both writers are quoting the familiar passage in Ps. cxviii. 22, or have its terms in mind. Nor does the coincidence between the opening doxologies (1 Pet. i. 3; Eph. i. 3—in both εὐλογητὸς ὁ Θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) carry us very far. On the other hand there are some marked resemblances in syntax and construction, especially in the paragraphs immediately following these doxologies.
On these data very contradictory conclusions have been suspended. Some have inferred that the author of Ephesians was a debtor to 1 Peter (Hilgenfeld, Weiss). Others have taken the author of 1 Peter to be a borrower from Ephesians. The theory has also been broached that both Epistles proceed from one hand, possibly that of the writer of Acts and the Third Gospel. Others have explained the case by supposing that Peter may have heard Paul in Rome, or that there may have been converse between the two Apostles in Rome which is reflected in these parallels. So different are the aspects in which these things present themselves to different minds. One thing at least it is very difficult to imagine. That is, that a writer of the genius and power which the Epistle to the Ephesians discloses could have been a borrower even from the author of 1 Peter.
The question of greatest interest, however, is that touching the relation between the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Epistle to the Colossians. Here the resemblances and the differences are equally striking and unmistakable. The general likeness in the structure of the two writings arrests attention at once—in the division of the matter between the doctrinal and the practical, in the form of the paragraphs, and in much of the diction. It is calculated, indeed, that in some seventy-eight out of 155 verses we have much the same phraseology. Lists have been compiled by De Wette and others including the following passages: Eph. i. 4; Col. i. 22: Eph. i. 6,7; Col. i. 18, 14: Eph. i. 10; Col. i. 20: Eph. i. 15-17; Coli. 3, 4: Eph. 1 18; Col: i, 27: Eph. it. 21; Col. 11 16: Eph. i. 22 ἐπ Col. i. 18 Ὁ > Eph. i. F, 12; Col. i221: Eph. ti. 5; Col. ii. 13: Eph. fi. 15; Col. ii. 14: Eph. ii, 16; Col. ii. 20: Eph. iii, 1; Col. i. 24: Eph. iii. 2; Col. 1. 25: Eph, iii. 3; Col. i. 26: Eph. iti. 7; Col. 199: ος. Ερι id, 8: Ε΄: Col, 1.27 >) Bph. ιν. 1: σοι. 10: Eph. ty, 2; Col. iii. 12 f.: Eph. iv. 3 f.; Col. iii, 14 f: Eph. iv. 15 f£; Col. if. 19: Eph. iv. 19; Col. iii. 1,5: Eph. iv. 22 f.; Col. iii. 8 ff.: Eph. iy. 20 f. > Col: tii, &f :-Eph: iv. 29; Col. tii. 8., iv. 6: Eph. iv. 31; Col. iti. 12 f.: Eph. v. 3; Col. iii. 5: Eph..v. 4; Col. iii. 8: Eph. v. 5; Col. iti..5: Eph. v. 6; Col. iii. 6: Eph. v.15; Col. iv. 5: Eph. v. 19 f.; Col. iii. 16 f.: Eph.v. 21; Col. iii, 18: Eph. v. 25; Col. iti. 19: Eph. vi. 1; Col. iii. 20: Eph. vi. 4; Col. iii. 21: Eph. vi. 5 ff; Col.