THE
PULPIT COMMENTARY, EDITED DY THE
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., DEAN OF GLOUCESTER;
AND BY THE
REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A.
WITH
INTRODUCTIONS DY TIIE
VERY REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., DEAN OF CANTERBURY. RIGHT REV. H. COTTERILL, D.D., F.R.S.E. VERY REV. PRINCIPAL J. TULLOCH, D.D. REV. CANON G. RAWLINSON, M.A. REV. A. PLUMMER, M.A., D.D.
NEW EDITION.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON AND NEW YORK 1907 .r'dtNTED DY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS 1 LIMITED• LONDON ANO IlECCLES.
r'Elie rights of translation and o/ reproductim are reserved.) THE
PUL.PIT EDITED DY THE
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., DEAN OF GLOUCESTER;
AND BY THE
REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A.
EPHESIANS. ~xposftion anl:J 'J11omiletics RY REV. PROFESSOR W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
'Jl'!omflirs bu lTntious ~utbots. REV. D. THOMAS, D.D. REV. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. UEV. PUOF. T. CROSirnRY, D.D. REV. Il. M. EDGAR, M.A. REV. R. FINLAYSON, B.A.
NETV EDlTJO_V,
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMP.ANY LONDON AND NEW YORK 1907 THE EPISTLR OF
PAUL TO THE EPHESIANS. INTRODUCTION. ------ I. BY WIIOM Wil!TTEN. TILL the days of De W ette, who was followed by Baur and Schwegler, Dr. Samuel Davidson, and some others, it was never doubted that the Epistle to the Ephesians was written by St. Paul. This had been all along the uniform tradition of the Church. The external evidence in his favour is about as strong as the case admits of. The list of early writers who are believed to attest this includes Ignatius, Polycarp, Marcion, Valentinus, Iremeus, Clemens .A.lexandrinus, Tertullian, and the author of the Mura- toriau Canon, and thereafter the Epistle is constantly included among the Pauline writings. It is not alleged that there is the faintest external evidence in favour of any other writer. It is solely on internal grounds that the anti-Paulinists base their opinion. I. Generally, it is alleged that the Epistle is a somewhat wordy repetition of that to the Colossians, and that so fresh and vigorous a mind as that of the apostle would not have been likely to repeat itself in such a. way. 2. There are expressions that seem to show that the writer had never been at Ephesus; e.g. eh. i. 15, he has heard of the faith, etc., of the Ephesians; eh. iii. 2, 3, the Ephesians may have heard of the commission given to him; eh. iv. 21, "If so be ye have heard him." Such expressions seem to show uncertainty as to their position and knowledge. 3. There are no salutations to the members of the Church at Ephesus, as we should certainly have looked for, considering bow long St. Paul was there (Acts xx. 31). 4. The Church at Ephesus consisted of both Jews and Gentiles (.A.cts xix. 8-10, 17); but the Epistle is addressed wholly to Gentiles, and rests mainly on the fact that privileges of equal value had been brought to them by the instrumentality of the apostle. 5. Many things in style, sentiment, and aim are not Pauline. The hypothesis as to the authorship which those who hold these views nave Jll'IIESIAK8. It ii lN'l'llODUC'l'ION TO
ncfopt.ed is t.hat some worthy man, residing at Rome, wishing t.o do good to the Ephesians, or perhaps to a cluster of Churches of which that at Ephesus was one, wrote this Epistle, and, in order to obtain acceptance for it, issued it in the name of Paul; nor was this an absolute fabrication, for, as it consists to a large extent of the views of Paul as expressed in the Epistle to the Colossians, it really is in substance Pauline. People were not very .Jritical in those days; they received it as genuine, and ever after it passed as such. The date at which it is supposed to have been written is various; De W ette assigns it to the apostolic age; Sch wegler and Baur give it the same dat.e as that of the fourth Gospel-the middle of the second century; but Dandson is compelled to place it between A.D. 70 and 80. In this hypothesis, the error is committed, so common with critics of the new light, of removing one set of difficulties by creating much greater. The difficulties of the new view are both moral and intellectual Morally, there is the very serious difficulty of giving, as author of the Epistle, the name of one who was not its author. The guilt of this is aggravated by the way in which the writer's claim to be listened to is set forth, "Paul, an apostle of Jesns Christ by the will of God," and by the fact that all writings that were really apostolic carried to the Church supernatural autho- rity. The real writer assn.mes Paul's name ; he not only trifles with the apostle, but with the Divine authority which all true apostles enjoyed. Intellectually, the hypothesis has this difficulty-it maintains that Paul could not have been the author, yet that, from the very beginning, the Church accepted him as the author. The writer makes it plain that he was never at Ephesus, but the blind Ephesia.ns received the letter as from Pan.I, who had been three years there. The style, the sentiment, the aim, are not Pauline, yet they were accepted as such. The writer was so careless that he did not take the trouble to avoid expressions that could not have been written by Paul; and the recipients were so stupid that, in spite of these things, they accepted it as his. An hypothesis so clumsy and hanging so ill .together refntes itself. _ The objections referred to, though attended with considerable difficulty, axe not at all conclusive. The very principle of the De W ette hypothesis, that the Epistle was passed off and accepted as Pauline,,may show that it cannot contain anything obviously un-Pauline. It is true that many topics are the same as those handled in Colossiane; but the matters peculiar to Ephesians are very remarkable (e.g. the statement of salvation by grace, eh. ii.; the prayer for the Ephesians, eh. iii.; the Christian panoply, eh. vi.). Every devout reader feels that the parts peculiar to the Ephesians contain some of the finest of the wheat; and though repetitions are not usna.l with the apostle, there is no reason why he, like any other letter-writer, should not have rE:pE:ated to the Ephesians what he had written to anot.her Church, if their circumstances required a similar communication. The objections which we have marked 2, 3, 4, do certainly cause a feeling of surprise. We should certainly have expected the apostle to refer to his nm EPISTLE TO TUE EPllE8IANS. iii