Ephesians 5:32

τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν : this mystery is great. Not “this is a great mystery,” as it is rendered by the AV and Rhem.; nor “this is a great secret,” Tynd., Cran., gen. The term μυστήριον (on which see under Ephesians 1:9 above) cannot mean allegory or dark-saying, but must have its usual sense of something once hidden and now revealed, a secret disclosed. It cannot refer, therefore, as Mey. makes it do, to the quotation from Genesis 2:24 as a passage with a hidden typical or mystical meaning, one deep (μέγα) and difficult to reach. Nor can it well refer to the spiritual union of Christ and the Church by itself (Beng.), or to the comparison between the union of husband and wife and that of Christ and the Church (Est.), as the ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω would then lose its point. It is simplest to take it as referring to Christian truth touching the relation between husband and wife as set forth in these verses. That truth is described by μέγα as great, i.e., in the sense of grandeur and importance. The Vulg. rendering sacramentum (followed by Wicl. and the Rhem.) has induced many Roman Catholic theologians to found on this as a passage presenting marriage in the character of a sacrament a perverted interpretation which was disavowed indeed by distinguished scholars like Cajetan and Estius in the Roman Catholic Church itself. It may be added that Alford understands by the μυστήριον “the matter mystically alluded to in the Apostle's application of the text just quoted; the mystery of the spiritual union of Christ with our humanity, typified by the close conjunction of the marriage state”. And Von Soden, taking the τοῦτο, as in 1 Corinthians 15:51, to refer to what follows, supposes the sense to be “this secret, that is, what I am about to say as the secret sense of this sentence, is great”. Hatch, again, who regards μυστήριον as closely related in sense to τύπος, σύμβολον and παραβολή and interchangeable with them, gives μυστήριον the sense of “symbol” (which he thinks is its meaning also in Revelation 1:20; Revelation 17:7), and renders it “this symbol (sc. of the joining of husband and wife into one flesh) is a great one” (Essays in Biblical Greek, p. 61). ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστόν, καὶ [εἰς] τὴν ἐκκλησίαν : but I speak with reference to Christ and the Church. The second εἰς is omitted by LWH, as not found in [715] [716], Iren., Tert., etc.; it is inserted, however, in [717] [718] [719] [720] [721], Orig., Meth., Theodor., Cypr., Hil., etc. The formula λέγω δέ is used in various Pauline passages where an explanation of something previously said is in view (e.g., 1 Corinthians 1:12; Galatians 3:17; Galatians 4:1; Galatians 5:16; cf. τοῦτο δέ φημι, 1 Corinthians 7:29; 1 Corinthians 15:50). Here too, the sense is not “I interpret it,” but simply “I say it,” “I mean it”. The δέ has here its disjunctive force, introducing an explanation and separating it from the thing explained (Thayer-Grimm, Greek-Engl. Lex. of N. T., p. 125). The εἰς is the prep, of ethical direction, indicating that towards which the mind is looking (Thayer-Grimm, ut sup., p. 184; and cf. Acts 2:25), = “ with reference to Christ,” not “ of Christ,” far less “ in Christ” as the Vulg. unhappily renders it. The emphatic position of the ἐγώ gives it to be understood that what immediately follows is the writer's own way of putting the matter just stated, or his own application of the words of Scripture. The sense, therefore, is this “the truth of which I have spoken, the relation of husband and wife as one flesh, is a revelation of profound importance; but let me explain that, in speaking of it as I have done, my meaning is to direct your minds to that higher relation between Christ and His Church, in its likeness to which lies its deepest significance.

[715] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[716] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

[717] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[718] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[719] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[720] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[721] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.