Fragments on Ephesians

The Economy of Christ and the Will of God§1

1Just as he wrote to the Romans before he had seen them, so also to the Ephesians, after John had preceded and cast the preaching to them, timely exhorting them not to be mastered by the law. Since the apostles, passing through Jerusalem, kept the law because of those who believed from the circumcision, and then since John had sufficiently theologized and left nothing of the preachings toward the knowledge of God, as was capable for men, in order to present the plan of the incarnation, there comes the appropriate magnitude and, through words worthy of the things, being set forth and having taken up the more difficult matter: for the divinity had an appropriate and confessed honor, but the incarnation, according to appearances humble, was able to narrate worthily by spiritual power.

And thus 'through' and 'to God' according to Paul, and it is not diminished, Father (Eph 1:1). And rightly he says 'through the will of God', so that he might show that just as God willed John to be an apostle, so also we. And he writes this so that the things said by him might be trustworthy.

If each has been used appropriately, both Father and Lord, the Son will be confessed greater than the Father, if the one has the name Father, and the other Lord (Eph 1:2). But the cause of these sayings was confessed: because he said, 'our Father', and He is Father of Christ, so that the same name might not be placed also upon the only-begotten and upon the believers, or else he would cast down the Son against nature, or lift those up above nature, having said 'our Father' and showing that the title comes through grace, he brought forward: and 'Lord Jesus Christ'; for it was not in common nature, since the appellation not being common, the honor was not to be common. Why then is the Father Lord of these, but he himself is not also Lord of the Son, if the appellation of both was used appropriately?

If then in Christ for adoption (Eph 1:4)...

The saints were defined; the Son is not merely appointed, but Son by nature. Regarding Eph 1:5–6, if according to the law the will is an activity, what is this good pleasure of that will? For he would not have said 'the will of a will.' It is for the praise of the glory of his grace. Having already spoken beforehand, he said that he orders his own Word by the requirement of the economy.

Regarding Eph 1:10: Because the created being fell through disobedience, and because men acted impiously, the heavenly things were alienated from the earthly; Christ having come, he recapitulated all things. And after this, he says something differently: having made peace between those in the heavens and those on the earth. For he himself is our peace, the one who made both the two into one, the Jews and the Greeks, through the faith into Christ. Regarding Eph 1:11: Clearly here he says one thing for 'activity' and another for 'will.' Having spoken of the one working all things according to the will, he spoke of the will, in order to show that the will is decreed. Whatever anyone has established from a good purpose, these things are decreed to judge, saying he used the voices. Regarding Eph 1:13: Of those foreknown, he says, you also are, being made ones with Christ through obedience and through the faith that comes by hearing and the seal that comes by faith, which is a likeness to Christ through the appropriation of the Spirit. But from whom did they hear the word of truth? Or from John the Evangelist? For there he was preaching. Therefore, Paul discourses with them on a higher level, having been equipped from that teaching.

Regarding Eph 1:14, 17–21: The redemption of the possession is this; for we are redeemed so that we might be possessed and made at home with God, being redeemed, remembering the blood by which we were redeemed and the whole economy. It is clear that he calls the one according to the flesh of Christ 'God'; for nowhere here does he mention the requirement of divinity, but the economy toward us, which confesses that the flesh is real. Yet often the Scripture calls that very essence of God 'glory'; because...

The Nature of the World and the Devil§2

2For it is ungraspable and unreachable; He named this glory so that you would not demand a definition but rather worship. First, Ezekiel calls the essence of God 'glory' after having seen God seated in visions, and he adds: this is the likeness of the Lord's glory. This is what God says He is interpreting elsewhere: 'I will multiply myself and be made like something in the hands of prophets.' That which Ezekiel called glory, God says is the 'I am'. And Paul says: 'who is the radiance of His glory'—of what glory?—'and the character of His substance.' Thus, here too, it is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh, and the Father of glory according to nature.

