Homily IV. Chapter II. Verses 1–3 “And you did He quicken, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein aforetime ye walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also all once lived, in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh, and of the mind; and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest.” There is, we know, a corporal, and there is also a spiritual, dying.215 Of the first it is no crime to partake, nor is there any peril in it, inasmuch as there is no blame attached to it, for it is a matter of nature, not of deliberate choice. It had its origin in the transgression of the first-created man, and thenceforward in its issue it passed into a nature, and, at all events, will quickly be brought to a termination; whereas this spiritual dying, being a matter of de- liberate choice, has criminality, and has no termination. Observe then how Paul, having already shown how exceedingly great a thing it is, in so much that to heal a deadened soul is a far greater thing than to raise the dead, so now again lays it down in all its real greatness. “And you,” saith he “when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein aforetime ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience.” You observe the gentleness of Paul, and how on all occasions he encourages the hearer, not bearing too hard upon him. For whereas he had said, Ye have arrived at the very last degree of wickedness, (for such is the meaning of becoming dead,) that he may not excessively distress them,216 (because men are put to shame when their former misdeeds are brought forward, cancelled though they be, and no longer attended with danger,) he gives them, as it were, an accomplice, that it may not be supposed that the work is all their own, and that accomplice a powerful one. And who then is this? The Devil. He does much the same also in the Epistle to the Corinthians, where, after saying, “Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters,” (1 Cor. vi. 9.) and after enumerating all the other vices, and adding in conclusion, “shall inherit the kingdom of God;” he then adds, “and such were some of you;” he does not say absolutely, “ye were,” but “some of you were,” that is, thus in some sort were ye. Here the heretics attack us. They tell us that these expressions (“prince of all the power of the air,” etc.) are used with 215 [The Commentators, except Meyer, refer the νεκροὺς to spiritual death, as Chrysostom does. Meyer refers it to “eternal death, the eternal condemnation,” and says the νεκροὺς is proleptic. He distinctly says it does not refer to physical death, though Ellicott represents him as saying that it does.—G.A.] 216 [Paul’s motive in this passage is probably not what Chrysostom says, but, on the contrary, to show how desperately bad their state was.—G.A.] Ephesians 2:1-3 126 Ephesians 2:1-3