Commentary on Ephesians preface–1.7

The Letter to the Ephesians holds that summary which ought always to belong to the whole of our teaching: namely, that they should have knowledge of theology, that is, of God and Christ, of his mystery and his coming, and of the rest that belongs to that knowledge. It also contains precepts for living suited to Christians, whether to all or to particular persons: what a master ought to do toward a slave, what a son toward a father, what a husband toward a wife. Since there are these two things, we will first set out everything concerning theology, and then concerning the manner of life and the precepts for living. The subject matter, indeed, is the same as is kept in all the letters: the Ephesians too, corrupted by false apostles, seemed to be joining Judaism to the Christian teaching. The letter was therefore written by way of warning and correcting, so that they might correct and amend what had been wrongly instilled in them, keep what had been handed down to them before, and persevere in it. The summary at the beginning, then, is this: that Christ, the Son of God, both existed before the world and always exists, and himself came, and that hope is placed in him; and that his promises are God’s promises. If this is so, the Jewish teaching is far removed: received otherwise, instilled otherwise, understood otherwise, as we have often said and now set out. It must not, therefore, be joined either to divine knowledge or to the works and acts of living.

He takes Christ, then, as his starting point, to suggest both that he professes to preach him as the gospel and that in him alone is hope. In this opening, according to his custom, he calls himself apostle of Jesus Christ, as to the Romans: “Paul, servant of Christ Jesus.” Second, he added, “called apostle,” called, that is, by Christ; and when he says “predestined for the gospel of God,” predestined by Christ; predestined long ago; and if long ago, then Christ existed long ago; for this is what the Jews deny. In the same way to the Corinthians: “Paul, called apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God,” which is Christ; for the will of God is Christ, because he does what God wills. So he is apostle of Christ and called by Christ; for this is the will of God. In the same way in the second letter too: “Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God.” Now also in the same words: “Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God.” But when he says this, “to the saints who are faithful at Ephesus,” what is added? “In Christ Jesus.” Thus in every way he confirms that the whole power both of the gospel and of understanding consists in Christ Jesus, and from there come liberation and the promises and eternal … In the same way also in the rest, as we shall say later. “Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God.” For Christ Jesus is in the body, but he himself in spirit is the will of God. When, therefore, Jesus Christ chose Paul and made him apostle, he chose through the spirit, which is the will of God, or the power of doing what he wills; and Christ wills what God wills. Let us understand, then, as we have often said, that God is power itself, greatness, the substance of the whole fullness; but Christ, that is, the Logos who was in Christ, is the will of God. And if anyone attends to this deeply and carefully, he will find that God and his will are inseparable, and yet as it were separable. For God is one thing and will another, yet they are joined and cohering, and never separated from each other, God and the will of God. So it comes about that the will alone knows what God wills and thinks. The will of God, therefore, signifies the Father’s power, and it is placed in the Father; and again that same paternal power is in the Son, because the Son does the will of God. At the same time this too must be considered more attentively: how he is Son and how God is Father. For it is not by a mute generation, but (if a likeness may be taken) as by a kind of birth of the mind: the willing, conceived in thought, breaks forth and is poured out. For the thoughts of the soul are, as it were, the soul’s children. Now since God, by a universal thought, has one will, for that reason he is one and only. For he did not first think one thing and afterward another, or something different, much less contrary. Hence one God, one Christ; that is, one Father, one Son. But, as we said, this will is always from God, and in God it is power; it is God’s own, full of the Father’s strength and itself existing; and it is the will that came here into the world, often in one way and another, and now in flesh, which by its own power it formed for itself; and it fulfilled the mystery for the sake of the world and of the souls that were being dragged along in the world. Paul, then, writes “to the saints,” he says, “who are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.” He bound and tied them to religion and to the rest of the law of living by calling them both saints and faithful “in Christ,” he says, “Jesus.” In other letters, when he writes to a church and to a people, he does not add “to the saints and faithful”; but now, because he wanted to hold them to the law of the name, so that they would not join any other new thing outside the name, since they have already been sanctified by this name and are faithful in Christ, by that very act of naming them saints and faithful in Christ he shows that they ought to hold nothing else but Jesus Christ, by whose name they are saints and faithful.

