto righteousness ; thereupon He gives to them every evAoyia mvevpaTtiKy, ver. 3. The reference of avtos successively recurring to different subjects cannot surprise us (Winer, p. 135 [E. T. 179]); and so it is not to be written avtod (as Harless still does), but avtov, from the standpoint, of the author (Dissen, ad Dem. de Cor. p. 276; Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 2. 49). — ev aya7n]| is attached by many to ver. 4, so that it is connected either with e&ere£&aro (Oecumenius, Thomas, Flacius, Olearius, Baumgarten, Flatt, and others), but in how isolated and awk- ward a way! or with eivaı judas ayiovs «.r.A. (Vulgate, Am- brosiaster, Erasmus, Luther, Castalio, Beza, Calvin, Piscator, Grotius, Wolf, Wetstein, and others, including Rückert,—but with hesitation, — Matthies, Meier, Baumgarten-Crusius), so that €v dyarn would be the ground, or rather the element CHAP. I. 3. 39 (evangelii To wav, says Grotius, lies in love), of the holiness and blamelessness. But this is not compatible with the correct explanation of dylous kal Aapwyovs, as a state brought about by the Naornpıov of Christ, according to which, not Ev ayarn, but ev mioter, would have been a definition of the element of holiness in keeping with the context. Hence the connection with rpoopicas, ver. 5, remains as the only cor- rect one. So the Peshito, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Augustine, Estius (but with hesitation), Bengel, Michaelis, Zachariae, Koppe, and others, including Lachmann, Harless, Olshausen, de Wette, Tischendorf, Schenkel, Bleek. The only one of the objections made to this view which is plausible is that of Matthies and Meier, that the following cata nv evdorlav Tod HeAmuaros aurod would render the preceding ev dyarrn in this connection superfluous. But see on ver. 5. Ver. 5. Love was the disposition of God, in which He through this our election predestined us to vioderia. Hence this divine motive, therefore, is prefixed with emphasis, quite in keeping with the character of ascription of praise marking the discourse. Consequently: in that He in love predestined us. Homberg has indeed conceived the relation of the time of mpoopicas to é&erXéEato as: “ postguam nos praedestinavit adoptandos, elegit etiam nos, ut simus sancti;” but the usual view correctly conceives mpoopicas as coincident in point of time, and accomplished simultaneously with e&eXe£aro, so that it is regarded as the modus of the latter (see on yvwpicas, ver. 9). For the praedestinatio (the mpoopiteıv) is never else- where distinguished from the election as something preceding it ; it rather substantially coincides with it (hence at Rom. viii. 29 only the expression mpowpice is used, while in vill. 33 only éxdextoé are mentioned), and only the mpoyvwaıs is prior, Rom. 2... Comp. Lampsing, Pauli de praedestinat. decreta, Leovard. 1858, p. 70. See on this use of the aorist parti- ciple, Hermann, ad Viger. p. 774; Bernhardy, p. 383; Winer, p. 321 [E. T. 430]. It is, we may add, purely arbitrary to distinguish é&edéFato and mpoopicas, so that the former should apply to individuals, the latter to the whole (Schenkel). Both verbs have in fact the same objects (74s, which denotes the persons); see on Rom. viii. 29. — The po in mpoopicas, 40 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. beforehand, points to the future realization. Certainly the predestination has taken place before the creation of the world (ver. 4); but this is not expressed by po, which rather looks always towards the future setting in of the thing predestined. See Rom. viii. 29; 1 Cor. ii. 7; Eph. i. 11; Acts iv. 28; Heliod. p. 298, 14, p. 266, 15; Sopater in Walz, Rhet. V. p. 152, 20. — eis viodeciav Sia’ Incod Xpictod eis avtov] are to be taken closely together: wnto adoption through Jesus Christ in reference to Him,—that is, He has destined us ¢o stand in the relation of those assumed as children through mediation of Jesus Christ to Him (to God). Comp. Rom. viii. 29. That viodeoia is nowhere merely childship (as Meier and Bleek still take it here, following Usteri), but adoption," see on Rom. vii. 15; Gal. iv. 5. vlofecia is never predi- cated of Christ Himself ; for He is the born Son of God (Rom. vill. 3; Gal. iv. 4), who procured for His own the assumption into the place of children (whereby they became de jure His brethren, Rom. viii. 29). The pre-eminence of Christ is therefore essential, not merely prototypal, as of the head of humanity ;” He is the govoyevys. Through adoption believers have passed out (comp. Rom. vi. 24 f.) of their natural state, in which they by sin were liable to the wrath of God (ii. 3), and have entered into the state of reconciliation, in which they, through the mediation of the reconciling death of Christ (vv. 6, 7), by means of the faith in it which was counted to them for righteousness (Gal. iii. 26; Rom. iv. 5, 23 f.), have forgiveness of sins, and are heirs of the Messianic blessedness (ver. 14; Gal. iv. 7; Rom. viii. 10, 11, 17), as a guarantee of which the Holy Spirit is given to them (ver. 14; Gal. iv. 6; Rom. viii. 16).