The Circumstances of the Writing of the Epistle

Where was it written?

This Epistle was written by St. Paul while in bonds, as is mentioned more than once in the Epistle itself (Eph. 3:1, 4:1, 6:20). But St. Paul’s bonds began shortly after his farewell to the Ephesians. Immediately following his departure from Miletus, in the places where he stopped, the prophets spoke definitive words about the inevitable bonds awaiting him, which he himself also foresaw (Acts 21:4, 10–14). And as soon as he appeared in Jerusalem, he was seized within a few days by Jews from Asia and delivered over to the fury of the people, who would have taken his life had not the pagan authorities intervened on his behalf. They took him and kept him in bonds—first in Caesarea, and then in Rome. Thus it was that the Gentiles preserved, for the time appointed from above, the preacher of Gospel truth who had been destined for them!

So St. Paul’s bonds began in Jerusalem, lasted about two years in Caesarea, and ended after a further two years in Rome. The composition of the Epistle might be attributed to any of the Apostle’s places of imprisonment. But in Jerusalem there was no time to write; it must have been in Caesarea or in Rome. Where, then? — It is better to suppose Caesarea. What leads to this supposition is that it makes it easier to resolve certain difficulties that arise from the peculiarities of the Epistle, as we shall see. But some hints of this may also be found in the Epistle itself.

In the Epistle there is not the slightest indication of any changes in the Ephesian Church, for better or for worse. It sees her as the same as she was when St. Paul left her. If anything worthy of note had occurred there, the Apostle would not have failed to mention it, as he did later in the Epistle to the Colossians. Judging by the changeableness of human affairs, one must admit that if the Ephesians were still the same when St. Paul wrote this Epistle, it was surely because there had not yet been time for them to change—and that, consequently, it was written to them soon after St. Paul’s departure from there. If so, it was written from Caesarea, for writing from Rome would not be soon, but in the third or fourth year after the Apostle’s parting from them. In so great an interval of time, how much might have happened in Ephesus, as we see in the cases of Thessalonica, Corinth, and Galatia! — And the Apostle would not have kept silent about it.

This may also be suggested by the fact that the Apostle asks the Ephesians to pray that speech may be given to him, to open his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel (Eph. 6:19). This prayer fits the Caesarean imprisonment better than the Roman: for in Rome the Apostle enjoyed greater freedom, while in Caesarea he was truly confined, with only certain people allowed to come to him (Acts 24:23).

Moreover, the following may be taken into account. During the two years in Caesarea (Acts 24:27), did St. Paul really spend the time doing nothing? He could not have sat there with his hands folded; but since he had no opportunity to enter personally into dealings with those he had converted to Christianity or to work toward the conversion of others, he was likely writing. Perhaps some of those Epistles that are counted as lost were written by him during this time. But first and foremost he wrote to the Ephesians, from whom he had only just parted and whose memory was pressing upon his mind.

The Epistle indicates no particular occasion for its composition, as has already been noted. But judging by the inspiration and lofty tone of the entire Epistle, it may be considered probable that what disposed St. Paul to write it was his desire to share with the Ephesians those sublime contemplations into which he had been led by the Spirit of God during his imprisonment and which were filling his spirit with wonder.

Let us enter the cell of this prisoner guided by God. He endured bonds for the sake of Christian freedom and for the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles, to which he had been called by the Lord Himself, Who had confirmed this calling not long before in Jerusalem (Acts 23:11). St. Paul’s attention had not been able to turn away from this subject even before; but now he was chained to it by his very bonds. Since in the Caesarean imprisonment only certain close persons were permitted to come to St. Paul, and even they only for his care (Acts 24:23), he was almost entirely alone with himself. It was natural for him, standing before the face of the Lord in inward converse, to plunge more deeply into the work that had been laid upon him. The calling of the Gentiles had already begun, by the manifest will of God and by divine direction. Simple faith illuminates every event by placing it within the plans of God’s Providence. But the actual contemplation of the place and significance of current events in the sequence of the acts of divine Providence is not granted to all, nor does everyone strive to enter into it. The finger of God was visible in the calling of the Gentiles, and the Apostle touched it. But into the very mysteries of God concerning this he had not yet entered, and the Spirit of God had not yet led him there: for even to God’s chosen ones, truths are not disclosed all at once and comprehensively, but gradually, according to the need for them and the readiness to receive them. And so now only the Spirit of God—the same Spirit that had drawn the Apostle to Jerusalem for his bonds—leads his spirit into a full contemplation of the mystery of God in the calling of the Gentiles alongside the Jews and the formation of a single saving Kingdom of Christ from both. That the Jews are called is not surprising: they were chosen for this from of old. But what is the calling of the Gentiles? — Entering into this, the Apostle did not stop at the outward appearance of this event, but ascended to its very beginning in the eternal counsel of God, set it in relation to the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, to the angelic world, to the human world, and to all created things, and followed its movement through all the ages—to the recapitulation of all things in Christ Jesus in eternity.

