Commentary on Ephesians 4.1–4.32

“I beseech you, therefore, brothers, I, a prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called.” He exhorts them so that, walking rightly in the Lord's precepts, they may be able to attain the promised glory. For as a skilled physician beseeches the sick that, behaving well, they may recover healthy strength, so too the teacher of the gentiles exhorts them that, doing works worthy of their faith, they may obtain what has been promised to the saints, knowing that their progress in this is his glory.

“With all humility of mind and gentleness, with magnanimity, bearing with one another in love, carefully keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” Now he forbids dissension and admonishes them to pursue love, so that they may not lose the spirit of unity and peace; and therefore that they bear with one another with patience. For gentleness produces progress; because when they bear with one another, admonishing with gentleness of mind, they are corrected to good effect, and peace will remain among them, through which they will rightly be called sons of God; for the Lord said: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matt 5:9). For agitation or restlessness produces contention, which is accustomed to wish to defend even what it knows to be evil, so as not to seem to yield. From this arises discord, which corrupts the bonds of peace.

“One body and one spirit, as you were called in the one hope of your calling.” He added these things for the sake of peace and concord: that since the church is one body, the people should be of one mind, because what is believed is one.

“One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all.” He still commends unity, so that, since it is a unity to which we are called, we may disagree in nothing. For if there is one Lord, that is, Christ, as he himself says in the gospel, “For your teacher is one, Christ” (Matt 23:10), one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all believers, there ought to be one mind and heart of the people; because these things that he lists belong to unity, for they agree in all things. Yet he said that God the Father is above all and through all, because he owes to no one what he is. Through all, because all are from him; and he must be above all these things which are from him. “And in us all,” that is, the faithful. For he is in us by confession, because we confess him, and because he has given us his Spirit, through whom he is undoubtedly in us; in pagans he is not, because they deny that he is the Father of Christ.

“But to each one of us grace has been given according to the measure of the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, lest the diversity of gifts in people be thought to harm unity, he clears this as not contrary; because the diversity is in the gifts of offices, not of nature. He says that to each is given as much grace as the Lord has deigned to give; yet not without a measure of equity, for he gives to each according to his strength, so that each draws as much as he thirsts for.

“Therefore it says: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men.” This is written in the sixty-seventh psalm (Ps 68:18). Yet he began to bestow these gifts after his triumphs; for, conquering death, he was exalted on the cross, as he himself had said. For he says: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself” (John 12:32). He despoiled the underworld when he took away the captives whom it held in its power, captured through Adam's transgression or by their own sins, those who consented to him, and, ascending from there, he brought them into heaven (Matt 27:52). Of these some, rising in their bodies, appeared to many, as testimony that death had been overcome; so that those who perhaps would not believe in Christ's resurrection might be made guilty by the resurrection of these whom they knew to be dead; for they saw these, whom they recognized as having lived not long before. Although captives are led away unwilling and as strangers, the Saviour led both his own and willing ones. For by his appearance, as he stirred those who desired to be set free, he is said to have captured them.

“Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?” It is true that he descended in order to ascend, and not like human beings, who descended so as to remain there. For they were held in the underworld by a sentence, which sentence could not hold the Saviour, because he conquered sin. Having triumphed, then, over the devil, he descended into the heart of the earth, so that his appearing might be a preaching to the dead, and as many as longed for him might be set free. Nor could he fail to ascend, because he had descended for this purpose: that by the force of his power, death trampled down, he might rise again with the captives for whose sake he allowed himself to suffer.

“He who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.” This is what the Lord says: “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven” (John 3:13). This is also contained in the psalm; for it says: “His going forth is from the highest heaven, and his return to its highest point” (Ps 19:6). Descending, then, from heaven to earth, he was born a man; afterwards, having died, he descended to the underworld, from which, rising on the third day, he ascended before all mortals above all the heavens, to show creation that death had been mocked.