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” There are two things that above all remove strife and hand on God’s teaching: grace and peace. Since, then, these people were held by error, grace is wished for them, that is, that they may know God, follow God and Christ fully, place everything in Christ, and admit nothing else; since Judaism is not on the same footing, so as not to tear Christ apart: for he rejects not the law but the understanding of living received from the Jews, as we shall show later. “Grace to you,” then, he says, so that you may understand God and live according to God’s precepts. He added, “and peace from God,” because whoever disagrees is certainly at discord: so “and peace to you from God,” with God, he says, “our Father.” See how much grace is given by God, which is wished for the Ephesians: since God is our Father. Then he added (for it is one, as we said above), “and our Lord Jesus Christ.” For he is God, and this one is the power of God; he is the Father, this one the Son. All the grace and power of God is above all in Christ Jesus. For since the mystery of salvation was fulfilled through him, all salvation is in him. For even before Christ, the same Son of God, that is, the Logos, that is, Christ, both was and always is and will be, and through him all things were founded. But that same one was in Christ, that is, in Jesus; and then he came to the aid of the salvation of all people who know God and keep his precepts.

“Blessed is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He takes up a magnificent theme, to set out that all things were done through Christ, and the power of the mystery. He joined this so that people, and the Ephesians even more, might know how much Christ has bestowed on us, that is, God through Christ; and knowing it, might not withdraw from the name of Christ. For above he said, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” And when he had said, “and the Lord Jesus Christ,” what does he add? “Blessed is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, then, if God is also our Father, how great are we, and how great a grace have we received! For we have become known to Christ and been made brothers of Christ, since we have one God as Father. But all this only through Christ. Accordingly he adds that through Christ we too have God as Father. “Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” So we become sons, but sons in Christ; that is, if we confess Christ, if we follow him, if we conceive him in our mind, if we both understand and revere his dispensation, by which he completed all things; and following him in our manner of life by the precepts given, we become sons. So, “blessed is the Father.” Since he is both ours and Christ’s, he added, “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Then he gave the reason why he is blessed: “who,” he says, “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Here let the pitiable error of people take note: he said we are blessed, and blessed with every blessing; so one who is blessed ought to suffer nothing bad. But what did he add? “With every spiritual blessing,” not fleshly. So if we suffer any evils here in the world, or anything even outside it, let us not ascribe it to God, but rather to ourselves. For we obtain the blessing when we are spiritual, think spiritually, and seek spiritual goods. And it can indeed happen that we think all these things; and it does no harm if, while thinking these and other such things, we nonetheless suffer something adverse in the world. For many who act spiritually and live spiritually endure many adversities, like Paul, like Peter, like the rest. Where, then, is that blessing which makes us blessed? It is God’s blessing: not only a spiritual blessing, but “in the heavenly places,” that is, when we have gone out of this world. Therefore all things are to be borne, because what is promised us from God’s blessing is both spiritual and in the heavenly places, that is, outside the world, above the heavens. And yet all these things are, as he says, “in Jesus Christ,” for he is spirit. And when spiritual things are promised, they are promised in Christ; and we shall obtain spiritual things then, if we follow Christ.

“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy.” This is a treatise on the divinity, and a brief explanation of the whole mystery, in which these things are laid down: that Christ was before the world; that the world was made; that souls were before the world; that the world exists by God’s dispensation; that by God’s dispensation souls both came into the world and are freed from the world; that whatever is done is the will of God; and what the reward is for those living according to Christ: that sins are forgiven and that we have a share in the glory of God, on which we have treated in other letters as well. At the same time this touches on what is the sum and what the cause of the whole mystery: that the world was made, or the world in Christ, or the world made by Christ; that souls were sent into the world, or souls existed before the world, and again souls are freed from the world: things hidden, yet true and full. Hence the sum is concluded: that with Christ working, and through Christ and in Christ, all things are reconciled to God, those in the heavens and on earth, yet in Christ, so that, all things being brought back to fullness, all might be one in all; and that this would happen through the fullness of time; for nothing was done untimely, nothing out of order, but it was done in the fullness of times, as we shall show in its place. Coming down specifically to this fullness, the Apostle also adds that the Ephesians have been called, so that they too may be in the fullness; in order on this ground to exhort and warn them that they ought to keep the faith, faith both in Christ and in God, so that they think nothing else than that the whole mystery has been perfected by God both through Christ and in Christ. If this is so, let them add nothing, and think that nothing else needs to be done; and let them correct this, that they had joined Judaism to the pure and simple teaching about faith in Christ, and salvation and liberation through Christ and by the will of God.

