EvdoKíAV AVTOŨ, According to his good pleasure, joins itself to yvwpíoas, and denotes the yvwpise itself as an act of Divine benevolence; on account of the following ἣν προέθετο, εὐδοκία is to be taken as = to "gracious decree," because роéeтo is not adapted to express the (( grace and favour of God," as permanent conditions; on the other hand, τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ denotes more closely the mystery of which mention is here made, as a voluntary act proceeding from the depths of the Divine being. As such, as an act of the Divine will, which has its ultimate basis in the being of God himself, Christ's manifestation and work is, and constantly remains, a mystery (uvornoLOV), whilst, in other points of view, considered in its appearance, it is an actual revelation, and is hence also presented as a subject of knowledge. Paul, again connecting what follows with evdokia by a relative, proceeds to give a more accurate account of God's gracious decree. In every case (whether we here again, as is most suitable, with Lachmann and Harless, read ev aur, or even v aur) the πроéОεто Ev аνтw, he purposed in him, can only refer to God and his intentions, and not to Christ, since in what immediately follows (ver. 11), πρόθεσις refers back to προέθετο. If ἐν αὐτῷ meant to express that God's purpose realized itself in the person of Christ and in his work, it would have had its place at the close of the proposition, in this way : εἰς οἰκονομίαν τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν ἐν αὐτῷ. But as to the import of οικονομία, it depends on the context how the general meaning "administration, disposition, arrangement," is to be applied. In the passages 1 Cor. ix. 17 (compared with iv. 1) and Col. i. 25 olkovouía denotes the apostolical office. Here, according to the context, it refers to the dispensation of the grace of God in Christ, and the word olkovouía for "incarnation" is quite familiar to the Fathers, perhaps with reference to this passage. (See Suiceri Thesaur. Eccles. s. v.) But the siç denotes the object towards which God's purpose (półɛoç) is directed. This object is, finally, with regard to time, more nearly defined by the addition τоv πλnрúμatos тŵν kaipŵν, of the fulness of times. One expects, perhaps, "in the fulness of times;" genitive construction (oikoνομία τοῦ πληρώματος) denotes the dispensation of God in Christ but regarded as one that belongs to the fulness of times. On this phrase itself see the remarks on Gal. iv. 4, where λýрwμа тov Xpóvov stands parallel to it. It implies, of itself, no reference to the quépa toxárn, last day (although it is true that the apostles looked on the time of the second advent of the Messiah as, at the same time, the τέλη τῶν αἰώνων); the πλήρωμα rather involves merely a reference to a pre-established term, up to which the time is considered as being fulfilled.

Ver. 10.—The ανακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῷ Χριστώ is named as the ultimate aim of the mysterious Divine decree. In these

words we have first to consider the import of the term dvakɛḍaλalovv. In Rom. xiii. 9, we had the word in the meaning, "to comprise under a kɛpáhaιov, i. e., to comprehend, sum up, under a radical idea." Since the question here is concerning a gathering together under the person of Christ, the word can only be referred to the idea of kepaλń, to which indeed its composition does not primarily lead. Christ, that is to say, here appears to be described as he, in whom, as the head, God has gathered together everything, so that he governs all as Lord and Regent of the world. The elements of τὰ πάντα are thus distributed : τά τε ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, both things in heaven and things on earth. According to this the ανακεφαλαιώσασθαι would appear as the result of giving to Christ all power, etc. (¿dóon Xploτw пãσa éžovoía év ovρavṛ kaì eñì yñs, Matth. xxviii. 18, compared with Matth xi. 27); and of the πάντα ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ οἱ Paul (1 Cor. xv. 26, with reference to Ps. viii. 7). The passage would seem, according to this, to have no especial difficulties; the neuter τὰ πάντα, τά τε ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, κ. τ. λ., might be left in all their indefiniteness, and we might understand by them not merely persons, but these together with all other forms of the creation, in one word, the creation as a whole, which Christ rules by his power. Evil itself, with its representatives, must carry out Christ's almighty will; it too is, although repugnant, gathered under Christ as the head.

