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Ephesians 2:2 by John Eadie
(Ver. 2.) )En ai(=v pote\ periepath/sate—“In which ye once walked.” This use of the verb originated in the similar employment of the Hebrew HFLAK:, H2143, especially in its hithpahel conjugation, in which it denotes “course of life.” The ai(=v agrees in gender with the nearest antecedent—a(marti/aiv, but refers, at the same time, to both substantives. Kühner, § 786, 2; Matthiae, § 441, 2, c. The e)n, G1877, marks out the sphere or walk which they usually and continually trod, for in this sleep of death there is a strange somnambulism. Col. 3:7. The figure in peripatei=n has been supposed to disappear and leave only the general sense of vivere, as Fritzsche maintains on Rom. 13:13, yet the idea of something more than mere existence seems to be preserved. It is life, not in itself, but in its manifestations. Thus living and walking are placed in logical connection—pneu/mati peripatei=te is different plainly from zw=men pneu/mati. Gal. 5:16, 25. Though there was spiritual death, there was yet activity in a circuit of sin, for physical incapacity and intellectual energy were not impaired. Yea, “the dead,” unconscious of their spiritual mortality, often place up, as their motto of a lower life—“Dum vivimus vivamus.” But this sad period of death-walking was past—pote/, G4537. Their previous conduct is next described as being—
kata\ to\n ai)w=na tou= ko/smou tou/tou—“according to the course of this world”—kata/, G2848, as usual, expressing conformity. Semler, Beausobre, Brucker, Michaelis, and Baur (Paulus, p. 433) take the ai)w/n, G172, as a Gnostic term, and as all but identical with the Being described in the following clauses—the evil genius of the world. Such a sense is non-biblical and very unlikely, yea rather, impossible. Others, such as Estius, Koppe, and Flatt, regard ai)w/n, G172, and ko/smov, G3180, as synonymous, and understand the phrase as a species of pleonasm. The translation of the Syriac is alliterative—(LMYWTH D(LM) HN)—“the worldliness of this world,” or the “secularity of this seculum.” But the ai)w/n, G172, defines some quality, element, or character of the ko/smov, G3180. It is a rash and useless disturbance of the phraseology which Rückert on the one hand suggests — kata\ to\n ai)w=na tou/ton tou= kosmou=; or which is proposed by Bretschneider on the other—o( ko/smov tou= ai)w=nov tou/tou, meaning—homines pravi, ut nunc sunt. Ai)w/n sometimes signifies in the New Testament—“this or the present time”—certain aspects underlying it. Gal. 1:4. Anselm and Beza would render it simply—“the men of the present generation;” but in the connection before us it seems to denote mores, vivendi ratio—not simply, however, external manifestations of character, but, as Harless argues, the inner principle which regulates it—Weltleben in geistiger, ethischer Beziehung—“world-life in a spiritual, ethical relation.” It is its “course,” viewed not so much as composed of a series of superficial manifestations, but in the moving principles which give it shape and distinction. It is, in short, nearly tantamount to what is called in popu lar modern phrase, “the spirit of the age”—th\n parou=san zwh/n, as Theodoret explains it. The word has not essentially, and in itself, a bad sense, though the context plainly and frequently gives it one. Ko/smov, especially as here, and followed by ou(=tov, G4047, means the world as fallen away from God—unholy and opposed to God. John 12:31, 18:36; 1 Cor. 1:20, 3:19, 5:10; Gal. 4:3. None of the terms has a bad meaning in or by itself; nor does the apostle here add any epithet to point out their wickedness. But this use of the simple words shows his opinion of the world, and he condemns it by his simple mention of it, while the demonstrative ou(=tov, G4047, confines the special reference to the time then current. The meaning therefore is, that the Ephesians, in the period of their irregeneracy, had lived, not generally like other men of unholy heart, but specifically like the contemporaneous world around them, and in the practice of such vices and follies as gave hue and character to their own era. They did not pursue indulgences fashionable at a former epoch, but now obsolete and forgotten. Theirs were not the idolatries and impurities of other centuries. No; they lived as the age on all sides of them lived—in its popular and universal errors and delusions; they walked in entire conformity to the reigning sins of the times.
