Pro Rege

John Eadie’s Commentary on Ephesians, Chapter 5, Verses 21-24

(21) Submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.

῾Υποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ
Submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.
(cf. Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:13; 1 Peter 5:5)

The authority for Θεοῦ is so slight, that it need not be recounted. This additional participial clause, which concludes the paragraph, forms also a link between it and the next. Indeed, it commences a new section in Knapp’s edition, and Olshausen inclines to the same opinion, but the participial form ὑποτασσόμενοι forbids such a supposition. Chrysostom joins the clause to the former verses, and his arrangement is followed by Rückert, Meier, Estius, Meyer, Harless. Winer, § 45, 6. Olshausen mistakes the connection when he wonders how an advice to subordination can be introduced as a sequel to spiritual joy. But the participle ὑποτασσόμενοι [submitting] is joined to πληροῦσθε [be filled], and has no necessary or explanatory connection with the other dependent participles preceding it. It introduces a new train of thought, and is so far connected with the previous verb, as to indicate that this reciprocal deference has its root and origin in the fulness of the Spirit.

It would perhaps be going too far to say, that as the phrase, be not drunk with wine, is related to the clause, be filled with the Spirit, so this connected verse stands opposed, at the same time, to that self-willed perversity and that fond and foolish egotism which inebriety so often creates. It is out of all rule, on the part of Calvin, Zanchius, Koppe, Flatt, and Matthies, to take the participle as an imperative. The words ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ [in the fear of the Lord] describe the element of this submission. It is reverential submission to Christ (Act 9:31 ; 2 Corinthians 5:11; 2 Corinthians 7:1; 1 Peter 3:2). Φόβος [fear] here is not terror or slavish apprehension, but that solemn awe which the authority of Christ inspires. In this the mutual deference and submission commanded by the apostle must have their seat. This Christian virtue is not cringing obsequiousness; and while it stands opposed to rude and dictatorial insolence, and to that selfish preference for our own opinion and position which amounts to a claim of infallibility, it is not inconsistent with that honest independence of disposition and sentiment which every rational and responsible being must exercise.

It lays the foundation also, as is seen in the following context, for the discharge of relative duty, as in the three instances of wives, children, and servants, nor is it without room for exhibition in the case of husbands, parents, and masters; in short, it should be seen to develop itself in all the relations of domestic life.

(22) Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

With regard to the following admonition it is to be borne in mind, that in those days wives, when converted and elevated from comparative servitude, might be tempted, in the novel consciousness of freedom, to encroach a little-as if to put to the test the extent of their recent liberty and enlargement. The case was also no uncommon one for Christian wives to have unbelieving husbands, and the wife might imagine that there was for her an opportunity to manifest the superiority of a new and happy creed (1 Peter 3:1-6). And those Ephesian wives had little of the literary and none of the religious education enjoyed by the daughters of modern Christian households. Even under the Mosaic law, women and wives had few legal rights, and they too, when baptized. needed the injunction of the apostle-

αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν , ὡς τῷ Κυρίῳ
wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

The sentence has no verb, and it afforded, therefore, a fair opportunity for the ingenuity of the early copyists. Some MSS., such as D, E, F, G, add ὑποτάσσεσθε [submit yourselves] after γυναῖκες [wives]. Scholz and Hahn place the same word after ἀνδράσιν [husband], while A and some minusculi add ὑποτασσέσθωσαν [let them be subject]—a reading followed by Lachmann. There are other variations in the form of attempted supplement. Jerome proves that there was nothing in the Greek Codices to correspond to the subditae sint [let them be subjected] of the Latin version. The continuity of the apostle’s style did not require any verbal supplement, and though the gender differs, every tyro [novice] will acquiesce in the reason given by Jerome—ἐκ κοινοῦ [in Koine Greek], the idea conveyed in the participle of the previous verse guides the sense.¹ Wives, in the spirit of this submission, are to be directed in their duty to their husbands. The noun ἀνήρ often signifies a husband, as “man” does in vernacular Scotch (Matthew 1:16; John 4:16-18; Homer, Od. 24.195; Herod. 1.140). So also אישׁ ö ךִנ in Hebrew, (Deuteronomy 22:23). The precise meaning of ἰδίοις [their own] in this connection has been disputed. There are two extremes; that indicated by Valla, Bullinger, Bengel, Steiger, and Meyer, as if the apostle meant to say, Your own husbands—not other and stranger men; and that maintained by de Wette, Harless, and Olshausen, that ἰδίοις merely stands for the common possessive pronoun. But in all such injunctions in which ἰδίοις is used, as in 1 Corinthians 7:2, Colossians 3:18, 1 Peter 3:1, the word seems to indicate peculiar closeness of possession and relation, though indeed in later Greek its meaning is somewhat relaxed (John 5:18; Romans 7:0; Romans 1:32; 1 Corinthians 14:35, etc. Winer, § 22, 7; Phrynich. ed. Lobeck, 441). The duty of submission is plainly based on that tenderness, speciality, or exclusiveness of relationship which ἰδίοις implies. But that submission is not servitude, for the wife is not a mere vassal. The sentiment of Paul is not that of the heathen poet—

