with a speculative expansion and fantastic evaporation, the latter, with a bigoted contraction, of
Christianity; yet both these tendencies, like all extremes, have points of contact and admit of strange
amalgamations; and in fact the Colossian and Galatian errorists united in their ceremonial observance
of circumcision and the Sabbath. Ephesians, like Romans, is an independent exposition of the
positive truth, of which the heresy opposed in the other Epistles is a perversion or caricature.
Again, Colossians and Ephesians differ from each other in the modification and application
of their common theme: Colossians is christological and represents Christ as the true pleroma or
plenitude of the Godhead, the totality of divine attributes and powers; Ephesians is ecclesiological
and exhibits the ideal church as the body of Christ, as the reflected pleroma of Christ, "the fulness
of Him who filleth all in all." Christology naturally precedes ecclesiology in the order of the system,
as Christ precedes the church; and Colossians preceded Ephesians most probably, also in the order
of composition, as the outline precedes the full picture; but they were not far apart, and arose from
the same train of meditation.^1166
This relationship of resemblance and contrast can be satisfactorily explained only on the
assumption of the same authorship, the same time of composition, and the same group of churches
endangered by the same heretical modes of thought. With Paul as the author of both everything is
clear; without that assumption everything is dark and uncertain. "Non est cuiusvis hominis," says
Erasmus, "Paulinum pectus effingere; tonat, fulgurat, meras flammas loquitur Paulus."^1167
Authorship.
The genuineness of the two cognate Epistles has recently been doubted and denied, but the
negative critics are by no means agreed; some surrender Ephesians but retain Colossians, others
reverse the case; while Baur, always bolder and more consistent than his predecessors, rejects
both.^1168(^1166) Lardner, Credner, Mayerhoff, Hofmann, and Reuss reverse the order on the ground of Col. 4:16, which refers to "the Epistle
from Laodicea," assuming that this is the encyclical Epistle to the Ephesians. But Paul may have done that by anticipation. On
the other hand, the καὶ ὑμεῖς (that ye also as well as those to whom I have just written) in Eph. 6:21, as compared with Col. 4:7,
justifies the opposite conclusion (as Harless shows, Com., p. lix). Reuss thinks that in writing two letters on the same topic the
second is apt to be the shorter. But the reverse is more frequent, as a second edition of a book is usually larger than the first. De
Wette, Baur, Hilgenfeld, and Holtzmann regard Ephesians as an enlarged recasting (Umarbeitung and Ueberarbeitung)of
Colossians by a pupil of Paul.
(^1167) Annot. ad Col. 4:16.
(^1168) DeWette first attacked Ephesians as a verbose expansion (wortreiche Erweiterung)of the genuine Colossians by a pupil of
Paul. See his Introd. to the New Test. (1826, 6th ed. by Messner and Lünemann, 1860, pp. 313 sqq., and especially his Com. on
Eph., 1843 and 1847). He based his doubts chiefly on the apparent dependence of Ephesians on Colossians, and could not
appreciate the originality and depth of Ephesians. Mayerhoff first attacked Colossians (1838) as a post-Pauline abridgment of
Ephesians which he regarded as genuine. Baur attacked both (1845), as his pupil Schwegler did (1846), and assigned them to
an anti-Gnostic writer of the later Pauline school. He was followed by Hilgenfeld (1870, 1873, and 1875). Hitzig proposed a
middle view (1870), that a genuine Epistle of Paul to the Colossians was enlarged and adapted by the same author who wrote
Ephesians, and this view was elaborately carried out by Holtzmann with an attempt to reconstruct the Pauline original (Kritik
der Epheser- und Kolosserbriefe, Leipzig, 1872). But the assumption of another Epistle of Paul to the Colossians is a pure critical
fiction. History knows only of one such Epistle. Pfleiderer (1873, Paulinismus, p. 370 sq. and 434) substantially agrees with
Holtzmann, but assumes two different authors for the two Epistles. He regards Ephesians as an advance from old Paulinism to
the Johannean theology. Renan and Ewald admit Colossians to be genuine, but surrender Ephesians, assigning it, however, to
an earlier date than the Tülbingen critics (Ewald to a.d. 75 or 80). On the other hand, the genuineness of both Epistles has been
ably defended by Bleek, Meyer, Woldemar Schmidt, Braune, Weiss, Alford, Farrar. Bishop Lightfoot, in his Com. on Col.,
promises to take the question of genuineness up in the Com. on Ephes., which, however, has not yet appeared. Dr. Samuel
Davidson, in the revised edition of his Introduction to the Study of the New Test. (1882, vol. II. 176 sqq. and 205 sqq.), reproduces
the objections of the Tübingen critics, and adds some new ones which are not very creditable to his judgment, e.g., Paul could
not warn the Ephesians to steal no more (Eph. 4:28), and not to be drunk (5:18), because "the Christians of Asia Minor had no
A.D. 1-100.