Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Ephesians 2:2 - 2:2
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Eph_2:2. Shadows before the light which arises in Eph_2:4.
ἐν αἷς ] domain, in which, etc. It is the pre-Christian sphere of life, and then follows ( κατὰ κ . τ . λ .) the normal standard which rules in it. αἷς has shaped itself after the gender of the last substantive, but embraces both. See Matthiae, p. 991.
κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου ] according to the age of this world, i.e. as was in keeping with the period of time appointed for the present world (subsisting up to the Parousia). For immorality is the characteristic of this world-period (Rom_12:2; 2Co_4:4; Eph_6:12) in contrast to the future new world, in which δικαιοσύνη bears sway, and the nearer the Parousia, the more the αἰών is πονηρός (see on Gal_1:4; comp. Eph_5:16, and on Eph_6:13). Others explain αἰών as life (so also Harless; comp. H. Stephanus: “secundum eam, quae in hoc mundo est, vivendi rationem,” Castalio, Beza, Grotius, et al.); for which Rückert—who, in a strangely erroneous way, explains it as equivalent to κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦτον τοῦ κόσμου —and Matthies put: spirit of the time, and Olshausen: tendency of the time; comp. Bleek. But, however current αἰών in the signification of life may be in classical Greek, especially in Homer, Pindar, Herodotus, and the tragic poets (see Duncan, ed. Rost, p. 47; Blomf. ad Aesch. Prom. 887; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 50), yet in the N.T., often as the habitually used word recurs, it is never so employed, but always in the signification of juncture of time, age. The shift to which Koppe has recourse (comp. Estius and Flatt), that αἰών and κόσμος are synonymous—hence Koppe makes ὁ αἰὼν τοῦ κόσμου τούτου equivalent to ὁ κόσμος οὗτος —stands on a level with the capricious inversion of Bretschneider, who makes it tantamount to ὁ κόσμος τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου : homines pravi ut nunc sunt. No, Paul might have written briefly κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦτον (comp. Eph_1:21); but, in accordance with the graphic amplification of the passage carrying such terrible emphasis, he has paraphrased this τοῦτον by τοῦ κόσμου τούτου . According to Beausobre and Michaelis (“the God of this world”), αἰὼν τοῦ κόσμου τούτου is meant to denote the devil in polemic reference to the Gnostic doctrine of aeons (see what follows). According to Baur, p. 433 f., the expression itself is a Gnostic one, equivalent to the κοσμοκράτωρ (comp. Eph_6:12), and denoting the devil. But this is imported, inasmuch as the explanation of αἰών in the sense usual in the N.T. yields quite a Pauline thought. The devil appears only in what follows, and would, if he was to he designated already here, and that as Lord of the pre-Messianic period, have been designated, as at 2Co_4:4, as ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου , or in a like concrete manner.
κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος ] climactic parallel to the preceding. “Sic res fit expressior,” Bengel. The opposite is κατὰ Θεόν , Eph_4:24; 2Co_7:9. Comp. 1Jn_5:14 : κατὰ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ . The devil Paul here represents as the ruler over the might of the air, in which ἐξοσία is collective, denoting the totality of the mighty ones (the demons, Mat_12:24) concerned. Comp. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 469; Bernhardy, p. 47. This ἐξουσία has its seat in the air, which exists between heaven and earth ( τοῦ ἀέρος ); the atmosphere, pertaining, in contrast to the higher pure αἰθήρ (see Duncan, Lex. Hom., ed. Rost, p. 36), still to the physical realm of earthly things ( γῆς ἰσόμοιρος ἀήρ , Soph. El. 87), is the seat, the territory of the might of the demons. This and nothing else Paul expresses in distinct words, the ἐναέριος διατριβή (Oecumenius, comp. Theophylact), the ὑπουράνιος τόπος (Chrysostom) of the demons; and neither ought τοῦ ἀέρος to have been taken (Clericus, Heinsius, Michaelis, Storr, Flatt, Matthies, and others) as equivalent to τοῦ σκότους (Eph_6:12; Col_1:13), because, though it may, as it often does in Homer, denote misty gloom, clouds, etc., in contradistinction to the pure αἰθήρ , it never takes the place of the absolute σκότος (comp. Buttmann, Lexilog. I. p. 115), and in the N.T. always means simply air; nor ought it to have been explained by a metonymy as mundus (Thomas, Bullinger, and others). According to Hahn, Theol. d. N.T. I. p. 328 f., τοῦ ἀέρος is designed to express the aeriform nature of the demons; they are not