Ephesians 1:15

Διὰ τοῦτο. Because this is our true Christian position.

ἀκούσας. Cf. Colossians 1:4; Colossians 1:9, and (virtually) Romans 1:8. This language would be unnatural if the letter were exclusively addressed to the Ephesians. There is nothing corresponding to it in the letters to the Churches of his own founding. Philemon Ephesians 1:5 ἀκούων (cf. 3 John 1:4) = as I continue to hear. Philemon was an old friend. The news had most probably been brought by Epaphras. See Intr. p. lxxvii.

τὴν καθʼ ὑμᾶς. In the light of fresh evidence from papyri this is best taken as a periphrasis for ὑμῶν.

ἐν τῷ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ. Cf. on Ephesians 1:1. This faith is theirs as alive to God in Jesus acknowledged as their Lord. In Philemon 1:5 εἰς τὸν κύριον Ἰησοῦν, the Lord Jesus is the object of their faith.

καὶ τὴν εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους. If this is the true reading it must describe the faith as reaching out in its effect to all the saints, e.g. by leading to the recognition of the bond of spiritual brotherhood by which we are linked to one another in Christ. This is however an extremely difficult construction which has no real parallel in N.T. In Philemon 1:5 the presence of ἀγάπην makes all the difference. εἰς is found with ἀγάπη in the closely parallel phrase Colossians 1:4; and also in 2 Corinthians 2:4; 1 Peter 4:8; cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 2 Thessalonians 1:3. Other passages to which Hort (W.H. Ap. in loc.) refers, Titus 3:15; Galatians 5:6; Ephesians 3:17, are valuable as showing that faith and love are combined naturally in all Christian activity both towards God and towards man (cf. Ephesians 6:23; 1 Thessalonians 5:8; 1 Timothy 1:14; 2 Timothy 1:13), but they only make the absence of a specific reference to love here the less natural. It seems therefore that the true reading must be sought here in the Versions which with one voice insert ‘love.’ The form that this reading takes in the best Greek MSS. that contain it is in DG καὶ τὴν�. It is tempting, however, to suggest that the original reading was without the article before ἀγάπην. The whole sentence would then run τὴν καθʼ ὑμᾶς πίστιν ἐν τῷ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ καὶ�, the thought being that the faith and the love were both characteristic of the ‘Ephesians,’ and enjoyed in the Lord Jesus, and directed towards all the saints. The reading ⲕⲁⲓⲧⲏⲛ would then be a very early corruption of ⲕⲁⲅⲁⲡⲏⲛ owing to a misreading of the contraction for ⲕⲁⲓ. Cf. Hort’s conj. on Romans 4:12.

εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους. Cf. (with Whitaker) Ephesians 3:18; Ephesians 6:18. The faith or the love (or the faith and the love) of these Gentile Christians was a link uniting them with the whole Body consisting of Jew and Gentile.