Πᾶσα γὰρ δούλη πέφυκεν ἀνδρὸς ἡ σώφρων γυνή,
ἡ δὲ μὴ σώφρων ἀνοίᾳ τὸν ξυνόνθ᾿ ὑπερφρονεῖ .

For every prudent woman is by nature the willing bond-servant of her husband;
but she who is not sober-minded, in her folly, sets herself above the common rule.

The insubordination of wives has always been a fertile source of satire; and yet Christian ladies in early times drew forth this compliment from Libanius, the “last glory of expiring paganism”- proh, quales feminas habent Christiani! [Alas! what sort of wives have these Christians!] The essence of this submission is explained by the important words—

ὡς τῷ Κυρίῳ “as to the Lord.” Pelagius, Thomas Aquinas, and Semler capriciously regard this noun as standing for the plural κυρίοις , and render it “as to your masters,” referring to their husbands. Rückert, Harless, Olshausen, Meyer, and Matthies take it to mean, that ye render this submission to your husbands as if it were rendered to Christ who enjoins it; or, as Chrysostom more lucidly explains it- ὡς εἰδυῖαι ὅτι τῷ Κυρίῳ δουλεύετε [knowing you are serving the Lord]. The adverb ὡς denotes the character of the obedience enjoined, and such seems to be the grammatical meaning of the clause. The context, however, might suggest another phase of meaning. “Women,” says Olshausen, “are to be in submission, not to their husbands as such, but to the ordinance of God in the institution of marriage.” And so de Wette, preceded by Erasmus, observes that the clause is explained by the following verse. The husband stands to the wife in the same relation as Christ stands to the church, and the meaning then is, not as if she were doing a religious duty, but “in like manner as to the Lord”—the duties of the church to Him being the same in Spirit as those of a wife to her husband. In either case, the submission of a wife is a religious obligation. She may be in many things man’s superior—in sympathy, in delicacy of sentiment, warmth of devotion, in moral heroism, and in power and patience of self-denial. Still the obedience inculcated by the apostle sits gracefully upon her, and is in harmony with all that is fair and feminine in her position and temperament:

For contemplation he and valour formed-
For softness she and sweet attractive grace:
He for God only, she for God and him.

(23) For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is Head of the church.

῞Οτι ἀνήρ ἐστιν κεφαλὴ τῆς γυναικὸς , ὡς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς κεφαλὴ τῆς ἐκκλησίας
For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is Head of the church.

The preponderance of authority is against the article ὁ before ἀνήρ [husband or man], which appears in the Received Text. It does not need the article (Winer, § 19), though the article would not alter the meaning. It stands here as a species of monadic noun; or it may be rendered as a general proposition “as a husband is the head of the wife”—the article before γυναικός [wife] pointing out the special relation “his wife.” ῞Οτι introduces the reason why wives should be submissive “as to the Lord.” In the phrase ὡς καί “as also”- καί is not superfluous, though it occurs only in the second clause and marks the sameness of relation in κεφαλή [head] (Klotz, Devar. vol. 2.635).

The meaning of the sentiment, Christ is the Head of the church, has been already explained under Ephesians 1:22, and again under Ephesians 4:15-16. The reader may turn to these explanations. As Christ is Head of the church, so the husband is head of the wife. Authority and government are lodged in him; the household has its unity and centre in him; from him the wife receives her cherished help; his views and feelings are naturally adopted and acted out by her; and to him she looks up for instruction and defence. Severed from him she becomes a widow, desolate and cheerless; the ivy which clasped itself so lovingly round the oak, pines and withers when its tree has fallen. And there is only one head; dualism would be perpetual antagonism. This marital headship is man’s prerogative in virtue of his prior creation, for he was first formed in sole and original dignity (1 Timothy 2:13). Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man, so that he is in position the superior. The man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man—a portion of himself—his other self; taken out from near his heart; and, therefore, though his equal in personality and fellowship, being of him and for him and after him, she is second to him. Nay, more, Adam was not deceived; but the woman, being deceived, was in the transgression; and to her the Lord God said, Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee, though the gospel lightens this portion of the curse which has been so terribly felt in all non-Christian lands. Each sex is indeed imperfect by itself, and the truest unity is conjugal duality. Still, though the woman was originally of the man, yet now the man is by the woman the mother of all living. Finally, the apostle illustrates this headship by the striking declaration, that the woman is the glory of the man, but the man is the image and glory of God (1 Corinthians 11:3-12; 1 Timothy 2:14).

