Commentary on Ephesians 4.28–5.33

“Let him who stole steal no longer.” It is not having sinned at all that is the sin, but persisting in sin: for place is given to repentance, given to correction. So “let him who stole steal no longer.” We ought not to take this of this sin alone, but of all: that whoever sinned in anything should sin no longer. For every sin, when it is committed secretly, is theft; but since God knows all that is done, we must not sin as if we believed we were stealing away our sins, since all things are manifest. “But rather let him labor, working with his own hands.” From this one may understand that he spoke above, truly and simply, that no one should steal any longer, since he added, “but rather let him labor, working with his own hands.” For whoever labors working with his hands has something to live on: so let him not steal. Let us note besides that it is said simply, since we labor working with our hands; the rest by art, by talent, by speech, or by any other means. Where there is no work of hands, there are thefts rather than a living sought by labor; and what is good is “that he may have something to share with one who has need”: so that from works done by his own hands he may gain what he himself has and share with one who has need, and bestow what profit he has gained from his own works.

“Let no evil word proceed from your mouth.” This precept too concerns what is not to be done. But I have warned that there are two kinds of precepts, and here what is to be done: let no one, he says, bring forth a word out of malice. For from this comes great sin; as it is said, “not what enters the mouth, but what comes out of the mouth” does the most harm. “But if any is good, for the building up of faith, that it may give grace to the hearers.” Let a word go out that is good. And what is a good word? One “for the building up of faith.” For it will give grace to the hearer when what it says builds up faith. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God”: either yours, who is in you, or him who is in another, who will be grieved by your evil word. Do not, he says, grieve the Holy Spirit of God, “in whom you were sealed”: in which Spirit you were surely sealed with the sealing through the Holy Spirit; and do not grieve him, either in yourselves, when you speak an evil word, or in the hearers. “In the day of redemption.” The order is: you were sealed for the day of redemption; for through him your redemption was accomplished; and this redemption has a fixed day, namely that of God’s judgment. For we have been sealed in the Holy Spirit for the day on which we are redeemed and freed.

“For let all bitterness and indignation and shouting and blasphemy be taken away from you with all malice.” He has briefly concluded five: bitterness, anger, indignation, shouting, blasphemy. Although he has also added the genus, “with all malice.” For bitterness lies both in envying and in speaking ill and in other actions. Likewise anger is a motion of the mind with a desire for revenge and punishment. Indignation is a motion of the mind, boiling and raised beyond what is deserved. Shouting is a voice uttered in some fury. Blasphemy, now wounding God, is a voice or a wicked thought sent forth against God. All these, he says, “be taken away from you”: in place of “take them away from yourselves”; but the sense is the same, “be taken away from you.” And he rightly said “with all malice”: because it can happen that some things are done without malice, so that we are in blasphemy in ignorance, shout in ignorance, are indignant without malice. Let all these be taken away together with all malice. For so, as we said above, “be angry, but do not sin.”

“But be kind to one another.” Those earlier things, as I said, are not to be done; these are to be done: that you be kind to one another; not one toward another only, but each toward each, and so all toward all. “And merciful, forgiving one another.” Above too he put “one another”: “be kind to one another.” He also said “forgiving one another”; hence we ought to understand “merciful” as toward one another too; and forgiving, namely, sins. Then he makes clear that this was said of sins from what was added: “as God also in Christ has forgiven you”: surely sins. “In Christ,” as we have often said, because Christ died for us: so in Christ our sins have been forgiven us. For that mystery, as we have often said, is for our sins: because we could not conquer sins, our Lord came to conquer sin and so to forgive us our sins, since believing in him we are freed from sins.

“Be, then, imitators of God, as dearest sons of God.” Imitators of God surely in this: when you too forgive one another your sins, as God has forgiven us our sins in Christ. Live, then, as imitators of God, and live so, as sons of God and dearest sons. For indeed for your sake he did not spare his Son, and for your sins he gave him up to sin, so that he might conquer sin; as the mystery is understood.

“And walk in love.” A great precept, and certainly to be kept, for it includes everything; and love suffices, in which is the whole law; and the whole mystery of Christianity is love and charity. “As Christ also loved you.” This is what was said above, “imitators of God”: that you too love one another, as Christ also loved you. And what is it that “he loved and gave himself up for you”? The same substance, one also in will. And likewise, “I and the Father are one.” He gave himself up for you; that is, for another, he did not spare his Son; so that in this way we too may give what is ours for one another, and to this point, that is, to the point of suffering for another, may love one another. “And he gave himself up for you as an offering and sacrifice to God for an odor of fragrance.” He offered himself to God, so that through this mystery all things might become spirit and sacrifice. For this is the odor of good fragrance; whose substance, the spirit, he said is the odor of good fragrance: on which matter there is a particular book setting out what spirit is and what meaning it has, so that its substance may be understood.

