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Eph_5:13. The assigning of grounds for that precept, μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ ἐλέγχετε , is continued,—being attached by means of the contradistinguishing δέ ,—inasmuch as there is pointed out the salutary action of the Christian light which is brought to bear by means of the required ἐλέγχειν upon all those secret deeds of shame: But everything (all those secret sins), when it is reproved, when you carry that ἐλέγχετε into effect upon it, is by the light ( ὑπὸ τοῦ φωτός has the emphasis) made manifest, is laid bare in its real moral character, unveiled and brought into distinctness before the moral consciousness by the light of Christian truth which is at work in your ἐλέγχεν ; by the light, I say, it is made manifest, for—in order to ἐλέγχειν prove by a general proposition that this cannot come otherwise than from the light—all that which is made manifest, which is brought forth from concealment and is laid open in its true nature, is light, has ceased thereby to have the nature of darkness, and is now of the essence of light. This demonstrative proposition is based upon the inference: “Quod est in effectu ( φῶς ἐστι ), id debet esse in causa ( ὑπὸ τοῦ φωτός ).” If thus there is warrant for the general πᾶν τὸ φανερούμ . φῶς ἐστι , so must there also be warrant for what was previously said in the Christian sense, ὑπὸ τοῦ φωτὸς φανεροῦται . From this simple explanation of the words it becomes at once clear that we have not, with most expositors (including Baumgarten-Crusius and de Wette), to attach ὑπὸ τοῦ φ . to ἐλεγχόμενα , but to φανεροῦται (Castalio, Zanchius, Zeger, Erasmus Schmid, Estius, Bengel, Meier, Harless, Olshausen, Schenkel, Bleek), to which it is emphatically prefixed; and further, that φανερούμενον is not to be taken as middle, in which case again various explanations have been brought out, namely, either: “Lux enim illud est, quod omnia facit manifesta” (Beza; so Calvin, Grotius, Calovius, and others, as also Bleek, who in place of φανερούμενον conjectures: φανεροῦν τό ), or: “Omne enim illud, quod manifesta facit alia, lux est” (Erasmus Schmid; so also Cajetanus, Estius, Michaelis, and others), or: “Quilibet autem [ γάρ !], qui alios docet, est lux, … eo ipso declarat, se esse verum Christianum,” Kuinoel in Velthusen, etc., Commentatt. III. p. 173 ff., or: “he who does not refuse to be made manifest, becomes an enlightened one,” Bengel,—against which interpretations not only the immediately preceding passive φανεροῦται is decisive, but also linguistic usage, in accordance with which φανεροῦμαι is always passive.[262] And if we adhere to the view of φανερούμ . as passive, we must exclude every explanation, in which a quid pro quo is perpetrated or something is imported, or γάρ is either neglected or incorrectly taken. We have therefore to set aside—(1) the explanation given by Eisner and Wolf, that Paul says: “hominum scelera in tenebris patrata, a fidelibus, qui lux sunt, improbata, non modo protrahi in lucem, verum etiam homines, illis sceleribus inquinatos, rubore suffundi increpitos convictosque, et ipsos quoque φῶς fieri hac ratione, emendatis vitiis tenebrisque in novae vitae lucem conversis;” (2) that of Zachariae: “Everything which is sharply tested according to the light of the doctrine of Christ and holds its ground, one has no need to keep secret; … all, however, which one can perform openly and before every one’s eyes … is itself light, and strikes every one as good and praiseworthy;” (3) that of Storr: “Quisquis ea, quae monitus est a luce, audit, is patefit, emergit e tenebris; quisquis autem patefactus est, is luce collustratus est;” (4) that of Koppe (comp. Cramer): “for what is itself enlightened, must he also a light for others;” (5) that of Rückert, who would refer γάρ to a conclusion tacitly drawn from what precedes (“ye are light, consequently it is also your business ἐλέγχειν τὰ ἐκείνων ἔργα ”): “for all that is made manifest, that is, or by that very fact becomes, light,” from which again the suppressed conclusion is to be drawn: consequently it may be hoped that those also will become light, when they are convinced of the reprobate character of their action; (6) that of Meier and Olshausen: “for all that is enlightened by the light, is itself light” (Olshausen), which according to Meier is equivalent to: “becomes itself transparent and pure as light,” according to Olshausen: “becomes changed into the nature of light.” (7) Nearest to our interpretation comes that of Harless, followed in part by Schenkel. Harless, however, finds expressed from τὰ δὲ πάντα onward the necessity of the ἐλέγχειν , which is rather implied in Eph_5:12, to which in Eph_5:13 the salutariness of the ἐλέγχειν attaches itself; he explains φανερούμ ., moreover, as if it were praeterite, and does not retain πᾶν γὰρ τὸ φανερούμ . κ . τ . λ . in its generality as locus communis, inasmuch as he takes φῶς ἐστιν : is no longer a secret work of darkness, but is light.
According to Baur, p. 435, the proposition πᾶν τὸ φανερ . φῶς ἐστι belongs to the Gnostic theory of light (“all development takes place only through that which in itself already exists becoming manifest for the consciousness”), and has been introduced into its present connection out of this quite different sphere of ideas. But the state of the case is exactly the converse; the Valentinians laid hold of this utterance of the apostle as supporting their doctrine, and expressly cited it ( τοῦτο δὲ ὁ Παῦλος λέγει κ . τ . λ ., in Iren. i. 8. 5), and consequently took it away from the connection in which he used it so as to favour their own theory.
[262] The article before φῶς might (this we remark in opposition to Olshausen) be dispensed with even in Beza’s explanation, so that φῶς ἐστι would have to be translated: is light-essence, has the nature of light. If, however,—which is not the case,
φανερούμ . were really to be translated as active, the simplest rendering, and the one most in keeping with the context, would be: for it is the light making everything manifest.