And of every name being named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. For in this age we name thrones, principalities, lordships, authorities, powers, angels, archangels; but since there are ten thousand hosts of invisible powers unknown to us and therefore unnamable, after the resurrection they shall be known and shall receive, along with knowledge, also the designation from us; therefore He said: 'and in the age to come.' Ephesians 1:22–23 And He gave him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all things. Through this He showed that the body of Christ says it is the fullness of God, that is, the church. And why 'fullness'? Because it has been filled by God; for just as, He says, He fills all things in all, so also He is filled in the church according to the fact that it is the body of Christ. Therefore, the church is the body of Christ and the fullness of God. Of the One filling all things in all. For He is in heaven, that is, working not as in earth, and He is in earth, not working as in heaven, and in angels, in the sun, but in each according to its own nature; for the Scripture says, concerning those from whom we receive...

Concerning God, not from the things of which He is; for this is incomprehensible. The world is said to be twofold: the creative constitution and the evil system of men.

Now he has distinguished things for the lawless, calling the evil and sin of men an age, and the arrangement of all things a world, just as he says to the Galatians: so that we might be delivered from this present evil age (Galatians 4:5). He speaks of this present age. Thus he named the common apostasy and wandering of men an age, of which even those now having believed in Christ were once a part.

According to the ruler of the authority of the air of the spirit. The apostle clearly demonstrates through this that the devil was not an angel from heaven, but an evil airy spirit. Even if the Lord says: I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18), he does not demonstrate the place from which he fell, but because lightning falls sharply from above, he compared the sharpness of the diabolical fall to lightning, saying: just as lightning is carried sharply from heaven, so I saw his sharp fall.

Of the one now working. He made it manifest that the devil does not always have strength, but the weakness of men has become strength to him. Doing the desires of the flesh and of the minds. From this it is shown that the flesh does not oppose the soul; for it agreed toward sin (Ephesians 2:3). And we were children by nature of wrath. Just as sons of hell, so also children of wrath.

Since he said 'having been created' (Ephesians 2:10), he says: the creation is a habitation. And that which led to good works, so that you might build yourself up in the remainder.

He did not say 'nearer' than those believing from the circumcision (Ephesians 2:13), but 'near'. Having broken the middle wall of the partition (Ephesians 2:14), not the partition itself, but the middle wall. And what is the partition? I will take away his partition and

The Law, the Gentiles, and the Heavenly Generation§3

3It will be for plunder, that is, the security of the Spirit. And what is the partition? It is that which is unmixed toward the Greeks; for Jews were forbidden to mingle with Greeks, so that the Jews might not fall into idolatry, they who even apart from this are idolaters. And this is what David says: God dwells in a single way in a house (Ps 68:6). For it was necessary for the leaven to become strong, so that thus the whole of the world might be leavened.

He speaks of the law of commandments, the established one, as being from the Mosaic commandments. By dogmas, by their own rules, having abolished—which are: not what enters in makes a man common—this rule was 'this eat, that do not eat'—and not to give a letter of divorce—this was contrary to the rule of dismissing a woman for every cause—and the observing of days and months and seasons and years—it was contrary to those which Moses gave. And in total, many such things are dogmatic, by which he abolished the law of commandments, not the commandments as being out of place, but the custom as no longer being useful. For the commandments are honored even if they do not operate, but the law, therefore, that is, being under the law of commandments among us, harmed after the grace.

For the Greeks indeed are separated from idolatry as impiety, and the Jews from the law as no longer being useful, they are being rebuilt into a certain newness of piety (Eph 2:15b-17). Making peace. For the law does not intend to be peace. Why? So that peace might not stir up bodily war against piety. He will reconcile both to God. Since the Greeks were wandering and the Jews had overstepped. Having killed the enmity in himself. The meaning has breadth in the brevity of the word; for since the law was the one dividing Jews from Greeks according to what was said before, and the law was going to cease, not otherwise...

He breathed life because the Lord rose from the dead, to whom it was necessary to unite the church with another man according to the law; he says that in his flesh he killed that enmity, having ceased the law. And having come, he preached peace to you, both the far and the near. This shows that he does not call the law of Moses impious as if it were idolatry; for he says the idolaters are far, but the Jews are near. But the 'near' part shows piety and yet not perfection; for if they had perfection, they would not be near, but in it. And if they were again in opposition, they would not be near, but far away with the Greeks.

