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Eph_1:10. Εἰς οἰκονομίαν τοῦ πληρώμ . τῶν καιρ .] Unto the dispensation of the fulfilling of the times, belongs not to γνωρίσας (Bengel), but to the immediately preceding ἣν προέθετο ἐν αὑτῷ , which is inserted solely with a view to attach to it εἰς οἰκον . κ . τ . λ .; and εἰς does not stand for ἐν (Vulgate and several Fathers, also Beza, Piscator, and others), but denotes what God in forming that purpose had in view, and is thus telic: with a design to. With the temporal rendering, usque ad (Erasmus, Calvin, Bucer, Estius, Er. Schmid, Michael., and others), we should have to take προέθετο in a pregnant sense, and to supply mentally: “consilio secretum et abditum esse voluit” (Erasmus, Paraphr.), which, however, with the former explanation is superfluous, and hence is arbitrary here, although it would in itself be admissible (Winer, p. 577 [E. T. 776]).
οἰκονομία ] house-management (Luk_16:2), used also in the ethico-theocratic sense (1Ti_1:4), and specially of the functions of the apostolic office (1Co_9:17; Col_1:25), here signifies regulation, disposition, arrangement in general, in which case the conception of an οἰκονόμος has receded into the background. Comp. Eph_3:2; Xen. Cyr. v. 3. 25; Plut. Pomp. 50; frequently in Polyb. (see Schweighaeuser, Lex. Polyb. p. 402); comp. also 2Ma_3:14; 3Ma_3:2; Act. Thom. 57.
The πλήρωμα τῶν καιρῶν , id quo impleta sumt (comp. on Eph_3:19) tempora, is not in substance different from τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου , Gal_4:4; nevertheless, in our passage the pre-Messianic period running on from the beginning is conceived of not as unity, as at Gal. l.c., but according to its different sections of time marked off by different epochs, the last of which closes with the setting in of the Messianic work of redemption, and which thus with this setting in become full (like a measure), so that nothing more is lacking to make up the time as a whole, of which they are the parts. This πλήρωμα is consequently not, in general, tempus justum (Morus: at its time), but the fulness of the times, i.e. that point of time, by the setting in of which the pre-Messianic ages are made full,[99] that is, are closed as complete. Comp. Herod. iii. 22: ὀγδώκοντα δʼ ἔτεα ζόης πλήρωμα ἀνδρὶ μακρότατον προκέεσθαι (implementum vitae longissimum, i.e. longissimum tempus, quo impletur vita), and see on Gal_4:4; Wetstein on Mar_1:15. Fritzsche (in Thesauri quo sacrae N.T. glossae illustr. specim., Rostock 1839, p. 25, and ad Rom. II. p. 473) conceives it otherwise, holding that τὸ πλήρωμα is plenitas, the abstract of πλήρης , hence ΠΛ . Τ . Κ . plenum tempus, οἱ πλήρεις καιροί . But while ΠΛΉΡΩΜΑ doubtless signifies impletio, like πλήρωσις , in Eze_5:2; Dan_10:3; Soph. Track. 1203; Eurip. Tro. 824, it never denotes the being full.
Now, in what way is the genitive-relation οἰκονομία τοῦ πληρώματος to be understood? A genitive of the object (Menochius, Storr, Baumgarten-Crusius) τοῦ πληρώμ . cannot be, inasmuch as it may doubtless be said of the ΠΛΉΡΩΜΑ ΤῶΝ ΚΑΙΡ . as a point of time fixed by God: it comes (Gal_4:4), but not: it is arranged, οἰκονομεῖται . Harless takes the genitive as epexegetic. But a point of time ( πλήρ . τ . καιρ .) cannot logically be an appositional more precise definition of a fact ( οἰκονομία ). The genitive is rightly taken as expressing the characteristic (temporal) peculiarity, as by Calovius: “dispensatio propria plenitudini temporum.” Comp. Rückert. Just as κρίσις μεγάλης ἡμέρας , Jud_1:6. Hence: with a view to the dispensation to be established at the setting in of the fulness of the times. For, ὅτε ἦλθε τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου , ἐξαπέστειλεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ , Gal. l.c., and on His emergence πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρός , Mar_1:15. There was no need that the article should stand before οἰκον . just because of the complete definition contained in the following genitive. Comp. on ver: 6. It would only be required, if we should have mentally to supply to οἰκονομίαν a genitival definition, and thus to make it an independent idea, as is done by many (Wolf, Olshausen, and others), who explain it as administrationem gratiae,—a view which is erroneous, just because a genitive already stands beside it, although οἰκονομία τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν , taken together, is the Christian dispensation of grace. This genitival definition standing alongside of it also prevents us from taking, with Luther, εἰς οἰκονομίαν (sc. τοῦ μυστηρίου ) as: “that it should be preached;” or from supplying, with Grotius and Estius (comp. Morus), τῆς εὐδοκίας αὐτοῦ with ΟἸΚΟΝ ., in neither of which cases would there be left any explanation of the genitive sense applicable to ΤΟῦ ΠΛΗΡΏΜΑΤΟς Τ . Κ . Quite erroneous, lastly, is the view of Storr, Opusc. I. p. 155, who is followed by Meier, that οἰκονομία τοῦ πληρ . τ . κ . is administratio eorum quae restant temporum. For to take τ . πλήρ . τ . κ . in the sense of reliqua tempora, i.e. novi foederis, is in the light of Gal_4:4, Mar_1:15, decidedly to misapprehend it.
ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ ] epexegetical infinitive, which gives information as to the actual contents of that οἰκονομία : (namely) again to gather up together, etc. Therein the arrangement designated by οἰκονομία τ . πλ . τ . κ . was to consist. This connection is that which naturally suggests itself, and is more in keeping with the simple mode followed in the context of annexing the new portions of the discourse to what immediately precedes, than the connection with ΠΡΟΈΘΕΤΟ (Zachariae, Flatt, and others), or with ΤῸ ΜΥΣΤΉΡ . ΤΟῦ ΘΕΛ . ΑὐΤΟῦ (Beza: Paul is explaining quid mysterii nomine significare voluerit; also Harless, comp. Olshausen, Schmid, bibl. Theol. II. p. 347, and others). We may add that Beza, Piscator, and others have taken εἰς οἰκον . τ . πλ . τ . κ . along with ἈΝΑΚΕΦΑΛ . as one idea; but in that case the preceding ἫΝ ΠΡΟΈΘΕΤΟ ἘΝ ΑὙΤῷ must appear quite superfluous and aimless, and ΕἸς ΟἸΚΟΝΟΜ . Κ . Τ . Λ ., by being prefixed to ἈΝΑΚΕΦΑΛ ., irrelevantly receives the main emphasis, which is not to be removed from ἈΝΑΚΕΦΑΛ .
ἈΝΑΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΏΣΑΣΘΑΙ ] ΚΕΦΆΛΑΙΟΝ in the verb ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΌΩ means, as it does also in classical usage, chief thing, main point (see Wetstein, ad Rom_13:9); hence κεφαλαιόω : summatim, colligere, as in Thuc. iii. 67. 5, vi. 91. 6, viii. 53. 1; Quinctil. i. 6. Comp. συγκεφαλαιοῦσθαι , Xen. Cyr. viii. 1. 15; Polyb. iii. 3. 1, 7, iv. 1. 9. Consequently ἀνακεφαλαιόω : summatim recolligere, which is said in Rom_13:9 of that which has been previously expressed singulatim, in separate parts, but now is again gathered up in one main point, so that at Rom. l.c. ἐν τούτῳ τῷ λόγῳ denotes that main point, in which the gathering, up is contained. And here this main point of gathering up again, unifying all the parts, lies in Christ; hence the gathering up is not verbal, as in Rom. l.c., but real, as is distinctly apparent from the objects gathered up together, τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς κ . τ . λ . It is to be observed withal, (1) that ἈΝΑΚΕΦΑΛ . does not designate Christ as κεφαλή —although He really is so (Eph_1:22)—so that it would be tantamount to ὑπὸ μίαν κεφαλὴν ἄγειν (Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, Luther, Piscator, Calovius, Bengel, Michaelis, Zachariae, Koppe, Matthies, Meier, de Wette, and others), but as ΚΕΦΆΛΑΙΟΝ , which is evident from the etymology; (2) that we are not to bring in, with Grotius and Hammond, the conception of scattered warriors, or, with Camerarius, that of an arithmetical sum ( ΚΕΦΆΛΑΙΟΝ , see Wetstein, l.c.), which must have been suggested by the context; (3) that the force of the middle is the less to be overlooked, inasmuch as an act of government on God’s part is denoted: sibi summatim recolligere; (4) that we may not give up the meaning of ἀνα , iterum (Winer, de verbor. cum praep. conj. in N.T. usu, III. p. 3 f.), which points back to a state in which no separation as yet existed (in opposition to Chrysostom, Castalio, and many others). This ἀνα has had its just force already recognised by the Peshito and Vulgate (instaurare), as well as by Tertull. de Monog. 5 (ad initium reciprocare),[100] although κεφαλαιόω is overlooked by the former, and wrongly apprehended by the latter. See the more detailed discussion below.
