Commentary on Ephesians

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.

“According to the riches of his grace, which he made abound in us in all wisdom and prudence.” God is the Father: for from him, as from a fountain, all things have arisen. How they arose is a great matter of understanding and a great doctrine; yet the confession is certain: all things are from God. Now “all things” means both the highest things and the weak, and those that are not eternal, and the rest of this kind. For when I say “all things,” one must understand things diverse, contrary, and conflicting; and in short all things that exist, whatever they are, however, and of whatever kind; and while they are these, they yet remain in their own mode, in substance, in their own being and their own quality. So although angels, demons, matter, elements, souls, and all other such things that exist have their own nature, and have a common force and power of origination, remaining in their own condition, yet souls, which certainly also have their own force among all things, do not persist as they came to exist and received their substance, but by God’s power are advanced into a better substance; and from souls, though they are souls, they become spirits. These, then, are the riches of God conferred on us: that we are made more than we were when we began to be and came to exist, while the rest remain in their condition and keep their own substance and quality as they arose. Magnificent grace of God, great riches of God, when he grants souls this gift: that they come to the adoption of the sons of God, yet through Jesus Christ, that is, through the spirit, thinking spiritual things so as to be spirits. These are his riches, and the riches of his grace, with which he abounded toward us. Rightly, then, did he abound toward us: for an angel, in being an angel, will remain so; and likewise the rest, whether in matter or in the luminaries or in other such things: all these were prepared and are preserved by God. But the soul, among all things, has received more from God, the greatest gift and great riches, when by knowing God—yet by God’s will infused into it through Christ Jesus—it merits to be received among the sons and to be near God; and made, as it were, co-heir with the Son, that is, with Jesus Christ—yet through Christ himself—of eternity, majesty, and power, it merits the name and power of a son. “He abounded,” then, he says, “toward us.” How did he abound? “In all wisdom and prudence.” For truly this is all wisdom and prudence: to know Christ, and through Christ both to understand and to see God. For the rest may be wisdom, whether worldly wisdom or other wisdom of that kind beyond the world; yet without Christ all wisdom and all prudence is vain and wretched; for this reason, namely, that whoever knows Christ, whoever receives Christ, becomes spirit: by doing all spiritual things he is taken up among the sons of adoption, and in a way he himself too comes to exist as such. With this grace, then, God abounded toward us, and with all wisdom and all prudence: wisdom as the genus, prudence as the species.

“That he might make known to us the mystery of his will.” “To us”: to human beings? Or to us Christians, who have received the law? For we understand the mystery of God’s will, by which his grace superabounded toward us, so that we might know his riches through the blood of Christ and through the forgiveness of sins. This will is, as he says, the mystery of prudence, or the mystery of his will in Christ Jesus. For thus he adds: “according to the will that he purposed in him.” For it is not only the will, but the will purposed in him. For all things are through him, and without him nothing, and nothing in the mystery that has been done is not through Jesus Christ: the world and what is in the world, our liberation, and the cause of all things are in Christ and are Christ.

“And this is the will of God which he purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times.” He shows that all things were arranged in order so that there might be a dispensation; likewise that all things would be, as it were, paid out; for whatever will happen has been ordained; that it may happen, it must without doubt be dispensed; and the world and all things in the world have been arranged, and so they happen; and what the sum of the dispensation is appears plainly through the individual things that happen. This is the fullness of times: when, each in its own times, one arrives at the sum that is made up of all things, namely our liberation and that of all souls—the heavenly ones, of course; but this in the fullness of times, when the times are fulfilled, while the things arranged by God in Christ come about. “And through Christ to restore all things in Christ, both those in the heavens and those upon the earth, in him.” For it is not all things, both those in the heavens and those upon the earth, that are restored, but those that are in Christ: for there are also other things, alien ones. Whatever, then, is in Christ, whether in the heavens or on earth, is restored and rises again. For he himself is salvation, he himself renewal, he himself eternity; “in whom we have also obtained our lot.” He added what was fitting. For not all at once, as is said in another place too: Christ first; then we; then the rest. This, then, is what he says:

“We have obtained our lot, predestined,” surely, “according to his purpose”; that is, who, at what time, and as we said above; and we had surely already been predestined to perfection. For nothing happens that was not predestined by God and in a sense done beforehand. Now there come to pass perceptibly the things that were established spiritually by God. “Who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” God, he says, who surely works all things; for Christ works by God’s power; and although he himself is the worker, yet God works through him: so God works, and works all things. All motion, and the motion of all things, is only from God and through God. And so, since working is motion, working is from God, because working is motion. For the rest are torpid, inert, defective, sluggish. In short, that they come into motion is God’s working, through Jesus Christ, of course. So it is God who works all things, and he works according to the counsel of his will. This, then, is the difference: when God works and Christ works, Christ works from the will of God; God works according to the counsel of his will; for Christ is the will of God. In other books I think we have explained and given a satisfactory account of what the will of God is and what God is, whether it is the same or something else, one or also another, and the rest of this kind. Here we must be content with a simple exposition, holding, with fear and reverence, to this: that the will of God is Christ, that the will of God is motion, that God works all things because God is motion, and the will of God is motion, and is God.

“That we may be to the praise of his glory.” For if we believe in him and become spiritual by following Christ, we shall be to the praise of the glory of God himself, “we who first hoped in Christ.” He has given the order: we shall be to the praise of his glory then, when we have hoped in Christ; or, we shall be to the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ. First, then, comes hoping in Christ, that is, following Christ and believing that all that Christ promised can be fulfilled; and so it will follow that we are to the praise of God’s glory: because, as I have often said, through Christ eternity, which is our salvation, is at the same time God’s glory; hence there will be praise of his glory.

“In whom you also, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” He comes down to particulars, so that he would not seem to have treated the matter only in general and not fittingly or usefully, as if this were a benefit for others and not for those to whom he is speaking. He added something specific, since he is sending the letter to the Ephesians: this, he says, is yours too; for you also are in this. What is “in whom you also”? In Christ, of course. And what in Christ? That, “having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,” you have followed the faith, now in Christ. “In whom, believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” The very ground of the exhortation is, for the most part, the mystery: to believe in Christ, to believe the gospel, that is, “the word of truth,” he says; in this you too, believing, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, so that you too have now received the Holy Spirit of Christ’s promise. But since the Holy Spirit is, as it were, one thing and Christ another, the consummation and perfection and full liberation is nonetheless the Holy Spirit. “You were sealed,” he says, “in the Holy Spirit of promise,” concerning the things promised: since the Holy Spirit was promised and given to us. And of him he adds this:

“Who is the pledge of our inheritance, for the redemption of adoption, to the praise of his glory.” This Spirit, he says, “is the pledge of our inheritance”: for he sent him to us as a pledge that we shall obtain the inheritance of heavenly things, of eternity, and of the glory of God. For this is what is said, “for the redemption of adoption,” so that we may be redeemed from these worldly, earthly, bodily, and fleshly evils; and redeemed into adoption, and exist as sons, seeking rather the glory of God. And it is grace that goes beyond our merit: for the gift that is received is great beyond merit; the glory belongs to him who bestowed it, not to him who received it.

“Therefore I too, having heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” He comes down specifically to exhorting the Ephesians, and at the same time to warning them not to think otherwise. In a courteous manner of speaking he says, “having heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” For this is the sum of things, this the virtue, this the mystery: that there be faith in Christ Jesus. This necessarily also entails that all the saints be loved who have taken up faith in Christ and been sanctified. So one who is faithful in Christ loves the saints, that is, those sanctified by faith in Christ and the mystery of baptism. So I too, having heard of your faith, love you; and having heard also of your love, love toward the saints, I will make it my business to give thanks to God for you.

“I will not cease giving thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” Every prayer that we make to God is either about what we have received or in order that we may receive something. And since everyone who prays prays first for himself and then for those whom he loves, so Paul says, “In my prayers,” he says, “I make mention of you.” So the principal prayer is first for me, then also for you. And he puts forward that double reason, “giving thanks for you.” This concerns the past. But he added:

“The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you the spirit of wisdom.” This, then, concerns the future: to pray with some petition, so that, since you believe in Christ, I may give thanks to God for you, and again pray and make mention of you in my prayers, that God (which God? so that they may not stray, may not suppose other gods, whether those of the Gentiles or of the Jews), God, he says, “of our Lord Jesus Christ,” the Father, who is “the Father of glory.” It can therefore be seen as set apart: “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ”; for he is the God of Christ; so he is ours as well, since our Lord is Christ; and he is our God who is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is far separate from the God of the Jews; he is the very one who is also the Father of glory. So I pray that God may give you the spirit of wisdom, that you may be wise and understand what is true. And here and in very many places it is sufficiently confirmed, and shown and demonstrated as certain, that the spirit is given us by God so that we may be wise and understand, and understand the truth—but the spirit of wisdom. Finally he adds, proving that what we understand, or strive to understand, is not our own. For what does he say? “And of revelation in the knowledge of him,”

“… the eyes of your heart enlightened,” that he may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. The spirit of wisdom means that the spirit itself makes us wise and is in us, and that we are wise as if by ourselves, since the spirit makes us wise. The spirit of revelation, on the other hand, means that what we are to understand, receive, and follow is revealed to us as if from outside us. So in a way the spirit of wisdom is one thing and the spirit of revelation another. Let us know, then, that we come to the truth and to the fullest mystery in two ways, as it were: either when we ourselves understand God and grasp knowledge of divine things, or when there is a certain revelation, that is, a warning as if from outside, which shows us God and all divine things. Among some, indeed, it is considered exceptional and great, and as it were close to the truth, to perceive something by revelation; but either it is alike, or … more alike and certain. But when we receive wisdom so that by our own ability—and, to speak truly, as is also laid down here, by the divine spirit—we grasp divine things, we already have the discussion among ourselves and with ourselves, and, if it may be said, the spirit as it were already exists in us. I pray, then, that he may give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Concerning what? He added: namely, “in the knowledge of him,” so that this may be the wisdom, and through these the revelation, that is, that we may know God and have the eyes of the heart enlightened for the knowledge of God. This, he says, I pray for you: “that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” To know God is indeed a great reward; yet somehow it is a small reward for a human being unless he himself obtains something and in some way becomes better than himself. So I ask, he says, that the spirit of wisdom and revelation be given you in the knowledge of him, and that you have the eyes of your heart enlightened. But since, as I said, the knowledge of God is great indeed, yet small in our eyes unless we gain something from it, he added what you should further understand in that very knowledge of God: “that you may know,” he says, “what is the hope of his calling.” First, what hope we have as those who are called; then what riches we obtain, and riches of glory; which are the riches of the glory of his inheritance, so that we obtain both his glory and the inheritance, and are numbered among the sons. For since the goodness of God receives us into adoption, into the adoption of his sons, we are also heirs; heirs, though, not as in worldly matters, when the one whose heir someone is perishes—which it is impious to think or to say—but as in these matters, heirs of goods, so that we are held to be heirs: that the goods God enjoys, we too may enjoy, may be in glory, may be eternal. This is the inheritance. For we are also co-heirs with Christ, and Christ is God: so with God we are heirs of the riches of his glory. But all these things are “in the saints,” that is, in those sanctified by the mystery, by the name of Christ. So—a thing most approved—I ask that you be enlightened and know this great benefit: that he implores and asks that the spirit, which teaches us this, may come to us. And we indeed often ask this for ourselves; but no small benefit is bestowed by one who has already served the Lord fully and been sanctified, when he asks that the very thing we desire and ask for may come to us. This, then, Paul records that he does for the Ephesians.