“And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, others as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry.” The apostles are bishops; the prophets are expounders of the Scriptures; although in the very beginnings there were prophets, such as Agabus and the four virgins who prophesied (Acts 21:9–10), as is contained in the Acts of the Apostles, for the sake of commending the rudiments of the faith; but now interpreters are called prophets. The evangelists are deacons, as Philip was; although they are not priests, they can yet preach the gospel without a chair, as blessed Stephen and the Philip mentioned did (Acts 8:5). The pastors can be readers, who feed the listening people with reading; because “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). The teachers are exorcists, because in the church they restrain and strike the unruly; or those who used to instruct the children to be taught in letters and readings, as is the custom of the Jews, whose tradition passed to us and has fallen out of use through negligence. Among these, after the bishop, the one is understood to be greater who is said to prophesy because he opens the hidden sense of the Scriptures, especially since he brings forth words of future hope; which order can now be that of the presbyterate. For in the bishop are all orders, because he is the first priest, that is, he is the chief of the priests, and prophet and evangelist, and fulfils the other offices of the church in the ministry of the faithful. Yet after churches were established in all places and offices ordered, the matter was arranged otherwise than it had begun. For at first all taught and all baptized, on whatever days or times there was occasion; for Philip did not look for a time or a day on which to baptize the eunuch (Acts 8:38), nor did he put a fast in between; nor did Paul and Silas put off the time to baptize the officer of the prison with all his household (Acts 16:33); nor did Peter have deacons or look for a day when he baptized Cornelius with all his house (Acts 10:48); nor did he baptize himself, but ordered the brothers who had come with him from Joppa to Cornelius to baptize; for as yet, besides the seven deacons, no one had been ordained. So, in order that the people might grow and multiply, at the beginnings it was granted to all both to preach the gospel and to baptize and to explain the Scriptures in the church; but when the church embraced all places, congregations were established, and rectors, and the other offices in the churches were ordered, so that none of the clergy who had not been ordained would dare to presume upon an office that he knew had not been entrusted or granted to him. And the church began to be governed by another order and providence; because if all could do the same things, it would be irrational, and would seem a common and very cheap thing. Hence it is that now neither do deacons preach among the people, nor do clerics or laypeople baptize, nor are believers dipped on any day whatever, except the sick. Therefore the Apostle's writings do not agree in all points with the ordering that is now in the church, because these were written in the very beginnings. For he also calls Timothy, a presbyter created by himself, a bishop; because the first presbyters were called bishops, so that when one withdrew, the next would succeed him. Indeed, in Egypt the presbyters seal, if the bishop is not present. But because the presbyters who followed began to be found unworthy to hold the first places, the system was changed, a council providing for it, so that not order but merit would create a bishop, established by the judgment of many priests, lest an unworthy man rashly usurp it and be a scandal to many. In the Law priests were born from the race of Aaron the Levite (Exod 28:43); but now all are of priestly race, as the apostle Peter says: “For you are a royal and priestly race” (1 Pet 2:9); and therefore a priest can be made from the people. “For the building up of the body of Christ.” He says that the ordering of the church has been arranged like the joining together of the human body in the unity of profession; so that, differing in dignity, all may be one in Christ, having one head, Christ, that is, the author of life.

“Until we all attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.” He says that the ordering remains as long as all who are destined for life are of one faith in the knowledge of Christ. “To a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ.” He exhorts them to labour so that the perfection of faith may be grasped; whose rule is this: that faith hold Christ to be perfect and full God, and not measure him by a human measure, but hold him as perfect God in the fulness of divinity. For in saying “perfect man” he does not signify a man of temporal age and measure, but by this saying he wants us to become perfect in the fulness of understanding of the divinity of the Son of God.

“So that we may no longer be children, tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the wickedness of men, in craftiness, for the remedy of error.” He wants us to be founded and steadfast in the discipline of the catholic faith, which the apostle Peter professed by God's revelation (Matt 16:16), and not to be blown about, wandering through the pestilential assertions of various heresies invented by human wickedness, so that through them the error of the deceiving enemy might be brought in under the name of truth. For this is the remedy of falsehood: that it introduces error under the pretext of truth. And not only under the name of truth; he also warns lest, as before receiving the faith we wandered, lowly in understanding, through various errors, so, made faithful, we should run about frail and doubtful of the promised hope; because, having now become Christians, they ought to be founded, for there is no ambiguity in our faith, for it is commended by the power of wonders.

“But doing the truth in love, let us grow in all things into him who is the head, Christ.” He says that this is the truth: that, looking to the love of Christ with which he loved us and gave himself up for us, we subject all things to him, knowing that he is the author of the life of all, so that they are subject to him as members to a head; so that, if others, through error or malice, do not confess that all things have Christ as head, because they were made by him at the Father's will, we who adhere to the catholic faith ought nevertheless with all devotion and care to see to it that we bring not loss but gain to this faith, persevering in this assertion, so that the talk of a crooked mind armed against the truth may be suppressed.