ΤᾺ ΠΆΝΤΑ ] is referred by many (see below) merely to intelligent beings, or to men, which, according to a well-known use of the neuter, would be in itself admissible (Gal_3:22), but would need to be suggested by the context. It is quite general: all created things and beings. Comp. Eph_1:22-23.
τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ] that which is on the heavens and that which is on the earth. ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐραν . (see the critical remarks) is so conceived of that the heavens are the stations at which the things concerned are to be found. Comp. the well-known ἐπὶ χθονί (Hom. Il. iii. 195, al.); ἐπὶ πύλησιν (Il. iii. 149); ἐπὶ πύργῳ (Il. vi. 431). Even in the classical writers, we may add, prepositions occurring in close succession often vary their construction without any special design in it. See Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 1. 20. Comp. as to the local ἐπί with genitive and dative, e.g. Hom. Il. i. 486. As regards the real sense, τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐραν . is not to be arbitrarily limited either to the spirits in heaven generally (Rückert, Meier), or to the angels (Chrysostom, Calvin, Cameron, Balduin, Grotius, Estius, Calovius, Bengel, Michaelis, Zachariae, Bosenmiiller, Baumgarten-Crusius, and others), or to the blessed spirits of the pious men of the O. T. (Beza, Piscator, Boyd, Wolf, Moldenhauer, Flatt, and others), nor must we understand by it the Jews, and by τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς the Gentiles (Locke, Schoettgen, Baumgarten, Teller, Ernesti), as, indeed, Koppe was able to bring out of it all mankind by declaring heaven and earth to be a periphrasis for κόσμος ; but, entirely without restriction, all things and beings existent in the heavens and upon earth are meant, so that the preceding τὰ πάντα is specialized in its two main divisions. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iii. 18, quite arbitrarily thought of all events which should have come to pass on earth or in heaven, and which God gathers up, i.e. brings to their complete fulfilment, in Christ as in their goal. Comp. Chrys.: τὰ γὰρ διὰ μακροῦ χρόνου οἰκονομούμενα ἀνηκεφαλαιώσατο ἐν Χριστῷ , τουτέστι συνέτεμε .
But how far has God gathered together again all things, things heavenly and things earthly, in Christ? Before the entrance of sin all created beings and things were undividedly united under God’s government; all things in the world were normally combined into organic unity for God’s ends and in His service. But through sin this original union and harmony was broken, first of all in heaven, where a part of the angels sinned and fell away from God;[101] these formed, under Satan, the kingdom antagonistic to God, and upon earth brought about the fall of man (2Co_11:3), extended their sway farther and farther, and were even worshipped in the heathen idols (1Co_10:20 f.). With the fall of man there came to an end also the normal state of the non-intelligent κτίσις (Rom_8:19 ff.); heaven and earth, which had become the scene of sin and of the demoniac kingdom (Eph_2:2, Eph_6:12), were destined by God to destruction, in order that one day a new heaven and a new earth—in which not sin any more, but moral righteousness shall dwell, and God shall be the all-determining power in all (1Co_15:28)—shall come imperishable (Rom_8:21) in its place (2Pe_3:13). The redeeming work of Jesus Christ (comp. Col_1:20) was designed to annul again this divided state in the universe, which had arisen through sin in heaven and upon earth, and to reestablish the unity of the kingdom of God in heaven and on earth; so that this gathering together again should rest on, and have its foundations in, Christ as the central point of union and support, without which it could not emerge. Before the Parousia, it is true, this ἀνακεφαλαίωσις is still but in course of development; for the devil is still with his demons ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ἘΠΟΥΡΑΝΊΟΙς (Eph_6:12), is still fighting against the kingdom of God and holding sway over many; many men reject Christ, and the ΚΤΊΣΙς longs after the renewal. But with the Parousia there sets in the full realization, which is the ἀποκατάστασις πάντων (Mat_19:28; Act_3:21; 2Pe_3:10 ff.); when all antichristian natures and powers shall be discarded out