The world and the church are now tacitly brought into contrast as antagonistic societies; and as the church has its own exalted and glorious Head, so the world is under the control of an active and powerful master, thus characterized—
Kata\ to\n a)/rxonta th=v e)cousi/av tou= a)e/rov—“According to the prince of the power of the air”—kata/, G2848, being emphatically repeated. The prince of darkness is not only called a)/rxwn, G807, but o( qeo\v tou= ai)w=nov tou/tou, 2 Cor. 4:4; and his e)cousi/a, G2026, is mentioned Acts 26:18. Again, he is styled o( a)/rxwn tou= ko/smou tou/tou. John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11. His principality is spoiled, Col. 2:15, and Jesus came to destroy his works. 1 John 3:8. Believers are freed from his power. 1 John 5:18; Col. 1:13. The language here is unusual, and therefore difficult of apprehension, and the modes of explanation are numerous, as might be expected.
Flatt is inclined to take e)cousi/av in apposition with a)/rxonta—qui est princeps, or, as Clarius and Rosenmüller render it—princeps potentissimus. There is no occasion to resort to this syntactic violence. )Ecousi/a does not seem to signify simply “might,” as Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, and Theophylact hold; but it is rather a term describing the empire of spirits over whom Satan presides—spirits, so called, either as possessed of power, as Rückert and Harless think, or rather, because they collectively form the principality of Satan, as Zanchius and Baumgarten-Crusius imagine—a meaning which nouns similarly formed, as doulei/a, summaxi/a, frequently have. Bernhardy, p. 47. Such passages as Luke 22:53 and Col. 1:13 show that the opinion which joins both views is justified by biblical usage.
)Ah/r does not denote that which the e)cousi/a, G2026, commands or controls, as Erasmus, Beza, Flacius, and Piscator suppose, but it points out the seat or place of dominion; not, however, in the sense of Robinson, von Gerlach, Barnes, and Doddridge. Holzhausen propounds the novel interpretation, that the apostle understands by the “power of the air”—die heidnische Götterwelt, “the heathen world of gods.” That a)h/r, G113, of itself should signify darkness, is an opinion which cannot be sustained. Heinsius, Estius, Storr, Flatt, Matthies, Bisping, and Hodge identify the term with sko/tov, G5030, in ver. 12 of the 6th chapter, or in Col. 1:13. The passages adduced from the ancient writers, such as Homer, Hesiod, and Plutarch, in support of this rendering, can scarcely be appealed to for the usage of the term in the days of the apostle. The word in a feminine form signified fog or haze, and is derived from a)/w, a)/hmi—“I breathe or blow,” and is used in opposition to ai)qh/r—“the clear upper air;” and it has been conjectured that the original meaning of the term may have suggested its use to the apostle in the clause before us.