And he was a minister of this mystery. Through him God in Christ united Jews and Gentiles, so that from both He might form a new race which, being united with God in the Lord Jesus and remaining united within itself by the spirit of love and brotherly communion, might grow in perfection—like a healthy body developing harmoniously, or a solid building wisely constructed.

It was natural for an Apostle’s spirit filled with such contemplations to wish to share them with his beloved spiritual children and to communicate them in fitting words. The last church over which he had laboured so greatly was the Church of Ephesus. To her he communicates this portrayal of the fullness of God’s wisdom in the ordering of the Church and the salvation of all—for no other reason than that they too might become partakers of this knowledge and be gladdened by it. That is why he touches on no particular incidents in the Ephesian Church, nor on his own time among them. All of that presented nothing special that would harmonize with what was occupying his spirit. The sublimity of his contemplations did not allow him to descend to lower things. He is wholly absorbed in the great mystery of God—now as it exists in God, now as it is realized in the Lord Jesus Christ, now as it is received by earthborn humanity, now as it is perceived even by the heavenly ones, now as it will finally be revealed in eternity in all its glory. Only in depicting the obligations of Christian community life does he descend to earth, but even there you see that he views everything from the perspective of that same mystery of the union of all into one body under Christ as the Head.

That he sets all this forth to the Ephesians with such inspiration in order that they too might come to know the mystery of God’s wisdom and rejoice—this is stated directly in the Epistle. Thus at the beginning St. Paul prays that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give” them “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance among the saints” (Eph. 1:16–18). And at the end again he “bows ‘his knees before the Father of our Lord… that He might grant’ them…‘to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height’ (of this mystery)… ‘and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge’ (manifested in calling them into His Kingdom) (Eph. 3:14–19). How palpable is the Apostle’s desire in these words—that the Ephesians too should enter into the contemplation of that same mystery and be filled with the same blessed wonder that overshadowed him.”

But while such reasoning sufficiently explains the origin of the Epistle to the Ephesians from a human standpoint, the Spirit of God working in the Apostle’s spirit could not have been limited to this. One may further infer that He disposed the Apostle to set forth the revelations communicated to him as a guide for the whole Church for all subsequent time, to leave as it were a memorial book about the great work of building the Church of God from Jews and Gentiles.

Let us consider the course of affairs in the Church at that time. The Apostle Paul, wherever he preached, always turned first to the Jews and only then moved on to the Gentiles. The first believers everywhere came from the Jews. To them were added believers from among the Gentiles as well. But everywhere the matter went in such a way that the latter soon surpassed the former in number, so that the Jews seemed to disappear in the mass of them. So it was in Thessalonica, so in Corinth, so among the Galatians, so finally in Ephesus and throughout Asia. Everywhere within the range of the Apostle’s activity, the Greeks absorbed the Jews. But if this was so then, at the beginning, all the more must it have taken place in subsequent times. The Apostle could not but see that afterwards the distinction between Jew and Greek would be completely effaced, and everywhere only Christians would be visible without such external marks. But for all that, the truth that the root of Christianity is in the Old Testament and that the Greeks were grafted onto the tree of Israel must always be known and held by faith. Were it to be forgotten, Christianity would appear as something detached. The Gentiles, out of a sense of gratitude, must never forget that they entered as though into another’s inheritance, solely by the mercy of God. And it was becoming easy to forget this, as before their eyes the very persons who could remind them of it by their mere presence (that is, the Jews) were more and more fading away. Hence the need arose to make known to future generations who they had been and how they had come to share in so many blessings—so that they might remember this and, remembering, give thanks to God, and strive in every way to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of so high a calling. This is what St. Paul does in the Epistle to the Ephesians. That is why he concludes his explanation of the mystery of the calling of the Gentiles into the Kingdom of Christ with the injunction: remember, you Gentiles, that you were once without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, but now in Christ you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ… you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and members of God’s household (Eph. 2:11–19). This is a lesson not only for the Ephesians, but for all believers of subsequent ages who are not from the Jews. Consequently, for us as well.