“And what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward you who have believed, according to the working of the might of his power, which he worked in Christ.” This, he says, I ask in my prayers: that he give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation; likewise I ask that you know what is the hope of the calling, what the riches; and likewise that you know what is the surpassing greatness. He explains this surpassing: “of greatness,” he says. But what is this greatness? He added, “of power.” And what is this power? That which is in you, or toward you, in that it bestows this on you. And what is that power which it bestows on you? That you believe in him, and believe “according to the working of the might of his power.” Now the working of God’s power is manifold; for whatever has been done through Christ is, as it were, the working of Christ, like the world and all things that were made through him. Yet the true, certain, and at the same time magnificent working of God is that “which he worked in Christ.” And he adds what that working of God is which he worked in Christ: “raising him from the dead, and setting him at his right hand in the heavens.”

“Above every principality and power and virtue and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come; and he subjected all things under his feet, and gave him as head over the whole church, which is his body, the fullness of him who is filled all in all.” “According to the working,” he says, “of the might of God’s power” you have believed. Now there is a working of God’s power. Although in the beginning that working was the sending of Christ, or the making of the world subject on account of souls, since this is lofty and hidden, he begins from things that are openly manifest, since they were done, and done recently, and are still before our eyes. From there he takes his exposition of the power of God which he worked in Christ. What is it? It comes from the raising from the dead. For when he raised Christ from the dead, which we have certainly seen, it is surely a great working of the might of God’s power. Then come the things that followed after he raised him from the dead: he set him at his right hand in the heavens. Surely this is great, to have given such honor, such majesty, that he set him both in the heavens and at his right hand. That is too little: “above every principality,” he says; so that no other ruler, whether in the world or above the world, is anything but inferior to Christ. “And above every power,” he says, “and above every virtue, above every dominion, and above every name.” What name? Whether named on earth, that is, in the age; or in this world, or even in the one to come. Again, what did he bestow? That “he subjected all things to his feet,” and that he gave him to be “head over the whole church.” He also defines the church, so that we may understand what it is: “which is his body”; that is, the church is that of which all the members are Christ’s; because it is “the fullness of him who is filled all in all.” Since, then, God bestowed such great and magnificent things on Christ, and fulfilled them for Christ whom he raised, it is surely a great working of the might of his power, which he worked in Christ.

Since the sense and the sum of the passage are clear, let us now go over the details. “Raising him from the dead”: this was done openly and is clear by every testimony—God raised Christ Jesus, who was in the flesh, who died and was lifted up on the cross, on the third day from the dead. Although even on a simple understanding the account of the mystery is magnificent, yet that he was raised from the dead, that the death which human beings undergo, whether by violence or by the necessity of the body, accomplished nothing, that God removed it so that death had no power—this is surely a great power of God, a great might, a great working. But since we have often said what Christ is, what it means that he was in the flesh, what it means that he was lifted onto the cross, what it means that he was raised, we give only this brief reminder; for the account of the fuller mystery has often been treated by us in these books and explained more fully elsewhere. Through Christ, that is, through the spirit, souls were re-created and freed, so that they might return to their origin and the sins into which the souls had fallen might be taken away. Since human beings could not live because of the weakness of the flesh, Christ was sent, that is, the spirit—the spirit of understanding and of the revelation of all divine things and of eternal life—so that through his mystery and through bodily death the souls, raised up, might return to the heavenly power; and at the same time Christ, having suffered the death of the cross and received resurrection from the Father, might provide through the mystery an image of resurrection for all souls. But these things, as he said, also at a certain time.

“And setting him at his right hand in the heavens.” Since Christ is the motion of God, and motion is in working, and the working of motion is always at the right hand, Christ was therefore set at God’s right hand, above every principality and power. For the first motion of all things is the motion of Christ. Principalities, powers, virtues, and dominions are motions of things to be done, whether in divine or in worldly affairs. But since Christ is the fountain, origin, and principle of all that is moved, he is placed above every principality, as above every power. Principality is one thing, power another: principality is in act; power is in the capacity by which something can be—not by which it already is, but by which it can be something. And since Christ is the very origin of all things, and in him is what is potency, he is above every power. Likewise, since he is the fountain of all acts, and act is principality, he is above every principality. Likewise, since, whether when he is or when he can be something else in relation to himself, he is potency, and he can, before there is action, be above every action; in all these, whether in principality or in power, there is virtue, that is, even before the act, so that he himself can be principality. Therefore, since Christ is above all these, he is also above every virtue. Then, since all those powers, whether worldly or heavenly or beyond, in the eternal realm, or all principalities, or all virtues, hold dominion over some one thing each (for each one rules over something), and Christ is the fountain of all—for from him are all things, since he is the father of all motion, and all these are motions—Christ is also above every dominion.

“And every name.” All names were devised by later beings, and especially by those who are in the world, whether human beings or angels or powers. For all those eternal things are the realities themselves, living powers, eternal and intelligent, which are known substantially. So there is no name there, but names were added to them by our vocabulary, whether in our language or, as I said, in that of angels, yet of those who are in the world. Moreover, although that Christ, divine and holy spirit and Son of God, receives these names from us, he is nonetheless beyond all these words that might seem to have been imposed on him. And indeed in a certain place we touched on this: that every name is begotten afterward, and that among names themselves there is a principal name, which is truly above all names and from which all names come, which in Greek is called on, “being.” But Christ is above that very on: so also above all names. But that on is in the eternal realm; and if it is in the eternal realm, and Christ is above on, it is rightly said, “above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come.” More keenly and sharply: all the names that could be formed by the intellect to express the things we have grasped by understanding have already been made. But since many new things are to come, and things more new in that age which is to come, when all things will be disclosed; and since names have not yet been imposed by us on those things, which are not yet known—nor can they be, since they are not known—Christ has been set above even the names that are to come. So he is first and highest in realities too, since he is above all powers, principalities, and the rest. He is above all names, since in this age no name can fittingly be applied to him, and all the names that are to come lie within his designation, or his substance, or any pronouncement and utterance about him.

“And he subjected all things to his feet.” In many and various ways one power is understood, which is Christ, whether as motion, or as word, or as Christ the first universal, through whom all things come to be, have been made, and will be. Rightly, then, God subjected all things under his feet. For Christ is the procession from God, and Christ is the procession through all things; and all things that have come forth, and that return to God, return by his power. So likewise all things are subjected in action under his feet.

“And gave him as head over the whole church.” Many call all souls the church. So Christ, who is spirit, through whom souls know God and become spiritual and are freed from the condition of soul, so that they are no longer tempted and do not slip, since they have been made spiritual through the spirit, Christ—believing in whom they think spiritually and so come to the knowledge of God—in this way Christ is head over the whole church, which is his body. The whole church is likewise every soul, but every soul that is to be saved, and therefore has its substance from the eternal realm, through which all things flourish; and so all souls are saved through Christ, as we have often said. So the whole body of Christ is every soul, which he has named the church. “His fullness,” that is, the church itself, which is his body. It is the fullness “of him who is filled all in all.” Christ is fullness, who is filled with all fullness. But everything that is filled has been emptied. And Christ was emptied, or emptied himself, and again, all things being recovered through the mystery and all souls saved, he is filled in all. Therefore he is fullness. But Paul spoke so as to say that the church is his body, “whose fullness it is,” he says; and it is the fullness of him who is filled all in all. On these two words, fullness and capacity, I have explained more distinctly and fully in other books: how God is fullness only, and how Christ is both capacity and fullness. All these things said of the magnificence and power of Christ have this aim and prove this: that nothing beyond is to be accepted, nothing outside is to be thought; and therefore that the Ephesians err if they add anything besides and join to it anything from the teaching either of the Jews or of the world. Hence he now returns to them and warns them that, having been received into Christ and receiving Christ, they ought to accept nothing other than the fullness of Christ.

“And you, when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who works in the sons of unbelief.” This whole thought must be taken together: both what concerns the Ephesians, that they were in sins, and what concerns Paul himself, that he was in the desires of the flesh and in fleshly counsels. To all these, I say, must be joined this: that God, who is rich in mercy, has saved them all, both Paul himself and the Ephesians. For so he concludes: “by whose grace you have been saved,” when you walked dead in trespasses; and you, when you walked dead in your trespasses and sins. I have often warned that death is taken in two ways: the one well known, when at the end of living in the world the soul is separated from the body; the other, when the soul, placed in the body itself, carries out the desires of the flesh and lives in sins. “You,” he says, “when you were dead”; and he indicated the kind of death: “in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the age of this world.” He shows what the sins are: namely desires in the world and about the world—for riches, or for pleasure, or for worldly knowledge, or for a worldly religion—and the rest of the things of this world which destroy the mind as it wanders from the knowledge of the truth. And he said “the age of this world” because there are also higher ages, those eternal ages, and how they are to be understood and what meaning they have I have unfolded in other books. The age of this world is every worldly region, or the whole world: in the world the motion of things producing and enfolding time. An age is not in the same way in the eternal realm; yet that there are ages of eternal things Paul too declared, and all the prophets, since it is said, and often said, “Blessed be God to the ages of ages.” For an age comes to an end; but the ages of ages are both of the eternal realm and forever. “According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of unbelief.” Whoever walks according to the age of this world walks according to the prince of the power of the air, who is the spirit of the sons of unbelief. Since there are two things, light and darkness, truth and falsehood, good and wickedness—not, however, as if they were on equal terms, for it is impious for anything to be compared with God, even as a contrary—so let us also take two spirits, one of faith, the other of unbelief. This spirit, Satan and his devil, has his substance from the air, that is, from hylē and matter, and has power in matter itself, or over those who think materially. He is, then, the prince of that power which is in the air, that is, in matter: a prince who is a spirit, but, as I said, a spirit of matter; and he now works in material things, “in the sons of unbelief,” that is, he holds their minds and rules there. So whoever lives according to the age of this world lives according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of unbelief. There is a double reading: “of the spirit who works” and “the spirit who now works.” We have said that the prince or spirit of the air is the spirit of matter; but there is a strong reason for it: that the air is the prince among the elements. For fire is agitated air, water is moistened air, earth is dry and solid air; and if the air holds all these together within itself, it is chaos, that is, darkness and the matter of darkness. Fire, on the other hand, is purer air, and heaven is air shaken by agitation. For when the poet described the power of the winds, by which they could throw everything into confusion unless they were ruled, he said that all things would be turned into air if the winds had free power. The separation of these elements one by one is the ordering of the world, as Moses taught, who in the beginning separated the waters by the word of God; he separated the earth too, and he separated the spirit. So the spirit of matter is rightly called the spirit of the air.

“Among whom we too all once lived.” So as not to wrong the Ephesians—having said, “when you were dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the spirit of the air”—he added himself too and the rest, so that all once lived according to this life which he goes on to describe: “in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of our flesh and of our counsels.” These are the things over which the prince of the power of the air exercises his working, but upon the sons of unbelief, so that they have the desires of the flesh, do the will of the flesh and the counsels of the flesh. Whoever has cast these away now both knows God and follows him, thinking nothing about the works of the flesh. “And we were by nature sons of wrath, like the rest.” Since we lived both by the counsels of the flesh and from its desires, “we were,” he says, “sons of wrath by nature”; that is, begotten according to the nature of flesh and matter; for that is nature. For we do not mean the divine nature, but that which is worldly; and wherever there is birth, there one speaks of nature. So in the higher realm, since all things there are unbegotten, when certain things are said to be begotten, they are understood as begotten by a kind of mystery, not in the way things are begotten in the world. For where there is nature, there is generation; and generation is when from what was not something begins to be, or from what was otherwise something begins to be different; as a human being from seed, or other plants from seed, and the other animals. But in the eternal realm, since all those divine things begin to appear as if by a kind of distinction, they are therefore said to be as it were begotten; yet since they are of the same power and the same substance as they were, they are for that reason not begotten. For God did not make by nature all things, even the eternal things which he made from the eternal, as he had them; but he only, as it were, separated them and established each one; how great and of what kind they are we understand from other books. Now we take Christ, or the angels, or souls, and all other things that are eternal, as as it were begotten in the eternal realm, whereas the generation that is in the world is far different. So “we were,” he says, “sons by nature,” that is, made through nature. But sons of whom? Not of God, but of wrath: for the adversary himself, who is wrath, had claimed us for himself from matter. So, he says, “we were sons of wrath, like the rest.” For they are properly sons of wrath who are also of this world; as of those of whom he said “like the rest,” as we, who being from that world were living badly—that is, we lived according to the flesh, like sons of wrath, as the sons of wrath live; that is, “like the rest.”