really spiritual, but only spirit-like; aeriformness is their physical constitution. This is already in itself incorrect, since the demons must of necessity have the same physical constitution as the angels (including also their supra-terrestrial corporeity, comp. on Mat_22:30), and hence, although they have become ἀκάθαρτα , they have yet remained πνεύματα , see in this very Epistle, Eph_6:12 ( τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας ). Olshausen would remove the demons from the atmosphere by taking ἀήρ as equivalent to οὐρανός ,[129] appealing to 1Th_4:17 (where, however, ἀήρ is nothing else than air), and even giving out this passage as the only one in the N.T. where the word ἀήρ elsewhere occurs (but see Act_22:23; 1Co_9:26; 1Co_14:9; Rev_9:2; Rev_16:17). As an equally exemplary companion-piece of rationalizing artifice may be quoted the interpretation of Stolz, Erläut. p. 175: “We have here to think of the rational beings acting and walking upon the earth, of men, who as sensuous creatures breathe in the air, in the atmosphere surrounding the earth.” Hofmann, who elsewhere took ἀήρ erroneously as equivalent to ΠΝΕῦΜΑ , would now (Schriftb. I. p. 457) not less erroneously make τοῦ πνεύματος dependent upon ΤΟῦ ἈΈΡΟς , and by the latter understand the atmosphere formed by the breathing of that πνεῦμα . “So long as they [the disobedient] allow this spirit to be their spirit, they live in the atmosphere thereof, and as it were inhale it—an atmosphere, which is the sphere of dominion [the ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ ] of Satan.” But apart from the clumsy and obscure accumulation of three genitives (at 2Co_4:4; 2Co_4:7, they flow easily and clearly one out of the other), there may be urged against this view generally the strange awkwardness of the thought (“the air of the spirit which worketh in the disobedient is the atmosphere formed by the breathing of the same spirit”), and more specially the considerations, first, that ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ does not mean sphere of dominion;[130] secondly, that there is nothing to indicate that the ἀήρ originated through the breathing (or blowing) of the spirit (we should at least expect the essential πνέοντος instead of ἘΝΕΡΓΟῦΝΤΟς ); thirdly, that, if ἘΞΟΥΣΊΑ is to denote the sphere of dominion, τῆς ἐξουσίας would be only an ambiguous pleonasm, and we cannot see why Paul should not have written merely ΤῸΝ ἌΡΧΟΝΤΑ ΤΟῦ ἈΈΡΟς Κ . Τ . Λ .
As regards the historic basis of the conception of the apostle, that the demons have their abode in the air, he has carried it over from his pre-Christian, Jewish-Rabbinic circle of ideas into the contents of his Christian belief. It is true that there are found among the Rabbins very diverse, confused, and at times very monstrous assertions concerning the dwelling-place of the demons (see, especially, Eisenmenger, Entdeckt. Judenth. II. p. 437 ff.), but Harless (followed by Olshausen) far too hastily thence concludes: “in such sloughs as these one seeks in vain for the explanation of the apostle’s expression.” For while there are found diverse opinions in the Rabbins, and among them also that which assigns to the demons the air as a territory, the expression of the apostle shows us which of the different Rabbinic conceptions he has not followed, and which is accepted by him. Thus doubtless, e.g., the doctrine which R. Bechai, in Pentat. f. 90, 1, presents as a well-known one, that only those demons which produce dreams dwell in the air, but those which seduce man to sin in the man himself, and yet others in the depths of the sea, is not the view of the apostle. But the belief, which Paul here announces as his own and presupposes in his readers, namely, that the demoniac kingdom in general, and not merely a single division of it, is in the air, is to be found very definitely preserved among the Rabbins also. For (1) the very Rabbinical tenet of the winged nature of the demons (Talmud, Chagig. 