αὑτῷ το. Peis! “ οἰκονομίαν τοῦ " πληρώματος τῶν "Ἥ καιρῶν,
259
t ἀνα- p=Matt. x.
18.
κεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῷ χριστῷ," τὰ ὃ ἐπὶ * τοῖς οὐρανοῖς q=Ch. iii.
ch. iii. 2; Col. i. 25; Luke xvi. 2 reff. 24 reff. t Rom. xiii. 9 only t.
1 For εις, κατα τὴν A,
r=Gal., iv. 4 only.
only; see s See Mark i. 15; Luke xxi
2 Omit tw 116, 143; Xp. Ino. 143.
3 Insert τε, a few cursives, Epiph., Cyr., etc. 4εν τοις NKPAFGKP, etc., Copt., Chr., Thdrt., Epiph., Thl., Ir.; text 4*BDEL, Goth., Eus., Thdrt., Dam., Oec., Tert., etc.
—év αὐτῷ: in Himself. Some make it “in him,” that is, in Christ (Chrys., Luth., Bengel, Hofm., Light., Wycl., Vulg., etc.), and this would be quite in accordance with the subsequent statement of the eternal purpose as one which God ‘*purposed in Christ Jesus the Lord” (Eph. iii. 11). But God and His will are the subjects in view here, and the mention of Christ seems too remote for the αὐτῷ to refer naturally to Him. The purpose is God’s own free determination, originating in His own gracious mind. The reading ἐν αὑτῷ is adopted by Mey., Ell., etc., while ἐν αὐτῷ is given by Γασππι, Είδος. ΝΗ ΕἨατ, etc. The question whether the NT knows any other form than ἑαυτοῦ as the reflexive of the third person is still debated. It is urged (e¢.g., by Bleek, Buttm., etc.) that the NT does not use αὑτοῦ, but only ἑαυτοῦ in most cases or at least the vast majority, on such grounds as these, viz., that the MSS. have ἀπό, ἐπί, ὑπό, etc., and not ἀφ᾽, ἐφ᾽, ὑφ᾽, before αὐτοῦ ; that in the second person we find only σεαυ- Tov, not σαυτοῦ; and that the first and second personal pronouns are often used in the NT instead of the reflexive, though not when the pronoun is immediately de- pendent ontheverb. Lightfoot concludes that ‘‘avrod, etc., may be used for ἑαυτοῦ, etc., in almost every connection, except where it is the direct object of the verb” (see his note on Col. i. 20). On the other hand, Ell. is of opinion that the reflexive form is in place ‘‘ where the attention is principally directed to the subject,” and the non-reflexive where it is “ diverted by the importance of the details”. Winer, while admitting that in most passages αὐτοῦ, etc., would suffice, would write αὑτοῦ, etc., certainly in a few cases such as John ix. 21 (αὐτὸς περὶ αὑτοῦ λαλήσει) and Rom. iti. 25 (ὃν προέθετο ὁ Θεὺς... εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὑτοῦ), and would prefer it also in such passages as Mark vii, 35; Luke xii. 34, xix. 15; Rom. xiv. 14; Rev. xi. 7, xiii. 2; as also here in Eph. 1.9. See Buttm., p. 111; Win.- Moult., p. 188; Bleek, Heb., ii., p. 60.
Ver. το. εἰς οἰκονομίαν: unto a dis- pensation. This expresses the end which God had in view in that which He purposed. Some (Erasm., Calv., etc.) give εἰς the temporal sense of usque ad. But the idea is rather the more definite one of design. God had His reason for the long delay in the revelation of the ‘“‘mystery’’, ‘That reason lay in the fact that the world was not ripe for the dispensation of grace which formed the contents of the mystery. In classical Greek the word οἰκονομία had the two meanings of (a) administration, the management of a house or of property, and (δ) the office of administrator or steward. It was used of such things as the arrangement of the parts of a building (Vitruv., i., 2), the disposition of the parts of a speech (Quint., Inst., ΠΠ, 3), and more particularly of the financial administration of a city (Arist., Pol., iii. 14; cf. Light., Notes, sub voc.). It has the same twofold sense in the NT—an arrangement or administration of things (in the passages in the present Epistle and in τ Tim. i. 4), and the office of administrator—in particular the stewardship with which Paul was en- trusted by God (x Cor. ix. 17; Col. i. 25). The idea at the basis of the statement here, therefore, as also in the somewhat analogous passage in Gal. iy. I-11, is that of a great household of which God is the Master and which has a certain system of management wisely ordered by Him. Cf. the figure of the Church as the household of God (1 Tim. iii. 15; Heb. iii. 2-6; 1 Pet. iv. 17), and the parables which run in terms of God as οἰκοδεσπότης (Matt. xiii. 27, xx. 1, 11, xxl. 33; Luke xiii. 25, xiv. 21).---τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν: of the fulness of the times. That is, a dispensation belonging to the fulness of the times. The gen. cannot be the gen. objecti (Storr, etc.), nor the epexegetic gen. (Harl.), but must be that of characteristic quality, ‘‘a dispensation proper to the fulness of the times” (Mey.), or it may express the relation of time, as in ἡμέρα