First, then, let us consider that he spoke thus: God “chose us”; he chose us, certainly, when we already existed; and he chose “in Christ”: so both we and Christ existed before. And before what? Certainly from eternity. For this is what he said, “before the foundation of the world”: he chose, he says, “before the foundation of the world.” He chose only from those who existed; and then he said “in Christ,” that is, “in him”: so both Christ had existed and we in Christ. For it cannot be that Christ existed and we did not. If he chose us in Christ himself, then we were spiritual, if we were in Christ; and if we were in Christ, we were also spiritual; and we were, as he adds afterward, “before the foundation of the world.” What reason is there, then, that we should come here, and why should the world be founded? For Christ himself, through God’s will, made all things that are both in the eternal realm and in the world, and all things were in him; and they were, surely, substantially, not now by the force or potency by which they were to be, but by that by which they already had been. So all things were in Christ. Why then was the world founded, why did so many things come here into the world, while souls and other powers of this kind were placed, as I said, in Christ? Is there not a certain lesser perfection, unless they experience and know all things that can be, and so see what is to be followed and what chosen, and follow it, in the spirit surely, who is Christ? Just as, by their own force and potency, souls are not the very thing that spirit is, but are such that they can receive spirit; yet in being souls they are not already spirits. Since, then, such is the nature of souls, that if a soul conducts itself wholly and with all things perfected—that is, if it both knows itself and knows God, and learns what is alien so as to reject and exclude it—it rightly becomes perfect; and when it has become perfect, having rejected what is alien and known God, and received full knowledge of the universe, it at once becomes spiritual. So too man, and all that man is. But since the soul is powerful according to intellect, and intellect can be deceived, unless it also knows that which imitates intellect yet is not intellect; if, in this which deceives, lies, and misleads, the soul takes notice, recognizes it, rejects it, and flees it as an enemy and deceiver, it will easily keep hold of itself and of its power, and will know it, and will be full and perfect in Christ, that is, spiritual.

