Those who love Christ follow him. They are bonded with him in the ties of love. There is also another explanation [i.e., Origen’s], which it is the reader’s prerogative to accept or not: Suppose what is called here the prison is the body. Because Paul has taken on the body for the ministry of the gospel, he is consequently said to be in bondage to Christ.

When Paul recalls his chains his intent is to encourage his hearers to rise above their own infirmities to moral excellence. It is as if he were saying: Remember that it is in relation to you that I am in prison. Suppose I had refused to preach. I would have been free of all this. In this poignant way the divine apostle elicits sympathy, for he is more content with his chains on Christ’s account than a king with his crown.

They were enjoying the gifts of the Spirit. They were performing miracles, speaking in many tongues and experiencing much prophetic activity. But all this was prone to boggle their minds. Therefore it is about these that he first gives them advice.

How is it possible to walk worthily with all lowliness? Meekness is the foundation of all virtue. If you are humble and are aware of your limits and remember how you were saved, you will take this recollection as the motive for every excellent moral behavior. You will not be excessively impressed with either chains or privileges. You will remember that all is of grace and so walk humbly. . . . With all lowliness, he says, not in words only or even in deeds but more so in the very manner and tone of your voice. And not meek toward one person and rude toward another but humble toward everyone, whether enemy or friend, great or small.

He speaks of several forms of forbearance, each of which prevents them from being carried away or proud. Lowliness is first, then meekness. Lowliness consists in having a humble mind. Meekness is a curb on pride and cruelty. Patience consists in bearing any adverse circumstance that may befall them. With lowliness and meekness they learn not to be afraid to suffer. With patience they learn how to respond if they must suffer.

Anyone who understands what it is forbear one another in love will understand that this is a precept appropriate to the faithful. It is not indeed saints^[1] who have any need to forbear one another. Rather it is those in the earlier stages of Christian life, who being human are still under the control of some passion. Nor is it strange that this should be said to the Ephesians. Among them there were surely some who still had to bear patiently with others.

In the body it is the living spirit that holds all members together, even when they are far apart. So it is here. The purpose for which the Spirit was given was to bring into unity all who remain separated by different ethnic and cultural divisions: young and old, rich and poor, women and men.

Again he uses the metaphor of bonding. We have left it behind, and now it comes running back to us. Beautiful was Paul’s bond; beautiful too is this [bond of peace among Christians], and the former arises from the latter. Bind yourselves to your brethren. Those thus bound together in love bear everything with ease. . . . If now you want to make the bond double, your brother must also be bound together with you. Thus he wants us to be bound together with one another, not only to be at peace, not only to be friends, but to be all one, a single soul. Beautiful is this bond. With this bond we bind ourselves together both to one another and to God. This is not a chain that bruises. It does not cramp the hands. It leaves them free, gives them ample room and greater courage.

What is this one body? They are the faithful throughout the world—in the present, in the past and in the future. . . . The body does exist apart from its enlivening spirit, else it would not be a body. It is a common human metaphor to say of things that are united and have coherence that they are one body. So we too take the term body as an expression of unity.

His words one body and one Spirit can be taken most simply to mean the one body of Christ, which is the church. Or it could refer to the humanity of the Lord, which he assumed from the Virgin. . . . Yet indeed the one body can also refer to life and the works that are called in Greek the practical life. These are distinguished from the oneness of the Spirit in the heart that finds its unity in contemplation.

If the Father’s house has many mansions, how are we to say that we are called to one hope? One reply is that the one hope of the calling is the kingdom of God. It is as though we were to speak of the one house of God or say that in one house are many mansions.^[1] . . . Or again, this subtler meaning may be implied: at the end and consummation of all things everything is to be restored to its original condition, when we are all made one body and formed anew into a perfect man.

There are many kinds of baptism, but one baptism is the cry of the apostle. Why? There are so-called baptisms among unbelievers, but they are not baptisms. They are washings but cannot be baptisms.

There is one Lord and one God, because the dominion of Father and Son is a single Godhead. The faith is said to be one because we believe similarly in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Baptism is one. We are all baptized in the same way in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are immersed three times so that the sacrament of the Trinity may be apparent. . . . There is one baptism in the Spirit, in water and in fire.