2; R. Eliezer in Bartolocc. I. p. 320 ff., al.) manifestly points to the region of the air as their abode, since they are shut out from the communion of God. (2) In particular passages this is expressly stated. Comment. in libr. Aboth. f. 83, Ephesians 2 : “Sciendum, a terra usque ad expansum omnia plena esse turmis et praefectis, et infra (that is precisely in the ἀήρ ) plurimas esse creaturas laedentes et accusantes, et omnes stare ac volitare in aëre,” etc. Further, it is said in Tuf haarez, f. 9, 2, that under the sphere of the moon, which is the last under all, is a firmament ( ø÷éò ) … and there are the souls of the devils, etc. See Eisenmenger, II. p. 411. Further, R. Bechai says, in Pentat. f. 139, 4, where he is explaining how it comes about that the demons know what is future: “because they dwell in the air ( áàåéø ), … they learn future things from the princes of the planets.” The same R. Bechai, in Pentat. f. 18, 1, relates, as a Rabbinical tradition, that Noah had in his ark, according to Gen_6:19, preserved devils also, and says in confirmation of this exposition: for it would have been impossible for them to remain in their own place, which is the air ( áî÷åèí ùääåà çàåéø ). Comp. Nishmath chasim, f. 115, 2. The assertion, too, of R. Menasseh, in Eisenmenger, II. p. 456 f., that the rising smoke of the incense which was offered to the devils was their food, points to the air as their dwelling-place; as, indeed, according to the Cabbala (Cabb. denud. I. p. 417), the demons dwell “below the upper sanctuary.”[131] Thus much, consequently, is clear and transparent enough in the “muddy sloughs” of Rabbinical tradition, that the kingdom of the demons was located in the air; and with this we find the apostle in agreement. Hence we have no right to deny that he has retained this conception from the sphere of his Rabbinical training, but at the same time it would be quite unwarrantable to attribute to him the singularities associated with this tenet by the Rabbins, since, in fact, he asserts nothing more than that the devilish powers are in the air. This is a simple historical statement, in which, we may add, it is quite arbitrary to discern a “profound hint,” namely, of their dismal and spectral nature (in opposition to Schenkel). The right explanation is given also by Schmid, Bibl. Theol. § 86, and Bleek. Among the Pythagoreans, too, we meet with an analogous view (Diog. Laert. viii. 32: κατὰ τὸν μὲν Πυθάγοραν εἶναί τε πάντα τὸν ἀέρα ψυχῶν ἔμπλεον , καὶ τούτους δαίμονάς τε καὶ ἥρωας νομίζεσθαι , and compare the other passages in Wetstein, and Elsner, p. 206; Dougt. Anal. p. 127); but quite unfounded is the assertion of Wetstein: “P. ita loquitur ex principiis philosophiae Pythagoreae, quibus illi, ad quos scribit, imbuti erant.” Paul presupposes in his readers an acquaintance with his expression as the expression of his doctrine, and speaks so emphatically and solemnly that any sort of accommodation is not to be thought of.
τοῦ πνεύματος ] is still dependent on τὸν ἄρχοντα , so that the power over which the devil rules, after being designated as regards its outward existence by the phrase ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος , is now designated as regards its active operation in men’s hearts, namely, as the spirit which is at work in the disobedient. This πνεῦμα , of which Satan is the ruler, is not, however, to be thought of as being the human mind, since, thus understood, it would not suit as apposition to the τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος which is different from the human individuality, as, indeed, τοῦ ἐνεργ . κ . τ . λ . points to an agent different from the human individual; but rather as the principle proceeding from its ἄρχων , the devil, and passing over into men to become operative in their hearts—the antithesis of the Holy Spirit which proceeds from God. Comp. on 1Co_2:12. This πνεῦμα is, in contrast to τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας , the πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης , 1Jn_4:6. It is not, however, “odd” (de Wette), nor is it “unnatural” (Bleek), to speak of a “ruler of this spirit;” but this is quite analogous to the conception, according to which Christ is spoken of as “Lord of the Holy Spirit” (2Co_3:18). We have further not to understand τοῦ πνεύματος collectively (Vatablus, Grotius, Estius, Wolf, Michaelis, Holzhausen); for the ἐξουσία τοῦ ἀέρος is, indeed, the sum total of the plurality of the demons, but the spirit, which is brought by its ruler, the devil, into the hearts of men and operates within them, is in all υἱοὶ τῆς ἀπειθ . one and the self-same spirit, just as the Holy Spirit is in all individuals who believe one and the same. Others regard τοῦ πνεύματος as apposition to τὸν ἄρχ . τ . ἐξουσ . τ . ἀέρ ., in that they either assume the use of an abnormal case occasioned by a deviation from the construction (genitive for accusative), as Piscator, Calovius, Semler, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Rückert, de Wette, Bleek, or look upon the genitive as one of apposition to τὸν ἄρχοντα , as Flatt. But how purely arbitrary is the former! and how impossible the latter, since τὸν ἄρχοντα in accordance with its significance demands a defining genitive, and already has it in τῆς ἐξουσ . τ . ἀέρ ., and consequently τοῦ πνεύματος cannot be taken in any other relation!