Here he wants to show that he did not cast them off as strangers and those taught by others, but that having been chosen as a preacher to the Gentiles, he owes the revelation to them also, and that just as the Lord taught those concerning John, so also I do according to revelation (Eph 3,2–3). But he felt that he was able to say something deeper, yet he measured his teaching to what they could contain.

So that it might be known now to the powers (Eph 3,10). Appropriately; for if it was hidden in God, all the powers were ignorant. For he does not speak of the present time, the time of grace, but from when the prophets began to reveal the things to come (Eph 3,15).

In the heavens, he says, is the conduct of the righteous, but on earth is that of all men (Eph 3,15); for the righteous are not arranged on the earth among the living, but are set apart like an exceptional race, those reclining with God. And it is said that the generation of these is heavenly as being pure, but the generation of the rest is earthly as being defiled. It should be noted that from which things the apostle shows the name of the Father, he did not ascend from us to the top, but came from above to us, making it clear that he is existing by nature and not by name only; for it is necessary always for the natural to be followed by the misuse, and of the natural first the...

The Mystery of Marriage and the Sword of the Spirit§4

4From above, then from below. It should be noted, however, that he used the word 'patria' as if to signify kinship, not a formal clan; for everywhere the divine Scripture uses 'patria' to denote kinships.

He shaped it more typologically toward the type of the cross; for what else would the nature of depth, height, breadth, and length be if not that of the cross? And since he seems to speak of the cross as double, and not simply, but because the Lord's economy is divinity from above and humanity from below, and the apostolic preaching stretched from north to south and from east to west, gathering both the Lord's economy and the apostles' service, the doubling of the economy is thus demonstrated as being in a double cross; for it was not merely for him to name the places, the above and the below, and the line, the breadth and the length. 'That you may be filled into all the fullness of God' (Eph 3:18–19), which is the Church; for he says the Church is the fullness.

Regarding 'Awake, sleeper' (Eph 5:14), we find neither the old nor the new following it written anywhere. What then is it? It was then a gift, both of prayer and of psalms, being under the influence of the Spirit, just as he says to the Corinthians: 'each of you has a psalm, has a prayer.' What then is it? I will pray with the Spirit, I will pray also with the mind; I will sing a psalm with the Spirit, I will sing also with the mind; it is therefore evident that in one of these spiritual psalms, that is, prayers, lies that which he mentioned.

He who redeems a stranger's slave redeems and acquires him (Eph 5:29). Since the present time serves the evil ones, redeem him, so that he may be used for godliness (Eph 5:16). Since the Lamb was offered, and we eat his body. But food loves to be given back into the body of the eater—clearly it is spirit...

We visually eat his body. It is given to us for the body, and thus flesh from flesh, and bone from his bones. Eph 5:32. It is not the mystery, but God. What then is it that he says? That this formation of Adam and Eve, who was from him, and the connection has become a type of Christ and the church; through which he says: we are bone from his bones, and flesh from his flesh, just as Eve was from Adam. Eph 5:32-33.

What I say regarding Christ and the church, he calls the mystery of marriage, instead of the type being according to the marriage law and the original creation of Christ and the church. For this reason he brought it forth: 'moreover you also, being one,' so that each man may love his own wife as himself. Eph 5:31. Why did he say 'being one'? Because the things according to Adam were a type of the church and of Christ. For this reason he said: 'and you also, each one love.' Eph 5:33. For the mystery of which marriage was a type has come to pass and is true, but the type itself must also be fulfilled, and each one love his own wife.

If the sword is the word of God, and the sword is of the Spirit, Eph 6:17 then God is the Spirit of whom the sword is. If he said the Holy Spirit is the word of God, it is clear that just as the Son of God is the Word, so also the Spirit is the word of God. And he said the sword of the Spirit is the punitive energy of the Spirit.

'Praying in the Spirit,' Eph 6:18 he did not say simply, but because we do not know how we ought to pray, he says elsewhere: the Spirit himself intercedes for us, so that these requests of ours may have nothing fleshly. But we have spiritual requests, being helped by the power of the Spirit.

Someone, he says, being delivered from corruption, that which is from the devil, receives in incorruption the grace of the Spirit. Eph 6:24.