He is God and Father of all by being the God but not the Father of some and both God and Father of others. It is as if, picking out ten men of whom five were someone’s sons and five his slaves, one said, this is the lord and father of all ten.

It is impossible to speak of any parts or division in the incorporeal, but he is in all and through all . . . insofar as he is understood as either Wisdom or Word or life or truth, an interpretation which undoubtedly excludes all local confinement.

Here is a physical analogy to a spiritual truth: We can agree that the sun is above all things on earth. But by its rays it might be said at the same time to be through all. And insofar as the power of its light penetrates everywhere, it could also be said to be in all. It is in this way, I think, that God’s majesty is denoted by the phrase above all. God’s all-sufficiency is denoted in the words through all. It also belongs to the power of God to penetrate into all, so that because of his being in all no one is entirely void of him.

One God contains all and guides all as is fitting and is in all. This one saying of Paul suffices by itself to express everything succinctly, when he says that God is over all and through all and in all.

God the Father owes his existence to no one. Hence he is declared to be over all and through all. He is through all in the sense that all things come from him. Necessarily he will be over all the things that come from him. And God is in all, that is, dwelling in all the faithful. For he is in us by our confession, because we confess him, and he has given us his own Spirit, through which without doubt he is dwelling in us. He is not in the same sense dwelling in unbelievers who deny that he is the Father of Christ.

Those who read very closely recognize the Trinity in this passage. Paul writes of God the Father who is above all and through all and in all.^[1] All things are from God, who owes his existence to no one. All things are through him, as though to say through the Mediator. All things are in him, as though to say in the One who contains them, that is, reconciles them into one.

In counseling humility, meekness, etc., he sets forth the reason why each person is called to patience and forbearance. Grace has been given to each of us according to the measure in which Christ grants it. Since therefore different people have different gifts, there is no cause for envy or refusal. One should not grieve over what another has, nor should any refuse to give what grace he has received. If therefore Christ grants according to the measure of the grace given to each, we should all embrace one another in love, bearing everything with forbearance and patience, with meekness and humility.

With the Ephesians as with the Corinthians and many others, this subject has been a constant temptation to arrogance, despondency or envy. For this reason he uses the simile of the body everywhere. . . . Pay attention to what he says. He does not say according to each one’s faith, so that he may not induce despondency in those who have not received the great gifts. Rather what does he say? According to the measure of Christ’s gift. The truly capital things, he says, are common to all: baptism, salvation by faith, having God as Father and partaking of the same Spirit. If someone has more in grace, feel no resentment, for his task is greater too. . . . What does according to the measure mean? It does not mean according to our own merit, for if so then no one would have received what he has received. But of his gift we have all received. Why has one received more, another less? This, he says, means nothing, but it is a matter of indifference, since each person contributes to the work of upbuilding.

We believers in Christ, having been gathered from the Gentiles, had been taken captive by the devil, though we were creatures of God. We were sold out to the demonic powers. Into this circumstance our Lord Jesus Christ came bearing the baggage of captivity, as Ezekiel says,^[1] and, covering his head so that his adversaries would not know him,^[2] preaching remission to those who had been taken captive and release to those held in chains. . . . After Christ freed us, we were snatched out of an old captivity into a new freeing captivity [to Christ], as he led us with him into heaven.

It was a nice touch for Paul to write here that Christ gave gifts to humanity, when what is written in Psalm 68 is that he received gifts among humanity.^[1] Why this difference? Since in the psalm the act had not yet occurred but was promised in the future, the phrase was accordingly he received. But the apostle is seeing this as a promise earlier given and later fulfilled. At this time of writing, Christ has already made the gift and churches have been established throughout the whole world. Accordingly he is said to have already given to humanity rather than received gifts among humanity.

The Word was not in need and did not come into being, nor were humans able to give these gifts to themselves. But through the Word they have been given to us. For these reasons they were given to us after being given to him. For his purpose in becoming a man was that, having been given to him, they might be passed on to us.

Do not suppose when you hear this that he has changed the subject. For his design here is just the same as in the epistle to the Philippians. When he was exhorting them there to be humble he showed them Christ.^[1] So he does also here too, showing that even Christ descended to the lowest parts of the earth.

The lower parts of the earth here means death, by a human metaphor.^[1] . . . And why does he mention this region here? What sort of captivity is he speaking of? That of the devil. He has taken captive the tyrant, the devil and death, the curse and sin.

The truth incarnate is that he is said to have descended in order to ascend, unlike humans, who have descended in order to remain there. For by decree they were held in the lower world. But this decree could not hold the Savior. He has conquered sin. Therefore, after his triumph over the devil, he descended to the heart of the world, so that he might preach to the dead, that all who desired him might be set free. It was necessary for him to ascend. He had descended to trample death underfoot by the force of his own power, then only to rise again with the former captives.

Could he possibly have passed through and beyond all the heavens and all the supernal regions and the heavenly orbits which philosophers call the spheres to take his place in the highest heaven, in its topmost location? Or should we rather believe that, transcending and spurning everything corporeal and contemplating the eternal, he has taken his place above the heavens, that is, above all that is visible? I think this the better opinion. Therefore the Son of God descended to the lower parts of the earth and ascended above all the heavens, so that he might fulfill not only the Law and the Prophets but also certain hidden dispensations which only the Father knew. He also descended to the lower parts and ascended to heaven, so that he might bring fulfillment to those who were in those regions, so far as they were able to receive. From this we know that before Christ descended and ascended everything was void and in need of his fullness.

Nothing in the cosmos is left untouched by Christ. He indeed descended to the lower parts of the earth and ascended above all the heavens. What heavens? Some say three, some more^[1] . . . but what does it matter? Christ, who ascended, ascended above all the heavens, however many. For eternity is now presently reigning in heaven and incorruptible life. All things there live by the Spirit. This reordering did not occur, however, until the descent of Christ. Once the mystery [of the cross] had been accomplished, all these received salvation after the passion and ascent of Christ and have been perfected. For this is what he means by so that he might fulfill all, that is, make them perfect and full, with nothing lacking. . . . Surely this could not be understood to infer that he fulfilled his mission on earth but set nothing right in the heavens and perfected nothing there.

The name prophets is given to those who, having received the Spirit of God, spoke beforehand of Christ and his advent. These were the prophets who were until Christ.^[1] But after he arrived, was there no reason for any further prophecy? What prophets does Paul speak of here? It is obviously those who being full of the Spirit spoke of God after his coming, continuing to expound the divine teaching.

There are five ways of speaking about the Scriptures: speaking in tongues, speaking in revelation, speaking in knowledge, speaking in prophecy, speaking in teaching. . . . But there is another thing apart from these. It is being an evangelist. This means to relate what Christ did and announce that Christ himself is to be worshiped.

This is a house set up and ordered by Jesus. . . . He does not do this in a casual manner. It is with the utmost discrimination and discretion: One is assigned to the rank of an apostle, one to the place of a prophet, others to look after the flock of Christ and to work at the divine instruction of others for those saints who are prepared to learn.

First apostles, because these had all the gifts. Then prophets, for there were some who were not apostles but were prophets, like Agabus. Third, evangelists, those who did not travel everywhere but merely preached the gospel, like Priscilla and Aquila. Shepherds and teachers means all those in positions of trust. Are these shepherds and teachers of less account? Certainly it seems that those who are stationary and reside in a single place, like Timothy and Titus, [are of less account] than those who go about the world preaching the gospel. But on another reading we cannot from this passage deduce subordination and precedence but from a different letter.

Apostles are bishops, while prophets are interpreters of the Scriptures. . . . Even if they are not elders they can nonetheless preach the gospel without a chair, as Stephen and Philip are recorded to have done. Shepherds may be readers, who nourish the people who hear them by their readings. . . . Masters may refer to the healers in the church who constrain and chastise those who are troubled. Or they may be those who were accustomed to hearing the readings and imparting them to children, as was the Jewish custom. Their tradition was passed on to us but has by now become obsolete through neglect.

From this passage Paul clearly confirms the divinity of the Father and Son. What Christ is here said to have bestowed [as in his first letter to the Corinthians] is nothing less than the gift of God.^[1] . . . Failing to understand this, Sabellius confused the Father and the Son, not grasping that, though distinguishable, they work together with single intent.

It is not to be supposed that as with the first three . . . he has allotted different offices to shepherds and teachers. For he does not say some shepherds, some teachers but some shepherds and teachers, meaning that he who is a shepherd should at the same time be a teacher. No one in the church, even a saintly person, should take to himself the name of shepherd unless he can teach those whom he feeds.

He says that the church’s order has been so formed as to join the human race together in the profession of unity, so that all may be in Christ, having Christ as their single head, that is, as the source of life.

We must ask: Who are the all whom he speaks of coming together in the unity of faith? Does he mean all the people of God or all saints? Or rather all who are capable of reason? He seems to me to be speaking of all the people of God because there are so many winds of doctine blowing about them. When these blasts and billows are aroused, people in general are carried here and there by diverse errors, uncertain of their course.

In the future life we shall attain perfection. But in the present life we need all the help we can get from the apostles, the prophets and our teachers.

By maturity he means here the perfecting of conscience. For a grown man stands firm while young boys’ wits are tossed about. So it is with the faithful. We mature until we attain the unity of the faith, that is, until we are all found to share a single faith. For this is unity of faith when we are all one, when we all alike acknowledge our common bond. Until then we must labor. If you have received the gift of upbuilding others, be sure that you do not overthrow yourself by envying someone else’s gift.

He exhorts them to strive to attain to the perfecting of faith, the essence of which is to hold fast to Christ as true and perfect God. Do not measure him by some human measure. Measure yourself by regarding him as perfect God in the fullness of his deity. When he refers to a mature man he does not mean a span of years or physical stature but a maturation into the full understanding of the divinity of the Son of God.

According to the traditions of the church and the apostle Paul, our resurrection will be into a mature man and the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is the state in which the Jews claim that Adam was created and in which we have read that the Lord rose.

Was Paul referring to himself as one who was tossed to and fro and drifting? According to one view, he was saying this in humility, aware that we see in part and know in part.^[1] He is aware of how far he is from perfect knowledge and bursts into an expression of his own awareness. If so, anyone who might think himself to be humble should look to Paul as an example.^[2] . . . But another will respond to this that, by comparison with the majority, the apostle had already reached mature manhood, even though he still might be here regarded as an infant in relation to those eternal blessings that are stored up for the saints. . . . The exposition must proceed very carefully after this to meet the possible claim that the apostle really is speaking in humility when he prays that we may no longer be children, drifting and carried away in different directions by every blast of doctrine. . . . Maybe it is out of good conscience and not some false humility that Paul is confessing his own limitations. For he was a man of acute and sharp intellect. . . . He could see that there was often in the manner of speaking on both sides some distorted motives, such that there seemed to be so much truth in contrary assertions as to cause doubt in the listener. Thus, as a human being and still in his fragile little body, he was at times carried about by every wind of doctrine, though he was not cast against the rocks.

Considering the love of Christ by which he loved us and gave himself up for us, we should make everything subject to him, knowing that he is the author of life for all. This is the truth. We are to be subject to him as members of the body are to the head. Others, either through error or through malice, may not confess that Christ is the head of everything or that everything is created from him by the Father’s will. But we who adhere to the wholeness of faith ought nonetheless to take pains with all care and devotion that we bring no harm to this faith but rather to uphold it. We do this by remaining steadfast in this affirmation, so as to constrain the talk of depraved minds armed against the truth.

This he also says in the letter to the Romans: Let love be without pretense.^[1] In his letter to the Corinthians he speaks of unpretending love.^[2] Here also he calls upon them to act with genuine love and through this to increase the riches of the excellence of their life in the Lord himself.

Paul has not explained himself clearly due to his desire to say everything at once. But what he is saying is based on this metaphor: Just as the spirit comes down from the brain, passes through the nerves and communicates with the senses, so it makes sense of the whole body. Its communication is not to all the members equally but according to the capacity of each member to receive. It gives more to that member more able to receive and less to that member able to receive only so much. So it is with Christ. The spirit is like a root. The souls of persons depend upon Christ as members. Each member depends on his providential distribution of gifts. The supply of spiritual gifts occurs according to a due proportion, as each member effects the increase of the body.

To join and knit together requires the exercise of great care. For the condition of the body is a subtle matter, not something simple. When one thread is misplaced, the pattern is lost. It is with this sort of subtlety that you must be united with the body so as to maintain your own place. If you leave it, you are not united and do not receive the Spirit.

One might say that the whole body receives increase as each member partakes of the distribution of gifts proportionally. In this way . . . the members, receiving the distribution in accordance with their own capacities, are thus increased. The Spirit, flowing abundantly from above, comes into contact with all the limbs and distributes according to the ability of each one to receive, thus enabling bodily growth.

This entire upbuilding, by which the body of the church increases cell by cell, is being accomplished through the mutual love of one for another. . . . This does not imply that to each member will be distributed the same level of maturity. It is an error to assume, for example, that all human beings will be formed anew into angels. Rather every member will be perfected according to its own distinctive measure and function. Humanity, which has been expelled from paradise, will be restored to the cultivation of paradise again.

It is the duty of the teacher to instruct and restore the souls of his disciples. This occurs not only by counsel and teaching but by awakening fear and handing them over to God. For when the words spoken by human beings are taken as if from fellow servants and lack the power to reshape the soul, it then becomes necessary to hand our very words over to the Lord. This is what Paul does here.

Consider what Paul calls futility of mind. This occurs when someone has a mind but does not use it for contemplation, instead surrendering it to captivity under Satan.

What is meant by the futility of their minds? It is being preoccupied with futile things. This is what the Preacher in Ecclesiastes referred to when he said: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.^[1] But someone might say, if these things are all vain and vanity, why have they come into being? If they are God’s works, how are they vain? And there is great debate about this. But listen, beloved: he did not say that the works of God are vain, far from it! . . . Vanity of vanities refers to splendid houses, enormous and inflated wealth, herds of slaves strutting about the market, conceit, vainglory, arrogance and boastfulness. All these things are vain. Such things are not created by God but are of our own creating. Why are they vain? They lead to nothing good.

By hardness of heart he means a complete lack of remorse. When parts of the body are hardened, they feel no sensation, as though they were completely dead. This may happen to the heart.

They have lost their moral compass through lack of hope in a future life. Living now as if they had no future, they pollute their own lives with the foulest behaviors. They refuse to submit themselves to the most elementary requirement of faith, which brings their pleasure-seeking into accountability in relation to the future life. It is this future life that these people declare to be ridiculous. Hence they pretend to have a right to debauch themselves. They covet the goods of others with ravenous greed, as though there were no life whatever after this little space.

If the cause of their licentiousness is ignorance, why reproach them? Why not just inform them? For the one who is ignorant should not justly be punished or reproached but taught what he does not know. But how quickly Paul takes away from them this easy excuse: They have become callous and given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness. . . . He shows here that the cause of their hardening was their own voluntary way of life. Their way of life arose freely out of their own laxity and lack of remorse.

At first their sickness was lawlessness. Then it became indulgence. Having slipped then into a lawless way of life, they gradually came to suffer from lack of remorse. Finally they ventured out toward every sin without fear, living the life of corruption beyond indulgence. This is what he means by becoming greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness.^[1]

To believe in Christ is to obtain immortality and receive eternal life. For he himself is life. He himself is light. He himself is eternity. He himself is the one who overcomes death. He has by overcoming death overcome us too through the fulfilled mystery of salvation.

It is Christ himself who teaches us about himself! When we are taught in him, we learn who he is, how great we should reckon him to be and what hope is in him. We learn in him what sort of people believers ought to be. Any one who has learned Christ knows that he rose from the dead to be the pattern for the faithful. He teaches that there is great hope after this death for those who love God.

If all who seem to hear Christ did indeed hear him, the apostle would never had said this to the Ephesians. They were those to whom he had already revealed the promises of Christ. Why would he then say conditionally: if indeed you have heard him? To know Christ is the same thing already as knowing virtue. To hear of Christ rightly is the same as being attentive to all the virtues: wisdom, justice, temperance, fortitude and the other names by which Christ is called. Therefore if anyone has indeed heard and learned Christ, he would not be living in the futility of his mind nor be darkened in understanding nor be alienated from the life of God. He would already have practical knowledge, since his ignorance would have been dispelled, his darkness illuminated and every blindness lifted from the eyes of his heart.