νῦν ] is emphatic,—not, however, as Meier supposes (comp. Zanchius): “even now, when it is so powerfully counteracted by the gospel,” which must have been expressed by καὶ νῦν (as Ignat. ad Smyrn. interp. 7); but νῦν stands opposed to the preceding ποτέ , when the diabolic πνεῦμα was active in all, even in the readers. Comp. Eph_2:3. Rückert (comp. Bengel and Holzhausen) thinks of the extraordinary, especially dangerous power which the Satanic kingdom developed just at the time of the redemption (2Th_2:2 ff.); so also de Wette. But that could not be understood from the simple ἐνεργ ., and would have required the addition of a περισσοτέρως , ὑπερβαλλόντως , or the like. According to Olshausen, νῦν is to be held as opposed to the future age, and to make the diabolic activity appear as limited, in contrast to the everlasting, divine activity of the Holy Spirit. But a contrast to the αἰὼν μέλλων is not at all implied in the context; indeed, it was entirely self-evident that the Satanic activity extends only to the time before the Parousia; how then could it occur to a reader to find in the νῦν a negation of the αἰὼν μέλλων ?
ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθ .] in their souls. The expression υἱοὶ τ . ἀπείθ . is Hebraizing (for among Greek writers are found only such expressions as υἷες Ἀχαιῶν , παῖδες ζωγράφων , and the like, but not with abstract nouns; see Blomfield, Gloss. Pers. 408, p. 138; Stallb. ad Plat. Phil. p. 107), and denotes the dependence which has its basis in the relation of the person or thing concerned to the genitive-noun, here the genesis of the spiritual condition, so that τοῖς ἐξ ἀπειθείας (comp. Rom_2:8) would signify the same thing. Comp. Winer, p. 213 [E. T. 298]. The opposite is τέκνα ὑπακοῆς , 1Pe_1:14. By ἀπείθεια , however, is not meant unbelief (Luther, Bengel, Koppe, Harless, and others); for this could only be logically included under the notion of disobedience as refusal of belief, consequently as opposite to the ὑπακοὴ πίστεως (Rom_1:5; Heb_4:6; Heb_4:11; and see Fritzsche on Rom_11:30). And with that sense in the present case the following ἐν αἷς καὶ ἡμεῖς πάντες would be at variance, since not all Jewish-Christians had, like Paul, resisted the faith. Now, as Paul is speaking only of the immorality of the unbelievers (Eph_2:1; Eph_2:3), ἀπείθεια is here the want of compliance towards God (Rom_11:30), i.e. towards His revealed and natural law respectively (Rom_2:8 ff.), displaying itself through their immoral conduct.
[129] He holds that Paul has perhaps employed the expression for the purpose of characterizing the demons as not indeed earthly, but yet also as not heavenly. He has employed the expression, just because he conceived of the demons as making their abode in the atmosphere. And he does not choose a higher expression (as in Eph_6:12) for this sphere, because he wishes here to make the reader feel the lower domain of the power as opposed to the heavenly domain, and thus also the ignominious character of the same; hence the expression is neither accidental nor strange (in opposition to Hofmann).
[130] Not even in Luk_23:7, where it expresses the idea of governing authority, of jurisdiction. So often in Plutarch, Diodorus, etc.
[131] With this Rabbinical view agrees also Test. XII. Patr. p. 729: ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀερίου πνεύματος τοῦ Βελιάρ , where ἀέριον means to be found in the air. See Plat. Epin. p. 948 D: δαίμονας , ἀέριον δὲ γένος . Comp. Test. XII. Patr. p. 547. If we take ἀέριος in such passages as aeriform (Hahn), we confound it with ἀέρινος (Arist. de Anim. iii. 13; Metaph. ix. 7). Comp. rather, Ascens. lsa. 10: “descendit in firmamentum, ubi princeps hujus mundi habitabat.”