The Mystery of Marriage and the Sword of the Spirit

From 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.