Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians may or may not have been written by Saint Paul, and it may or may not have been written to the Ephesians. Or so it can seem to the complexities of modern biblical studies.
For fifteen hundred years, everyone in the Church accepted that Saint Paul was the author of the Letter to the Ephesians, but then in the sixteenth century the widely respected scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam noticed that the language used in Ephesians differed significantly from that of other letters attributed to Saint Paul. Erasmus was a Catholic priest and a friend of both Saint Thomas More and Saint John Fisher. He was also an early and passionate advocate for reform in the Church, but he opposed all Protestant schisms and remained a faithful Catholic throughout his life.
Erasmus prepared a revised edition of the Greek New Testament and a new translation of that text into Latin. During the work of editing and translating the New Testament, Erasmus noticed differences in vocabulary and style between Ephesians and other letters written by Saint Paul. Nothing conclusive can be proven from these insights, but Erasmus started a trend in biblical scholarship of studying all Scriptural texts by means of linguistic analysis, a practice which continues to this day.
Erasmus pointed out that the oldest surviving manuscripts of Ephesians do not include a mention of the city of Ephesus and that the words “in Ephesus” were probably added to the first verse of the text by a helpful editor after the letter’s composition. Erasmus also noticed that Ephesians lacks all of the personal greetings that are a common feature of Paul’s letters.
Since Paul lived in Ephesus for about two years, it seems likely that any personal letter of his to the Christians in Ephesus would have included many remarks to individuals, so the conjecture is that this letter was meant to be read not only in Ephesus but also in other Christian communities of Asia Minor, now modern Turkey.
What is undisputed about the Letter to the Ephesians is that from the beginning it has been accepted by the Church as a divinely inspired text belonging to the canon of the New Testament and that it faithfully presents Saint Paul’s teaching about the Church of Jesus Christ as the chosen instrument of grace for the salvation of the world. And since no one in the apostolic age or the first Christian centuries known as the patristic age objected to the authenticity of this letter, the Church has always remained certain that the Letter to the Ephesians belongs to Holy Scripture.
Perhaps the Letter to the Ephesians was composed by Paul himself or perhaps by one of his secretaries or collaborators based on the apostle’s doctrine or dictation, but whoever put pen to parchment, this letter is beyond all doubt the Word of God. And in any case, the letter faithfully conveys the teaching of Paul and was certainly read in Ephesus, so despite all the modern questions about the letter’s origins, it is entirely proper to call this text both Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians and the Word of the Lord.
Understanding this history is essential to grasping the Catholic way of acknowledging Holy Scripture to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God. Neither the Old nor the New Testament dropped down from heaven perfectly formed and ready to read. The books of the Bible were written by many hands over several centuries and in ancient languages, and each of those books had to be compiled and redacted to reach us, to say nothing of the constant translations required for us to encounter the Word of God in our own tongue.
But through all of that, God remained the principal author, and guided by the Holy Spirit whom Christ sends to teach us all truth, the Church established the canon of Holy Scripture and authentically interprets the sacred page in conformity with the Apostolic Tradition and the Rule of Faith to insure that the Gospel is proclaimed in every generation without addition or subtraction.
That is why questions about the exact history of the Letter to the Ephesians and every other book in the Bible do not diminish in any way the Church’s confidence in the truth and authority of the Word of God. So, let us now look at today’s second lesson.
Ephesians begins with a magnificent hymn of praise to God for the eternal plan of salvation, a plan which was decreed before the creation of the universe and then gradually unfolded in human history until being finally and fully revealed in and by the Lord Jesus Christ in whom alone we have redemption from our sins.
Then comes the second section of chapter one, which is our reading from Ephesians today. The apostle explains the unity of the Church in Christ and offers a prayer for Christians to receive the gifts of grace that enable us to live according to our calling as members of the Church.
Paul writes: “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him …” Here the apostle means that knowledge of the true God comes only by grace through faith as a result of divine revelation in Christ Jesus.
This letter was written primarily to Gentile Christians, who must understand that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ is none other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who gave the Law to Moses. He is the Father of glory from whom alone we can receive the gift of faith which grants wisdom and knowledge by divine revelation to understand the eternal plan of salvation in Christ Jesus.
The apostle then prays that by this gift of revelation Christians will have “the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you will know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.”
Here Saint Paul writes of the cosmic Christ, the eternal Word made flesh, the Risen and Ascended Lord who is restored to the glory which was his before the foundation of the world. This glorified Christ is the Pantocrator who rules the universe with his Father, world without end.
And today the Church rejoices in the holy mystery of Christ’s Ascension, which is both the exaltation of our human nature to the Throne of Grace and the final preparation for the mission of the Church to the nations, the beginning of which we will celebrate next week on the fiftieth day of the Resurrection, the Solemnity of Pentecost.
For now, notice that Paul describes the Church as the body of Christ in which dwells the fulness of Christ. The apostle writes that God the Father “has put all things under (Christ’s) feet and has made him head over all things for the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all.”
So, Christ is the head of the body, the Church, of which we are made members by the grace of our Baptism. And more than that, the Church is the fulness of Christ, meaning that after Christ’s return in glory to the Father, the Lord Jesus remains with us and fills the cosmos with the light of his risen glory only in and with and through his Church.
In fact, so close is the unity of Christ and his Church that the Risen and Ascended Lord Jesus could ask the great persecutor of Christians on the Damascus Road, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Not why are you persecuting my disciples, but why are your persecuting me? The Church is the Body of Christ.
Now, unbelievers see the Church only as a sociological reality, a human community like all others and usually an infuriating one. At best, unbelievers usually hold, the Church might be a useful provider of social services which can perhaps be tolerated because of its good works. Perhaps.
But along with the real human dimension of the Church’s life, which we must admit can be sorely disappointing, Christians must also always see in the Church the mystical Body of Christ which is the sacrament of salvation for the entire human race. And seeing the Church in this way is possible only with supernatural faith, a gift of God that comes from and is strengthened by reading Holy Scripture with confident assurance in the truth of the written Word of God.
Studying and praying with Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in just this way was an essential part of my own conversion to Christ forty-three years ago this October when I came to know the God of glory whose eternal plan of salvation is revealed finally and fully in the Lord Jesus Christ crucified and Risen.
And only such supernatural faith, hope and love can equip us to fulfill the Great Commission described today by Saint Mark. “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.’”
So to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we must turn to Holy Scripture with the eyes of faith. And having done so, we should then believe what we read, proclaim what we believe, and practice what we proclaim.
And what we proclaim is that Jesus of Nazareth is the omnipotent and eternal Word by whom all things were made. He is the Son of Man and God the Son. Christ alone is the Alpha and the Omega, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Holy One of Israel and the great I AM. To the Lord Jesus belongs all time and all the ages, for
Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!
Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!
This is the text of my homily for Sunday 12 May 2024, the Solemnity of the Ascension.
Fr Jay Scott Newman