“But God, who is rich also in mercy, because of his great love, has had mercy on us.” For truly God’s riches in mercy are great. For when we had made ourselves strangers to God by our sins, though we were from the higher world, he, by his grace forgiving sins and pardoning even trespasses, redeemed us to himself through his Son; and since he did not spare him in order to free us, his riches are without doubt great, and his love great too. For how much love has he for us, when for our sake he emptied his Son, so that he might redeem us by his passion? This, then, is the love.

“And when we were dead in sins, he made us alive together in Christ.” Because, he says, the love of God remains. This, he says, is the love; these are the riches: that although our substance was from the eternal realm, and although we were dead in sins, he redeemed us through the passion of Christ and saved us. And since the passion of Christ is the putting to death of sins, and the resurrection of Christ is our resurrection, he says, “he made us alive together in Christ,” that is, he restored us to eternal life; but through Christ, “by whose grace you have been saved.” He concluded with what was most necessary both for all and for the Ephesians: that we accept nothing outside Christ, since we are saved by his grace. So you too, Ephesians, saved by the grace of Christ, ought to accept nothing outside, and to hold nothing external in religion and faith.

“And he raised us together, and seated us together in the heavens.” This is a holy and full mystery, for us to have faith in Christ: not that we now earn resurrection or the heavenly kingdoms, but that when Christ was raised, we were raised then. For this is what he says: “he raised us together.” Likewise, “and seated us together in the heavenly places.” For when he seated Christ, he seated together with him also those who are and will be in Christ. “In the heavenly places,”

“That he might show in the ages to come the overflowing riches of his glory, in kindness toward us, in Christ.” For he did not pay us what we had earned, since we do not receive this by merits, but by the grace and kindness of God. He raised us, then, together in Christ, because of his kindness and the grace that is in Christ, so that he might show to future and coming ages his riches. What riches? The grace of his kindness toward us. But all this, as he often warns and as I impress upon you, is in Christ. For there is the whole mystery of the resurrection, both ours and that of all. For through Christ all things are reconciled: he himself is the door, he himself the resurrection, he himself the life, and the way to the Father. “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” He has explained plainly that faith is owed by us; and only this is owed: that we believe in Christ. If this is so, this alone is ours; we are saved not by our merit, but by the grace of God. Accordingly he adds: “and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God.”

“Not from works, lest anyone perhaps should boast.” That we are saved, he says, is of God’s grace. So you too, Ephesians: that you are saved is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God; nor is it from your works, but it is God’s grace and God’s gift, not our merit. Works are one thing, our merit another; hence he separated them, saying “not from yourselves” and “not from works”: for besides the works that must be offered daily in duties toward the poor, and the other good deeds, there can also be merit from duty and religion, from chastity and abstinence; … these are works. So he concluded both: “not from yourselves,” and “not from works,” and he added, “lest anyone should boast.” For somehow one who thinks that merit is paid back for his works wants it to be his own, not the giver’s; and this is boasting.

“For we are his handiwork, created in Christ.” By a certain mystery he fashioned and formed us in Christ, so that we might rise with him and be able to be heirs with him, believing in Christ. “For good works which God prepared.” God prepared, created, formed in Christ, he says, good works: those that are to come, or these that we do here now? But whether we understand those that are to come or those that are now, they are surely good; they are witnesses in Christ. And he can be seen to have spoken of present works, since he adds, “that we should walk in them”;

“Mindful,” he says, “in those very works”: so that we may now live in the same way and do the same works, which are good. For God has now created us in Christ as his handiwork so that we may be mindful, and therefore, keeping faith, may now walk in those works. “And you who were once Gentiles in the flesh.” Because he had said “that we should walk,” he added, “and you,” that is, may you walk “in the good works which God prepared.” “You,” he says, “who were once Gentiles in the flesh,” that is, you thought as Gentiles, and therefore in a fleshly way, that is, carrying out the desires of the flesh. The contrary of this is to be in Christ, that is, to live spiritually and to think everything according to the spirit. I have often explained this. It is, namely, to think about God, to hope in God, to have one’s mind toward God, to strive toward the Father, to know Christ as the way of our eternity, to believe that through his resurrection we have risen. “Who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision, made by hand in the flesh.” You, he says, were Gentiles in the flesh, so called by those who are circumcised, that is, the Jews, whose circumcision is made by hand. By this circumcision, then, that is, by the Jews, you are called uncircumcision, that is, those who are not circumcised. But when he said that it is the circumcision made by hand that names you uncircumcision, he meant it to be understood that the circumcision made by hand is not the one given by God, but that there is another circumcision, which is of the mind, of all desires and all sins, so that one truly cuts the world away from oneself and separates all the desires of the flesh. For what does it profit to circumcise the flesh, when rather every vice grows through the mind from the flesh? It is those sins, then, that come from the flesh that must be circumcised; and this circumcision will not be made by hand, but by soul and spirit. This was said so that they would not be ashamed of being called uncircumcision: for this is neither outside the religion of God, nor is it truly said, since it is said by the Jews, and said by that circumcision which is made by hand; whereas the better and truer circumcision is that which soul and spirit have made, cutting away all the sins of the flesh.

“Because you were at that time without Christ.” For when you were Gentiles, you were surely without Christ; for Christ always exists; but whoever has received Christ and has taken up faith in him is then as it were circumcised, and will then be in the circumcision, but not that made by hand. So you were uncircumcision because you were not with Christ. And he adds this: you were not true Jews, “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel.” For its true commonwealth is if we think according to the spirit, live according to the spirit, and are circumcised by Christ from fleshly desires. “And strangers to the covenants, not having hope of their promise, and without God in this world.” That is, you were Gentiles; and because you had nothing to do with Christ and were without Christ, therefore, he says, you were not in the commonwealth of Israel; therefore you were strangers to the covenants, that is, alienated from the covenant. What is the covenant? [Strangers] from the promise of the covenants, that is, not having hope of the promise of the things God had promised through his covenants, that is, through the prophets: namely, not having hope of their promise. For when you were without Christ, you did not promise yourselves the hope of the promise of those covenants, since you were strangers and aliens from them, and were without God, that is, without Christ. For so he said, “when you were without Christ.” See, here too he has called Christ God. Then “without God” can also be understood because God is from Christ. You were, then, in this world without God. He lives without God, and is a stranger to the promises of the covenants, and other than the true Israel, to whom heaven and the kingdoms of heaven have been promised in eternal life and the glory of God.

“But now in Christ you who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ.” Every discourse that contains exhortation, after a general discussion, brings the thought back to those to whom the letter is written, that is, to the Ephesians. So, he says, you too who were once far off, that is, Gentiles, have now been brought near in Christ, in the blood of Christ: since it is not our works, nor the Ephesians’ own works, that make them near and in Christ, but, he says, the blood of Christ.

And he explains what it means that through the blood of Christ we are in Christ—yet through faith. “For he himself is our peace.” For through his mystery we have been reconciled to God and are no longer strangers or enemies. For when we worshiped others and served idols, we were as it were at war with the Father, that is, with God. But Christ, standing in the middle, by his mystery and passion reconciled us in himself. So he is “our peace, who has made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, the enmities, in his flesh.”

“Making void the law of commandments in decrees.” Christ, he says, is our peace: whom elsewhere too he calls mediator. For he placed himself between the divided realms, since souls born from the fountain of God are held, or were held, in this world, so that a middle wall stood between them, like a hedge and a fence, through the allurements of the flesh and worldly desires. Christ by his mystery, by flesh and passion and teaching, broke down this middle wall; that is, conquering the flesh and teaching that it must be conquered, and dissolving the desires of the world and teaching that they must be dissolved, he took away the middle wall; yet in the flesh, he says, surely dissolving its enmities. So it is not of our labor, as I often warn, that we dissolve them; but faith in Christ alone is our salvation. For he dissolved all enmities in his flesh. Likewise he dissolved the law of commandments, making it void in decrees, so that it is not through works nor through sabbaths. For the decrees are in the law, and the commandments themselves: now, I say, Christ has made void precepts of observances of this kind, which were understood in a fleshly way. When these were made void, what had stood in the middle was taken away: and souls are no longer hindered, as if by the world set against them, that is, by worldly desires and understandings and fleshly desires, from seeing God, knowing him, and following him, even being joined to him. For this is what he teaches: “that he might create the two in himself, into one new man, making peace.” I have said which two: souls, and those higher things, namely the eternal and spiritual. When the Savior himself, who is spirit and the Holy Spirit, descended into souls, he joined the two, the higher spiritual things, and made souls to be spiritual, and created them in himself “into one,” he says, “new man.” And who is the new man? The spiritual man; for the old man is the animal man, and from there the fleshly man. “Making peace,” he says: that is, for those torn apart, separated, and fighting—that is, for souls that had slipped down to earthly things and followed earthly things, and therefore fought against heavenly and spiritual things—he made peace, he says, when he reconciled the spiritual things and God, so that now they think one thing in mind, worship one, and are one, namely spiritual.

“And that he might present and reconcile both in one body to God.” Joining, he says, as we said, both souls and spirit, he made peace, so that he might present those two, once separated, as joined, and reconcile them to God. “In one body,” he says: that is, so that, since the soul itself was now spirit, and the spirit itself now claimed the soul for itself, there would be one body which had before been separated. But here let us take “body” likewise as a coupling, as one substance; which is a heavenly body and in the eternal realm. How is “body” said? Of our Lord Jesus Christ; because Christ is a bodily substance and a bodily majesty. “Through the flesh, killing the enmities in himself.” This is the mystery of the cross: that all things hostile to our souls and spirit should be taken away to punishment, that is, worldly desires, the cravings of the flesh, and the flesh itself, in a way corrupt and defective. Through the flesh, therefore, Christ killed the enmities, that is, all things opposed to souls. And where did he kill them? “In himself.” For this is why he took flesh: to conquer the flesh in himself; and so through flesh to benefit flesh, by killing the corruption of the flesh; and, through the resurrection, by taking up a pure and eternal flesh and the whole body of the deity; since all things become spirit, as Paul teaches in many places and as the fact itself has made manifest. In this also is what I would like to show everywhere: that our Lord Jesus Christ in a way conquered and overcame this very battle of the flesh and the world. Almost nothing is now ours except only to believe in him who overcame all things. For this is full salvation: that Christ conquered these things, that for this Christ was lifted up on the cross, that for this Christ rose again, so that for us who believe in him salvation, eternity, and the glory … might be prepared.