“But shamelessness and all uncleanness and greed, let them not even be named among you, as befits saints.” These too are precepts about things not to be done: that shamelessness, uncleanness, and greed be far away; and these three are to be excluded from minds so completely that people, above all those who are saints, should not have even the word for them or any mention of them among themselves. For even to name these things is a sin; how much more to have or admit them? For the name, mind, and conscience of saints require this, that the tongue too be pure. For if one who is pure in morals names vices, he still has sin, since in what he says he shows that he knows the vices themselves.

“Or shamefulness, or foolish talk, or buffoonery.” He adds three other things, which differ from the earlier ones. For shamelessness is far different from uncleanness. Where there is no shame, there is shamelessness; not straightway shamefulness: for shamefulness is a crime and sin; shamelessness, when shame is lacking. Likewise uncleanness, which can be in speech, in life, and in morals. Greed, in turn, is the desire of having. Far different, then, are these three that follow: shamefulness, foolish talk, that is, speaking idly. Granted that you speak when it does no harm; yet if it is foolish, neither wise nor profitable, it is foreign to saints. And so buffoonery is jesting speech, wounding another for the sake of a joke, and therefore insulting. “Which is not to the point.” For buffoonery too may be used by way of rebuke, out of foolish talk. But if these things are to the point, they are admissible. They are sins if they are done when they are not to the point. For if they either admonish or correct, since they are to the point, they are to be carried out. “But rather thanksgiving.” Having said what ought not to be, he adds what ought rather to be, that is, this: let us give thanks; no doubt to God, though also to men; and so it is set down without qualification.

“For know this, that every shameless or unclean or greedy person, which is the service of idols, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Having set down the three above and added three, he tightens the precept so as to teach that the three earlier ones are the gravest. For he had spoken so that those three should not even be named among the saints. So they are grave. How grave? “Know,” he says, that these, namely shamelessness, uncleanness, greed, “have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” He called greed idolatry, either because one who is greedy serves idols, believing that they supply him the things that are in the world, of which he is greedy. For God supplies the things that are in the future; one who is greedy is surely greedy for the present life; and therefore he serves idols. Or was it said that greed is the service of idols because, since there is one God, it belongs to greed to worship many, and to adore others, and to wish to serve others? Such a one, then, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. For Christ has his kingdom in the heavens; and whoever follows Christ will have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. The kingdom of Christ is the kingdom of God. So whoever serves idols has no inheritance in the kingdom of God either.

“Let no one lead you astray with empty words. For because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of unbelief.” This too is among the precepts I spoke of to you, about what is not to be done. For many by their words urge the advantage of the world and the worship of idols, that is, the desire of having. But these are empty words. As for his saying, “for because of these things the wrath of God comes,” it is because, namely, such people have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Because of these things, he says, they also have punishment: they both lack the goods of eternal life and wrath comes upon them. Whom did he call those sons of unbelief? For many think it empty that kingdoms in heaven are promised, so that they say, “Who among men has ascended into heaven?” So they distrust and do not believe. So upon the sons of unbelief comes the wrath of God. And unbelief is that devil whom those who distrust serve, and therefore they are his sons.

“Do not, then, become sharers with them.” Having treated the matter generally above, he returns to the precept and to the Ephesians, that they be strangers in every way to such people and not share with them. “For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord.” So, that they may separate themselves in every way from the sons of unbelief, he says what they had been before, when they lived as Gentiles. You were darkness, he says. But whoever follows Christ is light: for whoever has been baptized in Christ receives light. “Walk as sons of light.” So since you are light in the Lord (for you are not light, but in the Lord you are light); since, then, you too are sons of light, live so, as those ought to live who are sons of light. And what it is to live as a son of light he himself supplies: “For the fruit of light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” For this is both to be light and to be a son of light: to excel in goodness, to excel in righteousness, to excel also in truth. These three are light itself: for against them are darkness, malice, injustice, falsehood, which all befit the devil; but these belong to light, because Christ is light. So also goodness, righteousness, and truth. Live, then, by these morals.

“But prove what is pleasing to God, and do not share in the unfruitful works of darkness.” I said that through these same precepts he turns between what is to be followed and what is not to be followed: that one should live in goodness and righteousness and truth. Likewise this too: prove, he says, what pleases God. Then he added what is not to be followed: “Do not,” he says, “share in the unfruitful works of darkness”; which are greed, shamelessness, and the rest of this kind, and idolatry: works that bring back no fruit; for one who seeks them gains nothing; and therefore they have no fruit; and therefore they are darkness, because they show nothing of light, nothing of fruit. “But rather even rebuke them.” So that we not only separate ourselves from evil morals and do not share in the unfruitful works of darkness, but also rebuke and accuse those same works, that is, those people who live so.

