Eph. 5:6–14. Christian Light
The second of the self-regarding directions has regard to Christian Light, as the first had reference to Christian Love.
Only four years ago, on Saturday, April 30, 57, the Apostle warned the Ephesian presbyters against false teachers, Acts 20:30. After his release, early next year, 62, and his visit to Spain, he will leave St. Timothy in Ephesus as a defence against misleaders, 1 Tim. 1:3. Yet, in the summer of 66, he will write from his Roman prison, and tell how all they of Roman Asia have forsaken him. Then, too, he will point to Hymenaeus and Philetus as preachers of heresy, 2 Tim. 1:15, 2:17. At a later date, 95 A.D., the Apocalyptic Epistles to the Seven Churches will show the great inroads of false doctrine.
Now, he has just written to the Colossians,
Col. 2:8. Look you, lest there shall be anyone who leads you off as spoil By means of the philosophy and empty deceit,
that is, as the position of the two nouns under one preposition and article shows,
Col 2:8 cont. By means of his philosophy, which is empty deceit.
And here in the encyclical, the Apostle will describe the same thing by the very phrase which Plato employed in his Laches 169 B, sometime between 385 and 348 B.C. But that expression, “with empty words,” meaning “with false words,” as in Galen’s de diff. puls. iii. 6, about 170 A.D., is not such as to indicate any connection between the epistles of St. Paul and the dialogues of Plato. Further, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics II. vii. 1, ought not to be quoted in this connection, because the true reading there, according to the best manuscripts, Bekker’s K and L, is “more general.” The same question of variants is found in the Ethics III. viii., 6. But we may quote the Eudemian Ethics I. vi., 4, where the expression, “empty words,” is used in a bad sense. However the Apostle’s words are sufficiently simple.
Eph. 5:6. None shall deceive you with empty words— For on account of these [sins], the wrath of God is coming On the sons of disobedience— Eph 5:7. Be not therefore becoming co-partakers with them,
that is, in their disobedience, and consequently in the wrath or judgement of God. It is plain that we must understand sins as those things, on account of which the judgement of God is coming now and at the Final Judgement. If there were any doubt about the matter, it would be settled by the parallel passage in Colossians 3:5, 6, where the mention of those sins is followed by the statement,
Col. 3:6. On account of which things, the wrath of God is coming.
St. Paul has already mentioned “the sons of disobedience,” the disobedient men in revolt against God’s revelation and their own conscience, Eph. 2:2. The recurrence of their name recalls his theme of the Gentile’s position as members of the Church. And again, as in Eph. 2:11–22, and 4:17–24, he contrasts the new condition of his readers with their old. The three verses, in which he does so, form a parenthesis, into which he inserts another parenthesis as a parenthesis within the parenthesis, or a vinculum within the bracket, to tell what are the effects, by which supernatural light may be known. So he dictates,
Eph. 5:8. (For you were sometime darkness, But now [you are] light in [the] Lord. Be walking as children of lilght— Eph 5:9. For the fruit of the light is in every [form of] goodness And justice and truth— Eph 5:10. Proving what is well-pleasing to the Lord.)
As so many writers, including Darby, in his Synopsis iv. 430, Moule and Westcott, in their commentaries, have pointed out, the Apostle does not say that his readers had been in darkness, but that they had been darkness, their social effect being that of moral darkness. But now, “in [the] Lord,” in union and communion with Him, they are light. He indeed is the Light of the world, John 8:12. Because they are in Him, they also “are the light of the world,” Matt. 5:14. And as St. Paul has just told the Colossians, 1:12, they were made sufficient to receive their part of the saints’ lot “in the light,” that is, “in the kingdom of supernatural light.”
Now, for the sixth time, the Apostle uses the word “walk” as the Hebrew hālákh, “to walk,” in reference to conduct. And he urges his readers to be walking as children of light. The source of that phrase, “children of light,” seems to be in the “Parable of the Unjust Steward,” where “the sons of the light” are contrasted with “the sons of this age,” Luke 16:8. St. Paul, in writing to the Thessalonians, about May, 52, said,
1 Thess. 5:5. For you all are sons of light And sons of day.
And St. John, at the end of the century, will record how our Lord said,
John 12:36. As you are having the Light, Be believing on the Light, In order that you may become sons of light.