“From whom the whole body, fitted and joined together through every joint of supply, according to the working in the measure of each part, makes the increase of the body for its own building up in love.” He teaches in what sense he has said that Christ is the head of all; for from him, he says, the whole body, that is, the whole choir of Archangels and Virtues, Principalities and Powers, subsists. For although each of these has its own numbers, and they are legions, as the Lord himself said (Matt 26:53), yet because they are from one and through one, all together are called one body. For as members, though they belong to one body, are yet different in office and dignity, so too the creation was founded by God through Christ in such a way that, from the Cherubim and Seraphim powers who are beneath God's throne, and the angels whom the Lord himself calls holy (Mark 8:38), there is a kind of chain, ordered descending to the firmament; so that the whole is joined, and yet distinguished by merits: I say by merits not only of offices but also of natures. For because he says all things are joined, they will not be of one nature; but what members in the body do, distinguished by offices, not by nature, in all these not members but the natures themselves make the distinctions. This, then, is what is laboured for: that the creation be brought back to one mind, and in mind be one body, while the profession of all is one, so that it may agree in love of the Creator for its own progress; for it rebuilds itself into a temple of the Lord, for it had been destroyed by the madness and fury of the devil.

“This, then, I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, darkened in understanding, estranged from the faith of God because of the ignorance that is in them.” Having made the Creator manifest and shown the rule that the creation ought to follow, in faith in its God alone, he charges them before God not to walk or think otherwise than they are taught, lest they be found like the gentiles, who receive neither the faith nor the way of life that the Law commands, having a darkened mind, so as not to behold the truth of the divine name. For, following vain things, which are idolatry, they are bridled by the devil, so that they do not walk the way of the one God, and he makes them partners in his perdition.

“And the blindness of their heart; who, despairing, have given themselves up to impurity, for the working of all uncleanness and greed.” He indicates that the gentiles have blindness of heart through despair of the future resurrection. For, as if they will exist no more, they defile their life with the most shameful conduct, unwilling to subject themselves to the law of faith; because it forbids pleasure for the hope of the future life, which they therefore think should be laughed at, so that we may seem rightly to dishonour ourselves and to desire others' goods with greedy desire, as if after this passing there were no life.

“But you did not so learn Christ, if indeed you have heard him and been taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus.” It is plain that Christians have not learned despair after this death, but hope for both outcomes; for to the faithful life is promised, to the faithless death, which is eternal punishment; so that whether death or life, it is learned in Christ; because whoever follows him will rise through him to life, but whoever separates himself from him will be handed over through him to Gehenna; for he will be condemned with Christ as judge. And since there are some in the church who under the name of Christ do not follow the truth of Christ, therefore he says, “as the truth is in Jesus”; so that if they have been taught as the truth is in Jesus, then they may be seen to have learned Christ and heard him and been taught in him: for Christ teaches about himself what he is, and how great he is to be believed, and what hope is in him, and what believers ought to be. For one who has learned Christ knows that he rose from the dead to be a pattern for the faithful; and therefore those who love God have great hope in place of this death.

“That you put off, according to your former way of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error.” Whoever has heard Christ has learned this: to withdraw from his former way of life, which he calls the old man because of the past time of ignorance. So one and the same person, if he follows his former vices, is called old; but if he walks in newness of life, estranged from worldly error, which is either in action or in understanding, he is called new; certainly not in the substance of flesh or soul, but in understanding and way of life. Yet the old man is said to be corrupted because of his adulterated understanding and shameful life.

“But be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who has been created according to God in truth and righteousness.” It is righteous and true to follow the right way; and he follows the right way who, devoted to his Creator, walks in his will, which the gentiles do not know. For one renewed in the spirit of his mind is said to have put on the new man, who is Christ; for he puts on Christ who, reborn in Christ through faith, emulates the life that Christ handed on, so that he may be seen to have been created according to God; for one is created in that in which one is wise; and therefore the truth and righteousness of God is unknown to the gentiles. For when believers acknowledge God as Creator, keeping his commandments, they are created in righteousness and truth.

“Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth each one with his neighbour (Zech 8:16), for we are members of one another.” Because we have been created in truth and righteousness, reborn in baptism, therefore, so that we may remain in it, we are commanded to put away lying and take up truth, and not to deal deceitfully with a brother; so that, since we are members of one body, we may support one another's causes in truth.