But more specially, 1. Some of the Greek fathers take the genitive as a noun of quality—“prince of the aërial powers”—a)sw/matoi duna/meiv. Thus Chrysostom—Tou=to pa/lin fhsi\ o(/ti to\n u(poura/nion e)/xei to/pon, kai\ pneu/mata pa/lin a)e/ria ai( a)sw/matoi duna/meiv ei)si\n au)tou= e)nergou=ntov—“Again he says this, that Satan possesses the sub-celestial places, and again, that the bodiless powers are aërial spirits under his operation.” OEcumenius quaintly reasons of this mysterious a)/rxwn, G807, “that his a)rxh/, G794, is under heaven, and not above it; and if under heaven, it must be either on earth or in the air. Being a spirit, it is in the air, for they have an aërial nature.” With more exactness, Cajetan describes this host as having subtile corpus nostris sensibus ignotum, corpus simplex ac incorruptibile. Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, refers also to the a)eri/wn pneuma/twn. The opinion of Harless is much the same as that of Olshausen—“These evil powers are certainly not earthly, and as certainly they are not heavenly,” and they are therefore named by an epithet which defines neither the one nor the other quality. This is substantially the interpretation of Oecumenius, of Hahn, and of Hofmann, Schriftb. p. 455. The interpretation of Moses Stuart is virtually identical, and the notion of Stier is not altogether different, but it is somewhat mystically expressed. The view of a-Lapide and Calixtus, that those “aërial” imps could and did raise storms and hurricanes, is as puerile on the one side, as that of Calvin and Beza is vaguely figurative on the other—that man is in as great and constant danger from those fiends, as if they actually inhabited the air. Thomas Aquinas and Erasmus take “air” by a metonymy as meaning earth and air together, or the earth surrounded by the air—an opinion connected with the reading of F, G—a)e/rov tou/tou—and of the Vulgate, aëris hujus. Others, not satisfied with these fanciful opinions, give the epithet “aërial” a figurative signification. So Rieger alleges, that the power of these evil spirits resembles that of the atmosphere — swift, mighty, and invisible. Cocceius also takes the term metaphorically, as if it described that darkness, blindness, and danger on “slippery places,” which Satan inflicts on wicked men. Bucer says indeed, that the apostle describes the air as the habitation of fallen and wicked spirits—ex peculiari revelatione. But, 2. There are others who argue, that the apostle borrowed the notion either from the Pythagorean or Gnostic demonology. Wetstein affirms — Paulus ita loquitur, ex principiis philosophiae Pythagoreae, quibus illi ad quos scribit imbuti erant. The Pythagorean philosophy, it is true, had opinions not unlike that supposed to be expressed by the apostle. Plutarch says—u(/paiqron a)e/ra kai\ to\n u(poura/nion o)/nta kai\ qew=n kai\ daimo/nwn mesto/n. Diogenes Laertius records, that according to Pythagoras, the air was full of spirits—pa/nta to\n a)e/ra yuxw=n e)/mpleon. Apuleius, Maximus Tyrius, Manilius, Chalcidius, and others, make similar avowals, as may be found at length in the quotations adduced by Wetstein, Elsner, and Dougtaeus. The same sentiments are also found in Philo, in his treatises De Gigantibus and De Plantatione.Nay, Augustine held that the demons were penally confined to the air—damnatum ad aërem tanquam ad carcerem. Comment. on Ps. 143. And Boyd (Bodius), as if dreaming of a Scottish fairy-land, thinks that the devil got the principality of the air from its connection with us, who live partly on earth and partly in air, and that his relation to sinful man is seen in his union with that element which is so essential to human life. But is it at all likely that the inspired apostle gave currency to the tenets of a vain philosophy—to the dreams and delusions of fantastic speculation? Besides, there is no polemical tendency in this epistle, and there was no motive to such doctrinal accommodation. Gnosticism is always refuted, not flattered, by the apostle of the Gentiles. 3. Others, again, such as Meyer and Conybeare, suppose that the language of the rabbinical schools is here employed. Harless has carefully shown the falsity of such a hypothesis. A passage in Rabbi Bechai, in Penta. p. 90, has been often quoted, but the Rabbi says—“The demons which excite dreams dwell in the air, but those which tempt to evil inhabit the depths of the sea,” whereas these submarine fiends are the very class which the apostle terms the principality of the air.Some of the other quotations adduced from the same sources are based upon the idea that angels are furnished with wings, with which, of course, they flutter in the atmosphere, as they approach, or leave, or hasten through our world. Sciendum, says the Munus Novum, as quoted hy Drusius, a terrâ usque ad expansum omnia plena esse turmis et praefectis, omnesque stare et volitare in aëre. These notions are so puerile, that the apostle could not for a moment have made them the basis of his language. The other six places in which a)h/r, G113, occurs throw no light on this passage, as it is there used in its ordinary physical acceptation.