But the word “children,” though it represents the same Hebrew or Aramaic word as “sons,” is used here, Eph. 5:8, as suggesting a natural relationship rather than an official position.
The passage illustrates St. Paul’s readiness to pass from one metaphor to another. First of all, he speaks of his readers as light. Then they are children of light. And now “the fruit of the light” consists in every form of goodness and justice and truth. Beyond question, as we propose to show, the true reading is “the fruit of the light,” and not “the fruit of the spirit,” the latter phrase being taken from Gal. 5:22. Our Lord used the word “fruit” of His disciples as branches in Him, the True Vine, John 15:2. St. Paul has employed it in reference to the result of sin, Rom. 6:21. And within a few months, he will dictate the phrase, “fruit of justice,” Phil. 1:11.
The fruit of the Light consists in goodness, justice and truth. Of “justice” we have already spoken, Eph. 4:24. “Goodness,” agǎthōsúnē, has been excellently discussed by Trench in his Synonyms lxiii. It is only found in Greek versions of the Old Testament, in St. Paul, and in books dependent on these. In the Greek of Ecclesiastes 9:18, it is used in the sentence, “One man, sinning, will destroy much goodness.” But in the same book, 6:3, 6, a man’s life, however long it may have been, is counted vanity, if his soul was not “satisfied with goodness,” and if “he did not see goodness,” this last word, as Wright says in his Ecclesiastes p. 375, evidently standing for the enjoyment of life, and not for any moral or spiritual good. In the Greek of Psalm 37:21, according to the Alexandrian manuscript, and in that of Psalm 52:3, the word is used of moral conduct, opposed to wickedness or malice. And in the Greek of Nehemiah, 9:25, 35, it is used of God’s beneficence towards Israel.
St. Paul, alone of New Testament writers, uses the word. He does so four times. In Gal. 5:22, written about the summer of 49, he places the word between kindness and faith or faithfulness. In 2 Thess. 1:11, written about August, 52, he prays for his readers that God may fulfil every delight in goodness and work of faith in power. In Rom. 15:14, written about January, 57, he tells his readers of his conviction,
Rom. 15:14. That yourselves also are full of goodness. Having been filled with all the knowledge, Being able also to admonish one another.
Apparently, then, the word implies something more active than chrēstǒtēs, “kindness,” or “benevolence”; and we may render it as “goodness,” in the sense of active goodness or beneficence.
The parenthesis within the parenthesis was formed by the lines,
Eph. 5:9. For the fruit of the light is in every [kind of] goodness And justice and truth.
Now the Apostle resumes the original parenthesis, the new I line forming a parallel to that already given.
Eph. 5:8c. Be walking as children of light, Eph 5:10. Proving what is well-pleasing to the Lord.
To the Thessalonians, he has already said, 1 Thess. 5:21. But be proving all things.
And later, he urged the Roman Christians, saying,
Rom. 12:2. But be being transformed in regard to the renewing of the intelligence, Unto the end that you may prove what [is] the will of God—[That is, what is] the good and well-pleasing and perfect.
Here, in Eph. 5:10, as in that passage to the Romans, he connects the proving with what is well-pleasing to our Lord and God the Father. The verb, rendered “prove,” means primarily to assay metals, so to test with good results, and hence to approve. Godet, in his commentary on Romans, explains the verb in 12:2, as “appreciate,” “discern.”
As to the Greek word for “well-pleasing,” eu-árestos, Deissmann, in his Bible Studies p. 215, has shewn that it is found in a possibly pre-Christian inscription of Nisÿros. The adverbial form occurs in Xenophon’s Memorabilia III. v. 5, in a pre-Christian inscription, 2885 in the Corpus of Greek Inscriptions, and in Epictélus.
The parenthesis is closed; and St. Paul resumes his original theme of the disobedient. He broke off at the line, Eph. 5:7. Be not therefore becoming co-partakers with them.
Now he resumes with the lines, Eph. 5:11. And be not communicating with the works, The unfruitful [works] of the darkness, But rather even expose them.
