Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Argument
It was sent from Rome out of prison through the deacon Tychicus, as is clear from chapter 4, verse 1, and chapter 6, verse 20, in the year of Christ 62, as Baronius says.
Here note: The Epistles which the Apostle wrote from prison, as from a closed wineskin, pour forth more wisdom and spirit; for, panting after martyrdom and burning with desire for it, he wrote them as it were his last and swan-songs. Such is this one, such the Epistle to the Colossians, such to the Philippians, and finally the Second to Timothy. From this Epistle in particular, which, says Jerome, is most subtle, you may recognize Paul's fervor, depth, spirit, and natural gift. For his breast seems here, full of new wine, to breathe forth and to roll about the loftiest things, so that his speech cannot keep pace with the sublimity of his conceptions, much less express them. Hence, more than in his other epistles, this one has long, intricate, and convoluted sentences; it abounds in hyperbata, anantapodota, ellipses, and other figures which I have spoken of at Canon 38.
The earlier part of this Epistle is doctrinal, and disputes most profoundly, as far as chapter 4, concerning the secret of divine predestination, and admires its benefit. Namely first, that God predestined to reconcile us men, His enemies, to Himself, and that through the death of His Son. Secondly, that in this predestination He preferred the atheist Gentiles to the Jews who willed God. Thirdly, that God so disposed things from eternity by His providence that among the so many myriads of men who were then in the world, and had been before Christ, only the Ephesians and a few other faithful received the preaching and teaching of the Gospel, the faith, the remission of sins, and every Christian blessing.
Then he establishes them in the faith, and reproves the errors of the Philosophers and Poets, and of the rising Simon Magus at Ephesus and his followers; for, as Chrysostom says, many of the Philosophers were in this city (Ephesus). Pythagoras too is said to have come from here. Hence is the whole Ionic school, from which Plato sprang. Whence Paul here also rebukes and reproaches the errors of the Platonists rampant at Ephesus.
For Ephesus was the metropolis of Asia Minor, given over to idolatry and to what follows from it, magic, magical illusions, and errors. Hence the Ephesians, when converted by Paul, burned in his presence very many books of magic, as is said in Acts 19:19. There was also at Ephesus the most renowned temple of Diana, whom they called πολύμαστον, that is, many-breasted: for she was thus depicted as having many breasts, by which they signified that she was the nurse of all beasts and living things, as Jerome says in the prologue.
The later part of the Epistle is ethical, in which, from chapter 4 to the end of the Epistle, he prescribes for every age and condition of men the manner of living rightly and as Christians. The style is deep and grandiloquent, because, being most wise, he writes to the wise against the wise Philosophers.
Finally, the occasion of writing this Epistle was that, just as Paul had predicted to the Ephesians whom he had summoned to him at Miletus (Acts 20:29), saying: "I know that after my departure ravening wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them: wherefore watch," so it actually came about. Namely, from among the Judaeo-Christians (when they noticed that through the Gospel their law and Synagogue were being abolished), who were at Ephesus and in the rest of Asia, many became apostates and heretics who, as the most bitter enemies of Paul, were trying to overthrow both his Gospel and all his labors.
This is clear first from the fact that those Jews who came from Asia were the first who at Jerusalem stirred up the crowds against Paul and laid hands upon him, as is said in Acts 21:27. Secondly, from the fact that Paul himself writes to Timothy in complaint, in the Second Epistle, chapter 1, verse 15: "You know this, that all who are in Asia (namely the Judaizing Jews) have turned away from me, of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes." Metaphrastes adds in the sermon On Sts. Peter and Paul that Phygellus was made — though this hardly seems likely — Bishop of the Church of Ephesus by S. Peter, and that he turned the believing Jews away from the faith.
Therefore Paul, fearing lest the Gentile Asians and Ephesians, who had been converted by him to the faith of Christ, should be seduced by these wolves, writes to them this Epistle while they were still steadfast in the faith of Christ (for that it was written to the Gentiles and not to the Jews is clear from chapter 3, verse 1, and chapter 2, verse 11), in order to keep them in the faith and in their duty — which they faithfully performed. Witness S. Ignatius, who, writing forty years later to the same Ephesians, praises their constancy in the faith and their hatred of heresy and heretics in these words: "I know that some have passed through you with perverse doctrine, foreign and malignant spirits, to whom you denied passage, lest they sow tares, stopping your ears that you might not receive the error which they teach." And he indicates above whence the Ephesians had this, when he says: "You therefore are of this kind, instructed by such teachers, by Paul full of Christ, and by the most faithful Timothy." And again: "Most honorably beyond measure does (Onesimus your Bishop) praise your seemly and well-ordered arrangement, and that you all live according to the truth, and that there is no place for heresy among you; nor indeed is the name of any one heard, save only of Jesus Christ the true Pastor and Master, and you are, as Paul wrote to you, one body and one spirit, because you have been called in one hope of your calling."