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Eph_2:20. The conception οἶκος Θεοῦ leads the apostle, in keeping with the many-sided versatility of his association of ideas, to make the transition from the figure of a household-fellowship, to the figure of a house-structure, and accordingly to give to οἰκεῖοι τοῦ Θεοῦ a further illustration, which now is no longer appropriate to the former figurative conception, but only to the latter, which, however, was not yet expressed in οἰκεῖοι τοῦ Θεοῦ . Comp. Col_2:6-7.
ἐποικοδομηθέντες ] namely, when ye became Christians. The compound does not stand for the simple term (Koppe), but denotes the building up. Comp. 1Co_3:10; 1Co_3:12; 1Co_3:14; Col_2:7; Xen. Hist. vi. 5. 12; Dem. 1278. 27. ἐπί , with the dative, however (comp. Xen. Anab. iii. 4. 11), is not here occasioned by the aorist participle (Harless), which would not have hindered the use either of the genitive (Horn. Il. xxii. 225; Plato, Legg. v. p. 736 E) or of the accusative (1Co_3:12; Rom_15:20); but the accusative is not employed, because Paul has not in his mind the relation of direction, and it is purely accidental that not the genitive of rest, but the dative of rest is employed.
τῶν ἀποστ . κ . προφ .] is taken by Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, Estius, Morus, and others, including Meier, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, as genitive of apposition; but wrongly, since the apostles and prophets are not the foundation, but have laid it (1Co_3:10). The foundation laid by the apostles and prophets (as most expositors, including Koppe, Flatt, Rückert, Matthies, Harless, Bleek, correctly take it) is the gospel of Christ, which they have proclaimed, and by which they have established the churches; see on 1Co_3:10. “Testimonium apost. et proph. substructum est fidei credentium omnium,” Bengel.
προφητῶν ] has been understood by Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Jerome, Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Calovius, Estius, Baumgarten, Michaelis, and others, including Rückert, of the Old Testament prophets. That not these, however, but the New Testament prophets (see on 1Co_12:10), are intended (Pelagius, Piscator, Grotius, Bengel, Zachariae, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Harless, Meier, Matthies, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Bleek), is clear, not indeed from the non-repetition of the article, since the apostles and prophets might be conceived as one class (Xen. Anab. ii. 2. Ephesians 5 : οἱ στρατηγοὶ καὶ λοχαγοί ; comp. Saupp. ad Xen. Venat. v. 24; Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 373), but (1) from the very order of the words,[158] which, especially from the pen of an apostle, would most naturally have been τῶν προφητῶν κ . ἀποστόλων ; (2) from the analogy of Eph_3:5, Eph_4:11; and (3) from the fact that the foundation-laying in question can, from the nature of the case, only be the preaching of the Christ who has come, because upon this foundation the establishment of the church took place, and in that preaching the old prophetic predictions were used only as means (Rom_16:26). Comp. also Eph_2:21. Harless supposes that the apostles are here called at the same time prophets.[159] In this way, no doubt, the objection of Rückert is obviated, that, in fact, the prophets themselves would have come to Christianity only by means of the apostles, and would themselves have stood only on the θεμέλιος τῶν ἀποστόλων ; but (a) from the non-repetition of the article there by no means follows the unity of the persons (see above), but only the unity of the category, under which the two are thought of. (b) There may be urged against it the analogy of Eph_4:11, as well as that in the whole N.T., where the ecclesiastical functions are already distinguished[160] and prophets are mentioned, apostles are not at the same time intended. It is true that the apostles had of necessity to possess the gift of prophecy, but this was understood of itself, and they are always called merely apostles, while simply those having received the gift of prophecy, who were not at the same time apostles, are termed prophets; comp. 1Co_12:28 f. (c) There would be no reason whatever bearing on the matter in hand why the apostles should here be designated specially as prophets; nay, the contrast of Moses and the prophets, arbitrarily assumed by Hofmann, would only tell against the identity (Luk_24:27; Luk_24:44; Act_24:14; Joh_1:46). That objection of Rückert, however, disappears entirely when we contemplate the prophets as the immediate and principal fellow-labourers in connection with the laying of the foundation done primarily by the apostles, in which character they, although themselves resting upon the θεμέλιον of the apostles, yet in turn were associated with them as founders. And the more highly Paul esteems prophecy (1Co_14:1), and puts the prophets elsewhere also in the place next to the apostles (Eph_4:11; 1Co_12:28 f.), with so much the more justice might he designate the apostles and prophets as laying the foundation of the churches; and the less are we warranted, with de Wette, in finding here traces of a disciple of the apostles, who has had before him the results of the apostolic labours as well as the period of the original prophecy as concluded, or with Schwegler (in Zeller’s Jahrb. 1844, p. 379) and Baur (p. 438), in recognising traces of Montanism with its new prophets as the continuers of the apostolate.