We notice, first of all, that the Apostle uses the word “works” of the darkness, and describes its works as fruitless. But he has employed the word “fruit” of the light, Eph. 5:9. It is a remarkable coincidence that nearly twelve years ago, in writing to the Galatians, 5:19, 22, he enumerated the “works” of the flesh, and illustrated the “fruit” of the Spirit. Further, as he passes here from “co-partakers,” or “co-partners,” to “communicating,” or “having fellowship with,” so five years ago, he asked,
2 Cor. 6:14. For what partnership have justice and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
And four years ago, in Rom. 13:12, 13, he spoke about “the works of darkness,” and named them. Such undesigned coincidences have a value in confirming St. Paul’s authorship of the epistles, in which they are found; and they, therefore, have their place in documentary criticism. In exegetical criticism, their value is still greater, as such words and phrases have evidently become almost technical, and significant of permanent elements in the thought and preaching of the Apostle.
Now he urges his readers to expose that wickedness, but not necessarily by speaking about it. A holy life by itself can reveal the condition of its environment. No doubt the verb ělénchō may be rendered on occasion as “reprove,” or “rebuke.” However, the next line,
Eph. 5:12a. For [as to] what are happening in secret by them,
suggests “expose” as more suitable to the context. This is confirmed by St. Paul’s use of the verb in
1 Cor. 14:24. He is being exposed by all: He is being searched out by all. 1 Cor 14:25. The secrets of his heart Are becoming manifest.
The same rendering is the best in
John 3:20. For he, who is practising worthless things, Is hating the light. And he is not coming toward the light. In order that his works may not be exposed.
And the verb will be used in the same sense by Artemidórus of Ephesus, between 138 and 161 A.D., in his Oneiro-critica ii. 36, a work on the interpretation of dreams.
As we have seen, the Apostle has already, in Rom. 13:13, named those deeds. It is, therefore, a powerful hyperbole, which he adds now. Eph. 5:12. For [as to] what are happening in secret by them— It is shameful even to say.
Then he passes beyond those special matters to things in general, or rather to the whole of things in general taken together, as pánta, “all things,” with the article, implies. So he says, Eph. 5:13. But all the things, being exposed, Are being manifested by the light.
It may be objected that the phrase “by the light” may be taken equally well with “being exposed,” as it comes in the Greek between the two verbs. We suggest in reply that the parallelism favours our construction. And the meaning of the couplet is made clear, if we turn from the general principle to the Apostle’s particular direction. Christians must expose the secret deeds, Eph. 5:11. By that exposure, the real character of those deeds is manifest. But it is light which makes manifest. Therefore, those deeds are being made manifest by the light. In the present case, that light consists of Christians, who are light, Eph. 5:8. But the influence does not stop there. Not merely will those deeds be manifested in the light, but they will be utterly transformed. So the Apostle has said to his readers, Eph. 5:8. For you were sometime darkness; But now [you are] light in [the] Lord.
Similarly, their light does not merely hold the surrounding darkness at bay, or simply illumine the objects in that darkness. But it has power to change the very darkness into light, and to convert actions from evil to good, from darkness to light, Eph. 5:13c. For everything, which is being manifested, Is light.
Now St. Paul closes this section on Christian Light with three lines from a Christian hymn. The rhythm of the words is very simple.
ě’geirě, hǒ katheúdōn,
kaì anásta ěk tôn nekrôn,
kaì ěpiphaúsei soi hǒ Christós.
As the question is introduced by the words, “Wherefore he says,” some have argued that it must be scriptural. But, because it is not found in the Bible, others, such as St. Jerome, in Vallarsi vii. 647, have referred it to an apocryphal work. Epiphanius, who became bishop of Salamis in Cyprus about 368, mentioned the Prophecy of Elijah as the source of the words. George Syncellus, a monk, who lived about 792, suggested a book by Jeremiah. Later still, the uncial, Boernerian G, of the ninth century and the Western type, named the Book of Enoch in its margin.