of heaven and earth, so that thereafter nothing in heaven or upon earth shall be excluded from this gathering together again. Comp. Photius in Oecumenius. Finally, the middle voice (sibi recolligere) has its warrant in the fact that God is the Sovereign (the head of Christ, 1Co_11:4; 1Co_3:23), who fulfils His will and aim by the gathering up again, etc.; so that, when the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις is completed by the victory over all antichristian powers, He resumes even the dominion committed to the Son, and then God is the sole ruling principle (1Co_15:24; 1Co_15:28). Our passage is accordingly so framed as to receive its historically adequate elucidation from the N.T., and especially from Paul himself; and there is no reason for seeking to explain it from a later system of ideas, as Baur does (p. 424), who traces it to the underlying Gnostic idea, that all spiritual life which has issued from the supreme God must return to its original unity, and in that view the “affected” expression ΕἸς ΟἸΚΟΝ . Τ . ΠΛΗΡ . Τ . ΚΑΙΡ . is held to convey a covert allusion to the Gnostic pleroma of aeons and its economy. See, on the other hand, Räbiger, Christol. Paulina, p. 55. The “genuinely Catholic consciousness” (Baur, Christenth. d. drei erst. Jahrh. p. 109) of the Epistle is just the genuinely apostolic one, necessarily rooted in Christ’s own word and work. The person of Christ is not presented “under the point of view of the metaphysical necessity of the process of the self-realizing idea” (Baur, neutest. Theol. p. 264), but under that of its actual history, as this was accomplished, in accordance with the counsel of the Father, by the free obedience of the Lord.
[99] The apostolic idea of the πλήρωμα τῶν καιρῶν excludes the conception of a series of worlds without beginning or end (Rothe). See Gess, v. d. Pers. Chr. p. 170 ff.
[100] Comp. Goth.: “aftra usfulljan” (again to fill up).
[101] For this falling away is the necessary presupposition for the Satanic seduction of our first parents, 1Jn_3:8-10; Joh_8:44, where an originally evil nature of the devil (Frommann, Hilgenfeld) is not to be thought of; see Hahn, Theol. d. N.T. I. p. 319 ff. On Jud_1:6 and 1Ti_3:6, in which passages a reference has been wrongly found to the first fall in the angelic world, see Huther.
REMARK 1.
The illustration which Chrysostom has given for τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς κ . τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς , from the conception of a house repaired ( ὡς ἂν περὶ οἰκίας τις εἴποι τὰ μὲν σαθρὰ τὰ δὲ ἰσχυρὰ ἐχούσης · ἀνῳκοδόμησε τὴν οἰκίαν … οὕτω καὶ ἐνταῦθα πάντας ὑπὸ μίαν ἤγαγε κεφαλήν ), has been again employed by Harless, whose view of the passage (approved by Schenkel) is that the apostle speaks thus, “because the Lord and Creator of the whole body, of which heaven and earth are members, has in the restoration of the one member restored the whole body; and in this consists the greatest significance of the reconciliation, that it is not merely a restoration of the life of earth, but a bringing back of the harmony of the universe.” But in this way the words of the apostle are made withal to suggest merely the doing away of the contrast between heaven and earth (or, according to Schenkel’s tortuous metaphor, “between the heavenly glorified centre of creation and the earthly, sin-troubled circumference of creation”), and there is conceded to the τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς merely an indirect participation in the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις , and the direct de facto operation of the Messianic οἰκονομία on the heavenly world is set aside—which appears the less admissible, inasmuch as τὰ ἐπὶ τ . οὐρ . has the precedence. According to Paul, the heavenly world and the earthly world were to be affected, the former as immediately and properly as the latter, by the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις τῶν πάντων ; for the Satanic kingdom, for the destruction of which Christ came, and whose destruction was the condition of the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις , has its seat in the regions of heaven (Eph_6:12; comp. Hahn, Theol. d. N.T. I. p. 343 ff.), and works in the υἱοῖ τῆς ἀπειθείας (Eph_2:2) upon earth, so that in heaven and upon earth there exists no unity under God.