In none of these various opinions can we fully acquiesce. That the physical atmosphere is in any sense the abode of demons, or is in any way allied to their essential nature, appears to us to be a strange statement. When fiends move from place to place, they need not make the atmosphere the chief medium of transition, for many of the subtler fluids of nature are not restricted to such a conductor, but penetrate the harder forms of matter as an ordinary pathway. There is certainly no scriptural hint that demons are either compelled to confinement in the air as a prison, or that they have chosen it as a congenial abode, either in harmony with their own nature, or as a spot adapted to ambush and attack upon men, into whose spirit they may creep with as much secrecy and subtlety as a poisonous miasma steals into their lungs during their necessary and unguarded respiration. We think, therefore, that the a)h/r, G113, and ko/smov, G3180, must correspond in relation. Just as there is an atmosphere round the physical globe, so an a)h/r, G113, envelopes this ko/smov, G3180. Now, the ko/smov, G3180, is a spiritual world—the region of sinful desires—the sphere in which live and move all the ungodly. We often use similar phraseology when we say “the gay world,” “the musical world,” “the literary world,” or “the religious world;” and each of these expressive phrases is easily understood. So the ko/smov, G3180, of the New Testament is opposed to God, for it hates Christianity; the believer does not belong to it, for it is crucified to him and he to it. That same world may be an ideal sphere, comprehending all that is sinful in thought and pursuit—a region on the actual physical globe, but without geographical boundary—all that out-field which lies beyond the living church of Christ. A nd, like the material globe, this world of death-walkers has its own atmosphere, corresponding to it in character—an atmosphere in which it breathes and moves. All that animates it, gives it community of sentiment, contributes to sustain its life in death, and enables it to breathe and be, may be termed its atmosphere. Such an air or atmosphere belting a death-world, whose inhabitants are nekroi\ toi=v paraptw/masi kai\ tai=v a(marti/aiv, is really Satan's seat. His chosen abode is the dark nebulous zone which canopies such a region of spiritual mortality, close upon its inhabitants, ever near and ever active, unseen and yet real, unfelt and yet mighty, giving to the ko/smov, G3180, that “form and pressure”—that ai)w/n, G172, —which the apostle here describes as its characteristic element. If this interpretation be reckoned too ingenious—and interpretations are generally false in proportion to their ingenuity—then we can only say, that either the apostle used current language which did not convey error, as Satan is called Beelzebub without reference to the meaning of the term—“Lord of flies;” or that he meant to convey the idea of what Ellicott calls “near propinquity,” for air is nigh the earth; or that he embodies in the clause some allusions which he may have more fully explained during his abode at Ephesus.
In their trespasses and sins they walked—kata/, G2848, —“according to” the prince of the power of the air. This preposition used in reference to a person, as here, signifies “according to the will,” or “conformably to the example.” This dark princedom is further identified as—
tou= pneu/matov tou= nu=n e)nergou=ntov e)n toi=v ui(oi=v th=v a)peiqei/av—“of the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience.” The connection with the preceding clause is somewhat difficult of explanation. Flatt supposes it, though it is in the genitive, to be in apposition to the accusative a)/rxonta. So, apparently, Ambrosiaster, who has the translation—spiritum. Bullinger cuts the knot by rendering—qui est spiritus, and so Luther by his—nämlich nach dem Geist. Others, as Piscator, Crocius, Rückert, and de Wette, suppose a deviation from the right construction in the use of the genitive for the accusative. Some, again, take pneu/matov in a collective sense, as Vatablus, Grotius, Estius, and Holzhausen. Governed by a)/rxonta, the meaning would then be—“the prince of that spirit-world,” the members of which work in the children of disobedience. Winer, § 67, 3. Meier and Ellicott take pneu/matov as governed by a)/rxonta, and they understand by pneu=ma, G4460, that spirit or disposition