“And coming, he preached peace to us who were far off, and peace to those who were near.” He expresses the whole action and coming of the Lord Savior through the things that are done and are to be done. For the coming of the Lord preached peace, that is, that people should be reconciled, and that the whole world, looking to God through souls, should feel nothing hostile and have peace. As to his saying that God, that is, the Savior, coming, preached the gospel: whatever is well, and proclaims what is good, is called gospel. For to announce God, to teach that God may be known, and to announce conversion to God is to preach the gospel; and this is to preach peace: so that we do not, with minds in discord and corrupted by error, while we serve the hylic powers, wage war, as it were, against God. This, I say, is to preach peace. Again, his saying “to those far off and to those near” is to be referred to the Jews and the Gentiles. For the Jews, of course, are near, but the Gentiles far off. But since the Savior himself received the gospel to proclaim God to the Gentiles, he put that first: so that Christ, truly coming, should proclaim peace also to those who are far off, that is, to the Gentiles, as is shown in many things. For those who come to belief from the Gentiles are even called better sons than those from the Jews. Yet so that it would not be denied to the others either, “and to those who are near” was added.

“Since through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.” Both, as I said, Jews and Gentiles, we have access to the Father through Christ himself. But how? “In one spirit,” which is Christ: when we believe in him, he flows into us, and we perceive God, know God, and worship God. So, that we may come to the Father in that very spirit, we shall both be able to come through Christ. And so the Jews cannot come to the Father except through Christ, just as the Gentiles cannot through any other outside thing, whether idol or power or any “majesty,” as they call it.

“So you are no longer guests and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s household.” He concludes with the particular case, the Ephesians, that they are no longer aliens, nor sojourners, nor guests. For those who are abroad from God, since they remain among God’s works, that is, in the world, are guests and sojourners [until they] can be members of the household. For even if they sacrifice to demons, afterward, believing and following God, they are members of the household, but in the world. Now those who do not believe are guests and sojourners. Then, as he concludes to the Ephesians: whoever believes God, and knows that through Christ he belongs to God, is neither guest nor sojourner; so you, Ephesians, he says, are fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s household. For all gather into one city, that is, that eternal city of the higher riches which they call Jerusalem, and they are fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s household; since in that same city God is, as it were, ruler and lord and prince. So they are likewise members of God’s household. But how are we to understand “fellow citizens of the saints”? As though those called citizens were one thing and the saints another. If that is so, who are the saints and who the citizens? I think it must be understood that he put “saints” for the apostles, the prophets, and the rest who either experienced God or saw him; that is, those who, with the spirit dwelling in them, spoke divine things, or saw him present in some way; “in some way,” I said, whether through the flesh or through the spirit, like Abraham, like the apostle, like the rest; or through the flesh and through the spirit, like all the apostles. These, then, are the saints. But those who believe in Christ without any of these things are fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s household.

“Built upon the foundation of the apostles.” He himself has declared clearly enough that the saints are one thing and the citizens another, since he said that these are built upon the foundation of the apostles. Likewise [he shows] what precepts they ought to observe, whether for the knowledge of God or for worship and religion. Jesus Christ and his precepts are the foundations of the apostles: and these foundations have a superstructure, from life and morals and manner of living and discipline. The first foundation, however, is for life; the rest is for adorning and building up. The first foundation, he says, is to believe Christ, to have hope in him, and to put faith in God. This the apostles teach; and this is the foundation of the prophets too, in good order, according to the division I made above, so that I called saints both those who saw and those who bore the spirit. For the apostles saw, the prophets had the spirit. According to the precepts of the apostles and prophets, then (which are the precepts of Christ), there is the proclamation, and it is the foundation of all eternity and hope. “You have been built,” he says, “on the cornerstone itself, Jesus Christ.” Every middle thing is always placed between two. It either joins or separates the two. But where there is separation for souls, there the world is called phragmos, that is, a fence. But where there is joining for souls, there is Christ, and he is called the cornerstone, since he is truly the cornerstone: he is the one placed first; a foundation truly set at the corner joins two sides. This stone he called akrogōniaios: for not only a corner stone, but the one that is first and highest, where the foundation of the corner begins, which joins and couples two and renders them one. For the two, as we said, are either the higher souls, which also were with Christ, and these souls here that are holy and have Christ in the mysteries; or all those souls of Christ, even the souls of the Gentiles, which are joined to that cornerstone, Jesus Christ.

“In whom the structure, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” For all souls gathered together, and all people made spiritual through Christ, are built into a place where God may dwell, as a holy temple; so that, since Christ is in all, and God is in Christ, all may be a temple of God through Christ. “In whom you too are built together into a dwelling place of God in the spirit.” As I have often taught, he calls the matter back to the particular case, that is, to the Ephesians, so that they too may be built on the same corner, that is, in the spirit of Christ, so that they too may be a dwelling of God. And with great restraint, so as to make it an exhortation: for he does not say they have already been made so, but that they are still being built; for something is lacking in them; and therefore he warns and exhorts. And when he calls them a dwelling of God in the spirit, what else is he doing but excluding from their souls anything else whatever, and saying that Christ alone is still building souls together there, so that they may become a temple of God?

“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ for you Gentiles; if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God.” It remained—since he had spoken of these matters, that all hope is in Christ, and that so all are built together in the spirit to be a dwelling of God—it remained, I say, for him to teach who he himself was, whether he himself was completing the building through the gospel, and to give an account of his authority so that he would be believed. So he adds this: “for this reason,” he says, that is, that you may be built into a dwelling of God in the spirit. For you are to hear that this is said not only to the Ephesians but to all. Then, “for you Gentiles,” he says, “Paul, the prisoner of Christ”; a prisoner either as bound to the gospel of Christ, or as one who has endured many labors and punishments, and who endured them for you while proclaiming Christ; and I am a prisoner of Christ, I who am bound for proclaiming Christ, but for your sake. To make this credible, that he is a prisoner of Christ for the Gentiles, he added the assurance of the mystery entrusted to him. “If indeed,” he says, “you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God.” That is, if it is known to you what grace has been dispensed, that is, how the gospel has been ordered through me, so that God may be proclaimed through Christ, and the power of Christ, which is the power of God. “Which was given to me toward you according to revelation.” For, as Paul himself records in many places, he did not receive or learn the mystery from men or through men, but all things were revealed to him. For this is what he said: that grace was given to him, but through revelation. In this place one may understand that a Christian can be made by revelation, and indeed in the highest degree. Paul was indeed chosen, and was called a vessel of election; yet since God’s power ministers his grace in every way, let us understand that this is the lawful discipline of the Savior’s commandments: that a person is reborn through the spirit and water, and so receives the spirit of Christ. But this also comes from men and through men. What happened to Paul (although, in our estimation, he alone merited it) can nonetheless, as I said, happen by God’s grace through a revelation of God of this kind or in another similar way. Hence one to whom revelation has been given by the grace of Christ, so that he might be filled with the spirit, is not to be denied the grace of Christ; and having had the knowledge of Christ by revelation, he would serve him.

“The mystery was made known to me, as I wrote before in brief; as you can, reading, understand my prudence in the mystery of Christ.” Here too I remind you that the mystery of Christ can be known by revelations; and although with Paul it seems to have been fulfilled by the Lord’s election, yet since the Lord’s election is free, it can happen with others as well, that the knowledge of the true and full deity comes not from men nor through men. It is indeed a great and singular favor, and perhaps it may be granted that it happens in part today. For since he himself said that if one is prophesying and something is revealed to another about the same thing, the one who is prophesying should sit down and recognize it, so that the one who says it has been revealed to him may be heard: then it can be revealed; and what happens in part can happen in the same way in the whole. For the mystery of the Lord and the will of God extends to all its power: we must accept that he can do all things and wills what he can; but these things belong to another question. Now he shows that the mystery was revealed to him, when Paul said that he had written it to the Ephesians, that is, the mystery itself: not the revelation, but what was revealed, that is, the mystery. I wrote, he says—or rather I say—and as you could, he says, reading, understand, as far as you could, my prudence; prudence in the mystery of Christ. He has used “prudence” not for that knowledge which by its own power foresees what is, and finds and grasps by reasoning what is to come; but here he has named knowledge “prudence.” For he did not obtain it through prudence; but after he obtained it, he began to have prudence. Then he says, “prudence in the mystery of Christ”; that is, in what I perceived, what was revealed to me, what was made known to me; that is, in that he was taught prudence in what was revealed to him: memory, or knowledge, or understanding. For these are the parts of prudence. So there is room for prudence, and yet we cannot obtain the mystery through prudence, but through revelation.

“Which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men.” This can be an argument for prudence: that it was revealed to him by God because he was prudent and could receive the revelation, the mystery; and that he alone merited because of his prudence to know the mystery which in other generations was not known to the sons of men. What is “in other generations”? That is, before my times. For generations, as we read in the gospel, are times reckoned as it were by persons. To none, he says, of those sons of men who were before me in generation; to none, he says, was the mystery made known. What the mystery is, which Paul says was revealed and made known to him, we have often said. By adding “to the sons of men,” he shows perhaps that before that mystery was revealed to Paul, it could have been revealed to angels; that is, not to the sons of men, “as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles.” He teaches fully the agreement of the mystery: that it is one and the same, what was revealed to him and to the apostles. So that there would be no discord, and that what was handed on to the apostles through Christ’s presence would not seem other than what he said was handed on to himself by revelation, he joins what was revealed to him with what was revealed to the holy apostles. That is too little: he adds, “and to the prophets in the spirit.” Keenly and forcefully: for to the prophet who spoke the mystery, it was revealed in the Spirit; he himself did not know the mystery. Since he had said that the mystery was not revealed or made known to the sons of men, but it was known to the prophets, who are sons of men, he added that it was known, but in the Spirit; that is, when, breathed upon by the Spirit, they spoke the mystery.

“Yet to them it was not known that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and of the same body and sharers of his promise in Christ through the gospel.” This is what he said had been made known to him as the mystery, and at the same time to the holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit: that the Gentiles too are fellow heirs in Christ and of the same body, that is, of the same body, as it were; which he often mentions, that all souls that are holy and freed and joined to the spirit of Christ are said to be one body. From this, then, the Gentiles too are sharers of his promise in Christ. For not Israel alone, but also the Gentiles who have been incorporated in Christ through the gospel are sharers of the promise: that they will merit eternal glory, life, the forgiveness of sins, and the rest that both God and the Savior promised to those who follow him. So all are sharers of the promise in Christ through the gospel.

“Of which I was made a minister according to the gift of the working of God, which was given to me according to the workings of his power.” I have been made, he says, a minister of that gospel through which in Christ both Gentiles and Israel are sharers of the promise: of that gospel I am the minister, made so by the gift of God’s grace. For everywhere Paul records that we receive this not by our merits but by the grace of God, so that whatever is given as grace belongs to the giver, not the receiver. And when he added, “according to the working of his power,” this too he ascribes to God: so that if I work anything, it is God’s power. For it is not my own power that works in me, but God’s. But how he joins both, and what follows, must be examined carefully. For he adds: “To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given ...” If working belongs to one already acting, and grace was given according to the working, the merit is first that of the one working, and then grace. But above he said that this grace, to be a minister of the gospel, was given according to the gift of God’s grace; and only afterward was it given to him by which he now works, and he works by the power of God, and it is said that grace was given on account of the working of God’s power. What, then? Was the working given before the grace? Or the grace given afterward? But when it is said that it is the working of God’s power, grace has already been given. And again, when it is said that Paul was made a minister according to God’s grace, we understand that the gift that he should be a minister was given before the working; and that his being a minister is God’s gift of grace. Now, from the grace received, when the minister works, that too is grace, that his working is from God’s power. So that he was a minister was God’s gift; that the working of God should be a power in him was God’s grace. “To me, then, the least of all the saints,” he says, “this grace was given.” What is that grace? To preach the gospel among the Gentiles according to the working of his power. And what to preach he adds below. Not “the least of the apostles,” but “of the saints,” he says. For the apostles are saints, holy both in faith and in spirit, to whom the gospel was entrusted. “The incomprehensible riches of Christ.” For what riches could be such, or how could the riches be comprehended that are Christ’s—which make us sons of God, grant eternal life, take away all corruption, kill death itself, make us be in the heavens, and forgive all sins? So great are the riches, both in taking away evils, by the pardon of sins, and in giving goods, and goods so great as I named above, and others like them.