“Be angry and do not sin.” Since one cannot be forbidden to be angry (since anger is a natural movement, conceived from causes, and is accustomed to serve the amendment of the offender), he therefore says one may be angry (Ps 4:4), but admonishes that one not sin through anger. For we are accustomed to go beyond measure when we are angry, and we who reprove sinners are found sinning ourselves, when we are angrier and burden the sinner more than he deserves. He teaches this, then: that anger itself should be with moderation, and that no one should show himself too just toward the offender; because some sin in such a way that they seem to deserve as many blows as they cannot bear; and one who could perhaps have been corrected is taken from life, not without sin on the part of the one who is angry. Hence Solomon says: “Do not be very righteous; for there is one who perishes in his righteousness” (Eccl 7:16). But we ought to be imitators of God, who has a tempered justice; for although it would be just for the wicked to be punished, he bears with them in his patience, so that some of them may be corrected. He bears with us, his servants, when we sin, and does not quickly strike anyone. “Let not the sun go down on your anger; do not give place to the devil.” He wants anger to pass and not be kept in the breast, so that, risen with the day, it may fall with the day; because if it remains in the mind, it gives the devil occasion to glory. For an angry mind necessarily thinks evil things, which the devil desires; for he finds a mind ready for evil, and, inserting himself into it, deceives by his influence the man who was made for life; for it is man's part to think, the devil's to fulfil.

“Let the one who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, so that he may have something to give to those suffering need.” So that the way of life of the new man may remain, he exhorts them not to return again to former vices and sins; for it will profit nothing to be called new when one is shown by evil works to be the old man. So the Christian is commanded not only not to take others' goods, but also to supply from his own labour those suffering want; so that, devoted to good works, he may repay what he had previously taken, and for the rest lay up treasure for himself for the future; for one who ceases from theft can have pardon, not glory. For what is great, or of what merit, in refraining from others' property? For it is meritorious when one gives from one's own to the needy.

“Let no evil speech come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for the building up of faith, that it may give grace to the hearers.” In a servant of God all things ought to appear good, nor should his purity be stained in any part. For what does it profit to have a clean life and a dirty mouth, since the Lord says that each will be justified or condemned by his words (Matt 12:37)? Nor can it seem credible that one lives well who speaks evil; for evil speaking draws many vices after it. For one can speak evil by speaking basely, by detracting from the good, by talking with guile, and by lying. These things cause horror; but good and sober talk gives grace and an example to the hearers, so that they may honour God in his words, built up in the faith of Christ.

“And do not sadden the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” When we act well, the Holy Spirit given to us rejoices in us, seeing that his admonitions profit our interests, as the Lord said: “So there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7, 10). The Holy Spirit, then, rejoices at our salvation, not for himself, since he has no need of gladness; so, on the contrary, if we are not obedient to him, he is saddened, because he has no success in us; for he wants us to belong to life. Yet he is not saddened in such a way as to suffer, since he is impassible; but when he says he is saddened, he signifies this for our sake: that he deserts us because we have offended him by despising his admonitions. His sadness, then, is our unworthiness, which forbids us to be called sons of God; for he is the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies the sons of God, remaining in us.

“Let all bitterness and anger and indignation and clamour and blasphemy be taken away from you, with all malice.” He mentions that all these things, which can bring ruin to souls, must be removed; for through anger comes indignation, through indignation clamour, like the voice of a madman, which is foreign to a servant of God; through clamour creeps in blasphemy, which cannot but be evil. This makes life bitter, drawing it to death; and therefore one must guard against all these; for the fear of God ought to temper and set a measure on causes that arise. But because some, having suppressed anger and clamour in the mind, can retain malice for revenge when the occasion is found, he therefore added that these be taken away with all malice; because not only blaspheming is malice, but also feigning peace in the face while planning discord in the mind.

“But be kind to one another, merciful, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” By the example of God the Father he exhorts them to be kind and merciful to one another, as the Lord also does: “Be merciful,” he says, “so that you may be like your Father who is in heaven” (Luke 6:36). For if the Lord through his Son has had mercy on his servants, how much more ought the servants themselves to have mercy on one another and forgive if one sins against another? These are the precepts of the one who had mercy; and if he is despised in them, he will without doubt revoke the sentence by which he had given mercy; and it will happen as the Lord says in the gospel about the one who, having received mercy from the Lord, was found pitiless toward his fellow servant (Matt 18:33).