3:10 f. For there he is not speaking of the Christian society, but of the Christian faith ( ib. p. 147).
Again Apostles and prophets stand first in list of gifts in 1 Cor. 12:28 as in Eph. 4:11.
(vii) St Paul himself. Language of Eph. 3:1 f., 4:1, 6:20 paralleled by Rom. 11:13, 15:16. With Eph. 3:8 cf. (besides 1 Cor. 15:9) Gal. 1:13-16.
B. Style, Vocabulary, and Phraseology. (
a
) Causes of difference of
style
as compared with earlier Epistles.
(1) Sense of dangers surmounted, aspirations satisfied, and a vantage ground gained for the world-wide harmonious development of the Christian community under the government of God
(2) that now for the first time St Paul is free, as it were, to pour forth his own thoughts in a positive form instead of carrying on an argument ( ib. p. 153).
(
b
) The bulk of the
vocabulary
is in accordance with Pauline usage (
ib.
p.
158).
Unique words are due to quotation, context, brevity, or accident (
ib.
p. 156). (
c
) Unique
phrases
prove little, being common elsewhere in St Paul (
ib.
p.
192).
Those who cannot read the Epistle to the Ephesians without being awed by the peculiar loftiness, by the grandeur of conception, by the profound insight, by the eucharistic inspiration, which they recognise in it, will require strong evidence to persuade them that it was written by some other man who wished it to pass as St Paul's. Apart from the question of the morality of the act, imitators do not pour out their thoughts in the free and fervid style of this Epistle. Nor can we easily imagine how such an imitation could have been successful either near the time of St Paul or at any subsequent period. It is not conceivable that it should have made its appearance without exciting wonder and inquiry. In the lifetime of St Paul the pious fraud would not have been attempted. Within a few years after his death the difficulty of deceiving his friends and the Church in such a matter must have been very great. At a later time the estimation in which St Paul's writings were held would have ensured the careful scrutiny of any previously unknown work put forward in his name. (Llewelyn Davies:
Introduction to Ephesians
, p. 9.)
VI. STYLE AND LANGUAGE.
Words characteristic of the Ephesian Epistle:
musthvrion
[
v. inf.
p. 180].
dovxa
[
v. inf.
p. 187].
ejnevrgeia
[
v. inf.
p. 155].
prosagwghv
[see note on Eph. 2:18].
plhrou'n
[see notes on 1:23, 5:18].
plhvrwma
[see notes on 1:10, 23].
meqodeiva
[see note on 6:11].
Also the expressions: