A Preface to St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.

April 26th, 2008 by Dim Bulb

On June 28th  of last year, Pope Benedict XVI announced a Jubilee Year in honor of the 2,000th anniversary of Saint Paul’s birth.  It is to begin on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 28, 2008, and conclude on June 29, 2009.   I hope during this time to offer copious notes on the writings of St Paul-both my own and others-and, towards this end, I here offer a preface to St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, written by Bernardine de Piconio.

The Epistle, written while St. Paul was a prisoner at Rome, is entitled as addressed to the Christians of Ephesus, the famous capital city of the Roman province of Asia.  Ancient writers have sometimes referred to and quoted it as addressed to the Christians of Laodicea.  The probability is that it was an encyclical letter or circular letter intended for all the Christians of Asia, and primarily that of Ephesus.  The title in the earlier copies (mystically explained by St Basil, Eunon. lib. II. 2 p. 733) purports that it is addressed to the Saints who are-omitting the name of any particular place-and the faithful in Christ Jesus.  In verse 1 the blank is filled in with at Ephesus.  At the conclusion the Apostle salutes not the Ephesians only, but all Christians of Asia, and instead of writing, as usual, peace to you, he writes peace to the brethren.  And it was sometimes spoken of as the Epistle to the Laodiceans, as by Tertullian, in Contra Marcion.

The Apostle had converted many of the Ephesians to the faith of Christ during a residence of three years in their city; and his present object is to confirm them in the faith and instruct them more fully in the sublimer mysteries of the Christian religion.  There was another and more urgent object which he has in view, for the faith of the Ephesian Christians was seriously imperiled by the efforts of the Judaizers on the one hand, and on the other by the followers of Simon Magnus, whose wild errors, disguised under the veil of a subtle and imposing system of philosophy, were beginning to spread over the Roman Empire.  They maintained, among other false doctrines which will have to be referred to further on, that angels, and not Christ, are the true mediators between God and man, and that it is to the angels, and not to Christ, that we are to have recourse for reconciliation with God.  The first three chapters of the Epistle treat of eternal predestination, of man’s redemption by the death of Christ, of the vocation of the Gentiles, of the union of the Gentiles and Jews, men and angels, under the scepter of Christ, the great Head of the Church, who is raised above all creation.  In the concluding chapters the Apostle lays down the principles and precepts of the Christian life in all its relations and conditions.  For both the Judaizers and the followers of Simon erred alike, in manners as in faith.

The style of the Epistle, as every reader of it must have observed, differs conspicuously from that of all the other writings of St Paul.  Erasmus remarks that it would appear to have been written y another hand, were it not that its drift and meaning, and the doctrine it conveys, proceeds evidently from the mind of St Paul.  The difference is ascribable to the more serious and terrible nature of the heresies which the Apostle is compelled to expose and refute.   In addressing the Galatians, he could appeal to their common sense, almost their sense of ridicule, against the Judaic compliances which were exacted from them by worldly and self-seeking men, or in refutation of unfounded charges brought against himself.  But in repelling the awful and monstrous delusions, concealed under the guise of philosophy, which were put forward by the impiety of Simon and his adherents, he is compelled to ascend to the higher regions of theological truth, and use language of greater solemnity, not unlike that which was directed, a few years later, against the same or similar errors, by St Peter and St Jude, and in the second of his own Epistles to St Timothy, and later still, by the Evangelist St John.  All early writers have noticed in the Epistle to the Ephesians a deeper wisdom, energy, and fervour, than in the others composed during the same period of imprisonment, as if the writer were panting after martyrdom, and breathed forth something of the divine fire and celestial illumination which enlightened and consumed his soul.

There is, however, some difference of opinion as to whether it was composed during St Paul’s first or second imprisonment at Rome, of which the latter terminated in his martyrdom.  Theodoret (Preface to the Epistles of St Paul) thinks it was written during the first imprisonment, and sent by Tychius, together with the Epistle to the Colossians.  Baronius also considers that it was written at that time, and sent by Tychius, and with it the second Epistle to Timothy.  Other writers also think that it was sent together with the second to Timothy, but that oth were written during the second imprisonment, and shortly before the Apostle’s martyrdom, which took place June 29, 67.  On this subject see M. de Tillemont, note 78 on St Paul and Memoires, tom. I.  )Excerpted from AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLES OF ST PAUL, Volume 2, by Bernardin de Picquigny.  He is also known as Bernardine de Piconio, he was a member of the Capuchin Order and lived from 1633 to 1707, or 1709.  In addition to his 3 volume work on St Paul’s Epistles, he also wrote commentaries on the four Gospels,)

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