αὐτὸς σωτὴρ τοῦ σώματος
“Himself Saviour of the body.” 

The words καί [and] and ἐστι [is] in the Received Text are found in D 2 , D 3 , E 2 , K, L, in the majority of MSS., and in the Syriac and Gothic versions. Tittmann and Reiche also hold by the longer reading, but the words are wanting in A, B, D 1 , E 1 , F, G, while Codex A reads ὁ σωτήρ [the savior]. Αὐτός [he] is emphatic, and can refer only to Χριστός [Christ]. “Christ is Head of the church—Himself, and none other, Saviour of the body.” (Winer, § 59, 7, note). Some refer it to ἀνήρ [man or husband]. Chrysostom’s exposition would seem to imply such a reference, and Holzhausen formally adopts it. But it is of Christ the apostle is speaking, and the independent and emphatic clause, thrown off without any connecting particle, gives a reason why He is head of the church, to wit “Himself Saviour of the body.” The reader may turn to the meaning of σῶμα [body] under Ephesians 1:23, Ephesians 4:15-16. The paronomasia [pun or play on words] is imitated by Clement, ad Corinth. xxxviii.— σωζεσθω οὖν ἡμῶν ὅλον τὸ σῶμα ἐν Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ [Let our whole frame, then, be kept in salvation in Christ Jesus]. Christ is the Saviour of His body the church—not only its Redeemer by an act of atonement, but its continued Deliverer, Preserver, and Benefactor, and so is deservedly its Head. This Headship originated in the benefits which His church has enjoyed, and is based on His saving work; while the conscious enjoyment of that salvation brings the church gladly to acknowledge His sole supremacy. Some, indeed, suppose that in this clause there is an implied comparison, and that the husband is a species of σωτήρ [savior] to his wife. Bucer, Bullinger, Musculus, Aretius, Zanchius, Erasmus, Grotius, Beza, Schrader, Rückert, Baumgarten-Crusius, Meier, Matthies, de Wette, and Peile are of this mind. But the clause is peculiar, αὐτός [he] separating it from what is said before. There is a comparison in κεφαλή [head], that is, in the point of position and authority, but none in σωτήρ [savior]; for the love and protection which a husband may afford a wife can never be called σωτηρία [salvation], and has no resemblance to Christ’s salvation. Some even suppose that the wife is here called σῶμα [body], basing their opinion on the language of Ephesians 5:28. There is no warrant for supposing that in the apostle’s mind there was any etymological affinity between σωτήρ [salvation] and σῶμα [body], which in Homer signifies a dead body. See Stier, in loc.; Benfey, Wurzellex. i. p. 412; and the two derivations in Plato, Cratylus, § 38, p. 233; Op. vol. iv. ed. Bekker.

(24) But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be subject to their husbands in everything.

᾿Αλλ᾿ ὡς ἡ ἐκκλησία ὑποτάσσεται τῷ Χριστῷ
But as the church is subject to Christ.