On the one hand the name Jesus refers to the man who was assumed by the Word, the man born from the Virgin.^[1] . . . Then again it refers to the Word of God: for to us there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things^[2] . . . When Paul says as truth is in Jesus, he is speaking of the temple of God in which God the Word dwells. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.^[3] God is the Word. As life dwells in him, so he also is life.^[4] . . . In this same way the Son too may be called the truth, and truth may be said to dwell in him. In saying this we do not separate God the Word from the humanity he assumed. The man he assumed is not someone else. According to our understanding of certain passages we give different titles to him whom we believe to be the one Son of Man and Son of God, both before and after the virgin birth. . . . In none of the patriarchs, in none of the prophets, in none of the apostles did truth reside as it did in Jesus. For others know in part and prophesy in part and see as through a glass darkly.^[5] In Jesus alone the truth of God has appeared. He confidently asserts I am the truth.^[6]

The old man^[1] includes all born as earthly men in their old nature.^[2] It is this old man, this ancient condition of humanity, that is put off in Christ. Although his body continues, he nonetheless undergoes a change to new life engendered by living baptism. What he was has been put off. His old life is renewed by the holy water and the copious mercy of the anointing. He becomes new rather than old, whole rather than corrupt, fresh rather than enfeebled, an infant rather than an old man, eternal rather than ephemeral.

The apostle clearly identifies the old man. For he put off the old man which belongs to your former manner of life, not with respect to the decay of any substance. For he is telling us to put away not the flesh but those things that he has elsewhere shown to be oriented to the fleshly way of life, indicting not the body as such but its works.

The old nature whom he tells them to put off has, in my opinion, been aged by wickedness. For, going constantly astray in his former way of life and in the desires of waywardness and acting like a beast in works of corruption, he himself suffers corruption and decay. . . . But the Word of God kills in such a way as to make the dead one come alive. He then seeks the Lord whom he did not know before his death. He does not corrupt but kills the old man.^[1] . . . As the outer man decays the inner man is renewed.

As his lusts become corrupt, so does he himself. How do his lusts become corrupt? Everything is finally dissoved in death. Remember the psalm that says in that very day [of his death] his thoughts perish. Beauty departs. It dies and decays at the approach of illness or old age. So does bodily vigor. Even luxury itself does not afford the same comfort in old age. . . . Pleasures often are destructive. They end up being not really pleasures but bitterness and deceit and pretense, like a theatrical illusion.

As there are many spirits, each has its proper abode. There is a spirit proper to your mind. When your mind is detoxified and expels confusions, the spirit of your mind renews you by taking up its dwelling within you.

We are not being renewed in our thinking process apart from the renewal of our spirits. Nor are we renewed in our spirits without thinking. We are being jointly renewed in the spirit of our mind. Hence as we sing psalms in the spirit, so we also sing them in our thoughts. As we pray in the spirit, so we also pray in our thoughts. The renewal of the spirit of our mind means that when the thought is clear and pure . . . then the spirit is rightly joined to it. They are so coupled as if by a cohesive glue that we no longer speak simply of spirit but of the spirit of our mind.

He is calling us to live as one whose thoughts come from the Spirit, who is himself once again becoming the spiritual man created by God. We are to live in the likeness of God, just as God intended when he said: Let us make humanity in our own image and likeness.^[1] Admittedly God has no face or physical aspect. God is Spirit. So we too have been created according to God, to think according to the Spirit and thus to allow nothing to drag us down to worldly and unworthy thoughts.

When one is already clothed, how is it said that one must further put on a new nature? New clothing was once put on in baptism. The new clothing now being put on is the new way of life and conduct that flows from baptism. There one is no longer clothed by deceitful desires but by God’s own righteousness.

There is but one garment of salvation, namely, Christ. Hence the new man created in God’s likeness is none other than Christ. One who has put on Christ has thus put on the new person created in God’s likeness.

The metaphors of creating and establishing are never spoken of in Scripture except in great works. The world is created. A city is established. But observe that a house, however grand it may be, is more commonly said to be built than established or created. Note then that it is a great work of God when it is said that the new person is created by God in Christ. This creature towers over the other creatures. This creature alone is said to have been established in the same way as the world was established, from the beginning of God’s ways,^[1] when all the elements first came into being.