Cramer’s Caténæ vi. 197, of 1842, quotes from Severian, bishop of Syrian Gabala, who acted as St. Chrysostom’s deputy in Constantinople in 401. Explaining this passage, that student of the Scriptures connects it with 1 Cor. 14:26, in which St. Paul says that each one has a psalm. So Severian would refer the quotation in Eph. 5:14, to one of those spiritual psalms, composed by means of a spiritual gift. This view is again expressed by Theodoret, consecrated for Syrian Cyrus about 423. And certainly, the passage bears the stamp of a Christian hymn, just as we find traces of a Christian creed in 1 Tim. 3:16. Who was manifested in flesh, Was justified in spirit, Was seen by angels, Was proclaimed in [the] nations, Was believed in [the] world, Was assumed in glory.
The Apostle, it will be noted, introduces his quotation in connection with the work of the Christian light, that light being identified with Christians. In the quotation itself, the light is identified with Christ.
Eph. 5:14. Wherefore he says: “Rouse! who art lying down asleep, “And stand up from among dead men, “And the Christ will shine upon thee.”
The Greek word ěgeirě, the present imperative of the active voice, is not to be taken as “be rousing [thee].” It is rather an exclamation, “Rouse!” “stir!” “rise!” as in the Iphigenia in Aulis 624, of Euripides, staged after his death in 406 B.C., and in the Frogs 340, of Aristophanes, performed in 405 B.C. Some cursive manuscripts and some editions of ecclesiastical writers give ěgeirai, the first aorist or indefinite past tense of the imperative mood in the middle or reflexive voice; but that would mean “rouse [some one] for me.”
The word heúdōn means “sleeping”; but in the text, it is compounded with katá, which implies “down” or intensifies the simple form. So we may render it “lying down asleep.” Then aná-sta, “up-stand,” found also in Acts 12:7, Theocritus and Menander, is a short form for ana-stēthi, the second aorist or indefinite past tense of the active imperative.
The word for “shine upon” has had a strange history. It is simple enough in itself, as it is derived from epi-phaúskō, which occurs in the Greek Vulgate of Job. No doubt the ph in the word epi-psaúsei, “he will shine upon,” is similar to ps. So some copyist made the change. The word then appeared as epi-psaúsei, “he will touch.” And St. Jerome, vii. 647, tells how he once heard some preacher offer a brand new interpretation to please the congregation, who stamped their feet in approval. The orator said that the words, “Christ will touch thee,” referred to our Lord’s Blood and Body in contact with Adam’s skull, from which the hill had been named Calvary. This reading, “Christ will touch thee,” has been preserved in the Benedictine edition of St. Augustine on Ps. 3:9, vol. iv. col. 77, and in the old Roman edition of Ambrosiaster in his comment on this passage. The attribution of it by Cramer’s Caténæ vi. 196, to St. Chrysostom is due to a scribe’s blunder; and indeed the reading has no support among the Greek witnesses. Some person went further, and added an s to the verb, so that it meant “thou wilt touch.” Therefore Victorinus, about 360 at Rome, presents the phrase in his commentary as “thou wilt touch Christ.” This is also found in some manuscripts of Ambrosiaster, who wrote at Rome under Pope Dámasus, 366–384. It was quoted by Paulinus of Nola, ix. 2, xxxii. 20, who was baptised in 391, and ordained in 393. It appears in the Latin translation of Origen’s works, ii. 400, iii. 78, made by Rufinus after his return from the East in 397.
The first line of St. Paul’s quotation, Eph. 5:14b. Rouse! who art lying down asleep, or simply, Awake! thou who art sleeping, has been referred to Ps. 44:23. Awake; why wilt thou sleep, O Lord? and to Is. 60:1.
Arise, shine, for thy light has come, And the glory of Jehovah has risen [as the sun] upon thee.
The second line, Eph. 5:14c. And stand up from among dead men, has been traced without much success to Is. 26:19. Thy dead ones will live: My dead bodies will arise. And the third line, Eph. 5:14d. And the Christ will shine upon thee, has with more reason been connected with Is. 9:2. The people, who [were] walking in the darkness, Saw a great light. [As to] the dwellers in the land of the shadow of death, Light shone upon them.