“For the things done by them in secret it is shameful even to speak of.” He has said almost openly what is done by them, when he shows that it is shameful even to speak of it. So do not share; so rather rebuke.

“But all things that are rebuked are made manifest by the light.” Since he gave the precept that they should also rebuke those who do evil, he added how great a service rebuke is: since those sins done in secret are made manifest as if by light when they are rebuked. For the one who rebukes shows how great an evil the thing he rebukes is; and in showing it, he as it were sheds light on the evil; and when the one who commits it has understood this, he dispels the darkness and comes to the light. “For everything that is made manifest is light.” He himself shows what we have explained. For whatever is understood is both made manifest and is light, and is seen, and is open.

“Therefore it says: Rise from the dead, and you will touch Christ.” He gave an example of how one who is rebuked in his sins receives light and understands that he is sinning; and when he understands that he is sinning, he is enlightened, that is, he rises from the dead; that is, he leaves the darkness behind and touches Christ; that is, he receives light and begins now both to avoid sins and to have hope of eternal life.

“See, then, how you walk carefully, not as unwise, but as wise.” He has concluded both in one precept, admonishing how they should walk: not as unwise, but as wise; with that wisdom, namely, which is from God, not, he says, that which is of the world. “Redeeming the time, since the days are evil.” All these days in the world are evil: for they work evil on us, by what is in them; and everything that is good is of the future. Let us redeem this time, he says; that is, by our virtue, patience, and obedience, let us make our time our own, and as it were buy it with our labors and our patience. Let this time, which is against us, be ours. This is “redeeming the time.”

“Therefore do not become imprudent, but understanding.” By the same admonition we are again warned regarding the understanding of the world, the worldly understanding, in which we were imprudent; but let us be, he says, understanding. And what it is to be understanding he added thus: “what the will of the Lord is.” That we may understand this, what the Lord willed and wills: that is, that we live with integrity, righteousness, and faith, and have our hope placed in him, and think of nothing but God. This, he says, is the will of the Lord.

“And do not get drunk with wine, in which is debauchery.” This too concerns things not to be done: that we use much wine, since many vices come from it. Then he adds what is to be done: “But be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another.” This is a great precept: for all those things are in our will and in our labor—not to get drunk with wine, not to walk unwisely, and what was said above. This, however, would be understood as only of God’s will, if he did not here admonish that it is of our will to be filled with the Spirit. For so we cleanse the soul from all vices and sins, if we are filled with the spirit, so that we make the Spirit ours, and are filled with the spirit.

“Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” That they speak to one another nothing but psalms, hymns, songs. What the difference among these is, we shall say in a certain place; yet all resound with the praise of God and declare that man must have hope in God. For these, if they are so, will truly be spiritual. Let us sing these, then, and sing them in our hearts; as he himself adds, “singing and making melody.” “Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the Father and God.” “Singing”: what is uttered by the voice; “making melody,” that is, striking and moving the cithara or other instruments, which the prophet David too sets down, “on strings and on cymbals.” But these things, he says, in your hearts, giving thanks, and always giving thanks, and giving thanks for all: not only for ourselves, but also for others whom we see corrected. And to whom shall we give thanks? “To the Father and God,” but let us give thanks to the Father and God “in the name of the Lord.” For we give thanks rightly then, if we give thanks to God not in our own name but in the name of Christ. For we must give thanks to God both for this very thing, that we have been freed, and for receiving the Spirit; but rightly then, if we give thanks to God in the name of Christ.

“Subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” “To one another,” that is, one for another: “in the fear of Christ,” in that we fear Christ; as it is said, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding.”

“Let wives be subject to their husbands as to the Lord.” Precepts are also given to women: what they ought to do and how. For what they ought to do he has said: “let them be subject to their husbands.” How? “As to the Lord,” or as to Christ: so that husbands are to them as their lord. Then he gives the reason why it is so: “Because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church: he himself is the savior of the body.” So too the husband is the head of the wife. “And as the church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be subject in all things,” modest and restrained in all things.

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, to sanctify her, cleansing her in the washing of water in the word.” He has passed to husbands, so as to instruct husbands in like manner what is to be done with their wives. “Love,” he says, “your wives.” He gives the reason from the same example: “as,” he says, “Christ loved the church.” For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the church; and as Christ gave himself up for the church to sanctify her, so this husband too ought to bear all things patiently for her, to sanctify her. He continues, however, to show what Christ bestowed: that he gave himself up to cleanse the church in the washing of water and in the word. Let us take “church” to mean every believer, and everyone who has received baptism: one is taken up, namely, in faith and by the washing of water and the invocation of the word. How these things are to be referred to the husband with regard to the wife is not very clear; yet it could seem that the likeness he gave in the earlier part fits, and that in this part it was completed with the account of the mystery. Yet if we refer this too to the husband’s patience—that he give himself up for the woman and bear and endure all her ways, enduring even sufferings—she will be cleansed by the washing and the word; that is, she will have purification before the Lord, since he renders her pure and by his patience makes her fit to be sanctified by the washing and the word.