which reigns in worldly and ungodly men, of which Satan may be considered the master. Meyer, adopting the same construction, defines pneu=ma, G4460, as a principle emanating from Satan as its lord, and working in men. Harless, Olshausen, Matthies, and Stier take the word in apposition with e)cousi/av, and governed by a)/rxonta, and suppose it to mean that influence which Satan exercises over the disobedient; or, as Harless names it—wirksame teuflische Versuchung—“actual devilish temptation;” or, as Stier characterizes it—eine verfinsternde tödtende Inspiration—“a darkening and killing inspiration.” But how does this view harmonize with the phraseology? Surely an influence, or principle, or inspiration is not exactly in unison w ith a)/rxwn, G807. We cannot well say—prince of an influence or disposition. We would therefore take pneu/matov in apposition with e)cousi/av, but refer it to the essential nature of the e)cousi/a, G2026. It is a spiritual kingdom which the devil governs, an empire of spirits over which he presides. And the singular is used with emphasis. The entire objective e)cousi/a, G2026, no matter what are its numbers and varied ranks, acts as one spirit on the children of disobedience, is thought of as one spirit, in perfect unity of operation and purpose with its malignant a)/rxwn, G807. Nay, the prince and all his powers are so combined, so identified in essence and aim, that to a terrified and enslaved world they stand out as one pneu=ma, G4460. In Luke 4:33 occurs the phrase—pneu=ma daimoni/ou a)kaqa/rtou. This “spirit” is in its subjective form called to\ pneu=ma tou= ko/smou. 1 Cor. 2:12. And it is a busy spirit-world—tou= nu=n e)nergou=ntov.
)Apei/qeia is not specially unbelief of the gospel, as Luther, Bengel, Scholz, and Harless suppose, but disobedience, as the Syriac renders it. It characterizes the world not as in direct antagonism to the gospel, but as it is by nature—hostile to the will and government of God, and daringly and wantonly violating that law which is written in their hearts. Deut. 9:23, 24; Heb. 4:6. The phrase ui(oi\ th=v a)peiqei/av is a species of Hebraism, and is found 5:6; Col. 3:6, etc. Compare Rom. 2:16, and Fritzsche's remarks on it. The idiom shows the close relation and dependence of the two substantives. As its “children,” they have their inner being and its sustenance from “disobedience;” or, as Winer says, they are “those in whom disobedience has become a predominant and second nature,” § 34, 3, b, 2. The adverb nu=n, G3814, denotes “at the present time”—the spirit which at the present moment is working in the disobedient. Meier, not Meyer as Olshausen quotes, gives the adverb this peculiar but faulty reference—“The spirit which yet reigns, though the gospel be powerfully counter-working it;” and Olshausen as baselessly supposes it to mark that the working of the devil is restricted, in contrast to the eternal working of the Holy Ghost. The nu=n, G3814, appears to stand in contrast to the pote/, G4537, —“Ye, the readers of this epistle, were once in such a condition, and those whom you left behind when you became the children of God, are in the same condition still.” There is, accordingly, no reason to render the word nunc maxime, as if, as Stier argues, there was more than usual energy on the part of Satan. As little ground have Rückert and Holzhausen to suppose, that the clause denotes some extraordinary manifestation of evil influence. The verse is but a vivid description of the usual c ondition of the unconverted and disobedient world. The world and the church are thus marked in distinct and telling contrast. The church has its head—kefalh/, G3051; the world has its—a)/rxwn, G807. That Head is a man, allied by blood to the community over which He presides; that other prince is an unembodied spirit—an alien as well as a usurper. The one so blesses the church that it becomes His “fulness,” the other sheds darkness and distress all around Him. The one has His Spirit dwelling in the church, leading it to holiness; the other, himself the darkest, most malignant, and unlovely being in the universe, exercises a subtile and debasing influence over the minds of his vassals, who are “children of disobedience.” Matt. 13:38; John 8:44; Acts 26:18; 2 Cor. 4:4. The apostle honestly describes their former spiritual state, for he adds—including himself—sunta/ttei kai\ e(auto/n—as Theodoret says—