REMARK 2.
The doctrine of Restoration, according to which those who have continued unbelieving and the demons shall still ultimately attain to salvation, altogether opposed as it is to the N.T., finds no support in our passage, where (in opposition to Origen, Samuel Crell, and others), on the contrary, in the ἀνακεφαλ . κ . τ . λ . there is obviously implied, from the general point of view occupied by Christian faith, the separation of unbelievers and of the demoniac powers, and their banishment into Gehenna; so that the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις is not meant of every single individual, but of the whole aggregate of heavenly and earthly things, which, after the antichristian individuals have been separated and consigned to hell, shall again in the renewed world be combined into unity under God, as once, before the entrance of sin, all things in heaven and on earth were combined into such unity. Hence Olshausen is wrongly of opinion that our passage (as well as Col_1:20) is to be brought into harmony with the general type of Scripture doctrine by laying stress in the infinitive ἀποκεφαλ . upon the design of God “which, in the instituting of a redemption endowed with infinite efficacy, aims at the restoration of universal harmony, at the bringing back of all that is lost.” Apart from the fact that ἀνακεφαλ . is only an epexegetical infinitive (see above), it is altogether opposed to Scripture to assume that the aim in redemption is the restoration of all that is lost, even of the devils. For those passages as to the universality of redemption, and sayings like 1Pe_4:6, Php_2:10 f., leave the constant teaching of the N.T. concerning everlasting perdition entirely untouched (comp. on Rom_5:18; Rom_11:32; Php_2:10); and as regards the devils, the design of God in the economy of redemption was to vanquish them (1Jn_3:8, and elsewhere; 1Co_15:24 f.), and to deliver them up to the penalties already prepared for them of everlasting pain in hell (Mat_25:41; Jud_1:6; 2Pe_2:4; Rev_20:1 f.; comp. Bertholdt, Christol. p. 223). The restoration of the devils, as an impossibility in the case of spirits radically opposed to God, is not in the whole N.T. so much as thought of. The prince of this world is only judged.
REMARK 3.
Those who understand τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρ . specially of the angels (see above) have been driven—inasmuch as these pure spirits have no need of redemption in the proper sense—to unbiblical shifts, such as the view of Calvin (comp. Boyd): that the angels before the redemption were not extra periculum, but had through Christ attained “primum ut perfecte et solide adhaereant Deo, deinde ut perpetuum statum retineant” (of all which the N.T. teaches nothing!); or that of Grotius: “antea inter angelos factiones erant et studia pro populis (Dan_10:13!) … ea sustulit Christus, rex factus etiam angelorum, unum ex tot populis sibi populum colligens;” or that of Augustine and Zeger, that the number of the angels, which had been diminished by the fall of some, was completed again by the elect from among men. Baur (comp. Zanchius), out of keeping with the notion of the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις , thought of the knowledge (Eph_3:10) and bliss (Luk_15:10) of the angels as heightened by redemption. Others again (Chrysostom on Col_1:20; Theophylact, Anselm, Cornelius a Lapide, Hunnius, Calovius, Bengel, et al.) have found the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις in the fact that the separation which sin had occasioned between the angels and sinful men was done away.[102] So also in substance Rückert: “Originally and according to the will of God the whole world of spirits was to be one, … through like love and obedience towards the one God.… Sin did away with this relation, mankind became separated from God; hence also of necessity the bond was broken, which linked them to the higher world of spirits.… Christ … is to unite mankind to Himself by a sacred bond, and thereby to bring them back to God, and by that very act also … to do away with the breach; all is again to become one.” Comp. Meier, as also Bähr on Col_1:20. But the apostle is in fact speaking of the reuniting not of the heavenly with the earthly, but of the heavenly and the earthly (comp. Remark 1); moreover, according to this explanation, the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις of the heavenly spirits with men would be the consequence of the expiation made for men by Christ, and thus Paul must logically have written: ΤᾺ ἘΠῚ Τῆς Γῆς Κ . ΤᾺ ἘΠῚ ΤΟῖς ΟὐΡΑΝΟῖς .
[102] In connection with this view it was quite arbitrarily, and with a distinction at variance with Scripture, assumed that Christ was, as to His divine nature, the head of the angels, and as to His human nature, the head of men.