“That he might present the church to himself glorious.” Christ gave himself for the church, he says, to make his church glorious for himself; and pure, “without spot and without wrinkle”: for these bring deformity, spot and wrinkle; and when the body lacks them, it is vigorous, flourishes, and is comely. But besides these he added, “or anything of the kind,” that is, if there is anything else such that it has a name; “but that she be holy and without blemish.” Christ did this, that the church be both holy and without blemish: holy in this, that she is cleansed by the washing of water and the word; without blemish, because she is without spot and without wrinkle.

“So husbands also ought to love their wives as their own body.” Equal precepts are given to the husband too, that they love their wives “as,” he says, “their own body.” For so the story of the creation also shows, that the woman was made from the man’s rib. So let him love his wife as his own body. “He who loves his wife loves himself.” He repeats the same: for if the wife is from our body, he who loves his wife loves himself. And so afterward he adds the example: “and the two shall be in one flesh.”

“For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.” He confirms that this love is according to nature, that we love our own flesh. And if the woman is our flesh, and the first woman was from the man’s flesh, and was a woman in such a way that she was also his wife, since no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, he ought therefore to love his wife as his own flesh, “as Christ also the church.” And the precepts concerning the husband are the same as those concerning the wife. For as reverence and fear were given, that the wife should serve the husband, since the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ of the church, so now this precept is also given to the husband, that he love his wife as Christ the church.

“Because we are members of his body.” Above too it was said thus: the church is all the holy faithful, who are members of Christ, and the church becomes one body of Christ, whose head is Christ. “Of his flesh and of his bones.” We are all members, he says, of his flesh and of his bones. This is not to be taken here as though we had a part of this flesh which he put on and in which he appeared, and of his bones, which were the bones of the flesh in which Christ appeared; but let us take it of his whole deity, which is in spirit, where in all things above heaven and in the heavenly places he has the power of his deity, with regard to spirit, with regard to mind, which the Greeks call nous, and with regard to soul. Here, then, since we too have these same things, it is to be taken thus: that we are members of Christ, that is, in spiritual substance; and “of his flesh,” that is, of the soul; and “of his bones,” that is, I mean what is called in Greek … For all these, by the power of God, are spirits in the higher realm; as the same Paul says in the first letter to the Thessalonians: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things, so that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved.”

“For this reason a man will leave father and mother and will cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh.” This example is from Genesis, by which it is proved that love ought to be so great, or that a man holds his wife so dear, that he leaves both father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and the two are in one flesh. In many ways he leads the husband to be joined to the wife; and he lays down that it ought to be so, that the husband love the wife and the wife the husband. This, as the matter simply stands, has been said so both by us and by Paul; but in what is added he shows that this sentence opens more deeply; for he adds:

“This mystery is great; but I speak in Christ and in the church.” Paul shows that there is something beyond what the plain sense indicated when he says, “This mystery is great”; and yet it did not appear what he wished to be understood: he only added another interpretation himself, that “husband and wife” be taken here, for the moment, as Christ and the church. But since he called it a great mystery, it must be understood more deeply. What, then, do we suppose? I think this is to be taken so that husband and wife are spirit and soul joined to one another. For this is Adam and Eve: so that the spirit is Christ, and the church the soul. But Paul interpreted this as to be understood of the church and of Christ, provided that this is itself spirit and soul. But this he said more simply, and so that it would reach the people well. “I,” he says, “speak in Christ and in the church”: he did not say “Christ and the church,” but “in Christ and in the church.” For Christ has the church in his members, and the church has Christ as head in its members. So the church is in Christ; in any one flesh let there be two.

“Nevertheless you also, each one individually, let him love his wife as himself.” Although above he gave precepts generally to husbands about wives and to women about husbands, now he fits the same precepts specifically to the Ephesians: “you also,” he says. This is because he had explained that it was said figuratively to be a great mystery, that both wife and husband are in one flesh, and he wanted this to be understood of the church and of Christ. Therefore he added “nevertheless,” so that, although in truth he wanted it understood of Christ and the church, that they are in one body, yet you too should observe and imitate this very thing, that each one love his wife. And likewise he adds about wives: “but let the woman fear her husband.” Here there is both love in fear and affection kept with honor: that husbands love their wives, and women fear their husbands. Likewise he passes to the other persons, of children and parents. Afterward he was going to add those of slaves .... … and grieve how much they bestow; yet how they rather entangle the mind than release it and bind it within the world, I have set out, handed on, and taught there with full reasons, showing that the spiritual wickedness of worldly power works most of all up to heaven, when it promises wretched souls that they will become as it were certain names.