Jerome — Commentary on Scripture

Ephesians 1:1

Those whom he has called saintly he also calls faithful, because faith derives from the choice of our own minds, but sanctification we receive meanwhile from the abundance of the Sanctifier, not from our own will. As for his saying “faithful in Jesus Christ,” this is aimed at drawing a distinction that should be carefully noted. For there are those who have genuine faith but not faith in Jesus Christ. Someone who returns a deposit and does not deny another’s trust shows himself a faithful friend.… This person is indeed faithful but not “in Christ.”

Commentary on Ephesians 1:1

Ephesians 1:2

It could be argued that both should be referred to both, that is, both grace and peace apply no less to God the Father than to our Lord Jesus Christ. Or it could be argued that each should be referred to each, so that grace is referred to God the Father and peace to Christ. It is more likely the latter, since the words immediately following are to the praise of the glory of God’s grace. Thus the “grace” of the Father lies in his willingness to send the Son for our salvation, while the “peace” of the Son lies in the fact that we are reconciled to the Father through him.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:2

Ephesians 1:3

Now God has blessed us not with this or that blessing but with every blessing. It is not as though we all obtain them all at once, but singly we obtain particular ones in due time or some of the whole number. Thereby we possess their fullness through these singular blessings. He speaks not only of earthly blessings but of spiritual—there are indeed earthly blessings, as when someone has children, affluence in riches, the pleasure of honor and health.… But spiritual blessings are in the heavens because the earth is too small to circumscribe a spiritual blessing.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:3

Ephesians 1:3

Now the phrase “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” is to be read in a double sense. It first means that God is blessed as the maker of all things, this being the main clause. To this is then added “who is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It means that both God and Father are to be referred in common to our Lord. Blessed is the God of the man who has been assumed and the father of him who was the Word of God with God in the beginning! Not that the assumed one is other than the Word who assumed him, but that he who is one and the same is spoken of now by sublime and now by humble titles, according to what circumstances demand.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:3

Ephesians 1:4

It is asked how anyone can be saintly and unblemished in God’s sight.… We must reply [that] Paul does not say he chose us before the foundation of the world on account of our being saintly and unblemished. He chose us that we might become saintly and unblemished, that is, that we who were not formerly saintly and unblemished should subsequently be so.… So understood it provides a counterargument to one who says that souls were elected before the world came to be because of their sanctity and freedom from any sinful vice.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:4

Ephesians 1:4

Between saintly and unblemished there is this difference, that one who is saintly is ipso facto understood also to be unblemished, but one who is at some point unblemished is not by that fact itself saintly. Infants, after all, are spotless because their bodies are pure and they have committed no sin; and yet they are not saintly, because sanctity is not acquired without will and effort. Moreover, he who has done no sin can be called unblemished, but the saintly person is the one who is full of virtues.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:4

Ephesians 1:4

Paul, wishing to show that God made all things out of nothing, ascribed to him not the “composition,” the “creation” or the “making” but the katabolē, that is, the inception of the foundation.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:4

Ephesians 1:5

The former [verse] refers to those saints who did not previously exist and who before they came into being were thought of and subsequently acquired existence. This [verse] speaks of God, who was preceded by no thought or willing but always existed and never had a beginning for his existence. Therefore he rightly used the term destined for those who, having once not existed, subsequently acquired existence. But of the Son, that is, of our Lord Jesus Christ, he wrote ordained in another place also.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:5

Ephesians 1:5

Christ, as we have often said already, is wisdom, justice, peace, joy, temperance and the rest. Note that the names of all these virtues are loved even by those who do not pursue them! No one is such a brazen criminal that he does not claim to love wisdom and justice.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:6

Ephesians 1:7

The one who is yet to be redeemed is a captive. He has ceased to be free by coming under the power of the enemy. So we are captives in this world and bound by the yoke of slavery to the principalities and powers, unable to release our hands from our chains. So we raise our eyes upward until the Redeemer arrives.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:7

Ephesians 1:9

The Stoics also hold that there is a distinction between wisdom and insight. They say, “Wisdom is the knowledge of things divine and human, insight only of that which is mortal.” According to this distinction we might apply Paul’s term wisdom to the invisible and visible and insight only to the visible.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:9

Ephesians 1:9

Some attentive reader might object: “If Paul knows in part and prophesies in part and now sees as through a glass darkly, how is the mystery of God revealed either to him or to the Ephesians “in all wisdom and insight?” … It is not that they by themselves have learned this mystery “in all wisdom and insight,” but God “in all wisdom and insight” has revealed the mystery to us, so far as we are able to grasp it.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:9

Ephesians 1:13

It is no small praise for the Ephesians that they have heard not preaching as such but “the word of truth.” Remember that we read in another letter that there is a great distance between preaching and the word of truth.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:13

Ephesians 1:14

A guarantee (arrabōn, “earnest”) is not the same as a token or pledge. For a guarantee is given as an affidavit and bond for a future purchase. But a pledge … is an expression of a present reciprocal transaction. Thus when the money is returned the pledge is restored by the creditor to the one who has repaid the debt.… So from the guarantee the majestic scope of the future inheritance may be grasped.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:14

Ephesians 1:17

It is this God of the incarnate man who is the Father of glory, wisdom and truth, who gives the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to those who believe in his Son so that they may become wise and contemplate the glory of the Lord with unveiled face. When this wisdom and revelation have made them wise and opened to them the mysteries that were hidden, it follows at once that they have “the eyes of their heart enlightened.”

Commentary on Ephesians 1:15-17

Ephesians 1:18

It is not without effort that we come to “know the hope of our calling and the riches of God’s inheritance in the saints.” This effort in fact comes in response to that renewing gift which God himself gives in the glorious resurrection of his own Son. This gift he gives not once but continually.… Every day Christ rises from the dead. Every day he is raised in the penitent.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:18-20

Ephesians 1:18

His phrase “eyes of the heart” clearly refers to those things we cannot understand without sense and intelligence.… Faith sees beyond what the physical eyes see. Physical eyes are in the heads of not only the wise but the unwise.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:18-20

Ephesians 1:20

He demonstrates the power of God through a human image. It is not that a material throne is set up and God the Father is physically seated on it and has the Son seated above with him. Rather he communicates with this metaphor because we could not understand his role as incomparable governor and judge except in our own terms.… Being on the right or left of God is to be understood as meaning that saints are on his right but sinners on his left. … The very word sits denotes the power of kingship, through which God confers benefits on those above whom he is seated. He has reined them in and has them in his service, guiding those who had previously strayed.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:21

Ephesians 1:21

Now we must ask where the apostle found these four names—principalities, powers, forces and dominions? From what sources did he bring them into the open? It would be dishonorable to imagine that Paul, who had been schooled in godly literature, might be quoting this from pagan sources. I therefore suggest that he has brought into the open some of the Hebrew traditions which are secret. Or better, it might have been that once he understood that the law is spiritual, he grasped a higher meaning in those things that are written in the guise of history. He could have known, for example, that there was a symbol of other powers and authorities in what is said in the books of Numbers and Kings about kings, princes, captains and leaders of tribes and ages.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:21

Ephesians 1:22-23

In the same way as a hand has many members subject to it, of which some are diseased and weak, so too our Lord Jesus Christ, being the head of the church, has as his members the whole congregation of the church, the saints and also the sinners. But the saints are in voluntary subjection to him, while the sinners are under compulsion.

Commentary on Ephesians 1:22-23