What is it that produces a likeness of understanding and yet deceives? Sense, which exists only in worldly things and in matter, which the Greeks call hylē. For in fleshly things, and in the bodily openings, and in the powers of sensing, a kind of false intellect is born, which deceives the sound understanding with manifold disguise and in a way injures the truth through images. Since, then, it is natural to the soul that it is capable of understanding, yet it can easily slip from understanding and fall into the neighboring power and image of understanding, that is, sense, which in the world is wholly from nature—in order that the soul might grasp this and never be grasped by it, the world was made by God’s work and will, and all things were composed in matter; held by these, the soul might learn both what the senses are and how much they are worth; and a law and warnings were given by God, so that God might be known, and what is not God’s might be known. But the souls, simply overcome by the sensual powers, had nothing in their sense but the world, matter, flesh, and body, and believed these alone to be true; nor were they able to overcome and break the bonds that held the soul. By God’s power and will, to free them from the senses and from the deceitful world, he sent his Son, our Lord, the Savior Christ, the Holy Spirit, so that, the mystery being laid open, he might teach first what the Father is; then what spirit is, and what it is to live spiritually, and what the soul should follow, and what is alien, as I have taught. For this is the virtue of a Christian: to discern and separate these things—which are eternal, which mortal, which lead to ruin, which to salvation. So by the mystery that he fulfilled here, by flesh and cross and death and resurrection, help was brought to souls: if faith is taken up in Christ, he receives such souls, helps them, and frees them. For to believe Christ and to take up faith in Christ is already to think spiritually and already to be lifted away from fleshly and material desires; and from this a kind of kinship of understanding joins and associates us with Christ; and when it has associated us with Christ, he says, also with God. For through Christ we are joined to God, and there is no hope of our salvation except to believe Christ. This is already to think spiritually, to grasp the meaning, and not to be agitated by the motions of the world and of matter; through all which the whole man is truly in spirit, and from this his life is already in Christ. And when life is in Christ, then, the mystery having been accomplished by Christ, we are received, and through Christ we are taken up by God into the number of sons, made spiritual, so that we too may rise again from the world and from death by God’s will, but in Christ. For this is enjoined now, and often, and everywhere: that our whole life, whole hope, and whole labor of understanding be in Christ. For the whole account of our eternity, glory, and salvation both is Christ and is in Christ, if, casting away all things and thinking spiritually, we separate from ourselves worldly thoughts, worldly affections, fleshly desires so to speak, fleshly honors, fleshly powers, and even the wish for the powers or honors of the world. For whatever is worldly, even if it is heavenly within the world, or ethereal, or whatever else is called divine and eternal according to the world—yet according to the world—is neither divine nor eternal; for it is material, and whatever is material is temporal, perishable, and corruptible. So if, all worldly things set aside, as I said, our whole understanding is in Christ, and our whole understanding is about Christ, and therefore through Christ about God; hence, made spiritual, as I said, we rise again and are joined to God through Christ, and fullness comes about through all things; and this fullness is nothing else than that all that is his should be his. For souls, by a degree of procession, are from him, and though they were his, yet because by a certain distance from him they shone with a lesser light and, with a lesser light, were not so perfect—that is, because they could slip from the understanding of the true into things that were like the true, and from things like the true into false things, that is, into the things of sense; and these are, as I said, the world, or matter, or all things in the world—not knowing these, the soul would be less perfect and would remain in such a nature, unless, coming here, it came to know and despise them. And so that it might be rendered perfect and whole, away from that by which it could be captured, God made the world for the knowledge of the senses; and because souls captured by the great allurements of the senses had already lost that power of their light—having indeed become flesh and thinking fleshly things—the mystery was completed through the Savior, so that people might learn who their parent is and reach the power of understanding, having despised, trampled, and crushed all the senses; and so, perfection being completed through all things, all things might become one in all things according to Christ, through Christ, and in Christ; and so that fullness, as I said above, might be rendered perfect from all things. These things are treated in these words in such a way that it is taught that all things were made, made through Christ, and completed in God’s will through Christ: “even as he chose us,” he blessed us in him. How do you prove this? Because he blessed us “even as,” he says, “he chose.” When did he choose? “Before the foundation of the world.” When did he bless us? When we came to faith and knew the mystery: “even as he chose us in him before the foundation, that we should be holy.” I warn, as I have often warned, that our salvation and all eternity is in Christ and through Christ; and that our souls existed even before the foundation of the world, since in their own substance they have always existed in the eternal realm. These, then, God predestined and chose before the foundation of the world to be sanctified; that is, that their reception of spirit should be confirmed, and that, all vices that could befall them being laid aside, they should become spirits. For since by nature they are something else, they can slip into sense, which belongs wholly to the world and worldly things, and again, their natural power roused, they can know God, be near God, and exist as God’s sons, as it were. Before the foundation of the world God appointed and chose them to become holy and be sanctified; and the world was founded for their sake, so that they might take up true understanding amid all worldly things through sense, which is the deceiver of true understanding, integrity, and truth. For in adversity the righteous man is proved, light in darkness, and truth in falsehood; hence in the world they would easily know God, and through Christ, that is, through the spirit, by understanding spiritually, become spirits; for this is to be sanctified. God, therefore, predestined that we should be holy. But “predestined” applies only to things that exist, as if a certain order were brought about. For you will see how one takes it. For they had already existed substantially, as I judge and believe; or else they had not existed in their own substance or existence in the way I believe. For since they were in God’s thought—and God’s thought is not nothing, but is a definite existence—it must necessarily be granted that souls existed in true and right existence. For our thought is, as it were, empty; not so God’s; although by the reasoning of the wise even our thoughts are nothing other than substantial existences of things. But on these matters and on this same subject we have explained elsewhere and at greater length. “And without blemish.” You see, then, how much is added, and what being without blemish holds: not “that we should be,” he says, but “that we should be holy”; nor “that we should be,” but “that we should be without blemish.” So a blemish is something added to substance. There was, then, the substance, but a blemish could befall it. God predestined this: that we should be without blemish. For although the world had not yet stained us, yet since we were of such a nature that we could fall into a blemish, God therefore predestined us that, when we had fallen into a blemish, we should be without blemish through his grace, that is, through Christ. For by knowing Christ, and knowing him in the world, and knowing him in the senses, and knowing him in what is adverse, and knowing him in darkness, we then receive the true light, then we take up Christ, that is, the spirit; and then, having rejected the bodily blemishes, that is, the fleshly senses, we come to be without blemish and are holy.

