56}
3} Only here, ver. 21, and Eph. ii. 16 i in class.
1 Cor. vii. 11; 2 Cor. ν. 18-20 (ter)
true that the subject from ver. 15 is, for the most part, the Son. But the usage of Paul leads us to think of the Father, not of the Son, as the One who forms the eternal purpose (Eph. i. 9, 2 Cor. ν. 10). Nor does ver. 20 run on naturally. If the Son is the subject of “ was well pleased,” the obvious interpretation of δι᾿ αὐτοῦ ἀποκ. is to reconcile through the fulness, which is highly improbable. We should accordingly have to give to δι᾽ αὐτοῦ a reflexive sense, and translate “through Himself,” which is grammati- cally possible, but not natural. There is the further objection which it shares with (1) that a change of subjects to the in- finitives is required, πλήρωμα being the subject of κατοικ., while that to ἀποκατ. is Θεός or vids. But it is less awkward in (1) than in (3), for the former does not make the Son at once the originator and the Agent of the plan of reconciliation. Against (1), besides the objection just mentioned, it may be said that the con- struction with εὐδόκ. is unusual, for its subject is elsewhere in the N.T. the subject of the following infinitive (this tells against (3) also), and that in a passage of such importance the subject could not have been omitted. But for the omission of the subject Lightfoot compares Jas, i. 12, iv. 6. What, how- ever, is really decisive in its favour is the difficulty of accepting (2). The ex- pression “all the fulness was well pleased” is very strange in itself. But what is much stranger is that the fulness was not only pleased to dwell in Him, but through Him to reconcile all things unto Him. And the only natural course is to refer εἰρνηνοπ. to the subject of εὐδόκ., but the masculine makes it diffi- cult to regard πλήρ. as that subject. We should therefore translate ‘“‘God” [or ‘the Father ’’] ‘‘ was well pleased ”.— πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα. On πλήρωμα the de- tached note in Lightfoot, pp. 255-271, should be consulted, with the criticism of it in an article on ‘The Church as the Fulfilment of the Christ,” by Prof. J. Armitage Robinson (Expositor, April, 1898), also Oltramare’s note. Lightfoot urges in opposition to Fritzsche that πλήρωμα has always a genuinely passive sense, not the pseudo-passive sense ‘id quo res impletur’’ which Fritzsche gave
508
and Eph. ii. 12, iv. 18 in N.T.
1 So T. Tr. with BD*FGL, by homceoteleuton.
it, and which is really the active ‘id quod implet,” but that which is com- pleted. The basis of the decision is that substantives in -pa, since they are de- rived from the perfect passive, must have a passive sense. But, as Prof. Robinson points out, these substantives have their stem not in -μα but in -ματ, and there- fore are not to be connected with the perfect passive. He reaches the con- clusion that if a general signification is to be sought for, we may say that these nouns represent "' the result of the agency of the corresponding verb”. If the verb is intransitive the substantive will be so; if it is transitive and the substantive corresponds to its object the noun is ong te but if the substantive is followed y the object of the verb in the genitive it is active. According to the double use of πληροῦν to “ fill” and to “ fulfil,” πλήρωμα may mean that which fills or that which fulfils, the fulness, fulfilment or complement. Oltramare comes to the conclusion that the word means perfec- tion, and interprets this passage to mean that ideal perfection dwelt in Christ. Accordingly he escapes the question what genitive should be supplied after it. It does not seem, however, that the word meant moral perfection. Many think that θεότητος should be supplied after πλήρωμα, as is actually done in ii. 9. Serious difficulties beset this view. If we think of the eternal indwelling, we make it dependent on the Father's will, an Arian view, which Paul ο did not hold. Alford’s reply to this (endorsed by Abbott) that all that is the Son's right “is His Father's pleasure, and is ever referred to that pleasure by Himself,” is anything but cogent, for εὐδόκησεν refers to a definite decree of the Father, and the obvious meaning of the words is that it lay within the Father’s choice whether the πλήρωμα should dwell in the Son or not. It might refer to the exaltation of Christ, in which the Son resumed that of which He had emptied Himself in the Incarnation. This would follow the re- ference to the resurrection in ver. 18. But the order does not indicate the true logical or chronological sequence. Vv.