ὄντος ἀκρογ . αὐτοῦ Ἰ . Χ .] wherein Jesus Christ Himself is corner-stone. On this most essential point, without which the building up in question upon the apostolic and prophetic foundation would lack its uniquely distinctive character, hinges the whole completion of the sublime picture, Eph_2:21-22. The gospel preached by the apostles and prophets is the foundation, the basis, upon which the Ephesians were built up, i.e. this apostolic and prophetic gospel was preached also at Ephesus, and the readers were thereby converted and formed into a Christian community; but the corner-stone of this building is Christ Himself, inasmuch, namely, as Christ, the historic, living Christ, to whom all Christian belief and life have reference, as necessarily conditions through Himself the existence and endurance of each Christian commonwealth, as the existence and steadiness of a building are dependent on the indispensable corner-stone, which upholds the whole structure (on ἀκρογωνιαῖος , sc. λίθος , which does not occur in Greek writers, comp. LXX. Isa_28:16; Symm. Ps. cxvii. 22; 1Pe_2:6; on the subject-matter, Mat_21:42). Only as to the figure, not as to the thing signified, is there a difference when Christ is here designated as the corner-stone, and at 1Co_3:11 as the foundation. The identity of the matter lies in τὸν κείμενον , 1 Cor. l.c. See on that passage. In the figure of the corner-stone (which “duos parietes ex diverso venientes conjungit et continet,” Estius) many have found the union of the Jews and Gentiles set forth (Theodoret, Menochius, Estius, Michaelis, Holzhausen, Bretschneider, and others). But this is at variance with πᾶσα οἰκοδ ., Eph_2:21, according to which for every Christian community, and so also for those consisting exclusively of Jewish-Christians or exclusively of Gentile-Christians, Christ is the corner-stone.
αὐτοῦ ] does not apply to τῷ θεμελίῳ (Bengel, Cramer, Koppe, Holzhausen, Hofmann, II. 2, p. 122), for Christ is conceived of as the corner-stone, not of the foundation, but of the building (Eph_2:21). It belongs to Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ , which with this αὐτοῦ is placed emphatically at the end, in order then to join on by ἐν ᾧ κ . τ . λ . that which is to be further said of Christ, in so far as He is Himself the corner-stone. The article αὐτοῦ τοῦ Ἰ . Χ . might be used; Christ would then be conceived of as already present in the consciousness of the readers (He Himself, Christ; see Fritzsche, ad Matth. p. 117): it was not necessary, however, to use it (in opposition to Bengel); but the conception is: Christ Himself is corner-stone (Il. vi 450; Xen. Anab, ii. 1. 5, Apol. 11, al.; see Bornemann, ad Anab. i. 7. 11; Krüger on Thuc. i. 27. 3), so that Christ Himself, as respects His own unique destination in this edifice, is contradistinguished from His labourers, the apostles and prophets.
Whether, it may be asked, is τῷ θεμελίῳ masculine (see on 1Co_3:10) or neuter? It tells in favour of the former that, with Paul, it is at 1Co_3:11 (also 2Ti_2:19) decidedly masculine, but in no passage decidedly neuter (Rom_15:20; 1Ti_6:19). Harless erroneously thinks that the neuter is employed by the apostle only metaphorically.
[158] This has been very arbitrarily explained by the assertion that the apostles preached the gospel immediately, that they possessed the greater endowment of grace, that the foundation had been no recens positum, and such like. See specially Calovius and Estius.
[159] So also Rückert on Eph_3:5, and Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 122. The latter adduces as a reason, that προφ . is no peculiar N.T. designation like ἀπόστ . This, however, it surely is, namely, in the N.T. sense, for which the O. T. word was the most suitable vehicle. Philippi also, Glaubenslehre, I. p. 288, ed. 2, declares himself in favour of Harless.
[160] This is not yet the case at Mat_23:34, where rather the whole category of Christian teachers is still designated by Old Testament names. In the parallel Luk_11:49, on the other hand, the apostles are already adduced as such by name.