The reading ὥσπερ [even as] has no decided authority. The commencement of this clause occasions some difficulty. The hypothesis of Harless—not unlike that of Rückert, that ἀλλά [but] is used to resume the main discourse—has been ably refuted by Olshausen. It is true that ἀλλά [but] does often follow a digression, but there is none here; and even if the words were a digression, they form but a single clause, and did not surely necessitate a formal ἀλλά . To give this particle, with Zanchius and others, the meaning of “now” or “wherefore,” cannot be allowed, however such a meaning may seem to suit the reasoning. ᾿Αλλά , says Olshausen, simply introduces the proof drawn from what precedes. The husband is head of the wife, as Christ is Head of the church, and the apostle argues “but as the church is subject to Christ, so ought wives to be to their husbands.” Winer, § 53, 7, a, says that ἀλλά concludes the demonstration. De Wette’s view is similar “the clause exhibits the other aspect of the relation, as if he said—aber daraus folgt auch [but from this there also follows].” Hofmann understands the antithesis thus “but where the husband is not to his wife what he should be, in imitation of Christ, still subordination on her part remains a duty,” (Schriftb. vol. Ephesians 2:2, p. 116). Robinson says that ἀλλά is used in an antithetic clause to express something additional, and may be rendered “but,” “but now,” “but further.” In the instances adduced by him there is marked antithesis; but though this passage is placed among them, there is in it no expressed contrast. Baumgarten-Crusius smiles at such as find any difficulty in ἀλλά , for it means, he says, dennoch aber [nevertheless but]—though the husband has his obligation as saviour of the body, the wife, yet the wife has hers too, and should be obedient. This interpretation creates an antithesis by giving the clause He is Saviour of the body a meaning it cannot bear. See Bretschneider’s Lexicon, sub voce. Meyer and Stier follow an alternative explanation of Calvin, making the antithesis of the following nature “Christ has this as a special characteristic, that He is Saviour of His church; nevertheless, let wives know, that their husbands are over them after the example of Christ.” Meyer’s improved representation of this idea is “He Himself, and none other, is the Saviour of the body, yet this relation, which belongs to Him exclusively, does not supersede the obligation of obedience on the part of wives towards their husband; but as the church is subject to Christ, so ought wives to submit to their husbands.” The same antithesis is more lucidly phrased by Bengel “though Christ and not the husband is the Saviour, and though the husband can have no such claim on his wife, yet the wife is to obey him as the church obeys Christ.” Similarly Hodge, Ellicott, and Alford. The sense is good, but sounds like a truism. “Himself is Saviour of the body-that certainly man is not and cannot be, nevertheless as,” etc.—you are to obey your husbands, who can never have claims on you like Christ. The choice is between this and giving ἀλλά an antithetic reference. It is very often used after an implied negative, especially after questions which imply a negative answer (Luke 7:7; John 7:49; Acts 19:2. See also Romans 3:31; Romans 8:37; 1Co 6:8 ; 1 Corinthians 9:12). And without a question, such usage, implying a suppressed negative answer, is prevalent (Compare Luke 23:15; 2 Cor. 8:7 ; 2 Corinthians 13:4; Galatians 2:3; Philippians 1:18; Philippians 2:17; 1 Timothy 1:15-16; Vigerus, De Idiotismis, cap. viii. § 1). A singularly acute paper on οὐκ ἀλλά will be found in the appendix to the Commentary of Fritzsche on Mark. If we apply such an idiom to the passage before us, the sense will then be this: The man is head of the woman, as Christ is Head of the church-Himself Saviour of the body-do not disallow the marital headship, for it is a Divine institution- ἀλλά -but as the church is subject to Christ-

οὕτως καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἀνδράσιν ἐν παντί ( ὑποτασσέσθωσαν )
so let the wives be subject to their husbands in everything.

᾿Ιδίοις [to their own], which in the Received Text stands before ἀνδράσιν [husbands], is properly rejected from the text. The words ἐν πάντι mean in everything within the proper circuit of conjugal obligation. If the husband trespass beyond this sphere he usurps, and cannot insist upon the obedience implied in the matrimonial contract. Obedience on the part of a wife is not a superinduced obligation. It springs from the affection and softness of her very nature, which is not fitted for robust and masculine independence, but feels the necessity of reliance and protection. It is made to confide, not to govern. In the domestic economy, though government and obedience certainly exist, they are not felt in painful or even formal contrast; and, in fact, they are so blended in affectionate adjustment, that the line which severs them cannot be distinguished. The law of marital government is a νόμος ἄγραφος [unwritten law]. Even the heathen poets, as may be seen in the following quotations from Menander, Philemon, and Euripides, acknowledged such a law, though they could not treat the subject with the tenderness, beauty, and propriety of the apostle. Their notions are harder-

᾿Αγαθῆς γυναικός ἐστιν , . . . .
Μὴ κρεῖττον εἶναι τ᾿ ἀνδρὸς , ἀλλ᾿ ὑπήκοον .
[Their images are humiliating—]
Τὰ δευτερεῖα τὴν γυναῖκα δεῖ λέγειν ,
[and the feminine consciousness both of weakness and degradation occasionally breaks out—]
᾿Αλλ᾿ ἐννοεῖν χρὴ τοῦτο μὴν , γυναῖχ᾿ ὅτι
῎Εφυμεν , ὡς πρὸς ἄνδρας οὐ μαχουμένα.

Footnotes

1. resonat. Jelf, § 391 ↩︎
2. Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV ↩︎
3. Author’s comments on the verse. ↩︎
4. “It belongs to (or is the mark of) a good woman…
   Not to be superior to her husband, but obedient.”
   “A woman must speak second—that is, defer and take the secondary place.”
   “But one must consider this, women:
   that we are born not to contend with men.” ↩︎