— eis adrov] does not apply to Christ (Anselm, Thomas, Castalio, Vorstius, Menochius, Cornelius a Lapide, and others, including de Wette), since Christ is mediator of the adoption, and this is a relation to God. This simple sense of reference toward is to be maintained, and we must not im- port either ad gloriam gratiae suae (Piscator ; comp. Schenkel) 1 Even the old theocratic vind:riz was adoption ; for the Jews were as such, and not as men generally, the chosen and peculiar people to whom the Messiah was promised. See on Rom. ix. 4, ® In opposition to Beyschlag, Christol. d. N. T. p. 222 f. CHAP. I. 6. Al or TV eis avTOV avdyovoav TO yevos Huov (Theophylact). At variance with linguistic usage, Beza, Calvin, and Calixtus take it for ev &avro, and discover in it the independence of the divine rpoopiowos ; and Grotius, Wolf, Baumgarten, Koppe, Holzhausen, Meier hold it as equivalent to sibi, i (“ as children, who rightly belong to Him as His own,” Meier). Comp. also on Col. i. 20.— We may add that here, too, we must not write (with Beza, Stephanus, Mill, Griesbach, Knapp, Meier, and others) avtov, but a’tov. Comp. above on karevamıov avTov. — Kata Tv evdokiay Tod HeAnuaros avTod (not avTod): conformably to the pleasure of His will, just as it was the purpose of His will. Comp. Matt. xi. 26; Luke x. 21. So Vulgate, Erasmus, Calvin, Bengel, Flatt, and others, including Riickert, de Wette, Bleek. It may also signify: according to the benevolence of His will (see, generally, Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 369 ff). So Harless, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, following older expositors. But this notion is already and more strongly contained in ev ayarn; and the element which is here meant, of /ree self-determination, independent of all human desert, as regulative of the mpoopifev, is clearly pointed to in the parallel by 7» mpoedero ev avt@. Comp. also ver. 11; 2 Aimy a9) REMARK.—Predestination is not made dependent on any sort of causa meritoria on the part of man (comp. ver. 11), but is simply an act of free divine kindness, whose determination has its causa impulsiva only in Christ; so that, in the case of the predestined subjects, faith is set forth as the causa apprehendens of the salvation destined for them zar« pöyvaow (Rom. vii. 29) ; and with this Rom. ix. when rightly apprehended, agrees. The conditions mentally supplied by expositors (as e.g. Grotius, who finds in our passage “decretum ejus, quod Deus facere vult, si et homines faciant, quod debent;” comp. already Jerome) remove the relation out of the sphere of the divine sööoziw roö bdcaywaros into that of dependence on human self-choice, and consequently into the domain of the accidental. The notion of absolute decree, however, breaks down before the zpéyywois as the necessary premiss of the divine éxAcyz—a premiss, which doubtless involves the necessity of morally restricting the trumeus aut lapis of the Formula Concordiae (comp. Luthardt, Lehre vom freien Willen, p. 272). Ver. 6. As love was the disposition serving as motive fur the 42 THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS, divine predestination (ver. 5), so is the glorifying of the divine love (which, however, is here designated in accordance with its distinctive peculiarity, because it refers to sinners, ii. 1 ff., as grace) its divinely conceived ultimate aim, not, as Grotius would have it, consequens aliud. Comp. 2 Cor. i. 20; Phil. i. 11. — eis Evrawov do&ns tis xapıros abtod (not avTod) means neither to the glorious praise of His grace (Grotius, Estius), nor to the praise of His glorious grace (Luther, Castalio, Beza, and most expositors, including Morus, Koppe, Flatt, Holzhausen, Meier), the one of which is just as arbitrary as the other; but: to the praise of the glory of His grace. The quality of the grace, its glory—its greatness laudably evinc- ing itself—is brought into prominence as the object of the praise to be bestowed on it. Comp. Bernhardy, p. 53 f.; Held, ad Timol. p. 368. Bengel already in his day aptly distin- guished the notions: “ Primum naseitur laus gratiae, ver. 5, inde laus gloriae.” — d0£ns without the article may not surprise us on account of the genitival definition that follows. See Winer, p. 118 f. [E. T. 155 f.]. — js Exapitwoev twas Ev TO nyam.] ns is attracted by the preceding tis xapıros (xapıv xapırovv is conceived of as ayarnv ayaray, ji. 4; John xvii. 26; comp. Dem. 306, 28: xapıras yapifec@ar) instead of jv. Comp.iv. 1; and see on 2 Cor. i. 4; Hom. J/, xxii. 649; Arist. Pl. 1044: tis Üßpeos ts UBpifomat. Xapitow means: gratia aliquem aficere; and, according as the xapıs is conceived of subjectively as love-worthiness, or objectively as the divine grace, the sense may either be: to make love-worthy, as Chrysos- tom? and his followers (comp. also Luther), Cornelius a Lapide, and many Roman Catholics (including Bisping), have taken it, understanding thereby not merely the reconciliation, but also the positive sanctifying, the justitia inhaerens; or: to grant grace (as it is taken usually). In the former sense (see Wetstein, I. p. 651), the word occurs, Niceph. Prog. ii. 2; Symm. Ps. xvii. 28; Ecclus, xviii. 17; also Ecclus. ix. 8 in Cod. A; and Clem. Alex. Paed. iii. 11; in the latter sense, in Luke i. 28; Test. XII. Patr. p. 698. The latter is here ' Chrysostom says: just as if one were to make a sick or famished man into a beautiful youth, so has God made our soul beautiful and love-worthy for the angels and all saints and for Himself. —— ts CHAP Is 3 43 decidedly correct, since the preceding 74s xapıros, especially with 7s as the reading, permits no deviation from that mean- ing, just as ver. 7 sets forth simply the work of pardoning grace. —€v TE Nyarnuevo) Christ as the vios ths ayamrns avrod, Col. i. 13 (comp. Matt. iii. 17), is wat’ e£oxyv the beloved of God, and in Him has God shown us grace, é.c. in the fact that He gave Him up to death for us (ver. 7), He has /% Yt