HOMILY XL] HOMILIES ON EPHESIANS. 103 below we differ. There is " one Lord, one faith, one baptism." l Behold " the hope of your call ing. One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all." For can it be, that thou art called by the name of a greater God, another, of a lesser God? That thou art saved by faith, and another by works ? That thou hast received remission in baptism, whilst another has not? "There is one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all." "Who is over all," that is, the Lord and above all ; and " through all," that is, providing for, ordering all ; and " in you all," that is, who dwelleth in you all. Now this they own to be an attribute of the Son ; so that were it an argument of infe riority, it never would have been said of the Father. " But 2 unto each one of us was the grace given." What then ? he saith, whence are those diverse spiritual gifts? For this subject was continually carrying away both the Ephesians themselves, and the Corinthians, and many others, some into vain arrogance, and others into despondency or envy. Hence he everywhere takes along with him this illustration of the body. Hence it is that now also he has proposed it, inasmuch as he was about to make mention of diverse gifts. He enters indeed into the subject more fully in the Epistle to the Corinthians, because it was among them that this malady most especially reigned : here however he has only alluded to it. And mark what he says : he does not say, " according to the faith of each," lest he should throw those who have no large attainments into despondency. But what saith he ? " According to the measure of the gift of Christ." The chief and principal points of all, he saith, Baptism, the being saved by faith, the having God for our Father, our all partaking of the same Spirit, these are common to all. If then this or that man possesses any superiority in any spiritual gift, grieve not at it ; since his labor also is greater. He that had received the five talents, had five required of him ; whilst he that had received the two, brought only two, and yet received no less a reward than the other. And therefore the Apostle here also encourages the hearer on the same ground, showing that gifts are bestowed not for the honor of one above 1 [Note the triad of trinities: I one body. i. The Church j one spirit. ( one hope. I one Lord, one faith, one baptism. over all. 3. God 2. Christ through all. in all. Meyer, substantially. G. A.J all 2 ["But (Se) forms the transition from the summary all, all, to each individual among the Christians." Meyer. G. A.] another, but for the work of the church, even as he says further on : "For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering unto the building up of the body of Christ." Hence it is that even he himself saith, " Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel." (i Cor. ix. 1 6.) For example : he received the grace of Apostleship, but for this very reason, " woe unto him," because he received it : whereas thou art free from the danger. " According to the measure." What is meant by, " according to the measure " ? It means, " not according to our merit," for then would no one have received what he has received : but of the free gift we have all received. And why then one more, and another less ? There is nothing to cause this, he would say, but the matter itself is indifferent ; for every one contributes towards " the building." And by this too he shows, that it is not of his own intrinsic merit that one has received more and another less, but that it is for the sake of others, as God Himself hath measured it : since he saith also elsewhere, " But now hath God set the members each one of them in the body, even as it pleased Him." (i Cor. xii. 18.) And he mentions not the reason, lest he should deject or dispirit the hearers. Ver. 8. "Wherefore he saith, When He as cended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." As though he had said, Why art thou high- minded? The whole is of God. The Prophet saith in the Psalm, "Thou hast received gifts among men " (Ps. Ixviii. 18), whereas the Apostle saith, " He gave gifts unto men." The one is the same as the other.3 Ver. 9, 10. " Now this, He ascended, what is it, but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended, is the same alsjD that ascended far above all the Heavens, that He might fill all things." When thou hearest these words, think not of a mere removal from one place to another ; for what Paul establishes in the Epistle to the Phi- lippians (Phil. ii. 5-8), that very argument 4 is he also insisting upon here. In the same way as there, when exhorting them concerning lowli ness, he brings forward Christ as an example, [" He quotes Ps. Ixviii. 18, with the freedom of a Messianic in terpretation of the words, and his exposition of the Hebrew words yielded essentially the sense expressed by him. So he took fin^T 1 in the sense: Thou didst take away gifts to distribute them among men, and then translated this in an explanatory way, iSuixt, &c." Meyer. G. A.] * [This view ofChrysostom is quite at variance with the context. Ellicott says: To evince still more clearly the correctness of the Messianic application of the words just cited, St. Paul urges the an tithesis implied by avtftr,, namely, Karffa, a predication applicable to Christ only, the tacit assumption being that Hewho is the subject the citation is one whose seat was heaven. Compare John 111. 13. G. A.]