Before leaving this section, it may be well to reflect for a moment on the part played by light and enlightenment in Christian and anti-Christian imagery. Already, in this encyclical, we have had the expression, Eph. 1:18a. [You], enlightened as to the eyes of your heart.
And now we have had this section, steeped in the same figure of speech. The verb “to be enlightened” is found in Heb. 6:4, and 10:32, and the metaphor in 2 Cor. 4:4, 6, Eph. 3:9, 2 Tim. 1:10, Apoc. 21:23, John 1:9. In St. Justin Martyr’s Dialogue c. cxxii., which took place in 132 A.D., and in his First Apology i. 61, 65, of 150 A.D., enlightenment is connected with baptism. Then the Syriac Peshitta or Vulgate of 411, and the Harclean Syriac of 616, render the verb in Heb. 6:4, by “descended to baptism” and “were baptised.”
It has been suggested that such language and imagery have been borrowed by Christians from the pagan Mysteries. But, as Cheetham points out in his Hulsean Lectures on the Mysteries, Pagan and Christian p. 143, those who make such statements do not bring forward one instance in which the word “enlightenment” is applied to pagan Mysteries, though the sacred objects and acts were shown in a bright light to the initiated.
In the history of thought, the term “enlightenment” has been applied to those crises, when men passed from routine and convention to conviction and a recognition of customs and institutions, laws and beliefs, as embodiments of reason. It appears also as a crisis in the story of men and women, when they are passing from youth to adult life. Seen in them, it is, to a superficial glance, only self-assertion and a revolt against the traditions of the family, the nation, and the state. It is certainly subjective, individualist, and sometimes insolent. In the history of philosophy, it constituted the period of the Athenian sophists. This Greek Enlightenment was well represented by Protágoras, who arrived at Athens about 450 B.C., Pródicus, about 436, and Górgias. in 427. It expressed itself clearly in the assertion of Protágoras that “a man is the measure of all things: of those which are, that they are; of those which are not, that they are not,” Plato’s Theætétus 152, ix. 51.
In the French Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, the assertion of the individual self against any objective or external expression of social reason, or supernatural revelation, may be said to have begun with an English work, the Christianity not Mysterious of John Toland in 1693. The next step was taken by Voltaire’s Philosophical Letters, published after his visit to England in 1726–29. The position then was empirical, deist, constitutionalist. The third step was that of Diderot’s Encyclopedia, 1751–1772, which became a text-book among the French people, and dissolved their respect for all religion, law and institutions. The last step consisted in the System of Nature, which was published under Mirabaud’s name in 1770, for this book tried to explain everything by matter and motion.
The German Enlightenment found its most potent voice in Kant, who himself wrote an essay in 1784 on “What is Enlightenment?” He held the primary purpose of man’s nature to be advance in Freethinking. And, therefore, he would not have such advance checked in the interests of any existing social laws or institutions. All knowledge certainly implied material in the shape of perceptions, sensations and sense-affections. But according to Kant, the individual mind itself possessed the twelve categories, in unity, plurality and totality; reality, negation and limitation; substantiality, causality and reciprocity; possibility, actuality and necessity. With these, it moulded the material into the form of rationality; and that rationality constituted the truth of the cognition. Space and time also are subjective, in this account of them; and they are as native to the mind as the categories. If, then, causality be a form of thought, how could we use it to prove soul, an external world, or God? And such was the question of those, to whom Kant’s Kritik of Pure Reason came in 1781. To meet their difficulty, he published the Kritik of Practical Reason in 1788, in which he would establish the existence of God, freedom and immortality; but the proof lies within the self-consciousness and internal experience of the individual.
The English Enlightenment was due to Hamilton. The Kantianism of his Lectures on Logic and Metaphysics, published in 1860, after his death, was accepted by Mansel, and Mansel’s, published in his Bampton Lectures of 1852 on The Limits of Religious Thought, and later in his Metaphysics, was popularised by Spencer, in his First Principles, in 1862. But it was Stuart Mill, who did most to develop the phase. It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence, which he has exercised over English minds by his System of Logic, which first appeared in 1843, and by his Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy in 1865. In the latter work, he says frankly, c. xi. last note, “I do not believe that the real externality to us of anything except other minds, is capable of proof.” And having resolved the external world into “guaranteed possibilities of sensation,” he “resolves Mind into a series of feelings, with a background of possibilities of feeling,” c. xii. As the French Enlightenment finally resolved sensations into matter and motion, the English Enlightenment finally resolved matter and motion into sensations. And as the former ended in Atheism, the latter subsided into Agnosticism.
