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 EPHESIANS

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EPHESIANS

cally, this phrase corresponds perfectly with the Apostle's style (cf. Gal., i, 22; I Cor., i, 2; Phil., i, 1) and palsograpliically, if transcribed in ancient capi- tals, it readily accounts for the corruption that has cer- tainly been produced in the text. The Epistle to the Ephesians was, therefore. WTitten to distant churches, located perhaps in various provinces [Pontus, Galatia, Polemonlum (the kingdom of Polemon)] and, for this reason, requiring to be designated by a general term, but all situated along the River Iris.

These churches of the north-east of Asia Minor played rather an obscure part in the first century. When the first collection of the Apostle's letters was matle, a collection on which the entire textual tratli- tion of these letters depends (cf. Zahn, Geschichte des N. T. Kanons, I, ii, p. 829), it was Ephesus that fur- nished the copy of this Epistle, having obtained it when Tychicus landed at that port, thence to set out for Colossa; and in the direction of Pontus, and in this copy the text of the address had already been cor- rupted. Having come from Ephesus, this letter quickly passed for one to the Ephesians, the more so as there was no other written by the Apostle to the most celebrated of churches. This explains why, from the beginning, all except llarcion, even those who did not reatl the words if ''E4>((Tif in the first verse (Origen, TertuUian), look upon this letter as an Epistle to the Ephesians. and why, in all MSS., it is transcribed un- der this title.

V. Date and Place of Composition; Occasion. — Like the Epistles to the Colossians, to the Philippians, and to Philemon, that to the Ephesians was written during the leisure hours of one of the Apostle's im- prisonments (Eph., iii, 1; iv, 1; vi, 20), when he had but little reason to resort to the services of a disciple to ■nTite in his name (De Wette, Ewald, and Renan). Lisco (Vincula Sanctorum, Berlin, 1900) is the only one nowadays who claims that these letters antedate the great captivity of St. Paul, maintaining that the Apostle must have written them while a prisoner in Ephesus in 57 and prior to those which he sent to the Corinthians and Romans. But we are not acquainted with any of the details of this captivity at Ephesus. Moreover, the doctrine set forth in the letters in ques- tion belongs to an epoch subsequent to the composi- tion of the Epistle to the Romans (5S), hence they were not written previously to the captivitj' in C*sa- rea (58-60). On the other hand, they are anterior to the first persecution, to which the author makes no allusion when describing the armour and combats of the faithful; wherefore they cannot be assigned to the last captivity. It consequently remains for them to be ascribed to a period between 58 and 63, but whether they were produced in C;esarea or in Rome (61-63) is still a much mooted question. The infor- mation gleaned here and there is very vague and the arguments brought forward are very doubtful. How- ever, the freedom allowed Paul, and the evangelical activity he displays at the time of writing these letters, would seem more in keeping with his captivity in Rome (Acts, xxviii, 17-31) than in Ca?sarea (.\cts, xxiii, sq.). One thing, however, is certain, once the authenticity of the Epistles to the Colossians and to the Ephesians is admitted, and that is that they were WTittcn at the same time. They both show funda- mentally and formally a very close connexion of which wo shall speak later on. Tychicus was ap- pointed to convey both Epistles to tho.se to whom they were respectively addressed and to fulfil the same mis- sion in behalf of them (Col., iv, 7 sq.; Eph., vi, 21 sq.). Verse 16 of chapter iv of Colossians does not seem to allu<le to tlie letter to the Ephesians, which would need to have been written first; besides, the Epistle here mentioned is scarcely an encyclical, the context leading us to look upon it as a special letter of the s;ime nature as that sent to the Colossians. If, moreover, Paul knew that, before reaching Colossse, Tychicus

would deliver the Epistle to the Ephesians to the Christians at Laodicea, there was no reason why he should insert greetings for the Laodiceans in his Epistle to the Colossians (Col., iv, 15). It is more probable that the Epistle to the Ephesians was written in the seconi.1 place. It would be less easy to under- stand why, in repeating to the Colossians the same exhortations that he had made to the Ephesians, for instance, on remarriage (Eph., v, 22 sqq.), the author should have comjiletely suppressed the sub- hme dogmatic considerations upon which these exhor- tations had been based. Moreover we believe with Godet that: " Itis more natural to think that, of these two mutually complemental letters, the one provoked by a positive request and a definite need [Col.] came first, and that the other [Eph.] was due to the greater solicitude evoked by the compo.sition of the former."

How, then, admitting that St. Paul wrote the Epis- tle to the Ephesians, shall we explain the origin of this document? The Apostle, who was a captive at Rome, was informed by Epaphras of the dogmatic and moral errors that had come to light in Colossa; and the neigh- bouring cities, in churches of which he was not the founder. He also learned that he had been censured for not bringing to the perfection of Christianity those whom he had once converted, and for not taking suffi- cient interest in churches that hatl sprung up side by side with his own, although without his personal inter- vention (Col., i, 28-ii, 5). At the same time that Paul received the news concerning Colosss and its surroundings, he also heard (Eph., i, 15) that in a dis- tant part of Asia Minor Christian communities had been brought to the Faith, perhaps by evangelists (Eph., iv, 11). Impressed by the accusations made against him, Paul took advantage of the departure of Tychicus for Colossa;, to enter into communication with those Christians who had heard of him (Eph., iii, 2) and to address them a letter in which lie had to hmit himself to general considerations on Christianity, but he wished to prove his Apostolic solicitude for them by making them realize not only the dignity of their Christian vocation, but the oneness of the Church of God and the intimate union by which all the faithful, no matter what their history, are constituted a single body of which Ciirist is the head.

VI. Authenticity. — If one would only remember to whom tlie Epistle was addressed and on what occa- sion it was written, the objections raised against its Pauline authenticity could be readily answered.

(1) Relation to Other Books of the Xew Testament. — The letter to the Ephesians bears some resemblance to the Epistle to the Hebrews and the writings of St. Luke and St. John, in point of ideas and mode of ex- pression, but no such resemblance is traceable in the great Pauline Epistles. Of course one of the Apos- tle's wTitings might have been utilized in the.se later documents but these similarities are too vague to es- tablish a literary relation.ship. During the four years intervening between the Epistle to the Romans and that to the Ephesians, St. Paul had changed his head- quarters and his line of work, and we behold him at Rome and Ca>sarea connected with new Christian cen- tres. It is, therefore, easy to understand why his style should savour of the Christian language used in these later books, when we recall that their object has so much in common with the matter treateii in the Epistle to the Ephesians. \\'hatever may now and then have been said on the subject, the same phe- nomenon is noticeable in the Epistle to the Colossians. If, indeed, the Epistle to the Ephesians agrees with the Acts in more instances than does the Epistle to the Colossians, it is l)epause the two former have one iden- tical object, namely, the constitution of the Church by the calling of the Jews and Gentiles.

The relationship l)etween the Epistle to the Ephe- sians an<l I Peter is much clo.ser. The letter to the Ephesians, unlike most of the Pauline Epistles, does