The Law, the Gentiles, and the Heavenly Generation

It 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...