“Remember!” — Had St. Paul noticed that they were in fact beginning to forget; that in forgetting, they were no longer maintaining the proper relation toward the Jews, either setting themselves apart from them or despising them; and that further, perhaps, they were forgetting the greatness of God’s gift of calling to the grace of Christ, and hence were no longer specially concerned with living in a manner worthy of their calling? The removal of all such distortions may well have been one of St. Paul’s concerns. In the Epistle to the Romans he had already admonished the Gentiles about this. Now he gazes more deeply into this truth, in order to act more powerfully upon their minds and to seal it indelibly in their hearts.

Nor should we pass over without attention what the Apostle further says: “I ask that you not lose heart over my afflictions for your sake, which are your glory” (Eph. 3:13). — Was his imprisonment unsettling some of the believing Gentiles—some because he was suffering on their account, others because they could not understand how a person of such eminence, armed with such signs, could be in bonds? — This unsettlement he dispels with a single word: “do not lose heart…” — without dwelling long on it, given the insignificance of the matter and the small number of those disturbed. After explaining to them the mystery of the ordering of the Church, it followed of itself: when there is such good from the preaching, is it worth paying attention to my afflictions? What sacrifices ought one to begrudge in order to communicate it to my brethren?

From such a view of the origin and purpose of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the peculiarities that sharply distinguish it from all others are explained of themselves.

The first of these peculiarities is the sublimity of the content, together with the corresponding rapture of speech and the all-embracing sweep of thought. St. Chrysostom writes: “It is said that when St. Paul was still orally instructing the Ephesians, he had already entrusted them with the deepest truths of the faith. At any rate, the Epistle itself is full of sublime contemplations and doctrines… It is full of lofty and boundless contemplations; in it he expounds what he has written almost nowhere else.” Anyone will verify this for himself as soon as he begins to read the Epistle. The vision of the infinite blessings of which we have been made partakers in Christ Jesus enraptures the Apostle and swarms within him with holy thoughts and feelings in such abundance and with such swiftness that he cannot quite catch them in words. Thought after thought flows on unrestrained, until the whole subject that animated the Apostle is exhausted. And the words multiply: for the Apostle wished only to outline each object of contemplation, without pausing specially on any one of them, but marking it in the general succession of intellectual visions passing through his consciousness. Judging by such a character of the Epistle’s content and by the tone of its speech, it stands among the other Epistles of the Apostle Paul as the Gospel of John stands among the Gospels.

The second peculiarity of this Epistle—a direct consequence of the preceding—is its universality. The Apostle depicts the nature of Christianity in general—how from eternity God purposed to save us in His Son, how the Son of God came to earth and accomplished this salvation, how we all become partakers of this salvation, and how in consequence we ought to live and act. He refers to no historical incidents. Everything he says can apply to any Christian society. One distinction of persons is visible, under the words “we” and “you.” This “we” means Jews, and “you” means Gentiles, whose fusion into one body of the Church in the Lord was the point of departure for all the contemplations that carried the Apostle away. Founding upon such universality of the Epistle’s content, some have called it a universal Christian catechism. And new missionaries may indeed take it as a norm in the first instruction of those of other faiths.

From the first two arises a third peculiarity of the Epistle—namely, that it contains no references to any historical circumstances either of the Apostle himself or of the Ephesians to whom he wrote it, and that it does not include greetings to any persons, especially those of note in the Ephesian Church and close to the Apostle, as he does in all his other Epistles. The only mentions there are concern the Apostle’s bonds and his appointment to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and Tychicus, the well-known companion of St. Paul and bearer of his Epistles. — The Apostle had no wish to descend to any ordinary matters amid such extraordinary and all-embracing contemplations, in which he naturally continued to dwell even after setting them forth in words. It is noted of philosophers too that when they chance to enter deeply into certain metaphysical speculations, these long afterwards occupy their soul, and they are reluctant at such times to occupy themselves with anything passing.