“And to enlighten all as to what is the dispensation of the mystery.” The order is: grace was given to me to preach among the Gentiles and to enlighten all. To enlighten them about what? About what the dispensation of the mystery is; so that they not only preach the mystery but also enlighten, that is, disclose what the dispensation of the mystery is. And when he said “to enlighten all,” he included both Israel and the Gentiles. For he received the gospel, without doubt, for the Gentiles; but the Jews too can be enlightened, if they follow, if they obey. What the dispensation of the mystery is must be explained, since Paul said that he enlightens. But he declared it in what follows: “hidden from the ages in God.” Grace has been given me, he says, among the Gentiles, to enlighten all as to what the dispensation of the mystery is. Of what mystery? That which, he says, “has been hidden from the ages in God.” What is “from the ages,” and what “in God”; what is “hidden,” and how hidden, let us explain briefly. From God, who is the first Father, was begotten Christ, who is light from light and God from God, who is Jesus, who is God from God. Let no one suppose that I speak of him as another God; but the order of speaking demands it. In this Christ, I say, who is God from God, all things have been perfected, and through him are all things; but, what is needed now, in him are all things. For so it is said, both “through him” and “in him.” If, then, all things are in him—although all things are through him, yet God is in him, all things—this too is a mystery, and hidden in him. Hidden from whom? “From the ages.” For Christ is the only-begotten Son of God, and by him the rest were created; that is, through him God’s works, with God working in him through him. All the ages, therefore, are later than Christ, since they were made by Christ. Nothing, then, was before Christ, nor were any higher things before Christ. Christ was born from God with no beginning in time. From these ages, then, the mystery was hidden in God, to be revealed in its own times: that Christ, the Son of God, would come, put on flesh, bring help, free man, forgive sins, raise him into the eternal and heavenly realm, justify, glorify, and the rest that he adds. In whom, then, was this mystery hidden? In God. In which God? He “who created all things.” For if the mystery hidden in him was revealed through him; and it was hidden before he came, and revealed after he came. Who is this? He who, he says, “created all things.” So though God may be taken as creator, yet God is creator through Christ. For “creator” does not befit God, but befits Christ, and so through Christ befits God. For he begot Christ; Christ created all things, with God himself working and creating through him. So it is one thing that all things were created, and they were created by one. Since indeed all things were created as works of God the Father through Christ.

“That the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the church.” This is the mystery that was hidden in God, that is, in Christ, which was afterward revealed not to souls but to human beings, and not only to human beings but to all the principalities and powers in the heavenly places; and it was revealed through the church, namely that through the mystery there is the wisdom of God. And when he said “to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” one may understand that it was not revealed to those that are hostile: for he says “in the heavenly places.” And when he said “through the church,” that is, through all the members of God, through the members of Christ, and through every soul clothed with his mysteries and having hope in him. So one may understand how much has been given to man. For it is not the principalities and powers in the heavenly places who themselves declare the wisdom of God to human beings; but through the church, that is, through those who are members of Christ by sanctification in faith, the powers and principalities in the heavenly places learn that the wisdom of God has been brought forth through man. That even the princes and powers of the world learn and know the wisdom of God will be easy to recognize, if they have learned and known where man is and where he has his beginning, through the prophet Ezekiel when he speaks of the cherubim: in which there is a vision, as that passage itself requires a definite exposition. Briefly, then, he touched on all the parts of the mystery that we mentioned above by saying “the manifold wisdom of God”: whether that he sent his Son, or that so great a majesty took up the form of a servant, or that such great signs were done, or that such great things were promised—the pardon of sins and the promise of the heavens. Likewise eternal life and glorification and inheritance together with that same Christ, and resurrection after death like his, and death itself, and the rest of this kind: all this is the manifold wisdom of God.

“According to the predetermination of the ages, which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord.” From this it appears what it means that the mystery was hidden in God, since he added, “according to the predetermination of the ages.” For when certain ages had been determined and closed, the mystery was to appear through the presence of the Lord, in whom the mystery had been hidden. For it had to be revealed through him in whom it was hidden. For this is what he added: “which determination of the ages he made in Christ Jesus our Lord”: at what time the mystery would appear, at what time it would be revealed, at what time salvation and liberation would be shown.

“In whom we have freedom and access in confidence through faith in him.” Although in the mystery of the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ redemption was accomplished and salvation given, yet the sum, and truly (if we attend) this alone is the sum, and surely the greatest, is that freedom has been given to us. For, pressed by captivity, we could not resist through the law, as he himself says that our weakness could not resist through the body. So he came to conquer the flesh, and death through death; and with it conquered, he made possible for us what we believed impossible. So freedom has been given, and access to confidence has been given “through faith in him,” that is, when we have faith in him. I have warned, and often warned, that this is the door of our liberation: if we believe in Christ; for his mystery has freed us, if we follow him. For then his death and his resurrection will profit us, if we have faith in him; for he both did and suffered all things for our sake. Let us have confidence, then, as he adds.

“For this reason I bend my knees to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.” For what reason? Namely, I endure tribulations for you. For this reason I bend my knees; that is, I ask fully, and I ask the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. All working, indeed, and all action is through Christ; but since, as we have often reminded, the spirit of Christ is that of ministries—for he himself is God’s ministry, and God does all things through him—therefore, he says, I bend my knees to the Father. For it is he who must be asked to have mercy and help, to direct our faith, to work for us in Christ, so that we may follow Christ himself and, having faith in him, may reach the promises. Bending the knees is the full posture of prayer and petition. For we ought to bend not only in mind in prayer but also in body, so that we are not higher in any part, or in an image of height, or seem to have pride. So in another place: God will keep for himself so many thousands of men who did not bend the knee before Baal.

“Therefore I ask that you not lose heart in my tribulations for you, which is your glory.” He has turned back upon himself the exhortation he owes to all, so as to render them strengthened. For this cause, he says, namely because to me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach among the Gentiles, and the rest; therefore, that is, for this cause, I ask that you not lose heart in my tribulations. For those who follow Paul could grow very weary in faith when they heard that this same Paul endured tribulations. For if he who preaches, who proclaims the gospel, who was chosen by God, endures much, and is wearied by dangers, labors, and many other tribulations, those who follow him are, I say, greatly deterred, and begin to have a faith that is almost not whole, as if they too might be endangered and labor heavily, since he who proclaims the gospel and preaches, being of such grace, is in tribulations. So I ask, he says, because of what has been revealed to me, that you not lose heart in my tribulations: tribulations which I suffer not through my own desert nor for my own sake, but because you are either weak in faith or still afraid, and somehow add other things. Therefore I endure tribulations, wishing to call you back to the true discipline and observance, so that you do not withdraw from Christ, add nothing to Christ, and have your only hope from Christ. This is not my glory, he says, but yours. So since the tribulations are for you, it is, he says, your glory: so that, while I labor, work, and am exercised through tribulations for glory, you may come to your glory. “From whom every fatherhood in the heavens and on earth is named.” That is, from God the Father, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: for he is Father, he is the first Father, and from him whoever is a father has been named father. And yet this word, or power, has flowed from the first God, the Father, as from a fountain. For Christ too is father of all things that were created: for through Christ all things were created. Likewise he is father in the mysteries. And Paul is in a way a father, since he said, “You are my children”; “I,” he says, “begot you in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” So fatherhood in the heavens is Christ; fatherhood on earth is either the apostles, or whoever proclaims the gospel, or whoever hands on the mystery. For in these ways and many others those who receive the faith are called sons, and those who hand it on fathers. All fatherhood, then, proceeds from God the Father.

“That he may give you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man: that Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts.” He has expressed what prayers he makes for the Ephesians: “that he may give you,” he says, “the riches of his glory”; and he shows that those riches are the glory of God: “to be strengthened with power through his Spirit,” so that they may be strong against the flesh and the desires of the flesh, and against the most wicked powers of this world; which happens and comes about through the Spirit of God. And how are they strengthened, that is, made strong, through the Spirit of God? “In the inner man,” he says, “that Christ may dwell.” For when Christ has begun to dwell in the inner man, that is, in the soul, people are made strong with power through the Spirit; for everything hostile is driven out. And how Christ dwells in the inner man he has added: “through faith,” he says, “in your hearts.” So it is an easy and a magnificent thing: easy in that faith alone fulfills so great a gift and so great a benefit, that Christ dwells in our hearts. With him dwelling there, what do we gain? That we are stronger through the Spirit, and so have the riches of God’s glory, and, made strong, suffer no danger, despise the world, and conquer all the most wicked powers. These are the riches of God. Let us also hope for glory and the promise, “rooted and grounded” in truth. This is the greatest precept, set down by Paul everywhere and often laid down by me in admonition: that firmness, foundation, and the whole standing of the soul toward eternity is in truth, of which I have often spoken: which is love, toward God and toward Christ, and toward human beings. This makes our faith rooted and grounded.

“That you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth; to know also the love of Jesus Christ that surpasses knowledge.” He has set out, as I said, the sum of his prayers: what he asks God that the Ephesians may obtain. In this one must understand that Paul prays this not for the Ephesians only, but for all who believe in Christ. Besides what we said above, then, he prays and asks that God may grant the Ephesians this too, which is the greatest: that they may obtain knowledge, the height, the depth. He prays also that the Ephesians may obtain the love of Christ, which love prevails over and surpasses knowledge, and profits more for salvation and for the eternity of souls, if anyone takes up love toward Christ. So, since he has taught that three things fulfill the perfection of Christianity—faith, knowledge, love—he has embraced them all briefly here, and declared that he holds them in his prayers, that God may grant these things to the Ephesians. For about faith he spoke thus: that you may have, he says, Christ dwelling in the inner man through faith in your hearts. Likewise about knowledge he spoke thus: that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints the breadth, length, height, depth. Likewise about love he adds thus: to know also the love that surpasses knowledge. And he set down three things, and showed both the order and which is stronger. There are three: faith, knowledge, love. The order is that faith comes first: for whoever believes comes to knowledge. For so it was said: “If you believe, then you will understand.” After knowledge the love of Christ is set before all; for love alone toward Christ, and desire, and love, and affection, and longing, lifts up and frees souls. So love surpasses knowledge. As for his setting down four things that knowledge must comprehend: by nature there are three; for the measure of a body has three, length, breadth, height. Height is both upward and downward. Length is what extends as it were opposite us. Breadth is what stretches beside us on both sides. Height, as I said, is what pertains to the upper and the lower. Here, then, he has put together height and depth. What we called height he has divided into two, so as to call height what is in the upper regions, and depth what is in the lower. So, by dividing height, he set down two, and there came to be four, which by nature are three. So this, as it were, measure of the body, belonging to understanding, must be instilled in the inner man and examined, so that these things may be perceived with regard to God. For since God is through all things and in all things, and is all things, and from whom are all things, and through whom are all things, and above all things, there lies the labor of knowledge: to perceive and know what is the length, what the breadth, what the depth. How all these are, or can be understood, according to this division, and understood in God, is a higher and different treatise. Then he prays that the Ephesians may understand these things; and so that there would be no despair that these things can by no means be understood, he added, “that you may be able to comprehend,” he says, “with the saints.” So the saints comprehend, and these things can be explained. But this, as I said, belongs to another work and to a great and difficult exposition. “To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” It must be noted with great attention and keenness that Paul prays for this in his prayers: that the Ephesians may know this too, that the love of Christ surpasses all knowledge. This he prays, I say, that they may know; for whoever knows that love surpasses all knowledge fully fulfills love toward Christ. So he does not pray that they may do it, because it follows; but he prays that they may know. “That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” All these things that Paul prays for on behalf of the Ephesians—to be strengthened in the spirit, to be strengthened in the inner man, that Christ may dwell through faith, to be rooted in love, to comprehend with the saints the breadth, length, height, depth, and to know also that the love of Christ surpasses knowledge—this is the fullness of God, which the Greeks call plērōma, that is, a perfection to which nothing is lacking: the fullness which Christ by his mystery works, fills, and has filled, so that God may bring it about in all things and through all things. For this is the fullness.