But, for several reasons, we are not satisfied with this mode of taking the passage. First, Paul uses the figure which represents Christ as the "head of the body," not so as to make the body represent the universe, but the church (see Eph. i. 22, iv. 15, v. 23; Col. i. 18, ii. 19). We should thus be obliged to say that dvakɛḍaλaιóσaola is here to be taken, without reference to the metaphor of the body, merely in the meaning, "to gather together under one's rule," for which Col. ii. 10, the only passage in which kepaλń seems to have a wider reference than merely to the church, might be quoted. Again the entire context in our passage seems adverse to that view. The μvorηpiov, of the operation of which Paul here speaks, is assuredly nothing but redemption through Christ; this, therefore, appears here also to be necessarily prominent in the dvaKeφαλαιώσασθαι, as the grand aim of the μυστήριον. The parallel passage Col. i. 20, where dтокатaλλážai stands in a like connection, and the δι' αὐτοῦ is more nearly defined by διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ σταυροῦ avro-raises this supposition to certainty. The meaning of the apostle must, therefore, here also be taken thus, that God, through Christ's atonement, has gathered together all things, whether in heaven or on earth, in him as the head, i. e., knit them together into living, harmonious unity, in opposition to the present state of

dissension and enmity, which is expressed in Col. i. 20 by eloŋvonońσας, which Bahr erroneously separates from ἀποκαταλλάξαι. True, the same critic (on Col. i. 20) has chosen to explain the dокаTaλλážai by the word in our passage, instead of, conversely, our avaкεpaLauwoaola, by that; but it has already been remarked, in opposition to that, on several hands, and recently in particular by Harless, that the more general expression may recently be explained by the more special, but not the more special one by the more general. Now, if we consider more nearly that idea which the apostle intends us to recognize in this passage, it cannot be disputed that in it the restoration of all things (ἀποκατάστασις τῶν πάντων) seems to be again favoured, a view which Paul in general, as has been already remarked on Rom. xi. 32; 1 Cor. xv. 24, seq.; Gal. iii. 22, says more to support than the other writers of the New Testament. (See, however, in contrast to these passages, 2 Thess. i. 19, and the remarks thereon in my Comm.) For, even putting the Tá Tε ¿v Toĩ ovpavoïç quite out of sight, the words ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα—τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, alone, seem to express the conversion of all men; for, to confine the conception of the пáνта iпì τñs yns, all things on earth, to those on earth, who are elected to salvation according to God's gracious election, seems altogether arbitrary; the words speak of all without exception. But, add still the тà Tε Ev Tоis оipavois, and it is very conceivable how the defenders of the restoration could understand τὰ πάντα of the universe, and τά τε ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπι Tis yns of the two halves of the universe, the spiritual and the material world, in such a way that in both halves all beings, therefore also evil spirits, along with their prince, the devil (whom, as spirits, Paul, at Eph. vi. 12, transfers to the celestial world), would be yet converted, through the might of the atonement, and gathered together under Christ as the head.† The various ways by which interpreters have sought to evade this explanation are but little satisfactory. Some understand the "things in heaven" of those who died in the hope of salvation, who were converted and atoned for by Christ; thus Beza, Calixtus, Suicer, Wolf, and others. Others, as Schöttgen, Ernesti, and several others, proposed to understand the Jews by those in heaven, by those on earth the Gentiles. According to Schleiermacher (in the essay on Col. i. 16, seq., of which we shall speak further on that passage), the things in heaven here denote "all matters relating to Divine worship, and the

* The rabbins distinguish between a familia quæ suprà, and one quæ infrà, est. See Wetstein on this passage.

It is especially Origen who first openly announced and spread this interpretation. That Father, besides this, assumed, altogether arbitrarily, that Christ had suffered several times in the different spheres of the universe, for the redemption of their respective inhabitants.

dispositions of mind thereto relating," "the things on earth," on the other hand, "all that belongs to earthly kingdoms, to civil order, and legal conditions."

