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Eph_3:2. Confirmation of that which has just been said, ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν τῶν ἐθνῶν , by the recalling of what the readers have heard concerning his vocation. “For you, the Gentiles,” I say, upon the presupposition that, etc. This presupposition he expresses by εἴγε , i.e. turn certe si (Klotz, ad Devar. p. 308), it being implied in the connection (for of his church he could not presuppose anything else), not in the word itself, that he assumes this rightly. He might have written εἴπερ , if at all, provided that, or εἴπερ γε , provided namely (Xen. Mem. i. 4. 4, Anab. i. 7. 9; often in the tragedians), but he has conceived the presupposition under the form at least if, if namely, and so denotes it. Comp. on Gal_3:4 and 2Co_5:3; wherever εἴγε is used and the assumption is a certain one (as also at Eph_4:21), the latter is to be gathered from the connection. From whom the readers had heard the matter in question, their own consciousness told them, namely, from Paul himself and other Pauline teachers, so that εἴγε ἠκούσατε κ . τ . λ . is a reminder of his preaching among them. Hence our passage is wrongly regarded as at variance with the superscription πρὸς Ἐφεσίους , and as pointing to readers to whom Paul was not personally known; whilst others, as Grotius (so also Rinck, Sendschr. der Korinth. p. 56, who, however, takes the correct view in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 954), have, without any ground in the context, assigned to the simple ἀκούειν the signification bene intelligere; Calvin, on the other hand, had recourse to the altogether unnatural hypothesis: “Credibile est, quum ageret Ephesi, eum tacuisse de his rebus;” and Böttger (Beitr. iii. p. 46 ff.) refers it to the hearing of this Epistle read, against which the very ἀναγινώσκοντες that follows in Eph_3:3 is decisive. Estius very correctly states that εἴγε is not “dubitantis, sed potius affirmantis; neque enim ignorare quod hic dicitur poterant Ephesii, quibus P. ipse evang. plusquam biennio praedicaverat.”[166] Paul might have expressed himself in the form of an assertion ( ἠκούσατε γάρ , or ἐπεὶ ἠκούσατε ), but the hypothetic form of expression constitutes a more delicate and suggestive way of recalling his preaching among them (as also the Attic writers, in place of ἐπεί γε , delicately use the hypothetic εἴγε ; see Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 5. 1), without, however, containing an obliquam reprehensionem (Vitringa, comp. Holzhausen), of which the context affords no trace.
τὴν οἰκονομίαν τῆς χάριτος κ . τ . λ .] the arrangement (see on Eph_1:10) which has been made regarding the grace of God given to me with reference to you ( τῆς χάριτος is the genitive objecti). The more precise explanation is then given by ὅτι κατὰ ἀποκάλυψιν κ . τ . λ . The χάρις is here, in accordance with the context ( τῆς δοθ . μοι εἰς ὑμᾶς ), the divine bestowal of grace that took place in the entrusting him with the apostolic office. Comp. on Rom_12:3; Rom_15:15. Others, like Pelagius, Anselm, Erasmus, Grotius, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, et al., have explained οἰκον . τ . χάρ . as the office of administering evangelic grace; but against this it may be urged that not τῆς δοθείσης , but τὴν δοθεῖσαν , must have been afterwards used. This mistake is avoided by Wieseler, p. 446 f., where he takes it as: the office for which I have been qualified by the grace conferred upon me on your behalf. This office the readers had heard, inasmuch as they had heard the preaching of the apostle. But how are we to justify the expression “to hear the office,” instead of “to hear the official preaching”? The words would merely say: if ye have heard of the office, etc., Gal_1:13; Col_1:4; Phm_1:5.
[166] De Wette dogmatically lays it down that the readers had no need, if the apostle had already exercised his apostolic calling among them, now first to learn from himself that he had received it. But in so speaking he has not attended to the fact that the object of the ἠκούσατε is not the reception of the apostolic vocation in general, but the mode of this reception (namely, κατὰ ἀποκάλυψιν , ver. 3). This account of the manner in which he had become their apostle he communicated to them when he was with them, and of this he reminds them now.