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2. ἐν αἷς ποτὲ περιεπατήσατε. Cf. Eph 2:3. ἐν, ‘on the road marked out by.’ Cf. 2Co 4:2; Col 4:5; 2Jn 1:4; 2Jn 1:6; cf. Luk 1:17. See also Eph 2:10.
κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου κ.τ.λ. The deliverance effected for us in Christ is not merely from a state of individual death, it is from an evil environment and from the grip of an evil power which keeps us in a common slavery.
κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, ‘according to the age of this world.’ This phrase describes the old evil environment. Sometimes St Paul speaks of it simply as ‘this age.’ As in Rom 12:2, where he warns us against the power which a non-Christian public opinion still possesses to mould our acts and words after its own fashion, and in Gal 1:4, where he is speaking of the power from which we have at least potentially been delivered. In the Epistles this use of αἰών is confined to the Pauline Epistles. It is found also in Luk 16:8; Luk 20:34; cf. Mat 13:22 and parallels. In 1Co 3:19 we find ὁ κόσμος οὗτος which occurs elsewhere only in St John, e.g. Joh 12:31. It suggests the thought of society organized in independence of God.
κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος. This worldly environment is regarded as being in subjection to a spiritual head. Cf. Act 26:18; Col 1:13.
τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος. This has been taken (see Abbott in loc.) to mean ‘the power’ or ‘powers’ whose seat is in the air, ἡ ἐξουσία being used as in Eph 1:21, Eph 3:10, Eph 6:12 of the person exercising the dominion. This would have the advantage of supplying a natural apposition for τοῦ πνεύματος. It is, however, possible that ἡ ἐξουσία expresses simply ‘the sphere of influence,’ as e.g. Luk 23:7 ἐκ τῆς ἐξουσίας Ἡρῴδου. The air in The Ascension of Isaiah is the special seat of Beliar, the ruler of this world, iv. 2, vi. 13, vii. 9, x. 29. These passages are all in the part ascribed by Charles to a Christian writer: but there seems no reason to regard them as dependent on St Paul. The passage quoted from Test. Benj. iii. 4 ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀερίου πνεύματος τοῦ Βελίαρ appears in some texts (see Charles) without the critical word ἀερίου. The variant, however, whencesoever derived, illustrates the prevalence of the same conception of the lower air as the special seat of Satanic and demonic influence.
τοῦ πνεύματος. In strict grammar this is in apposition to τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος and dependent on τὸν ἄρχοντα. This would imply a gradation of rank in the Satanic kingdom, which might be illustrated by the relation between the Dragon and the two Beasts in Revelation 13, and more remotely by Mar 3:22 ff. Cf. also the demonology of the Test. XII. Patr. It is, however, quite possible that it is really in apposition to τὸν ἄρχοντα.
τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος. Of the activity of spiritual powers of evil here only in the active in N.T. Cf. 2Th 2:9 κατʼ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ and the use of ἐνεργούμενος in cases of ‘possession’ in patristic Greek. A close parallel is supplied by Test. XII. Patr., Dan Eph 2:5 καὶ ὡς ἂν ἀποστήσεσθε ἀπὸ Κυρίου, ἐν πάσῃ κακίᾳ πορευόμενοι ποιήσετε τὰ βδελύγματα τῶν ἐθνῶν ἐκπορνεύοντες ἐν γυναιξὶν ἀνόμων καὶ ἐν πάσῃ πονηρίᾳ ἐνεργούντων ἐν ὑμῖν τῶν πνευμάτων τῆς πονηρίας.
ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθίας. Cf. Eph 5:6, and τέκνα ὑπακοῆς, 1Pe 1:14, with Hort’s note: ‘ἡ ἀπειθία (the disobedience) is probably intended as a collective term for the moral anarchy of heathenism (compare the analogous collective term ἡ πλάνη in Eph 4:14; 1Jn 4:6; and probably ἡ ἀπάτη, Eph 4:22), “the sons of the disobedience” being opposed to “the sons of the Kingdom” (Mat 8:12; Mat 13:38).… Those are called sons or children of an impersonal object, who draw from it the impulses or principles which mould their lives from within, and who are as it were its visible representatives and exponents to others in their acts and speech.’