Others, again, understand the good angels by rà iv Toïç ovpavoïç; so Calvin, who, without proof, advanced the assertion, that by Christ's atonement the good angels are established in purity, so that they can no more fall away; and Chrysostom, Anselm, Calovius, who understood our passage as referring to an enmity of the good angels against men who had become wicked, which Christ had put an end to. Finally, Bähr, Tholuck, Böhmer, and others, also refer this to the good angels, but regard the enmity which was appeased, as not existing in them, but in man, so that, thus, only a restoration of peace between the two divided parties, of which one alone bears the guilt, is asserted. Against each of these interpretations, however, there are so many well-founded objections (as may be seen in detail in Harless, in his Comm., ad. h. 1.), that we can adopt no one of them. The universality of the rà ñáνα, and the equally general division of this collective whole, τά τε ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς yns, preclude us from thinking of anything individual, whether in heaven or on earth. On the contrary, we are, no doubt, to conceive not of personal conscious beings alone, though of them especially, but of the whole Kríos, even the unconscious part of it, which Paul in Rom. viii. 17, seq., expressly designates as having part in the redemption through Christ; and indeed we have to refer this κríos not merely to the earth, but also to the celestial world. reconciliation through Christ is, therefore, to Paul, a fact whose influences pervade the universe, which affects the conscious and the unconscious creation equally, whether, or not, as in the world of good angels, they be themselves touched by sin. Most of the interpretations quoted contain, therefore, elements of truth; they fail principally from the circumstance that they make these one-sided elements pass for the whole. Harless, too, maintains in this passage a reference to the totality as related to the work of redemption. "Everything," says he, p. 52, "whether in heaven or on earth, has a share in that fact."

The

In Col. i. 20, Harless finds a Zeugma, because ȧпокaтαλλážαι relates primarily to the things on earth; "and yet," continues he, "it cannot be called a Zeugmatic connexion, as undoubtedly also what is in heaven is reconciled with the rest, in that it is included with the rest in the final development of the work of reconciliation, which delivers the whole creation." Paul, therefore, does not mean to speak "as if there were an actual need of redemption in heaven, or as making heaven merely a figure of speech; he would seem for this reason thus to express himself, because the Lord and Creator of the whole body, of which heaven and earth are members, has in the

restoration of the one body, restored the whole body; and the greatest significance of redemption consists in this, that it is not merely a restoration of the life of this earth, but a restoration of the harmony of the universe." But this interpretation leaves unresolved the principal difficulty, viz., how Paul could say that all have a share in redemption, that it is a restoration of the harmony of the universe, if he shared the common view that the numberless hosts of angels who fell, along with the by far greatest part of mankind (Matth. vii. 13, 14), are eternally damned, and thus shut out from the harmony of the universe. The defenders of "universal restoration" understand "the harmony of the universe" seriously in its literal meaning, and seem, according to that, to be here in the right. Certainly, if taken in their isolation, the two passages, Eph. i. 10; Col. i. 20, cannot be explained otherwise. But the interpreter has the task not merely of explaining separate passages, but also of elucidating the separate passages from the general tenor of the ideas of the writer to whom they belong, and again of throwing light on the ideas of the individual writer (of course without encroaching on his individuality), in connexion with the expressions of the primitive Christian doctrine in all the writers of the New Testament. According to this, it may perhaps be affirmed that Paul is the writer in the New Testament who touches on the doctrine of eternal damnation most rarely, leaves it most in the background, and contains most of the expressions which, considered per se, seem to teach a general restoration. Still, we cannot say he teaches that doctrine decidedly; partly, because he nowhere enunciates it outright, but always in such a way only that we are led to it by inference; partly, because the other writers of the New Testament, and especially in the Gospels our Lord himself, so expressly maintain the contrary. Now, as regards the two passages (Eph. i. 10, and Col. i. 20), it might be the most simple plan to make the meaning we obtain from them harmonize with the general doctrinal type of the Scriptures, by putting prominently forward in the infinitives ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, ἀποκαταλλάξαι, the purpose of God, which, in the establishment of that redemption which is furnished with infinite power, tends to the restoration of universal harmony, and to the recovery of all that was lost, so that the sense would be the same as in the passages 1 Tim. i. 4, 6. "God will have all men to be saved, he has given himself a ransom for all." But that, through the unfaithfulness and wickedness of man, this purpose is not fulfilled, and that many men are not benefitted by it, is a subject that the apostle has no occasion to put forward. It cannot be objected to this, that surely God, in his omniscience, foreknows that the fallen angels would not be converted, for he knows that just as well of men, who continue in unbelief; but a reference of Divine