“In his presence in love, predestining us to the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ, into himself, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.” He shows what, to whom, why, and through whom; and what he bestows, so that he may be seen to have the adoption of sons from among us—something great and exceptional and scarcely to be wished for even in our prayers, that we should be seen as adopted sons. To whom does he bestow it? To souls, of course, placed far from the power of God, since they can fall into vices, since they take on blemishes. Through whom does he bestow it? Through Jesus Christ and into him. Why, or for what? “To the praise,” he says, “of his glory.” “Of grace”: that is, that when he gives a great benefit, God may display from it an exceptional glory of his power, when he not only frees us, such as we are, placed in vices and fleshly sins and bound, and, our sins forgiven, renders us free of charges, but even adopts us as sons. This, then, is the praise of his glory and of his grace: of glory, because he can do so much; of grace, because he bestows these things on us. And when he said “to the adoption of sons,” he spoke fully, surely, and properly: for Christ is his, and Christ is truly Son, truly Son, as I have often taught, since he is the image of God. But since souls are far from the image of God, and again souls placed far away receive the spirit, and the spirit is the Son, souls come to be in the place of a son; and when souls are made to be in the place of a son, they are rightly said to have been taken up into the adoption of sons, yet through God Christ, that is, through the spirit, who is truly Son and alone Son. If, then, he is the true and only Son, when we receive Christ, that is, the spirit, we are adopted sons, not sons by nature; for by the power of the Son we are made sons. And this is the adoption in which “he has graced us in his beloved Son,” that is, he has bestowed grace on us; for this is what “he has graced” means. But everywhere he confirms both what the grace is and through whom the grace comes; for he adds through whom grace comes: “in his beloved Son.” And he adds the grace:

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” For this is the grace: that in Christ, through his blood, we have redemption and forgiveness of sins, so that our sins are forgiven us through the fact that he was crucified by the law. For this is “through his blood”: he himself redeemed us from death, that is, from fleshly thoughts and desires, and made us his servants, that is, to serve him, which is already to live spiritually; likewise to do nothing in a fleshly way, to perceive nothing by sense, but to turn wholly to God, trample on all worldly things, and seek again our origin; for this is to be redeemed, to be freed from captivity. Now captivity is nothing but being led from an origin of freedom into captivity. So we were free, that is, before the world; but the world made us captives; for we were of such a nature that we could fall and be captured. But this captivity turned out to our benefit: for having come to know all the evils of slavery and captivity, we were redeemed by Christ; that is, brought back to that original nature which we had from God, we now live spiritually; and from this we are spirits, and therefore sons of God, but by adoption, all our sins, of course, having been forgiven. For it was not by our own power that we returned to the spirit; we received the spirit through the blood of Christ. So sins are forgiven us and pardoned by the grace of God; we do not lay them aside by our own power; and this alone is of our power: to believe Christ and to live spiritually because of Christ. But it is he who forgives sins, he who redeems us, and he who commends to us the grace of God, so that we may now have eternity and holiness, being without blemish.