St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians: A Practical Exposition

165

Cf. Col. iv. 6: 'Let your speech be always with grace' or 'graciousness'; Luke iv. 22: 'gracious words'; Ps. xlv. 2: 'Grace is poured into thy lips'; Eccles. x. 12: 'The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious'; Ecclus. xxi. 16: 'Grace shall be found in the lips of the wise.'

166

See app. note F (#pgepubid00076), p. 271, The Ethics of Catholicism.

167

See Report of Lambeth Conference, 1897. S.P.C.K., pp. 136 ff.; and app. note G (#pgepubid00078), p. 274.

168

Possibly this expression means 'the kingdom of Him who is at once Christ and God.'

169

2 Cor. vi. 14.

170

1 Cor. i. 20, 21; iii. 18.

171

Rom. xvi. 19.

172

Ecclus. xvi. 21.

173

1 Thess. iv. 6.

174

St. Paul is in part referring to the habit of responsive or antiphonal chanting, which Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, reports as characteristic of the Christians half a century later – 'to sing responsively (secum invicem) a hymn to Christ as a God.'

175

1 Pet. v. 5.

176

1 Chron. xii. 32.

177

Is. liv. 5; Jer. iii. 14.

178

Prophecies of Isaiah, vol. ii, p. 188.

179

1 Cor. vi. 17.

180

This, it is well known, was read in the Old Version. It has vanished (in submission to the verdict of the best MSS.) from the R. V. But there seems to me to be some force in Alford's plea for the originality of the words, as they stand in 'Western' and later texts.

181

Acts xx. 28.

182

'Washing.' Marg. 'laver.'

183

John i. 29.

184

John xvii. 9; Tit. ii. 14.

185

Rom. x. 9; cp. Acts xxii. 16.

186

In Joan, tract. 80. Cf. Irenaeus c. haer. v. 2, 3.

187

See St. Thom. Aq., Summa, Pars iii. Qu. lxx. art. 6 ad 3.

188

1 Pet. iii. 7.

189

It is noticeable that St. Paul does not (according to the Revised Version which represents the original) exactly enjoin obedience upon wives (as upon children and slaves) but subjection: cf. Col. iii. 18; 1 Cor. xiv. 34; 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iii. 1. If however in the use of the 'obey' in the vow of the wife our marriage service goes an almost imperceptible stage beyond St. Paul, its general tone preserves St. Paul's balance admirably. The husband 'worships' the wife and endows her with all his worldly goods. The only other ecclesiastical formula of ours in which the word worship is used of a purely human relation, is the peer's oath of allegiance to the sovereign at the coronation, 'I do become your liegeman of life and limb and of earthly worship: and faith and troth I will bear unto you to live and to die against all manner of folks.'