“Now to him who is able to do above all things more abundantly than we ask or understand, according to the power that works in me, to him be glory in Christ Jesus and in the church, and to all generations of the age of ages.” The order of this thought: to him be glory in Christ Jesus, and glory in the church, and to all generations, to the ages of ages. To whom be glory? To him, he says, “who is able to do above all things more abundantly than we ask or understand.” For we pray these things for you, that you may do them and understand them. But if anyone is able to do more, and more abundantly, and above all these things, above, that is, what we ask or understand, to him be glory. And he who is able to do above and more abundantly above will surely be able according to the power that works in us, according, that is, to the power of God and of Christ our Lord; for according to it I work. And he too, then, works according to that power which is in us. So to him who is able to do above all these things more abundantly than we ask or understand be glory in Christ Jesus and to all ages and in all the church. Yet this whole can also be referred to God. For he is able to do these things superabundantly. And to him be glory.

“I, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness and patience.” This is a place of exhortation and admonition, together with humble prayers and commendation, so that they too may endure, seeing that he himself patiently endures much. I, he says, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you, since I endure much (for he endured and suffered chains and various things); since, then, he says, I am a prisoner in the Lord, that is, for the Lord’s sake, I myself, who admonish, patient in many things, admonish you to walk worthily, namely of the calling with which you have been called. For we have often said that people are called by God’s grace. Having been called with this calling, since you now know God and Christ the Lord, walk worthily of this calling. He adds how.

“With all humility and gentleness and patience.” He also sets down much endurance, so that they may not be puffed up, may not be proud. Humility is placed first, then gentleness. Humility is the lowering of the mind. Gentleness is the bridle of pride and savagery. But the patience that follows lies in what they endure, if anything adverse happens. In the former, so that they may not fear to suffer, two are set down, humility and gentleness. In what follows, if they have suffered, how they should be: “with patience,” he says. Then what he adds: “with all magnanimity.” For this magnanimity consists in this, that you not only bear things patiently but are always of an upright spirit. Then he adds this: that if you have suffered patiently, you should also bear it magnanimously, enduring all things whatever happens, “bearing with one another in love.” It can also be referred to “enduring one another in love.” Yet the sense that follows can be complete: “Eager to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” That you may keep the unity of the spirit, or keep one spirit, of keeping peace and in the bond of peace, I exhort you to be eager. But he gives reasons why they ought to be eager for the unity of the spirit in the bond: “One body,” he says, “and one spirit.” Because the whole church is one body and one spirit. “Just as you were also called in one hope of your calling.” This too is an argument for keeping the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace: that these too were called in one hope; for they do not have different hopes, but all who were called have one hope, of God’s promises. And what has been promised is known to all.

“One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, in all of us.” This treatment opens wide, and yet it is simple: “one Lord,” that is, Christ; “one faith,” certainly in Christ and in God; “one baptism”: for it is not one way from some and another from others; nor, if it is otherwise from some, is it baptism; but that baptism which is given in God the Father and in our Lord Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit. Baptism given otherwise is not baptism. So, “one baptism, one God”: since even though the Son too is God, yet because God is in the Son, and the Father is God, there is one God. Likewise because the Son is in God, there is therefore one God. Which God? The Father, he says, is God; because he is through all things, and he is in all, and above all: so there is one God, who is the Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all of us. Let us attend carefully to the order, closely connected. “One Lord”: he began with him through whom all Christianity begins, and the entrance to liberation. For when someone has come to know Christ, then it follows that there is faith in him, and the rest. One faith in Christ; then his consecration: “one baptism”; then the joining: “one God, Father of all, above all, through all, in all.” He set down four: he is God, because he is cause; Father of all, because there is nothing beyond him; above all, because he is action; through all, because he is the uniting and connection in all things.

“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” He added this: for from here impatience can arise or wrong be done. And since he admonishes humility and patience and the rest, he gives the reason why each one ought to be patient and magnanimous: because to each of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Since, then, one thing has been given to some and another to others, there is no cause for envy, nor for denial; nor to grieve at what another has, nor to withhold what each has. If, then, Christ’s giving is according to the measure of grace given to each, we all ought to receive one another in love and to bear all things magnanimously and patiently, with gentleness and with humility.

“Therefore he says: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.” An example is given for this because he said, “according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” He proves that the gifts are Christ’s by giving an example from Psalm 67, in which he teaches that Christ, our Lord Jesus, ascended on high and led captivity captive: that is, he made captive that captivity which made us captives, and overpowered it, and so gave us gifts. So if gifts have been given us by our Lord, who by his mystery led captivity captive, ascended on high, freed us, made captivity captive, and gave gifts to men—through whom, having obtained his grace, we might do various things, all divine; as he says afterward, that some should be apostles, others evangelists, others prophets, and the rest. These, then, are the gifts. And since this grace has been given by Christ to each according to the measure of his gift, no one ought to envy another’s grace or his own; but all should give and entrust all things to one another as equals, and bear everything humbly, with gentleness, patience, and magnanimity, for the sake of keeping unity in the spirit of unity, in the bond of peace; so that we may have concord and keep peace, with no discord disturbing our minds. Now the interpretation we are now using must be carried out and completed in the words that Paul adds, and adds of necessity, because above he taught by the example that “ascending on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.” Because of this example, I say, he treats the point that he who ascended surely descended; which mystery opens wide and has other treatments in this explanation. What it is to ascend, and how he descended into the lower parts of the earth, and how he ascended above all the heavens (which is more forceful), must be examined with all care and diligence. He ascended, he says, “that he might fill all things.” What is the coming, and what is the return? As I said, this is a great treatment; and great too is the question how he filled all things, and more so how by returning he filled all things. If I wished to embrace and narrate it, the size of the task does not allow it to be placed in this part, where we are making a simple commentary. I think that some book must be completed on this sense and this treatment, which by God’s permission I shall now undertake, so that, free from the constraint of interpretation, we may be able to fulfill all that is necessary for understanding of this kind. Now, then, we shall say these things simply, by way of admonition, and briefly.

“Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth?” In the psalm it is set down, “ascending on high”; from this word let us take the understanding that he ascended who descended. For the nature of the matter is such that no one can ascend into heaven except one who descended from there. This concerns heavenly things: for with regard to other, earthly things of this kind someone can ascend who did not descend; but into heaven and the heavens no one ascends except one who descended from there. For so the Savior said in the gospel: “Unless one is born again, he cannot hold the kingdom of God.” Then he added: “for what is born of the flesh is flesh, but what is born of the spirit is spirit.” And spirit is from above; so spirit returns to the things above. For when the resurrection has come, all things will be spirit; and the whole man, made spirit, will ascend into heaven, namely through the spirit. So it became necessary that he who ascends into heaven be the one who descended. So Christ, of whom it was said that he ascended into heaven, is understood to have descended; and if he descended, he certainly descended into the lower parts of the earth; not only to the earth, but into the lower parts of the earth. For we read that the Savior descended into the underworld through that passion of the cross, to free every soul and to redeem his members from every place.

“He who descended is the same who ascended.” He repeats the same thought because each binds the other: that he who ascended descended, and again he who descended ascended. But, as the preceding thought shows, since when our Lord descended he descended into the lower parts of the earth, he added again that it is he who ascended, but ascended above all the heavens. So nothing is empty of Christ, since he both descended into the lower parts of the earth and ascended above the heavens. Which heavens? Many say three; others more; but my opinion is that there are three. For Paul himself says that he was caught up above the third heaven. And so too certain people teach that above the earth there are waters, as it were the first heaven; then the firmament itself, which is called heaven; then again other waters, the third heaven; on which subject we have already said much in the past. But what difference does it make? Christ who ascended ascended above all the heavens. For there is now eternity, and that incorruptible life, and all things living from the spirit. These things were otherwise until the descent of Christ: all of them, the mystery having been accomplished, received salvation after the passion of Christ, at his ascension, and were made perfect. For this is what he adds: “that he might fill all things,” that is, render them perfect and full, so that nothing would be lacking. So that passion of Christ, and resurrection and ascension, is the perfection of all things, both those in the world that could be saved and those in the eternal realm and above all the heavens. This mystery we have treated very fully in the exposition of one book. Or are we to understand “that he might fill all things” that were commanded him, as though he corrected nothing there, rendered nothing perfect there? Rather, he ascended above the heavens to fulfill the whole mystery; and he descended, but to fill, namely with majesty and perfection and the light of God and love. For his descent and ascent enlightened all things. And he enlightened them more when he ascended, perfected and sanctified by the Father. He makes all things holy by his return, both from where he returns and as far as he returns.

“And he gave some as apostles, and some as prophets.” Here he begins to enumerate the various gifts of which he spoke above, that God gave gifts to men, so that all may have God’s gifts, which he was treating above, and no one may envy another. These gifts are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, ministers; he enumerates them all. First, however, he put apostles, then prophets. It seems strange that, although it was said that the prophets were until Christ, Christ himself should have made prophets too. After the apostles he put prophets and evangelists. What, then, are we to understand? That not only those are called prophets who, having received the Spirit of God, spoke of Christ and his coming, of whom it was rightly said, “the prophets until Christ”: because when he came of whom the prophets spoke, there is without doubt no longer any reason for them to be prophets. Whom, then, do we understand as prophets? Those whom he says are prophets by Christ’s gift: those, namely, who treat of God and, full of the Spirit, expound the divine teaching. This too we said above.

“And others as evangelists, and others as pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.” There are five kinds of speaking concerning the law of grace: to speak in tongues, to speak by revelation, to speak by knowledge, to speak by prophecy, to speak by teaching. These are set out fully in the first letter to the Corinthians. But besides these, it is another thing to be an evangelist, that is, to narrate what Christ did, and to announce about Christ that he is to be worshiped; for this is to be an evangelist. So Christ by his gift made evangelists; he made also pastors and teachers, who rule the people of the church. Those who administer he called pastors; teachers those who teach. For here “pastors” is not from feeding, nor to be referred to food, but to governing, as they call bishops pastors; and Christ himself is the shepherd, since souls are regarded as sheep. As for teachers, as we said (although pastors themselves are also called masters of the flock, as being set over it), let us understand that teachers are so called as instructors. All these, he said, were established by God’s gift for the perfecting of the saints, that is, their completion. I have often taught what “saints” means: those who have received faith and been sanctified by the spirit. So that these may be perfected, that is, completed, mysteries and ministries of this kind were instituted by Christ’s gift, through which comes the perfection and completion of all the saints. For since apostles can act and teach and preach the gospel, yet others can also do these things and still not be apostles, it is distinguished that some are apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, others leaders and teachers. But by all these comes the perfection and completion of the saints, through what they themselves do and through what others do. For the mystery is what we do; the building up of the body of Christ is what we do toward others. So all these were instituted by Christ’s gift for two causes and with two effects: that they may preside over the mysteries, that they themselves may act and be ministers, as above; and that they may build up the body of Christ, that is, the church, and confirm all souls in the faith: for this is the body of Christ.

