any individual but the bearer of the letter, with nothing to connect it with the particular locality, with little or nothing to recall Paul’s stay in Ephesus or any of the many things that made his work among the Ephesians so memorable and the terms on which he and they stood to each other so close and affectionate. In the present case there is only the very general salutation which is given in the last two verses; and that is something less particular than the salutation with which the Epistle to the Philippians closes; while there are none of those personal touches throughout the Epistle to relieve the impersonal conclusion such as we find in these other letters. And in addition to the argument which founds on this neutral, impersonal quality of the Epistle, there are expressions here and there which per- haps suggest relations of a different kind from those which we know to have existed between Paul and the Ephesians. Not to speak of such passages as i. 15, there is the statement in iii. 4, which seems to some to mean that those addressed had yet to learn what Paul’s “knowledge of the mystery in Christ” was; which could not be said of the Ephesians. There are also the two passages in which Paul uses the formula: “if indeed” (iii, 2, iv. 21, 22); of which it may be said that, although εἴγε does not necessarily express actual doubt, it is a particle more in place where the speaker’s own ex- perience or work is not in view, than where he addresses those who owe to him what they are and with whom his relations are direct and intimate.
The result, therefore, to which many have been led since Arch- bishop Ussher first threw out the suggestion is that this Epistle isa circular letter meant for a number of Churches in a particular part of the Asiatic province, of which Ephesus was one. This view is accepted in one way or other by such authorities as Bengel, Neander, Harless, Olshausen, Reuss, Ellicott, Lightfoot, Hort, Weiss, Woldemar Schmidt, Abbott, etc. This general conclusion, however, is put in more than one form. Some regard the sen- tence as complete in itself and as requiring nothing to be in- serted after the τοῖς οὖσιν. Bengel, e.g., looking to the κατὰ τὴν οὖσαν ἐκκλησίαν οὗ Acts xiii. 1, and the ai δὲ οὖσαι ἐξουσίαι of Rom. xiii. 1, rendered it ‘‘ sanctis et fidelibus qui sunt in omnibus iis locis, quo Tychicus cum hac Epistola νεηπίε”. But the introduction of ἐν ᾿Αντιοχείᾳ in the former and the force of the οὖσιν in the latter make these imperfect parallels. Others give the words the sense of “the saints who are really such” or ‘‘the saints existing and faithful in Christ Jesus”. But neither of these readings can be justified. The only interpretation of the clause that is quite consistent with grammar,