The word “enlightenment” has passed into popular speech; and its implications are indicated by its parentage. We can see its opposition to Christian enlightenment. Its centre is the individual man, not the Ideal Man, realised in God’s Incarnation. Its rule and measure is that of the man himself, not that of God in Christ. Its life is individualist and protesting, not social and concordant. Over against its self-assertion stands the Christian ideal of self-renunciation in the service of God and human souls. At times, it speaks with a high moral tone and a devotion to humanitarian purposes. It owes both to Christian doctrine and Christian example.
Eph. 5:9a. A Disputed Reading, “light.”
There is nothing to cause any hesitation with regard to the word “light.” The alternative reading “Spirit” is not only badly supported by the witnesses, but it is plainly introduced from Gal. 5:22. Still a question of this kind, in which the solution is clear and certain, has the greatest value for us, as it enables us to know the worth of the various witnesses.
The word “Spirit” is found first of all in St. Chrysostom’s homily, 18, on Ephesians, that is before 398. Thence, it passes to Theodoret, consecrated for Syrian Cyrus on the Euphrates in 423. It appears in the Harclean Syriac in 616. And of course, it will be found in the Damascene between 717 and 741. Then it appears in four ninth-century witnesses, the second corrector of the Claromontanus, D°, the first corrector of the Sangerman, E b, the Moscovian K and the Angelic L, the last two being undoubtedly Syrian. And among the cursives, which support the word “Spirit,” we may mention 37, of Cent. xv. The reading then is strictly Syrian.
The word “light,” as we should expect, is supported by all forms of the text.
The Neutral witnesses include both the Sinaitic Aleph and the Vatican B, both probably of the year 331 and Cæsarea.
The Alexandrian witnesses are the Alexandrian A, of the early fifth century, and the Porphyrian P, of Cent. ix., among the uncials. To these we add the cursive 17, of Cent. ix. or x., and the corrector of the eleventh century 67, both Alexandrian in character. There is also the Bohairic version, made for northern Egypt about 200 or 250. Although we depend on Cramer’s Caténæ, vi. 194, for Origen’s reading, we may certainly reckon him, the head of the Alexandrian School from 203 to 231, as on the same side, because the word is esential to his argument. With these witnesses, we must include the Alexandrian Euthalius, whose edition of the Pauline epistles in 458 is preserved in a manuscript of 1301. St. Jerome might very well be added here, because his commentary of 388 is practically Origen’s. Indeed, that work may be classed with the Alexandrian witnesses; and his Latin Vulgate of the Pauline epistles, with the Old Latin, of which it is a modified form.
The Latin witnesses to the word “light” include Victorinus and Ambrosiaster at Rome about 360, Lucifer of Cagliari in Sardinia, p. 218, who died in 371, the Latin Vulgate of 385, the Gothic version, affected by the Old Latin after 568, the Western Text of Claromontanus D, of Cent. vi., its copy, Sangerman E, of Cent. ix. and the twin uncials, Augien F and Boernerian G, of Cent. ix., and chief of all, the Old Latin Text itself.
The Syrian witnesses include the printed text of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, as in the edition of Gallandius, iii. 403. Most probably this is correct, as that Father was consecrated for Cappadocian Cæsarea about 240, and so preceded St. Chrysostom and the Syrian Text by a considerable period. Other Syrian witnesses in favour of “light,” and against the Syrian reading “Spirit,” are the Syriac Peshitta of 411, the Armenian version, made after 431, the Ethiopic version, made about 600, and the cursives, 179, of Cent. ix. or x., 47, of Cent. xi. 6, of Cent. 13, 213, of Cent. 14, and 10, of unknown date and value.
The Divine Lamp 