“Until we all meet in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of Christ, at the perfect man, at the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.” He has set out in the full mystery what has been done, and why it was done, and what is to come. What has been done: that Christ descended and ascended, and that he gave apostles and prophets and the rest. Then he added for what cause: “for the perfecting,” he says, “of the saints.” What is that perfecting? What he added: that, all the saints being perfected, “in the unity of the faith,” there may be one faith among all, and “in the knowledge of Christ,” that we may all know Christ: for there is all salvation. Then what is to come: that we may meet and come together “at the perfect man”: for the soul perfected through faith and through Christ known becomes a perfect man. So too the prophet David, in the first psalm, wrote of this same perfect soul: “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.” He called him both blessed and a man; and this is “the measure of the age and fullness of Christ”: when all the members have been gathered and the man rendered full, in each one the whole fullness of Christ is rendered.

“That we may no longer be children, tossed about.” For when we are not perfect, we are children; and when we were children, we were tossed about; but when we are confirmed by faith, we are not tossed about. When we know Christ, we are made men. “And no longer, as children, carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the wickedness of men, in cunning, for the remedy of error.” For when we are not perfect, we slip and waver in faith, and many things disturb us, when, running about through many doctrines, we are driven by the varied wind of understanding. This doctrine is the wickedness of men, and craft and cunning, and as it were certain remedies of error: so that what you think you believe you think by the sense and understanding of some wise men, and another’s understanding becomes the remedy for your error. All these must be dismissed, so that we may be restored by these two things and complete the man: faith and the knowledge of Christ. These two, then, faith in Christ and the knowledge of Christ, make a man blessed: and the blessed man is not tossed about, is not carried about by doctrine, in the wickedness of men. The blessed prophet David touched on these things in that same first psalm: for “blessed,” he says, “is the man”: whom we say is made so by faith and the knowledge of Christ; who knows nothing of doctrines, knows nothing of wickedness and errors; and David enumerates these errors and doctrines thus, saying: “who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence.” To sit in the seat of pestilence is to teach heretical doctrines; to walk in the counsel of the ungodly is to be engaged in the wickedness of men; to stand in the way of sinners is to be engaged in cunning for the remedy of error.

“But doing the truth in love, let us increase all things into him who is the head, Christ.” It is an exhortation, because he wants the Ephesians to be in love, to do all things according to the truth, and to increase all the more what they do. This is “let us increase all things,” but increase all things into Christ himself, so that nothing is done outside except for confirming faith in Christ; “who,” he says, “is Christ, the head.” For since all the members are ruled from the head, the whole church too is ruled by Christ, that is, every holy and faithful soul. So Christ is the head, “from whom the whole body, fitted and joined together through every joint of supply, in the measure of each part, makes the increase of the body for building itself up in love ...” We said that he is the head, from whom the whole body is joined and fitted together. So if Christ is the head and principle and fountain, and that from which are ruled all the members that are in the body through every joint, it must be taken keenly here: that as the individual members, cohering by a joint, in their various services make up the measure of the whole body, so in the church too each of the members of the ministries, concerning the sanctification of the mystery and faith in Christ, provides joints, and binds and builds up its body in love; and as our members, as if naturally knit and cohering with one another by a native love, provide increase to the body by their parts, so all the ministries that are in the church are the body of Christ, if they love one another in love, serving the head, that is, Christ.

“This, then, I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk.” As I have always taught, exhortation is twofold: what is not to be done he said above; what is to be done he now adds. What is not to be done: that you not, he says, walk as the Gentiles. This, he says, I say and this I testify, and testify in the Lord, that is, I bring the Lord’s testimony to what I admonish. Here there is also a note of terror: for terror mixed with exhortation makes persuasion easy. And when he said “that you no longer walk,” he showed that they had long walked so, and lived like the Gentiles. In what way like the Gentiles he himself supplies: “in the vanity of their mind; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, through the blindness of their heart.” He has expressed what the life of the Gentiles is: that they are vain, he says, and not wise in mind, and darken their understanding: that is, to think nothing about God with their understanding, to be led by sense and by things in the world. For if the world is darkness, so is whatever is understood of the world. Then it is added, “alienated from the life of God,” which is the life of Christians when they both worship and understand God. This he calls “the life of God,” which is owed to God by us. And he adds, “because of ignorance”: for from this we are aliens from the life of God, when we do not know God; but when we know him, we live the life of God, and merit from God that life which is truly the life of God, which Christ has promised us. These things, he says, are in them “through the blindness of their heart”: since their heart is blinded by darkness, it thinks and moves in darkness, and considers this worldly wisdom, which is the wisdom of darkness, to be wisdom.

Then he shows what follows from such an understanding: “Who, despairing, have given themselves over to shamelessness, to the working of all uncleanness and greed.” He speaks of the Gentiles, whose heart is blinded and who hope for nothing; that is, they both confess and prove themselves mortal, and believe nothing about their own eternity; and therefore they snatch at the life of the world, as wishing to enjoy it, and live lustfully, and, practicing it with shamelessness, as they believe, are greedy for the pleasure of possessing, and in the habit of living are schooled in all the most shameful pleasures.

“But you did not so learn Christ; if indeed you have heard him and believed in him.” In contrast he teaches the Ephesians not to live like the Gentiles, since they have learned Christ: because Christ, to make us immortal, carried out the mystery, was present in the flesh, and taught us so that we might know the Father and have faith in him; and there is eternity for us who live according to his commandments. You, then, did not so learn as the Gentiles: since you have heard Christ (if indeed you have heard him), that is, understood and believed. For this is what he added: “who have believed in him”; because, as we have said and always say, to believe in Christ is to attain immortality and to merit eternal life; for he himself is life, he himself light, he himself eternity, he himself who conquers death and has conquered it, and conquered it for us, through the mystery he fulfilled.

“As the truth is in Jesus: put off, according to your former manner of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error.” Before Christ’s coming all error and vain wisdom was this: to think worldly things eternal; to live according to the flesh; to believe this king of the world to be God. This is the old man. Put him off, he says, “as the truth is in Jesus,” since in others there is no truth. But in Jesus is truth: what Jesus taught is true; and this is the new man according to whom we ought to live. Let the old man, then, and the former manner of life be put off; for he “is corrupted according to the desires of error.” For, wholly turned to the body, he considered all things bodily and fleshly. Hence errors and a kind of worldly wisdom, since all things that are in the world do not come about according to the spirit: before Christ’s coming, however; but now, after he has taught us those eternal things, we are wise in what is spiritual. This is, as I said, the new man, who lives so and is wise so.

“But be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who has been created according to the spirit in righteousness and holiness of truth ...” As I said, the new man is the one who is wise according to the spirit. He says this: “be renewed in the spirit of your mind ...” So the soul is better, pure, whole; but the mind is the stronger spirit. “Be renewed,” then, he says, “in the spirit of your mind; and put on the new man,” so that you may now live according to him; who is spiritual when he is wise from the spirit; and this spiritual man has been created “according to God,” that is, in accordance with God: as it was said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” But God does not have a countenance or face; but as God is spirit, so we too have been created according to God, so that we may be wise according to the spirit, that is, nothing in a fleshly way, nothing in the world. Then what it is for man to have been created according to God he himself said: “in holiness and righteousness and truth,” that is, that he be righteous, that he be holy, that he be true. For whoever is wise in worldly things is wise according to the flesh; whoever is wise according to the flesh is wise neither in what is true, nor what is righteous, nor what is holy. So since the spirit sanctifies, the spirit gives life and justifies, the spirit which truly is, and always is, and more, alone is, it is itself the truth. Understanding all these things so, they put on the new man, renewed in the spirit of their mind.

“Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth each one with his neighbor, since we are members of one another.” He concludes the exhortation to all that went before, in which he taught both the distribution of graces and that every person must bear with his companion and be patient with all magnanimity, enduring one another in love. So here, he says, put away lying: let no one deceive another; speak the truth; and let each one act, do, and speak what is true with his neighbor: nothing by fraud, nothing by deceit. And having said “with his neighbor,” he added, “since we are members of one another.” So too above: “one body, and one spirit,” and the rest likewise. For since the church is one body, and all in the church make one body, each one is a part of the church. So each is a member of another, and so one body is made, as he himself says, of the church: of that church, that is, of all souls having faith in God, of this, I say, Christ is the head. So we are the body; and individually members of the body; so we are members of one another.

“Be angry, and do not sin.” He adds admonitions, which are many, taking, however, as an example what is set down in the fourth psalm, taking it as the beginning of the precepts. But he divides them so as first to admonish the man of the church, that is, the Christian, what is to be done and what not; then to admonish what husbands and wives must do toward each other; then what fathers and sons must do toward each other; then what slaves and masters; and afterward there is an exhortation about what is to be done by all in general. But as the order is woven, so we too will enumerate the admonitions in their several places, and give the reasons and understanding proper to each. And first he gives the churchman, the Christian, these admonitions: that he not be angry; or, if he has been angry, that he not sin through anger. Then that he not hold his anger long, but end his anger within the day. Then that he not live by theft and devote himself to thefts, but rather work with his hands for his living, and from that also help others in need. Then that he not utter any evil words, but rather good ones; and build up another and not grieve another: that there be no bitterness in the mind, no anger, no indignation, no shouting, no blasphemy; that they love one another kindly, be merciful, forgive one another’s sins, as God in Christ has forgiven us our sins; that they love one another; that they be chaste; that they be strangers to all filth, to greed, to shamefulness, to foul talk, to buffoonery; that rather they give thanks: for such conduct, that is, conduct set in vices and sins, did not have the kingdom of Christ, nor an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. Then he warns that we not be led astray by others through words, that is, by heretics, or by the irreligious, or by those whom he calls sons of temptation and unbelief; whom he terrifies, saying that the wrath of God will come upon them. Then that we not share in evil and unfruitful works; and that they rather rebuke those who sin and live by evil morals, and expose their sins; and live as wise men, not as the imprudent; abstain from wine, and much more speak in the spirit, in psalms, in hymns and songs, and let these be done rather in the heart; give thanks to the Lord, and give thanks for all things in the name of God and our Lord Jesus Christ; be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. These are all the precepts given to the man of the church. Afterward he adds what is to be observed by women, that is, by husbands and wives. Now let us return to the details. “Be angry, and do not sin.” If God is angry, as it is said—for “the wrath of God is revealed, wrath from heaven, against all ungodliness,” and likewise in many places—rightly, then, anger is also given to man, that is, that he be angry; but he sins in anger who is angry not to correct but to punish. So “be angry, and do not sin; let not the sun go down upon your anger.” He shows both the measure of anger and its time: anger conceived must be laid aside within the day. Many imitate this precept and set it among their own precepts. For if every day has its own care and malice, it is enough for itself; nothing from the past day ought to be added to another day. So:

“Let not the sun go down upon your anger, and do not give place to the devil.” For if anger remains, he finds an occasion to lead us into sins, and we do something that should not be done; which is to sin by the devil’s will. So it is shown by this precept that it is in our power both to be angry and not to be angry; and that the devil does not send anger in, but has an occasion, so that when we are angry he makes us do something. This must be considered in all the affections of the soul and in every action of the devil: that he can do nothing in us except when we ourselves, through ourselves, give him an occasion. So we are masters of our own will, and we have good rewards from good things and punishments from evil acts, because it is by our own fault that the devil gets an occasion.

“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.

“Therefore take up the arms of faith, that you may be able to resist in the evil day.” Since all the things said above involve great difficulties—against the rulers of this world and of this darkness, and, what is greater, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens—since, I say, it takes great strength to resist all these, he had to add how this could be done: “take up,” he says, “the arms of faith.” For faith alone in Christ fortifies us, so that no temptation of these powers of the world prevails against us. So what seemed difficult to resist has become easy, if it is in our power to have that with which we resist; and it is in our power: for to have faith in Christ, and to have full faith, is no labor, no difficulty; it is only the will of a mind that is accommodating and believing. So it becomes easy to resist so many evils, if we have faith. Faith alone suffices, alone withstands, alone fortifies; but full faith. Although he himself said: if we have a grain of faith like a grain of mustard seed, we can command even mountains. So a sincere and pure faith, faith, I say, in Christ, and faith in God, will provide us arms against all those powers. “Take up now,” he says, “the arms of faith, that you may be able to resist.” When resist? When temptation comes, when something begins to tempt you. This is what he says: “in the evil day.” And the evil day is when we are tempted.

“And, having done all things, to stand; your loins girded in truth.” He knows that above he admonished many things to be done, whether for particular persons, as for masters and slaves, husbands and wives, fathers and children; or about the things themselves to be done or not done, as “do not get drunk,” and “do all things in the name of the Lord,” and the rest said above. Therefore he says, “and having done all things” that I commanded and enjoined above, “stand,” he says, “with your loins girded,” that is, prepared and equipped. For every effort either falls on the loins, if there is labor, or, that there may be labor and effort, comes from our loins. For from there comes all strength and all the matter for the blood; hence we call the feeble “loinless.” So, that the strength of both body and mind may prepare itself, he says, “your loins girded.” “Stand,” he says, “in truth”: for what we admonish you is truth; the rest in the world is false, what is taught and debated from the wisdom of the world. “And clothed with the breastplate of righteousness.” He adds another precept besides faith, that we keep righteousness. Although what was said above, that is, faith in Christ, is the head of all—for righteousness is not as strong as faith, for “the righteous lives by faith”—yet because this disposition too must be fulfilled, that one be most righteous: for then faith will profit us, and then faith will be true, if one is most righteous; and righteousness will profit if faith is added. So after faith he added, “put on the breastplate of righteousness.” Above he said, “the arms of faith”; here, “put on the breastplate of righteousness”: since in arms is understood both what protects and what resists and overcomes the adversary, while a breastplate is only for our protection; but faith also resists; and therefore he said “the arms of faith.” How does faith resist? Namely, if, when the enemy begins to tempt, we do not follow, and, keeping faith in God and in the Lord Christ, are not moved from our conviction. Resist, then, as one resists who has spears and swords. So “put on,” he says, “the arms of faith,” that you may resist. But righteousness, on the contrary, lies only in deeds: it does not resist the adversary, but shows itself good and gentle. So “the breastplate,” he says, “of righteousness,” by which one who follows the good shows a good mind and a good heart.

“And your feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace,” since the gospel is carried abroad and preached among the Gentiles. Wherever, then, it is preached, it must be heard. And that we may hear, we must go, hasten, hurry. So “your feet shod,” he says, “in the preparation of the gospel.” Of what gospel? “Of peace,” he says: since whoever hears the gospel and is prepared in the gospel becomes the Lord’s, believes Christ, receives the promises, has confidence, and is an enemy to no one. So it is the gospel of peace, that is, of the peace that is in souls. That we may grasp this, then, our feet must be shod, that is, ready to run out, to go about, to hear. What, then, is achieved by all these? We shall easily resist the powers, the spiritual rulers of wickedness.

“In all things, taking up the shield of faith.” He returns to that sum which includes everything and fills all things: for otherwise we cannot bravely fight against and resist all those powers, unless we are fortified with a shield, so that we may repel all the blows and assaults of all the powers by the defense of faith. Then he added: “with which you may be able to quench all the fiery arrows of the most wicked one.” We read of arrows very frequently, in the gospel, in Paul, in the prophets, and in David; and we understand them to be arguments, words, and discourses; but the arrows of the most wicked one, that is, those that persuade to evil and wound with evil our understanding, our soul, and our spirits. Therefore he called them fiery, burning, and the shield of faith, that is, faith itself, quenches them all, so that they have no power over us. For when faith is present in souls, that fire which is sent through the tongue, persuading to all wicked worldly things, will be quenched and cool. For all that persuasion of the wicked one, since it speaks in a fleshly way and insinuates in a fleshly way, has its power through the blood: therefore it stirs up the blood itself through new notions; and the blood, once stirred, becomes fiery. So those arrows become fiery, and faith checks and quenches them, because faith takes everything spiritually. And spirit is light, not fire. Hence spirit, while it imitates light, is not fire either; and all fire harms. So spirit does not harm; but while faith is in Christ, it receives light from the light in Christ; so the light of faith conquers fire, because fire has power and works around the flesh, and is itself worldly, matter from matter. But it has no power against the eternal light of God, Jesus Christ. So by that light this fire is quenched: a fire which, I said, is stirred up most by words; and these words, because they run out and fly, are called arrows.

“And the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.” Since above he said, “clothed with the breastplate of righteousness,” here too we must understand, “put on the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit.” Whether the sword of the spirit is to be taken by itself, and the helmet of salvation added by itself, so that the spirit is saving and is a helmet, and “put on the sword”; but if “sword” is truly and certainly referred to “which is the word of God,” it is separate: “put on the sword of the spirit.” What, then, will “put on the helmet of salvation” be? Christ, in that he came down here and redeemed us by his mystery, is saving: he is our head; for he guards the head of the church; hence he is the helmet of salvation. Moreover the word, by which the hostile powers are conquered and crushed; as it is said, “he will destroy the devil with the spirit of his mouth.” So Christ, who is the word of God, was sent in order to conquer all corruption and all malice and death itself. Therefore it is said: “the sword of the spirit is the word of God.”

“Praying through every prayer and supplication, at every time, in the spirit.” To drive out what was said above, that is, to conquer the powers of the world, the rulers of darkness and the spiritual forces of wickedness, he adds this too: that we pray daily and make supplication, and through every supplication pray at every time in the spirit. How many and how hidden are the precepts here about what we ask! First, that he said “through every prayer”; and prayers are many: now for ourselves, now for others, now for the things of the present life, now for those of the future, now for those of the soul, now for those of the body, that we may wish for certain things. With every prayer, he says, let us pray in the spirit and at every time: let us pray in the spirit, that is, let us not say or bring out or recite certain words, praying as though from something studied, as though from something written; but in the spirit, he says, let us pray at every time: that is, so that we also bring affection to it; and the inner spirit, that is, the inner man, ought to offer and have prayer with full desire at every time, so that even when he is not praying he prays in the spirit. What, then, is that which he says, “through every prayer and supplication”? I think the difference is this: there is prayer both when we speak the praises of God, and when we recount his mighty works, and when we give thanks, and when we do other things of this kind; but supplication is when we beseech God either for pardon and for our sins, or for grace, that he may grant it to us. This, I say, is supplication; and provided these two modes are present when we pray to God, we have both prayer and supplication. “Through every prayer,” then, he says, “and through every supplication.” Let us not be content to bring out certain words as if out of habit, but from the inner mind and from the mind; and, to speak plainly, from the spirit itself and in the spirit itself: so that even when prayer or supplication in words is lacking, we pray in the spirit. “And in it keeping watch always in every prayer.” He added also a definite time: for when he said “at every time,” it could be taken as the time given to man, that is, the day. But to add more fully “at every time,” what did he add? “Keeping watch always.” Yet “keeping watch always” can also be taken of the attention of the mind: that in every prayer we are not as if asleep, which happens to those who recite, or read, or pronounce from memory what they know; they hardly perceive what they are saying and how they are saying it. Therefore he says: “keeping watch always in prayer for all the saints.”

“And for me.” This too is a great admonition, and one we have often touched on and said must be noted: that we ought to ask not only for ourselves but also for others. In this, in many places and here too I remind you, since this precept is twofold: that those saints themselves, and bishops, and apostles, and elders ought to ask for the faithful and the catechumens and for all others who are lower, as this same apostle often records that in every prayer of his he makes mention also of all his own. So here again, those too who are lower should ask in every prayer of theirs both for the saints, and for the bishops, and “for me,” he says: which must be noted and held as a marvel, that he should seek help, as it were, from those whom he himself admonishes, whom he has instructed, to whom he proclaims the gospel, so as to obtain something by their prayer. And what it is that he says is to be asked for him he himself adds: “that speech may be given me in the opening of my mouth with confidence, to make known the mystery.” He admonished the Ephesians both to ask for the saints and above all for himself. And what they should ask for him, that is, for Paul himself, he added: not safety, not any desires, but that this same Paul might have speech and open discourse, that is, confidence in expounding the gospel and the mystery. For truly this must also be asked by the prayer of those whom it can profit: so that, since Paul proclaims the mystery and the gospel, those who are to receive it may pray that his speech may abound, that his mouth may speak out more openly, and that he may have confidence, expounding the mystery without any fear.

“For which I serve as an envoy in chains.” That is, I am an envoy from Christ, and although placed in chains, I nonetheless lay open the mystery and the gospel: in this he shows what he suffers and how he perseveres, so that he is not deterred by adversity nor overcome by pain, but fulfills the office of apostleship laid on him. “That in it I may act boldly.” Well too he says here “boldly,” and “with confidence.” For what else ought he to have prayed for or promised against terrors, against punishments imposed, except that he might have boldness in expounding? “That speech,” he says, “may be given me in the opening of my mouth with confidence”: that is, in acting, “that in it I may act boldly”; “in it,” that is, in the gospel and the mystery. “As I ought to speak”: for this is what it is to act as an evangelist, to speak, and to speak as one ought, that is, boldly; lest I fulfill it too mildly, or the chains have some effect on my mind, and I not fulfill it as I ought in expounding the mystery.

“But that you also may know my affairs, what I am doing, Tychicus, the dearest brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make known to you.” Well did he wish to commit nothing to the letter about what he suffers, but only through a messenger, so that the Ephesians might know what he commanded, or what he is doing, or what his circumstances are. For there are two things: his circumstances—the chains and the other injuries; and what he is doing—that he perseveres, lays open the mystery, preaches the gospel and discloses it. And he commends the person: “Tychicus,” he says, “the dearest brother, and faithful minister in the Lord”: not a minister to me, but a minister in the Lord, concerning the gospel and the mystery.

“Whom I have sent to you for this very purpose.” For it was not that I gave him a message when he was going anyway; but I sent him for this purpose. So I both take care of you and wish you to know everything. For this very purpose, then, that you might know, I sent him; “that you may know what concerns us.” “And that he may comfort your hearts.” Here now he says more, since of the two things he has here joined one, “what concerns us,” that is, what punishments we endure, what chains; therefore he added, “and that he may comfort your hearts”: so that you may not be troubled by care and anxiety about me, let him be a comfort to you when he has explained in what spirit I am and with what confidence.

“Peace to the brothers and love with faith. Grace be with those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in eternity. Amen.” The last part of the letter is a prayer, and he prays and wishes peace for the brothers; likewise love; then faith. For above he had spoken as though there were discord among them. Then he added grace for those who show faith and love our Lord Jesus Christ. So everything is concluded: peace against discord, love for concord, faith toward God; and from faith grace is bestowed, the grace of the Lord for those who have love and peace among themselves and faith in him. And he added “in eternity” so that the prayers might be not only for the present life but also for the future, which is in hope and promise for Christians. Amen.